Ecclesial Theology

Baptists and the saints

2013-05-15T11:22:00.001-04:00

Icon of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some previous posts on Ecclesial Theology (especially this one) have encouraged Baptists to cultivate a more intentional practice of commemorating the lives of exemplary Christians who might help us learn what it means to embody the Christian life faithfully. Andy Goodliff, pastor of Belle Vue Baptist Church in Southchurch, Southend on Sea, Essex, U.K., announced today on his blog that the May 2013 issue of the Journal of European Baptist Studies includes an article by Goodliff exploring the possibility of creating a Baptist sanctoral (a calendar of feast days for saints). Goodliff also calls attention to a forthcoming Baylor University Press book by Paul Fiddes, Brian Haymes and Richard Kidd on the theme of Baptists and the communion of saints. I'm encouraged to know of the article and forthcoming book, and I'm looking forward to reading both of them.

Related posts:

More on Baptist commemoration of the saints

Towards a Baptist commemoration of the saints

The Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin

A Baptist commemoration of the saints

The Pilgrim Church and the Ecumenical Future--lecture texts now online

2013-04-16T15:22:00.000-04:00

Last month I delivered lectures on the theme "The Pilgrim Church and the Ecumenical Future" as the 2013 Robert K. Campbell Memorial Lectures on Christian Unity sponsored by the Lehigh County Conference of Churches and held on the campus of DeSales University near Allentown, Pennsylvania. The texts of these lectures are now available online (click on hyperlinked text). Lecture 1 is "A Pilgrim Church Theology, Discovered through Dialogue," and Lecture 2 is "Embodying the Story of Jesus: The Pilgrim Identity of the Body of Christ." The Campbell Lectures Archive on the Lehigh County Conference of Churches site includes texts of some of the other lectures delivered since 2001, though the lectures have been held annually since 1993.

Baptists and liturgy, women, popes, and monasticism

2013-04-12T11:44:00.000-04:00

The current issue of the magazine Baptist World published by the Baptist World Alliance (vol. 60, no. 2 [April-June 2013]) includes several articles related to themes of interest to readers of Ecclesial Theology--in particular, articles on "The Importance of a Fixed Liturgy" (pp. 8 and 10-11), a BWA-sponsored forum on violence against women held in conjunction with a session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (p. 26), women serving in leadership roles in national and international denominational life (p. 27), BWA responses to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Pope Francis (p. 28), and a notice of a book by Baptist historian Paul Dekar on the Community of the Transfiguration, a monastic community in Australia connected with the Baptist Union of Victoria (p. 28). Yes, there are Baptist monks, and nuns, too--in addition to the Community of the Transfiguration, the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia (in Eastern Europe) has a women's monastic order, the Order of St. Nino, along with the New Desert Brothers order for men.

Trinitarian Soundings on the Triduum

2013-04-08T13:27:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to Molly T. Marshall, President and Professor of Theology and Spiritual Formation at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, Kansas, for the kind mention of my musings on the theological significance of Holy Saturday posted here on Ecclesial Theology in her April 1 post titled "Resting Well" on her blog Trinitarian Soundings.

Baptist World Alliance General Secretary on Baptists and patristic biblical interpretation

2013-04-05T14:47:00.000-04:00

The April 2013 issue of the Baptist World Alliance electronic publication BWA Connect includes a column by Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Neville Callam in which he reflects on the Baptist tendency to ignore the tradition of biblical interpretation when interpreting the Bible, notes a Baptist project dedicated to the recovery of the tradition of Baptist biblical interpretation, and commends the extension of this tradition beyond Baptist beginnings to include patristic biblical interpretation. Callam points to a new resource published by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches that provides access to the riches of patristic interpretation of the four Gospels as an example of how the earliest interpretations of Scripture after the New Testament serve as important resources for communities that seek to interpret and perform Scripture today. Since I devoted a chapter of my book Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision to how Baptists might make use of patristic biblical interpretation in their contemporary readings of Scripture, I was gratified to see the BWA General Secretary commend this practice. Callam's BWA Connect column appears below.

Finding More Light and Truth

By Neville Callam

Neville Callam

Some Baptists have claimed to be "a people of the book." Often, this self-designation is meant to highlight the value we place on the Bible. In We Baptists, published by the BWA in 1999, the priority Baptists assign to the Bible is reflected in a number of ways. Take the following affirmation, for example:

Baptists believe that the Bible is both the true record of God's revelation to our world and the supreme written guide for our faith and practice today. Because it leads us to Jesus Christ the living Word, we speak of it as "the Word of God," and believe it was inspired by God's Spirit. [Baptists regard the Bible as] totally sufficient; that is, all teaching must be in harmony with the Scriptures, and all teaching must be tested by the Scriptures only.

What spurred me to consider again the disputable tag "a people of the book" was a fresh look at one of the many books published in 2009 when Baptists were marking their quadricentennial, the 400th anniversary of Baptist witness. In the introduction to The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2009), the editors make a bold claim that should be taken seriously. This is what they say:

Baptists for the most part have shown little interest in recovering Baptist interpretation of Scripture. There are several reasons for this. For one, Baptists have historically spent more time debating the authority of Scripture than engaged in dialogue about what the Bible says, much less what our forebears said it says. For another, Baptists belong to a larger movement of Christians committed to restoring the New Testament church, an endeavor that leaves little room for sustained interest in the intervening and subsequent history of biblical interpretation.

