LIfe Changing

I've spent part of the day watching the NFL College Draft. I'm always fascinated by this weekend. Although I watch the draft because I am an avid NFL fan and Fantasy Football player, I watch it too because I am fascinated by change. When you believe in the power of conversion and the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation, change is a very interesting aspect of ministry and faith. I would even go so far as to say the very nature of God is change. The bible begins not with "creation" but with God "changing" nothing into something. The New Testament does not begin with the "incarnation" but with the the coming of the Word - and the Word changes things when it arrives. The one common denominator for Christians is change. It is the stuff of faith and the intent of ministry and mission. And yet, amazingly, the church (God's visible presence on earth) is hesitant to embrace change. We have become so concerned about orthodoxy that we spend all our time defending what we think we know and very little time investigating what is not known or needs to be changed from how we do things. If I have learned anything in studying Practical Theology at the PhD level it is that the idea of change is integral to the whole idea of what God is doing "on the ground." If we are not responding to the work of the Holy Spirit in the world today then we have lost the connection we must have with the Living Christ. We dare not substitute an "orthodoxy" for a real presence.
So, I watch the NFL draft. Not because I am a football fan but because I am a change fan. These young men will spend a couple of hours waiting to hear how their lives will change. Teams will draft them, sign them for millions of dollars (the first pick this year received almost 30 million dollars - guaranteed), and join a group of players whose lives may be changed by the contribution of this new player to their team. Change. It is a religious experience. I understand that change can be uncomfortable, even painful. Believe me, I have experienced more change in the last couple of years than most. Joanie and I have moved, changed lifestyles, gone back to school, and experienced an entire financial and relational change. It has even continued this week as Joanie has found out that her teaching position has been cut and she will not have a job next year. She has lovingly been the breadwinner for us in this venture at Fuller. I know she does not relish either the job search process nor the uncertainty of not knowing where she will be working in the Fall. But, change is a normal part of life that should be embraced as something that God produces or provides. Joanie has been considering looking for a new job and has been praying what she should do. This decision is the answer she has been seeking (maybe not the way but surely the answer). But it will require her to make some significant changes.
When change comes or is thrust upon you, one of the things you have to do is embrace the possibilities that God is at work. This does not mean we can be foolish with our choices but it does mean that when things happen you look to see what Christ is doing. And so, we are seeing how God's hand is at work in our lives.
Sure would be easier if I was drafted by the NFL and got a million dollar contract. Surely every NFL team needs a slow, old white guy to play for them. If they do , I'm ready. Is that God's hand? It would be if I got drafted.

