The Little Friar

Commenting on Mark Driscoll's resignation absolutely must begin in prayers and tears.  It's hard for me to be joyful about it -- or even relieved for that matter.  I am hopeful for Christ's healing of those who've been abused over the years.  I believe in prayer, so I believe in forgiveness.  And I pray that Driscoll's former vision of a  misogynistic, abusive Christianity has died.   But I know, just like the Terminator, he'll be back.  But that's not what I want to write about today.  No, what I want to say today, I say because I love the Church and live for it.  What I write today, I write because I have devoted my ministry to training young clergy for faithful ministry; I believe in the wisdom of that Church through the ages.  So I know it has much to say to Driscoll.  Just read Tom Oden's Pastoral Theology  or Will Willimon's Pastor .  Or, even better, Gregory the Great's Pastoral Rule . You can  read the entire ...

Saturday is October 18th, the Feast of St Luke the Physician.  It is the Feast Day on which members of my religious order (the Order of St Luke) annually reaffirm our vows.  Among those vows, is one I'm constantly challenged into which I might live -- namely, that "I will live for the Church of Jesus Christ". That's a difficult vow to live into.   It's difficult because I live in America.   America , of course, names that historical nation-state of practices born in blood.  Human  life was sacrificed -- blood was spilt -- for it.  The blood of the solider consecrates and baptizes the flag and the nation.  And because blood trumps everything, because there is no holier and more sacred thing than human life, the flag and the nation is the most sacred thing in the world to an American.  I experience this viscerally whenever I'm asked to stand at an athletic event for the national anthem.  All around me there are grey haired men, many w...

I've loved Les Misérables since I first read it in high school.  Hugo's vivid portrayal of Jean Valjean's growth into kindness is perhaps one of the greatest in all literature.  Hugo has given us a classic that stood the tests of time.  And while I love the book, my wife is drawn to the play, and more recently the 2012 movie.  But whether it's the book, the play or the movie, Les Misérables captivates hearts and minds for a reason.  So I was doubly excited to read Bob Welch's 52 Little Lessons from Les Misérables .  Welch's little book supplements that classic in so many ways.  And he offers us a little gem that will grace bookshelves.  Unlike Hugo's writing, Welch offers brief devotionals on the story that can be read in a single sitting -- I know I did.  But it also works as a devotional that has weekly readings for a full year.  Either way, these short chapters are filled with a spiritual wisdom that Christans need to hear....

I regularly pray for the dead, especially for the damned.  As one who's known tragedy that includes the death of those  who would be counted among their ranks, it seems the most natural thing to do.  After all, I take God to be bigger, more powerful, than anything death might be.  So I deny the theological power of things like moral luck.   But it's not strange to have folks hear those prayers for the dead and damned and object:  What's the point?   Once someone has died their fate is fixed forever, they say -- praying for them will make no difference.  Really? Christians have long seen the righteous praying for the damned, with the result that the latter were rescued from hell. I offer as evidence: 1.  The  Apocalypse of Peter , probably from Alexandria in Egypt about 135 AD.  In this text, which some early church leaders considered divinely inspired, sinners endure a period of suffering in the afterlife but will ultimately a...

In praying the Daily Office recently I noticed the Psalm was printed like this:  "Psalm 68: 1-20(21-23)24-36". Those of us familiar with the Book of Common Prayer  know what those parentheses mean.  In essence, feel free to read from verses 1-20, skip that bit between 21-23, pick back up at verse 24, and finish reading at verse 36. Verses 21-23 are optional.  But why? Generally, when you see those parentheses in the lectionary you're being warned that you are about to encounter one of those dark and difficult texts in the bible and that you might, depending upon the situation (kids, you know, might be listening in), want to read around those passages.   I hate it when they skip over bits like that.   Make no doubt about it:  Psalm 68 has some rough bits in it.  Right where the BCP said it would, in fact.  But in the midst of the darkest spots, there's Light. That is, when I read this psalm Christologically , it becomes even more interesting....

I'm a pacifist.  No surprise there to my regular readers.  But I'm a pacifist only because I'm a Christian.  Following Jesus makes all the difference in the world.  It is the difference of my life.  That said, I'm never all that shocked when being a pacifist is seen as being ungrateful.  The line usually goes like this:  "You've received so much freedom at the hands of the American defense of those freedoms by violence.  How dare you question it?" I'm not surprised because such is the way the world works.   My undergraduate thesis was Christians as the Romans Saw Them:  Textual and Epigraphical Evidences .  In it, I advanced a thesis that's easily enough demonstrated:  The early Christian practice of "holy ingratitude" was the primary reason the Romans hated the Christians.  And it explains the escalating social Roman pressures exerted upon Christians that exploded in persecution.   What is the practice of "holy ingra...

I suppose it's because I'm a pastor who trained as a theologian.  It might also be because I went to Duke Divinity.  But I'd like to think it's because I believe that loving God means honing the Christian mind to think theologically.   That  is why I regularly tell young ministers to read.   And I've discovered over the years certain books that are essential to read every year for those who are in ministry.  This is that list.  January :  Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule February :  Dante, Divine Comedy March :  Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline April :  Augustine, Confessions May :  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship June :  Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love July :  George Herbert, The Country Parson August :  Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor September :   The Cloud of Unknowing October :  Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel November :  Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God December :...

Ever since I was at school, the relationship between holiness and love has fascinated me.   Etymologically, holiness means to be "set apart", to create a social and moral separation between the "clean" and the "unclean", between the "holy" and the "profane".   So, typically, we think holiness and love go in two different directions.  Those most concerned with holiness tend to emphasize rules over love; think the biblical Pharisees.  For them, being holy meant withdrawing from sinners, and not  extending love and hospitality toward those one judged to be "unclean". Jesus resolves the tensions by radically rethinking what it means to be holy.  According to Jesus, loving God (the pursuit of holiness) is equated with loving your neighbor (the pursuit of hospitality).  This is illustrated time and again in the gospels where the Pharisees achieve holiness by moral and social exclusion and separation from tax collectors, sinners and...