If we believe the accusation is valid -- and it seems that way to me -- we may acknowledge that our churches need to pay more attention to the massive literary output of those who are committed to recovering interpretations of the biblical text, not least those who gave committed service as interpreters of the Bible over the past four centuries of Baptist history -- which is what the Baylor text attempts to do with respect to the Acts of the Apostles. Reading the book, we may be surprised at the wide diversity of hermeneutical approaches used by Baptists and the different conclusions they have drawn from reading a particular section of the Bible.

If we wish to extend this quest beyond Baptist boundaries and go back to the first few centuries of the church's life, much exists to aid this quest. See, for example, a brief and very accessible book, Reading the Gospels with the Early Church: A Guide (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2013), prepared by Tamara Grdzelidze and her colleagues in the Faith and Order movement of the World Council of Churches. In six short sections, passages from the New Testament are accompanied by brief comments offered respectively by John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan, Ephrem the Syrian, Origen, Pseudo-Macarius and Hippolytus. In each section, the biblical text and commentary are followed by a brief note about the commentators, recommendations for group work and a prayer.

This new guidebook reflects how, during the first 450 years of the church's life, significant biblical interpreters shared the conviction that the biblical text is "a revelation of the truth through the Holy Spirit in the Church." This does not mean, however, that the literary output of these interpreters did not manifest diversity and creativity resulting partly from the interpretive methods employed. While taking the Bible seriously, the interpreters were free to discover horizons of meaning and to develop perspectives on the text of Scripture that provided a rich tapestry that is as diverse as it is enriching.

Perhaps the ancient interpreters of the New Testament model for us how to agree on the essential biblical message while setting forth distinct, though not inconsistent, understandings of particular texts of Scripture. We should be able to do this without having to bear the pejorative labels some contemporary believers love to use to discredit others.

We should reasonably expect that Christians reading the Bible in the context of their communities of faith will continue to search for, and find, "more light and truth" from God's Word!

2013 Baptist World Alliance

Another word on the "feast day" of Franz Bibfeldt

2013-04-02T23:57:00.001-04:00

Lest there be any confusion: yesterday's post on the "feast day" of Franz Bibfeldt, coming as it did on April 1, was an April Fool's joke, in continuity with many such April 1 Bibfeldt observances connected with the University of Chicago Divinity School, which one can read about here and here.

I first discovered the Bibfeldt tradition when I happened across a copy of the faux Festschrift for Bibfeldt, The Unrelieved Paradox: Studies in the Theology of Franz Bibfeldt, ed. Martin E. Marty and Jerald C. Brauer (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1994) in a Borders bookstore in Fort Worth, Texas. I found myself laughing aloud in the aisle several times and realized that I likely couldn't begin to explain to anyone else in the store why I found it so hilariously funny. (For what it's worth, my favorite title in the Bibfeldt bibliography is Vielleicht?, Bibfeldt's response to Karl Barth's Nein! to Emil Brunner on the possibility of natural theology, with his book Either/Or and/or Both/And a close second.)

Every now and then when one of my theology class sessions coincided with April 1, I would give in advance of that class meeting an off-the-syllabus assignment asking my students to do some independent research to see what they could learn about a theologian named Franz Bibfeldt, then debrief their findings during the April 1 session. A few students caught the joke before I revealed it.

The Unrelieved Paradox is now available in an "18th (or Perhaps 19th) Anniversary Revised Edition."

For the feast day of Franz Bibfeldt

2013-04-01T08:05:00.000-04:00

Today is celebrated as the feast day of theologian Franz Bibfeldt on the calendars of some Western churches, especially in the environs of Chicago, Illinois in the U.S.A. I remember fondly my delightful discovery of the thought of this theologian previously unknown to me when I stumbled across the Festschrift published in his honor in a Borders bookstore in Fort Worth, Texas sometime in the mid-1990s. In honor of Bibfeldt's feast day and in gratitude for his contributions to the development of Christian theology, I'm posting the collect "Of a Theologian and Teacher" from the Book of Common Prayer:

O God, by your Holy Spirit you give to some the word of wisdom, to others the word of knowledge, and to others the word of faith: We praise your Name for the gifts of grace manifested in your servant Franz, and we pray that your Church may never be destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Related Post: Another word of the "feast day" of Franz Bibfeldt

Holy Saturday is one of the "Three Days," too

2013-03-30T12:14:00.000-04:00

John Chrysostom (center) in

an icon of "The Three Holy

Hierarchs" given to me by

former student Drew Phillips

Holy Saturday is arguably the most neglected day of the Triduum, the "Three Days" of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday in the Christian calendar. On this Holy Saturday I found myself musing about what we ought to think about in giving attention to this day in public worship (may there be more Holy Saturday services!) and in private devotion. Here are some of these musings.

