Rogers refuted

I particularly enjoyed reading the articles in the January issue — something for everyone. Among the articles I found most interesting was the feature on Rick Warren, Chuck Congram’s take on relationships, the informative Presby-Assyrians and the funny piece on a Canadian comic in New York. I even found it interesting to look up the meaning of “zeitgeist,” which made Andrew Faiz’s treatise Jesus Good, dealing with acceptance/love of all people, understandable and interest-piquing. Now to find out about the on-line program Opening the Doors to Discipleship as advertised on the back cover.

Rhetorical pinpricks
Re Secular Militants, November

Theists have a much better case than atheists for explaining such things as the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of physical constants that make life possible, the origin of biological information in DNA, the objectivity of morality, the existence of human consciousness and rationality and the existence of non-utilitarian value (such as self-sacrifical love), just to name a few.And, as a Christian theist, allow me to also add the resurrection of Jesus.

John McTavish is correct in pointing out that the atheist’s trump card, the problem of evil, itself presupposes the existence of God.If there is no absolute standard of goodness, i.e., God, then evil is simply a bunch of stuff “the atheist doesn’t happen to like.”

These books fail to do the hard work of engaging the theistic arguments of contemporary theologians and philosophers such as N.T. Wright and Alvin Plantinga.If they did, they might be more circumspect and somewhat less vociferous in their opinions.In the meantime, I think Christians, at least, can endure the rhetorical pinpricks from this recent spate of skeptical attacks on our faith.

It has been my experience that if you delve beneath the hard exterior of most atheists you will find a one-time believer. The person has suffered a deep spiritual wound and they have turned upon God. They see the deep hurt as God lashing out at them. They are fighting back against this insensitive God.

In their incessant denial of God they are picking at the scab covering their wound. The more vicious their denial of God the deeper was their faith. How else could anyone be convincing in this tirade of hate.

Learn war no more

I was disappointed in the Christmas message from the editor. It reminded me of warnings about political writing from George Orwell in his essay, Politics and the English Language: “Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” Similarly, Harris indicates that Canadian military intervention in Afghanistan creates “possibilities for peace” and that “peace is a messy business.”

Harris omitted an essential component of a Christmas message from a Presbyterian publication: the prophetic tradition. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Re A Call For Peace, October News

How could the PCC justify negotiating with a group of thugs and terrorists such as the Taliban who stand against everything not only Presbyterians, but Canadians as a nation believe: Freedom of religion, speech, education for all and equal opportunity for women.

We are faithfully engaged when our democratically elected government lived up to our international obligations by engaging the Taliban in their efforts to impose their morally corrupt system on a downtrodden and helpless nation.

Our troops are not only fighting, they are assisting the people of Afghanistan to better their lives and arrive at a point where they are the sole masters of their own country. One in which they can know true democracy and the feeling of living in peace not fear.

Calling on the west

We have subscribed to your publication for a few years now and enjoy the great articles on what our wonderful church is doing world wide and locally here in Canada. But we wonder why there is very little written with regards to western Canada, mainly the prairies.

The Record has very little western content. We here on the prairies would love to show you our lives too. What do you think?

The editor responds:

We are open to every voice, from every church. If you have a story to share, write to mngeditor@pccweb.ca/presbyterianrecord.

Love in action

The Record‘s October editorial was pushing dialogue with Muslims. The same day I got a report from The Mustard Seed, a faith mission in Taiwan. They have become self-supporting and are reaching out to others around them in Southeast Asia. Here there are Muslim and Hindu communities in rural areas with no school or medical centres. When asked by the leaders, “How could we help you?” The answer is always, “Please give us schools for our children”.

So they are building and staffing a building that is used seven days a week. During the day it is a school. In the afternoons and evenings it is a medical clinic. On week-ends, it is a youth centre and on Sundays it is used to worship. This seems to me a better plan than dialoguing with people who don’t have any idea of God’s love in giving His Son to save us from our sins. Here they see God’s love in action through His people.

PS: The article on Afghanistan was good. I pulled it out and gave it to a friend whose son is over there trying to help the people as a Canadian soldier.

Telling it as it is

A word of appreciation is in order for moderator Hans Kouwenberg’s November column. How refreshing to find no indulgence in church back-patting but a solemn warning of the need to return to our roots serving our Lord and Saviour. Such an observation is itself recognition of the Presbyterian Church in Canada having drifted dangerously in practice from unquestioned centrability of Jesus Christ Himself to a primary concern for its own denominational identity and prestige. It is hoped that many readers of the Record, especially church leaders, will be awakened enough by this moderatorial challenge to become willing to receive God’s gift of “repentance unto life” as were the Gentiles in the days of the Apostle Paul. Thank you Hans for “telling it as it is.”

Readers respond to the Record’s November editorial

I am troubled by the editor’s nearly-libelous comments about Carey Nieuwhof’s leadership. Since when is seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance on what it means to be the church a grave sin? Since when is following God’s vision a grave sin? Since when is leading people biblically, authentically and passionately a grave sin?