The Presence of the Word

I am working on an understanding of a philosophy of practical theology. In May, I have to answer that question during one of my comprehensive exams. It is a fundamental question for anyone in ministry, though I had never quite thought about it in the terms I do now after taking a seminar on the subject. During the seminar I was quite affected by the writing and teaching of Ray Anderson. He is a semi-retired professor here at Fuller. He is a prolific writer and quite a teacher. His PhD is in Systematic Theology but he has spent the majority of his academic life working in the area of Practical Theology.
What Dr. Anderson has developed is a rationale for a praxis-theory-praxis model for Practical Theology. If you are interested in his work, the book I am using is called, "The Shape of Practical Theology." In it, he makes the case that Practical Theology (indeed all theology) must be based on the concept of what he calls Christopraxis. Now, let me try and explain all of this in terms I can understand!
First, praxis means practice. So, all theology begins with practice. This is very different than how Systematic Theology (the king of theological studies in graduate school). Systematics begins with theory. All theology begins with theory, philosophy. Anderson says that all ministry begins with practice. In other words, if the Holy Spirit is active and leading in all of life and ministry and if Jesus Christ is really resurrected from the dead, then God is still at work in our lives and in our ministries. So far so good? It sounds like good, solid Church of God theology.
What Practical Theology then states is that we interpret the movement of God in the practice of ministry (Anderson does say that the praxis he is describing is more than just practice but it it theory laden praxis - by that he means that our praxis already has a theological, biblical rationale behind it). Here is where his theology gets interesting. If we find that what God is doing "on the ground" differs from our theology, we should then begin to look at our theology and see if it is wrong. At that point your praxis informs your theory. If your theory (theology) disagrees with the praxis, you must be willing to look hard at the theology to see if it is accurate. That means you have to be willing to look at some very entrenched theological ideas in a very different light. Maybe, you will have to change your theology to fit the practice. I know of few church groups, seminaries, or ministers that are prepared to change their theological framework because they see something different going on in a local ministry situation.
When I spoke with Dr. Anderson about his theology, I told him that I thought his book was powerful, intriguing, and dangerous. He agreed. But up until this week, I wasn't quite sure how dangerous and difficult it might be. When Anderson diagrams this out he puts Christopraxis (the praxis of what Christ is doing) in the middle of the diagram. Theological reflection and determination are moved from their usual place at the center to one of the outer rims. For Anderson, Christ is at the center of everything. He supports this with the idea that the praxis of Christ will never be in conflict with scripture. But if it is, we should be willing to change how we read and understand the scriptures.
The dangerous part of this comes from the Reformation (No, not Warner but Luther). When the Protestant Reformation took hold, Luther based his stance on two things: salvation by faith (alone) and "sola scriptura" (scripture alone). I still believe in the first. The second one is in question. The Wikipedia article on sola scriptura defines it thusly: "Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by scripture alone") is the assertion that the Bible as God's written word is self-authenticating, clear (perspicuous) to the rational reader, its own interpreter ("Scripture interprets Scripture"), and sufficient of itself to be the final authority of Christian doctrine." If one is to embrace the theology of Anderson then you must also be willing to take the doctrine of sola scriptura out of the center of the diagram. Let me be clear. This does not mean that you either disbelieve or devalue scripture. Quite the contrary. It just means that the bible is not the center of your theology - Christ is. Scripture is both the Word of God and the voice of God. God's voice in praxis disagrees with God's voice in the Word, one of them must be wrong.
In his book, Anderson talks about the issue of gender. He details his journey through the women in ministry debate and how, through what God was doing on the ground, he began to challenge the accepted doctrine that women couldn't be in ministry. The praxis they observed caused them to challenge the accepted exegesis of scripture that women could not be accepted in ministry. After finding numerous positive biblical examples and problems related to how those doctrinal positions were exegeted, Anderson helped change the position of Fuller to allow women to study for the pastoral ministry. He believed the praxis and changed the way he viewed scripture. In another chapter he takes on the issue of homosexuality. He talks about how many homosexuals claim that they can be believers in Christ and continue to live the gay lifestyle. Anderson found that there were no positive statements in scripture nor was there one single example of a positive homosexual person or act anywhere in scripture. At this point, he disagreed with the praxis principle.
One final thought. By moving the principle of scripture from the center to the outer layer of Anderson's diagram, I think I am moving closer to the principles of the early saints of the Church of God. Warner was someone who believed strongly in the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit (certainly a form of Christopraxis). There are numerous stories of the pioneers of this Movement being led by the Spirit to act in certain ways that were contrary to the normally accepted theological idea. When we took things into our own hands (like when the brethren suggested that blacks might be better having their own camp meeting) we lose the movement of the Holy Spirit and get our eyes off of Christ.

Einstien's Brain

I just finished a paper for my seminar. It is on creativity and how the brain functions. Here is the opening of the paper. It is an unforgettable and true story.

When Albert Einstein died on April 18, 1955 he was one of the most celebrated and respected men in the world. His scientific genius was recognized as extraordinary. Dubbed the greatest scientist of the 20^th Century, he was listed among the most influential people in the history of the world.[1] Time Magazine, on the eve of the new millennium, named him the most influential person of the century.[2] After his death, the body of Einstein was moved to the morgue of Princeton Hospital and Thomas Harvey, the pathologist on call that evening performed the autopsy. From that moment forward, the odyssey of Einstein’s brain would take a series of twists and turns that would not resolve themselves for more than four decades.