Today is the day of God's solidarity in Christ with the boundary between earthly life and the life everlasting. Today is the day on which Christ, the prototypical human, offers the paradigm of the experience of being "absent from the body" but "present with the Lord" in the boundary between death and resurrected life. Today is the day on which it seems that evil continues to have its usual upper hand in its violent exercise of power in the present state of things, but in fact in the cosmic drama disclosed in Christ its ultimate undoing has already begun.

The "Catechetical Sermon" of St. John Chrysostom (344-407) is read as part of the liturgy of the Paschal Vigil in Eastern Orthodox churches. In it Chrysostom says this about the cosmic drama of Holy Saturday:

Let no one fear death, for the Savior's death has set us free. He who was held prisoner by death has annihilated it. By descending into death, he made death captive. He angered it when it tasted of his flesh. Isaiah saw this, and he cried: 'Death was angered when it encountered you in the lower regions.' It was angered, for it was defeated. It was angered, for it was mocked. It was angered, for it was abolished. It was angered, for it was overthrown. It was angered, for it was bound in chains. It received a body and it met God face to face. It took earth and encountered heaven. It took that which is seen and fell upon the unseen.
-- in For All the Saints: A Prayer Book For and By the Church, compiled and edited by Frederick J. Schumacher with Dorothy A. Zelenko, vol. 1, Year 1: Advent to the Day of Pentecost (Delhi, New York: American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, 1994), p. 981

While Good Friday is about the cross seen by all and Easter Sunday is about the empty tomb seen by a few, Holy Saturday is about the unseen in the seen reality of death. There's more than meets the eye! May it be so in today's observance of Holy Saturday.

A Latin American Baptist on Pope Francis, Catholic-Evangelical relations

2013-03-27T11:21:00.000-04:00

Harold Segura

Many readers of Ecclesial Theology will be interested in the initial reactions to the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis posted by Harold Segura, a Baptist minister and theological educator from Columbia who currently serves as Regional Director for Church Relations and Christianity Identity for World Vision--Latin America and the Caribbean. Segura participated in a "pre-conversation" conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina in December 2001 that paved the way for the second series of international theological conversations between the Baptist World Alliance and the Roman Catholic Church held 2006-2010 (the official report from which will be published this summer). During the 2001 Buenos Aires meeting Segura presented a paper offering Baptist responses to a paper presented by Walter Cardinal Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, on "The Concept of Communio as a Framework Within Which to Discuss Issues of Concern."

Also of interest in these connections is a blog journal posted by Segura while he served as a Baptist observer at the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean in Aparecida, Brazil in May 2007. Segura's journal postings were published in book form as Crónicas de Aparecida: Un pastor evangélico en la Quinta Conferencia general del Episcopado Latinoamericano y del Caribe by (Ediciones Kairós, 2008). John L. Allen, Jr. published an interview with Segura in the National Catholic Reporter regarding his experiences observing the bishops' conference in Aparecida and his reflections on implications for ecumenical relations in Latin America.

Pope Francis and the Baptists

2013-03-25T09:16:00.000-04:00

This post was originally published on the Associated Baptist Press ABPnews Blog.

I don’t think a day has passed since March 13 without a student, colleague, fellow church member, family member, or friend asking what my perspective is on the election of Pope Francis, especially since they know that I was a member of the Baptist World Alliance delegation to our recent five-year dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church and have otherwise written on ecumenical themes. These conversations have helped me have a better idea of what it is that I think!

Much of what I think would merely echo perspectives that have already been widely aired in the media. Here I’ll restrict myself to my initial thoughts regarding what the pontificate of Pope Francis may mean for Baptists.

While I don’t think the pontificate of Benedict XVI should be regarded negatively where Baptist-Catholic relations are concerned, I think Baptists have good reason to be encouraged by the election of Pope Francis.

One encouraging sign is the admiration Pope Francis seems to have for Walter Cardinal Kasper, who played a key role in making possible and encouraging the second series of conversations between the Baptist World Alliance and the Roman Catholic Church from 2006 through 2010, the report of which will be officially published this summer. In his first public “Angelus” address in St. Peter’s Square on March 17, Pope Francis said this:

In the past few days I have been reading a book by a Cardinal — Cardinal Kasper, a clever theologian, a good theologian — on mercy. And that book did me a lot of good, but do not think I am promoting my cardinals’ books! Not at all! Yet it has done me so much good, so much good... Cardinal Kasper said that feeling mercy, that this word changes everything. This is the best thing we can feel: it changes the world. A little mercy makes the world less cold and more just. We need to understand properly this mercy of God, this merciful Father who is so patient....

Cardinal Kasper was President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in the years before and during our conversations. When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the controversial document Dominus Iesus in 2000 that seemed to say (though there are other more nuanced ways of reading it) that many non-Catholic churches including Baptist churches should not be really regarded as churches, Cardinal Kasper worked behind the scenes to repair the damage. One thing he did toward that end was to encourage the global leadership of the BWA to respond positively to the invitation for dialogue and to promote its desirability within the Vatican. While having an audience with Pope Benedict XVI was certainly a highlight of our five-year series of conversations, in many ways my most cherished memories of the dialogue will remain the lunch in 2007 that we had with Cardinal Kasper and the afternoon dialogue session in 2009 in which he spoke to us at length about his perspectives on ecclesiology and ecumenical relations and then responded at length to our questions. I am greatly encouraged to know of Pope Francis’ theological admiration for this influential theological friend of Baptists within the leadership of the Catholic Church.