I consider it a grave loss to The Presbyterian Church in Canada to have lost Carey and the people who have formed Connexus Community Church, but it is no loss for them to have lost us. Perhaps it has not occurred to the editor that God can call a congregation and its leadership away from something institutional in order to fulfill God’s vision for what the church can really be. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all of us had the courage to follow where God leads?

Those who have spoken disparagingly of Carey’s ministry seem to me to have not bothered interrupting their tongue-clucking to check their facts. I wouldn’t pretend to suggest that the former leadership of Trinity Community Presbyterian Church did everything perfectly, but I do suggest that this experience has something to teach us as a people seeking to be responsive to the leading of the Spirit — if we will stop to listen.

As a former leader of Trinity — and now a leader at Connexus, I was saddened by the comments of David Harris concerning our decision to move forward spreading the Gospel.

Harris’s comment that we have “abandoned the Presbyterian Church’s theology and supplanted it with our own interpretation of Scripture” illustrates why I felt it a wise decision to leave.

What if I have, after much prayer, discussion and biblical review, come to conclusions that differ from the theology of the Presbyterian Church. After all, I am not saved by the Presbyterian Church.

Let’s get one thing straight: “The One Thing,” says Tony Campolo. “The one certainty against which all our theologies are guesswork. ‘This one thing I know,’ the apostle Paul wrote: ‘Jesus, and how his crucifixion delivers us from sin, and how his resurrection assures us of eternal life.'”

Campolo continues, “I believe these are unquestionable absolutes for all Christians — and perhaps the only absolutes. In the end, God’s truth is not a theology, but a person. Our faith is not about Jesus Christ, not based on Jesus Christ — it is Jesus Christ.”

Harris, in his judgmental, self-righteous, phariseeical review of Carey Nieuwhof and the process through which two new churches have emerged to spread the gospel, confirmed my decision to follow God’s lead (not Carey Nieuwhof’s lead) and help Connexus lead people to a knowledge of Jesus.

As far as Harris’ comment that Mr. Nieuwhof’s actions amount to “a grave sin,” how pretentious.

I was unaware that Christians of all denominations sin when our theologies and interpretations of scripture don’t match perfectly with the Presbyterian Church’s theology.

Davey, an apology is in order.

I was gratified to read in your December 2007 issue that Trinty Oro might be more than a remnant and there is a good possibility that it could become a viable congregation. However, I was very distressed to hear that Rev. Carey Nieuwhof found it necessary to take his 1,000 plus members and adherents out of the PCC. Our denomination cannot afford to lose one of our largest congregations in Canada.

Given the power and authority of our Presbytery, I know they acted in good faith to address the concerns of Rev. Nieuwhof. However, I can’t help think that our bureaucratic structures have become an impediment to the development of new style ministries, new churches, and approaches that would sustain our church well into the future.

In today’s fast paced world, opportunities come quickly and we can’t afford to wait for reports from our various levels of government whether it’s the Presbyteries, the National Church or General Assembly.

It seems that a small voice of dissent opposed to the development of a new church or ministry can make sure that proposals are bogged down in our courts for long periods of time until the energy and opportunities are lost. In a powerful sermon I heard recently, it was stated that ” it doesn’t matter that the water (God’s message) comes out of a glass, a porcelain vessel or a paper cup.” We must be open and able to respond swiftly to new, different and vibrant ministries that spawn within the confines of our church.

To paraphrase scripture, “the harvest is now” and we cannot afford to wait. In my darkest moments, I sometimes fear that we have become the Pharisees.

It was with deep sadness, regret and astonishment that I had occasion to read David Harris’ editorial entitled “A Grave Sin” which criticized Rev. Nieuwhof’s and his congregation’s departure from the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The criticism leveled at Rev. Nieuwhof was excessive, amounting to nothing less than a severe and needless religious condemnation of a church minister who has attempted to apply the Gospel of Christ which has apparently met with resounding success in terms of large numbers of previously unchurched individuals coming to know Jesus Christ.

At a time when numbers in the Presbyterian Church in Canada have been declining rapidly over the past decades, we as a national church body should be rejoicing that Rev. Nieuwhof has been able to attract such large numbers to Trinity, Oro with such evangelical zeal, some of whom are apparently traveling more than 90 minutes to attend service. In the same breath, we should also be gravely concerned that we failed to accomodate Rev. Nieuwhof’s ministry and congregation within the broader Presbyterian Church in Canada. I seriously doubt that, as alleged, Rev. Nieuwhof used his “position and authority as a spiritual leader to persuade others in [his] care to abandon the church and its teaching.” Quite the contrary, it is clear that it is the national church body that abandoned Rev. Nieuwhof and his congregation. In recent years, evangelical Christians have become quite alarmed and distressed about the direction that the world-wide Presbyterian Church has taken and appears will be taking in the years to come. Whether it be on the issue of homosexual marriage, the ordination of practicing homosexuals, sexual orientation, abortion, or the authority and interpretation of Scripture, evangelical Christians are growing frustrated and tired about what can only be characterized as a continuous stream of fluid and fuzzy pronouncements coming from national church bodies. Through this continuous stream, such churches risk becoming irrelevant to the communities they purport to serve. These national church bodies are failing to recognize that large numbers of people are looking for a concrete Christian-belief system which is not subject to ever-changing cultural and secular practices in modern-day western society. One only has to look at the educational system, the society in which we live, the policies of our politicians both on domestic and foreign issues to realize that individuals like myself, a professional raising a young family with my professional-working wife, are uncomfortable and distressed and are looking for a church with evangelical zeal that is steadfast and unyielding in its commitment to the Gospel of Christ, a strong Sunday school and youth group providing guidance for our children and a social conscience addressing the spiritual, economic and social needs in the community in which it serves. Fortunately, for my family, we have found such a church and minister at St. Andrew’s Islington in west Toronto. I can only presume that it would appear that many have also found such a church and minister at Trinity, Oro.