Harvey performed a routine autopsy that night, though without apparent cause or a request from the family (though permission was obtained after the autopsy was completed). Einstein had left specific instructions for the disposal of his remains. They were to be cremated and the ashes spread anonymously to discourage thrill seekers and souvenir hunters. Harvey, either unaware of these wishes or caught up in the emotion of the moment (or both), removed the eyes and gave them to Henry Abrams, Einstein’s eye doctor. But the strangest act that night was what happened to the brain. Harvey, apparently at the request of his mentor and Einstein’s personal physician Dr. Harry Zimmer, removed the brain from the skull and took it home. Harvey was not a neurologist nor did he have any training in the brain other than the normal pathological understandings related to postmortem disease, injury or atrophy. He took the brain for reasons that can only be speculated. Once the loss was discovered, Harvey refused to return Einstein’s brain to the pathology department. He was fired from his job as a pathologist. Not long after, he took the brain to Philadelphia where a technician sectioned it off into hundreds of blocks for study. Encased in celloidin (a substance used to embed tissues for microscopic examination) the brain was placed in a plastic container and Harvey took it home and put it in his house. It would remain there for the next 40 years.[3]

Periodically, Harvey would take out the brain to cut off a slice for some scientist who was requesting research material. He tried, unsuccessfully, to interest the larger scientific community in researching the nature of his prized possession. Finally, at the age of 80, Harvey packed up Einstein’s brain and put it in the trunk of his Buick Skylark. Accompanied by a writer named Michael Peterniti, they took off across the country to return what was left of the prized brain to its rightful heir, Einstein’s granddaughter. After traveling all the way to California, she refused to take possession of the gruesome artifact. In the end, the brain was finally returned to where this whole bizarre story began – to the pathologist at Princeton that held the same job Harvey had when he first took the brain some four decades earlier.[4]

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[1] Michael H. Hart, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History (New York: Hart Pub. Co., 1978).

[2] Frederic Golden, "Person of the Century: Albert Einstein," Time Magazine 2000.

[3] Brian Burrell, Postcards from the Brain Museum: The Improbable Search for Meaning in the Matter of Famous Minds, 1st ed. (New York: Broadway Books, 2004).

[4] Michael Paterniti, Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip across America with Einstein's Brain (New York: Dial Press, 2000).

Dr. Gilbert Stafford

After commenting on the death of Horace Sheppard, Sr. I did not think I would have to return to eulogize another colleague and influential mentor so quickly. However, I received word the other night that another friend and person of great influence in my life, Dr. Gil Stafford, passed away after suffering from cancer over the last year. He spent more than three decades teaching at the Church of God Seminary in Anderson. He spoke for years on CBH, the radio voice of the Church of God. He wrote some of the most helpful and provocative books for the church to use. He was a voice of scholarship, faith, outreach, and unity. For years he served on the Faith and Order Commission of the Council of Churches - reaching out across the denominational divide. He taught and encouraged women in ministry - reaching across the gender divide. He spoke through radio to anyone who would listen and spoke in love - reaching across the believer-unbeliever divide. He spoke to both the laity and the student - reaching across the educational divide. Very few have done as much to live out the message of unity that was central to Gil's theology and to the theology of the Church of God Movement. And few did it with greater grace or humility.
The loss of Gil Stafford to the life of the church is a huge one. His voice and character will be greatly missed. My son, Jonathan, went to the funeral and called me following the service. He mentioned that he had trouble taking his eyes off the set communion table that was sitting conspicuously in the middle of the chancel. He knew it was there purposefully. Gil was one of the best I ever sat under in leading a communion service. The last time I had the privilege was a meeting of church leaders in Colorado Springs some years back. With 300 delegates representing the church across North America, it was quite a gathering of folks. Several papers were presented. Numerous presentations. But the highlight was Gil leading us to the Table of the Lord. He just had a way.
I know the Seminary is hurting at the loss of a friend and leader. I know that it is also in a transitional phase as they make decisions about new staffing for the graduate school. May I suggest that those who read this blog spend a few moments praying for the seminary community and the university community. In so many ways those places have been molded by the gentle voice of a giant of a man.