Another reason for Baptists to be optimistic about this papacy is the warm and open relationship Pope Francis seems to have had with evangelicals in Argentina. Baptist-Catholic tensions in Latin America belong to a larger pattern of Evangelical-Catholic tensions there and were evident in some opposition among Latin American Baptists to approval of the report of the first series of conversations between the BWA and the Catholic Church (1984-1988) and in some initial resistance to the prospect of a second series of conversations. Francis may succeed in alleviating some of those tensions, and that can be a good thing for Baptists.

Many Baptists may be hoping that Pope Francis may be able to reform the Catholic Church in certain directions. The fact that Pope Francis belongs to the Jesuit order may be encouraging to those who hope for certain new developments, for historically the Jesuits have sometimes been on the outs with the Vatican and have themselves tended to be critical of the Curia.

Yet Baptists should expect the pope to be Catholic, which means that all the changes they might want to see happen within the Catholic Church may not come about during this papacy. But the history of the Catholic Church is one in which change has happened incrementally and symbolically, and there are good reasons to hope for incremental and symbolic changes during the pontificate of Pope Francis.

This post was originally published on the Associated Baptist Press ABPnews Blog.

On Pope Francis et alia

2013-03-21T12:22:00.002-04:00

Catching up on providing links to things of interest to followers of Ecclesial Theology after time away lecturing in Pennsylvania and presenting at an academic conference in South Carolina (and time away from blogging preparing for and catching up from said events):

On the drive home to Boiling Springs, NC from the airport in Charlotte on March 13, I heard on NPR the news of the billowing of white smoke in St. Peter's Square. By the time I made it to my office to watch coverage online of the announcement of the conclave's election of Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio and his presentation as Pope Francis, I had been contacted by a reporter from a local newspaper, the Shelby Star, and provided a telephone interview on the way to church for midweek services. A quote from that interview appears in this story (though I'm pretty sure I said "that’s reflected in the choice of St. Francis [as the source of his papal name], as in St. Francis of Assisi" rather than the construction that appears in the article).

On Tuesday of this week I granted an interview to Associated Baptist Press for a story on Baptist responses to the installation of Pope Francis, quotes from which appear in the hyperlinked article.

Wednesday Associated Baptist Press published on the ABPnews Blog my post "Pope Francis and the Baptists" summarizing my initial reflections on the implications for Baptists of the beginning of Pope Francis' pontificate.

Beyond the thoughts articulated in the stories and post linked above, as a Baptist ecumenical theologian I'm delighted by the discourse Pope Francis delivered to the representatives of various Christian communions and other religions who attended his installation mass. This discourse echoes the very best features (from my non-Catholic standpoint) of the Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio from Vatican II, the encyclical on commitment to ecumenism Ut Unum Sint from John Paul II, and the statements on "The Church and non-Christians" in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (sections 839-45). The latter is in my opinion one of the best concise statements on the relation of Christianity to non-Christian religions around, and I have my Christian Theology students read it when we discuss the relation of Christianity to non-Christian religions under the category of "general revelation."

Now for the "and other things" part of this post: On March 9 I posted this Facebook status update in honor of the feast day of St. Gregory of Nyssa, whose thought was a major subject of my doctoral dissertation (revised as my first book Every Knee Should Bow: Biblical Rationals for Universal Salvation in Early Christian Thought):

No one who has given thought to the way we talk about God can adequately grasp the terms pertaining to God. ‘Mother,’ for example, is mentioned (Song of Solomon 3:11) instead of ‘father.’ Both terms mean the same thing, because there is neither male nor female in God.” -- St. Gregory of Nyssa (d. ca. 395), whose feast day is celebrated today in some Christian calendars. (Didn't expect that one from one of the church fathers, did you?)

British Baptist theologian Stephen Holmes of the faculty of The University of St. Andrews (UK) saw my status update, which inspired him to look up the original source of the quote and then post on his blog Shored Fragments his own reflections "On Mothering Sunday: Gregory of Nyssa on calling God 'mother'," which led to a follow-up post "On the Divine Names." (Mothering Sunday, for those who live on the North American side of the Atlantic, is the equivalent of Mother's Day in the U.S. but celebrated on the fourth Sunday in Lent.)

Following the conclave

2013-03-08T13:28:00.000-05:00

It has been reported today that the papal conclave to elect the successor of Benedict XVI will begin on Tuesday, March 12. Dr. Chau Phan, a Catholic lay ecumenist in the community of Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church in Flagler Beach, Florida whose ecumenical advocacy has been mentioned previously on Ecclesial Theology, has set up a helpful resource page for those interested in following the conclave. Included are links to news reports and analyses, information about the "papabili" (possible viable candidates for the papacy), and a listing of cardinal electors eligible to vote in the conclave. I hope readers of Ecclesial Theology will not only make use of this informative resource for keeping up with developments but will also pray that God's Spirit might guide the cardinals as they make this decision of great importance for the church catholic as well as the Catholic Church.