Courtney DeFeo's new In This House We Will Giggle:  Making Virtues, Love & Laughter a Daily Part of Your Family Life  is a real gem.  It's a wildly practical book filled with parenting wisdom for forming and transforming the character of our children in explicitly Christian ways.  DeFeo writes:  "I'm convinced we can let loose and enjoy our family even as we're teaching profound principles for life" (p. 6).  And that conviction pervades throughout the book.  She deals with twelve different virtues in each of the chapters:  Joy, Love, Forgiveness, Faith, Patience, Perseverance, Respect, Responsibility, Service, Humility, Gratitude, and Generosity.  Each chapter concludes with particular helps for parents that cover each of these virtues.  I often struggle to provide advice for parents that is age-appropriate.  But DeFeo cuts to the core, and offers joyful and loving wisdom that respects children as children.   It's an easy b...

Urban Apologetics:  Why the Gospel is Good News for the City  is the oddest of books:  An apologetics with a pastoral heart.  Apologetics, as I've lamented here so often, operates on the fringes of the lived faith of the Church.  It's nearly impossible to find pastors engaged in the task of engaging real critics in real situations.  So when I was offered to read and review Christopher Brooks' new book, I was skeptical.  But in 176 beautiful, flawless pages, I found a gem worth every pastor's reading.   I was, to say the least, skeptical when I began Urban Apologetics .  Which, I think, only added to my appreciation of the book.  Because what I found here is a biblically-balanced, culturally-sensitive account of the faith that reads so much like Paul's letters to churches in his own day, or early Christian apologists like Athenagoras.   In each of the nine chapters, Brooks gives us an understandable and kind  apologetic that dea...

A sacrament , broadly conceived, is a physical means of grace -- it's a way of God drawing us into the very divine life of the Trinity.   In a sacrament grace meets us in and through the material world.  Grace comes to us in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.  Graces comes to us in the water of baptism.  Most of the Protestant tradition speaks of two sacraments (just mentioned), though Lutherans count a third (confession).  Catholics count seven.  And Orthodox resist counting all-together.   But I'm thinking we Protestants miss one -- the actual gathering  together on Sunday, the Lord's Day.   Marva Dawn rightly insists that worship is "a royal waste of time" (to use the title of her book).  And I think the most sacramental act of that "waste of time" is the strange and graceful act of getting out of bed and getting together.   This sacramental act, of course, sounds to most like a duty, an obligation, more than that sacramental m...

I thank God for fellow pastors.  Having been in ordained ministry for 17 years, I know how thankless being a pastor can be.  Pastors know things that are painful to know.  Pastors keep confidences, even though doing so often leads others to assume the worst.  Pastors are routinely insulted, cussed out, lied about, lied to.  Pastors face expectations that range from challenging to oppressive to depressing to maddening to ridiculous.  Pastors have to make tough choices balancing individual needs and community needs, congregational needs and staff needs, not to mention their own needs and family's needs.  Pastors are called in to deal with life's toughest realities:  Death, divorce, illness, prison, domestic violence, drugs, racism.  Pastors have to keep congregations of diverse folks together -- even when political campaigns and culture wars try and divide them.  And I haven't even mentioned the challenges and responsibilities of prayer, s...

Some years ago, I taught our introductory theology course utilizing the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, much in the tradition of Luther's Catechism .  So I was excited to find Hooker's richly developed biblical theology of the Ten Commandments as a modern call for the Christian moral life.  After his excellent introductory chapter on the significance and background of the "Ten Words" of Moses, he launches into a chapter-length treatment of each of the Commandments from five perspectives:  The ancient near eastern background; the original meaning; the way that commandment was remembered in Israel's history; the New Testament remembering of the particular commandment; and, finally, its contemporary meaning and application.   The concluding chapter offers a theological perspective on the role of these commandments in the contemporary Church.   Rooker, as I said, has given us a rich biblical theology of the Ten Commandments.  He constantly reminds us of...

The Psalms have played significant roles in the worship of the Church from its earliest days.  That's why Bonhoeffer rightly insisted that they are "the prayer-book of the Church".  Even in America, the first book to be published, in 1640, was a Psalter.  So this splendid collection of essays seeks to reclaim those Forgotten Songs  of the Bible in the contemporary life of the Church.   The various essays form a coherent vision for how the psalms can revitalize worship.   The Psalter, of course, isn't simply a "songbook", at least not in the sense most modern folks envision songbooks.  Because in reading and singing the Psalms, we are becoming God's people, participating in an ages-old act of worship.  The Jewish and early Christian experiences are thereby becoming our own, and we develop a language -- and therefore create a world -- that is centered in the heart of God.   So Forgotten Songs does two things at the same time.  It prov...

In the spirit of full disclosure:  I have no intention of seeing the newest  Left Behind  movie.  What follows is my reasoning for not watching it. Most simply, I don't think Left Behind  is Christian.  Not in the least.  Because it's primarily a profit-driven franchise (books, kids books, movies, study guides, related books from the authors, and graphic novels) that's meant to make a buck at the expense of sisters and brothers of the Faith (particularly Catholics) and through means of psychological and spiritual fear (particularly that of children).   I'll leave aside the questionable character of the authors -- especially Tim LaHaye.  But there's much to say there if need be.  No, my problems with Left Behind  involve how it understands the "end times" playing out biblically.  It's junk theology because it abuses and neglects the Scripture in fear-mongering ways.  The major event you see described in the movie -- where m...