Coincidentally, on the day the conclave begins I will deliver the Robert K. Campbell Memorial Lectures on Christian Unity at DeSales University in Pennsylvania sponsored by the Lehigh County Conference of Churches. Four cardinals have delivered the lectures previously: Avery Cardinal Dulles (1993), William Cardinal Keeler (1997), Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy (2000), and Walter Cardinal Kasper (2005).

Baptist World Alliance responds to papal resignation

2013-02-14T13:20:00.001-05:00

Pope Benedict XVI with members of the joint delegations to the international theological conversations between the Baptist World Alliance and the Roman Catholic Church, December 2007

The Baptist World Alliance has issued the following press release in response to Pope Benedict XVI's announcement of his intended resignation:

BWA leaders laud Pope Benedict XVI

Created on Thursday, 14 February 2013 12:30

Leaders of the Baptist World Alliance® (BWA) expressed their appreciation for Pope Benedict XVI after the announcement of his intention to resign on February 28.

"I have deeply appreciated the inclusion by the pope of other Christian fellowships, such as the BWA, in serious discussions of matters that have confronted the Christian world," said BWA President John Upton. "The pope has always been gracious in his welcome to the Vatican and respectful of the insights and opinions of other Christian communities."

General Secretary Neville Callam acknowledged "the ministry that Pope Benedict XVI has exercised, in particular his contribution to ecumenical relations." Callam took note of the pope's theological works and his pastoral ministry that have "provided the Christian community with a rich storehouse of spiritual reflections worthy of detailed study."

"I applaud the pope's openness to bilateral dialogues that have both strengthened understandings and furthered Christian witness," Upton said. "The pope has demonstrated his love of the church and he will be remembered fondly for his scholarly and gentle leadership."

Callam recalled the private audience the pope gave to participants in the dialogue involving Baptists and Catholics during their meetings in Rome in 2007. In receiving the delegates, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his hope that the dialogue would result in "increase of understanding and cooperation between Catholics and Baptists."

Baptists and Catholics have participated in theological dialogue since 1984. The first round extended from 1984-1988 and the second from 2006-2010. Callam acknowledged the pope's support of the second round of the dialogue.

The BWA General Secretary said the pope's ecumenical openness was on full display during the 13th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church where the Baptist community was represented by Timothy George, dean and professor of divinity, history and doctrine at Beeson Divinity School in the state of Alabama in the United States.

"We convey best wishes on a well deserved retirement," Callam stated. "His immense contribution to world Christianity will not be forgotten and we pray for him God's blessings in the coming years."

Baptist World Alliance®
© February 14, 2013

"Clergy react to pope's resignation"--The Shelby Star

2013-02-12T17:02:00.003-05:00

An article on today's issue of the local newspaper The Shelby Star includes quotes from me and area clergy responding to yesterday's announcement that Pope Benedict XVI will retire at the end of the month. Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the story:

Pope Benedict XVI said Monday he lacks the strength to fulfill his duties and on Feb. 28 will become the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. The announcement sets the stage for a conclave in March to elect a new leader for the world's 1 billion Catholics.

Clergy in Cleveland County reacted to the news with thoughts about the 85-year-old pope and prayers for him and the Catholic Church.

“I admire Pope Benedict for knowing that he needs to retire and doing so,” said Rev. Dr. Valori M. Sherer, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Shelby.

Dr. Steve Harmon of Gardner-Webb University met Benedict in 2007 at a meeting in Rome between the Baptist World Alliance and the Roman Catholic Church.

"I came away with the sense he was a gracious, kind and caring person," Harmon said.... (read the rest of the article at The Shelby Star)

"Prayer for the Papacy" at Associated Baptist Press

2013-02-11T16:36:00.001-05:00

The Associated Baptist Press is running a commentary piece titled "Prayer for the Papacy" that I wrote this morning in response to today's news regarding the announced retirement of Pope Benedict XVI at the end of the month. Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the commentary:

The pope has prayed for me, and following the announcement of his retirement at the end of the month, I’m returning the favor by praying for him and the future of his office.

Don’t get the wrong idea: Pope Benedict XVI hasn’t direct-Tweeted me, and he’d have no reason to remember meeting me. But during a private papal audience with the members of the joint delegations to a meeting in Rome of the ecumenical dialogue between the Baptist World Alliance and the Roman Catholic Church in December 2007, my family and I were included in this pledge of prayer:

“Dear friends, I offer you my cordial good wishes and the assurance of my prayers for the important work which you have undertaken. Upon your conversations, and upon each of you and your loved ones, I gladly invoke the Holy Spirit's gifts of wisdom, understanding, strength and peace"....(read the full commentary at Associated Baptist Press)

Denomination: Assessing an Ecclesiological Category now in paperback

2013-02-06T15:38:00.002-05:00

Denomination: Assessing an Ecclesiological Category, ed. Paul M. Collins and Barry Ensign-George (Ecclesiological Investigations, vol. 11; T & T Clark International, 2011), a book to which I contributed the chapter written from a Baptist perspective ("The Ecumenical Dimensions of Baptist Denominational Identity"), is now available in paperback. The hardcover version is steeply priced at $110.00 USD, but the paperback format has been released at a much more affordable $29.95 from the publisher or $29.05 via Amazon. (Amazon shoppers will also note the availability of the book in Kindle format for $14.82.)

Information about the book from the publisher's web site follows:

About Denomination

The term "denomination" is now widely used to describe a Christian community or church. But what is a 'denomination'? In this highly creative collection of essays, representatives of all major Christian traditions give an answer to this question. What does the term mean in their own tradition? And does that tradition understand itself to be a 'denomination'? If so, what is that understanding of 'denomination'; and if not, how does the tradition understand itself vis à vis those churches which do and those churches which do not understand themselves as 'denominations'? In dialogue with the argument and ideas set forth in Barry Ensign-George's essay, each contributor offers a response from the perspective of a particular church (tradition). Each essay also considers questions concerning the current landscape of ecumenical dialogue; ecumenical method and the goals of the ecumenical movement; as well as questions of Christian identity and belonging.

Introduction Paul M. Collins\ 'Denomination as Ecclesiological Category: Sketching an Assessment' Barry Ensign-George (Reformed/Presbyterian)\Anglican 'Denomination: An Anglican Appraisal' Paul Avis\Baptist: 'The Ecumenical Dimensions of Baptist Denominational Identity' Steven R. Harmon\Lutheran: 'The Lutheran Church: Church, Confession, Congregation, Denomination' Gesa Thiessen\Methodist: 'United Methodism: Its Identity as Denomination' Russell Richey\Orthodox: 'The Orthodox Church on Denomination' Elena Vishnevskaya\Pentecostal: 'The Denomination in Classical and Global Pentecostal Ecclesiology:A Historical and Theological Contribution' Wolfgang Vondey\Quaker: 'Denomination beyond the North Atlantic Ecclesial World' Ann Riggs\Reformed/Presbyterian: 'Presbyterianism and Denomination' Amy Plantinga Pauw\'Is there a future for denominationalism? Reflections from the perspective of Roman Catholic ecclesiology and from the perspective of the future of the ecumenical movement' Peter de Mey\'Afterword: A Global Perspective' Kirsteen Kim

Reviews

“'With the collapse of classical ecumenism and the emergence of new divisions in the church, the time is ripe for a fresh theological look at the contentious issue of denominationalism. This volume tackles the thorny issues cleanly and forthrightly. Both those who are repelled by the whole idea of denominationalism and those who want to retrieve and fix it will find this splendid volume invaluable in thinking through their positions.' - William J. Abraham, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, USA.” – William J. Abraham,

“... an important collection... looking at the issue of denominationalism from theological, ecumenical and sociological perspectives... Highly recommended.” – Church of England Newspaper,

“'What is a denomination? Does it differ from a convention, fellowship, synod, or church? Is it primarily a sociological or a theological term? Denominational consciousness stands for particularity relative to the whole church. The premier ecclesiologists who discuss the nature, function, and relevance this term in an ecumenical age display the diversity of their denominational points of view. As denominations wane in the West and never quite take hold in cultures that do not share the history that generated them, will the gifts that each preserves for the whole church be lost? These analysts throw distinctive light on these issues and by so doing relativize the narrowness of denominational consciousness and help expand the vision of the larger church in which the denominations participate. This topic and these superb treatments of it provide a unique entrée into the ecumenical vision that people from all the denominations will appreciate. As a whole the book represents a quiet, conversational but brilliant essay in comparative ecclesiology that no course in ecumenism can neglect.' - Roger Haight, S. J., Scholar in Residence, Union Theological Seminary, USA.” – Roger Haight, S. J.,

“As the blurb states,this book will indeed be a text for my next course on "Unity in Division". Itoffers challenging perspectives on bringing theological perspectives to thesocial realities which shape many churches in today's western world- and beyond.” – One in Christ

"Are Baptists still nonconformists?" (ABPnews Blog)

2013-02-05T14:39:00.002-05:00

My post "Are Baptists still nonconformists?" appears on the Associated Baptist Press ABPnews Blog. Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the post; click on the hyperlinked title for the full text at the ABPnews Blog:

Not long after our move to work at Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity my wife Kheresa read Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth (Random House, 2010), a novel rooted in Truong’s childhood experiences as an “outsider” Vietnamese-American in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where her family settled after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and where we now live. One morning Kheresa read to me a sentence that follows a reference to the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in nearby Shelby: “As far as the Southern Baptists were concerned, Episcopalians were third on the list of local religious nonconformists” (after one of the characters in the novel and Catholics).

That sentence struck me as delightfully ironic, for in seventeenth-century England the 1662 Act of Uniformity officially made Baptists the “Nonconformists” (along with Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Quakers)–because of their dissent from the doctrines and practices of the established Church of England, the progenitor of the Episcopal Church in the United States....(read the full post at the ABPnews Blog)

2013 Campbell Lectures on Christian Unity registration open

2013-01-31T09:38:00.001-05:00

Online registration is now open for the 2013 Robert K. Campbell Memorial Lectures on Christian Unity sponsored by the Lehigh County Conference of Churches and hosted on the campus of DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania on March 12 (the page hyperlinked above provides information on the lectures and a link to an online registration form). I've chosen "The Pilgrim Church and the Ecumenical Future" as the theme of the lectures; the advertisement for the lectures on the Lehigh County Conference of Churches site reflects updated versions of the individual lecture titles previously announced on Ecclesial Theology: "A Pilgrim Church Theology, Discovered through Dialogue" and "Embodying the Story of Jesus: The Pilgrim Identity of the Body of Christ."

The Christian Century online, free this week

2013-01-30T08:58:00.003-05:00

Some readers of Ecclesial Theology may be interested in taking advantage of the free access the Christian Century is offering this week to to all of its online content: the latest online issue, the PDF of the print magazine, all lectionary content and archives back to 1999 (click on hyperlink above; username and password registration required).

I'm grateful for the Christian Century's continued inclusion of Ecclesial Theology among the blogs linked from the "What We're Reading" sidebar on the Christian Century Theology page. The other blogs linked there are worth a read, too; scroll down and look left, just under the "Reflections on the Lectionary" sidebar.

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson plugs Ecumenism Means You, Too in interview

2013-01-26T18:01:00.000-05:00

The Christian Leadership Center of the University of Mary in Bismark, North Dakota has posted the interview "Sarah Hinlicky Wilson on Ecumenism" on its web site. At the conclusion of the interview Wilson, a Lutheran minister serving as Assistant Research Professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France, says this:

The best on-the-ground idea I’ve heard for ecumenism comes from Steve Harmon’s little book, Ecumenism Means You, Too. He suggests that, in addition to your commitment to your own church family, you get to know another one, too—sort of like having a major and a minor. You can’t fix all the divisions all at once, but you can become a real bridge between two families of faith, mutually translating between the two and curing your own parochialism in the process. Ephesians 2:14 says that Christ “has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility,” so as Christ-bearers ourselves, I think we are called to make the unity happen in our own bodies, too. That happens when we put our bodies in two different churches, give our voices to praise in them both, consume the holy supper with our mouths in them both, serve the needy with our hands in them both.

Interested in Ecumenism Means You, Too? Order the book directly from Cascade Books or via Amazon.

Local reception of ecumenical dialogue

2013-01-24T10:35:00.002-05:00

Today is the conclusion of the 2013 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-24). In that connection, I pass along a notice of an encouraging example of grassroots ecumenical encounter that occurred yesterday as part of a local observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

In my book Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity (Cascade books, 2010), I mention the reports and agreed statements issued by bilateral ecumenical dialogues as a neglected resource for learning more about other Christian denominations in local church programs of Christian education: "If your own denomination has been in this kind of official dialogue with other churches, studying and discussing these report would be an ideal way to learn about other denominations and their relationship to your own tradition" (pp. 63-64). Yesterday evening members of St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church in Palm Coast, Florida and Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church in Flagler Beach, Florida met to do just that together in an event hosted by St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church: "The Hope for Eternal Life: Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue." Participants read and discussed "The Hope of Eternal Life: Common Statement of the Eleventh Round of the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue" along with an article by Jeffrey Gros in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies summarizing and commenting on that dialogue. (The web site of Flagler Churches Together in Prayer and Song--which provides links to a number of helpful resources for grassroots ecumenical engagement--has also posted a photo gallery from other events related to their local observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.)

May other churches go and do likewise!

Ecumenical Trends--January 2013 issue

2013-01-22T11:29:00.000-05:00

The January 2013 issue of the journal Ecumenical Trends (vol. 42, no. 1), published on behalf of the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, is a thematic issue on the 2013 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18-24). This issue also happens to be the current sample issue posted in full text PDF online (click on hyperlink above). Included in this issue: an article interpreting the theme and Scripture text (Micah 6:1-8) for the 2013 observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by Terry L. Brensinger, a pair of articles exploring the homiletical dimensions of this year's focus by Michael E. Livingston and Mary Lin Hudson, and an article by lay ecumenical advocate Gerald Stover introducing "Ten Ecumenical Lecture Series Addressing Christian Unity Across North America." I'm especially interested in the last article, as I have connections with two of the ten lecture series highlighted in Stover's article: I delivered the Lourdes University Ecumenical Lectures in 2010, and I will deliver the Robert K. Campbell Lectures on Christian Unity in March 2013.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and local ecumenism

2013-01-21T15:40:00.002-05:00

A previous post at Ecclesial Theology called attention to the local ecumenical work of lay ecumenical advocate Dr. Chau T. Phan, a retired professor of political science and member of Santa Maria Del Mar Catholic Church in Flagler Beach, Florida. An article in the Daytona Beach News-Journal tells the story of Dr. Phan's work in coordinating Flagler Churches Together in Prayer and Song and provides information about the organization's 2013 observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 18-24. One of the great contributions of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity to the quest for the visible unity of the body of Christ is its encouragement of embodied ecumenical engagement at the grassroots. Flagler Churches Together in Prayer and Song is an excellent local example of how local churches might do this.

Remembering our 'rememberable' baptisms

2013-01-14T08:50:00.001-05:00

Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Eisleben

A version of this post previously appeared on the ABPnews Blog.

Many churches celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord on the Sunday following Epiphany (January 6). Since Epiphany falls on Sunday in 2013, this year the Baptism of the Lord was celebrated yesterday on January 13. This feast is an appropriate occasion for remembering our own baptisms, in which we took on a new ecclesial identity in Christ when we embraced Christ’s story, the story proclaimed by the church, as our story.

I recently found myself thinking about how churches in my own Baptist tradition might be more intentional about remembering our baptisms when I saw a photo posted on Facebook of a Lutheran baptism performed in a new immersion font in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Eisleben, Germany—the church of Marin Luther’s baptism on November 11, 1483. Luther was baptized as an infant with water poured from a small font, remains of which were incorporated into a reconstructed font that now stands in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. But when the interior of the church was renovated in 2011, a new baptistry suitable for full-immersion baptisms was made the centerpiece of the renovated sanctuary. The top of the pool is level with the floor and is situated at the center of the front of the sanctuary, so that the congregation must look across the baptistry to see the altar and pulpit. Concentric circles in the pattern of the floor radiate outward from the baptistry. No one can worship there without thinking about baptism. On April 29, 2012, the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul was re-opened as the Center of Baptism for the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church in Germany intended to serve as a center for ecumenical reflection on the theology and practice of baptism.

One of the gifts that Baptist churches give to the people they baptize is a baptism that can be personally remembered. (I don’t think that candidates for membership in Baptist churches who were baptized as infants and have subsequently made the faith into which they were baptized their own should be required to be re-baptized with a “believer’s baptism” as a condition for membership, however, but that’s a topic for another discussion.) Baptists of all people have good reason to give attention to the remembrance of their 'rememberable' baptisms.

How might Baptists do this? I invite readers to share their own ideas and/or practices from their congregations in the comments below. I’ll start with the following recommendations:

Whenever someone is baptized, include in the worship service an opportunity for members of the congregation to re-commit themselves to their baptismal vows.
Regularly include recitation of the Apostles’ Creed (the baptismal creed of the Western church) and the Nicene Creed (the Eucharistic creed of the Western church and the baptismal and Eucharistic creed of the Eastern church) in worship services and call attention to their original role as baptismal confessions—declarations of the biblical story of the Triune God that we claim as our own in baptism. (I’ve explained elsewhere why Baptists can do this without betraying their Baptist heritage.)
Place a vessel of water drawn from the baptistry at the back of the sanctuary near the main entrance. Encourage members of the congregation to dip their fingers into it when entering and exiting the sanctuary as a reminder of their baptisms. With proper explanation given, they might also be encouraged to use the fingers dipped into the baptismal water to trace the sign of the cross upon their bodies as a reminder of their identification with Christ in baptism.
When the opportunity presents itself to build or re-design a worship space, design and situate the baptistry in such a way as to call attention to this practice so central to Baptist (and Christian) identity. Consider placing it near the main entrance to the worship space, so that worshipers pass by it when entering and exiting. Keep it filled with water, so that every worshiper may see and feel the water of baptism as a baptismal reminder each Sunday. (While I have not seen it in person, my friend Curtis Freeman tells me that the baptistry of the Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he takes his Baptist House of Studies students at Duke Divinity School to practice performing baptism, is “one of the most baptistic baptistries in all Christendom.” It is at the back of the sanctuary, partly inside the sanctuary and partly inside the narthex. The chairs in the sanctuary are moveable and are turned to face the baptistry whenever baptism is part of a service of worship.)

What are your ideas for remembering our 'rememberable' baptisms? How has your congregation been intentional about baptismal remembrance?

Remembering our rememberable baptisms

2013-01-11T09:32:00.000-05:00

My post "Remembering our rememberable baptisms" appears today on the Associated Baptist Press ABPnewsBlog. The full text will be posted on Ecclesial Theology early next week; in the meantime, here's a snippet from the beginning of the post:

Many churches celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord on the Sunday following Epiphany (January 6). Since Epiphany falls on Sunday in 2013, this year the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated on January 13. This feast is an appropriate occasion for remembering our own baptisms, in which we took on a new ecclesial identity in Christ when we embraced Christ’s story, the story proclaimed by the church, as our story.

I recently found myself thinking about how Baptists might be more intentional about remembering our baptisms when I saw a photo posted on Facebook of a Lutheran baptism performed in a new immersion font in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Eisleben, Germany—the church of Marin Luther’s baptism on November 11, 1483.... (read the full post at ABPnews Blog)

I hope readers of Ecclesial Theology will add their invited contributions to the comment thread on the post on the ABPnews Blog in response to the question posed in the post. At the very least, be sure to click on the link in the post to the photo of the "new baptistry suitable for full-immersion baptisms" in the church of Luther's baptism in Eisleben.