The Presbyterian Church in Canada has had some success in recent years in establishing separate and successful presbyteries based on ethnic background, something which I myself have been uneasy with. Perhaps the Presbyterian Church in Canada should start to consider greater accommodation to evangelical churches or else risk losing more and more numbers in the national church body. And we cannot do this at a snail’s pace. In the end, I would suggest that it was a “grave sin” for David Harris to write about his disagreement with Rev. Nieuwhof in the way he did. I would respectfully submit that the next time David Harris has such a disagreement, he write his article leaving out the unnecessary religious condemnation and attack. Otherwise, he invariably risks drawing lines in the sand and provoking others like myself to begin discussing with other evangelical Presbyterians whether we too should follow Dr. Nieuwhof’s lead because of a failure to accommodate.

I hadn’t realized that the Presbyterian Church in Canada considered the sacrament of baptism as “the most important Christian sacrament” as mentioned in the Record’s November editorial. To my reading of Living Faith and the Westminster Confession of Faith there is no such ranking between baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It should be noted, though, that the W.C.F. (chp. 28, sec. 5) states “grace and salvation are not so inseparably connected with it (baptism) that a person cannot be regenerated or saved without it.” This underscores Living Faith’s affirmation (3.6.1): “Salvation comes from God’s grace alone received through faith in Christ.”

I was appalled by David Harris’ November editorial.

The depth of my reaction has nothing to do with the issues surrounding the situation in Oro. As in most things in this world, there are likely compelling arguments that can be made in support of all sides of this issue. My disapproval relates to Mr. Harris’ decision to make the issue personal, directed pointedly and individually at Rev. Nieuwhof. Most specifically, by what “authority” has Mr. Harris taken on the role of judge, determining Nieuwhof to be guilty of “a grave sin?”

Are we not governed as Christians by standards of prudence in how our opinions of others get expressed? I don’t accept that a public opinion piece in a national publication represents the appropriate forum. I would suggest that Mr. Harris owes Mr. Nieuwhof a personal and possibly public apology.

The headline from the Record reads “Oro votes to leave denomination.” It’s not easy to know what to do with news of this sort. In the past half century, I cannot recall having seen anything like it in our denomination.

A very large congregation in the heartland of Canadian Presbyterianism (southwestern Ontario) has decided to leave us. No issues of theology or doctrine are named but there is a problem with the flexibility of the structures. Trinity Community Church in Oro would like to expand by establishing satellite congregations. A generation ago the technology to do so did not exist. Now it does.

The situation pulls a spotlight over to it. Our polity was designed in another era. The rapidity of technological and social change among us makes it difficult to respond quickly. I heard the first response of grief from the denomination the other day at the meeting of our church’s most westerly synod. One speaker lamented the loss that, according to him, pointed to the PCC’s inhibiting of mission, rather than its support of the missional energies of its people.

Is it possible that the divorce will be temporary and that there will be recommitment as soon as we get our act together? Possibly. I’m too far removed from this congregation to know how the people are thinking. The unwritten law of churches seems to say that, once a congregation leaves a mainline denomination, it is in no hurry to return.

It remains for Presbyterians to grieve. In the process of grief they will ask many questions about our polity. The Reformation of half a millennium ago encouraged us to ask in every generation: How shall we understand the Church? In the process and aftermath of grief we’ll need to ask about making our structures a little better oiled, more responsive. We can have a structure that blesses us as we fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus, or, we can have a structure that produces gridlock. The making of that choice is an imperative – not to decide is to decide!

Discussions in our household have surfaced the needs of some remote churches in our region for this kind of ministry. Maybe a congregation that is too small for the usual minimal package – one that includes the payment of a minister’s stipend and expenses – could add this choice to its list of possibilities. Of course they could also choose to be a multi-point charge or to form a cluster ministry, but these models do not always fit. I wonder what would happen if a presbytery decided to allow one of its congregations to pursue this “satellite church” option with Trinity, a congregation no longer a part of The Presbyterian Church in Canada?! Eyebrows would be raised, I’m sure, but it might work.

In all this discussion there may be “an elephant in the room”, as they say. On the worldwide scene we are experiencing something known as “globalization”.

Economies once regulated by the national government are now governed by a large (often multinational) corporation. The laws of the marketplace, big business, replace the laws of elected people. An example of how it hurts is the closing of a local plant and the moving of jobs to a cheaper labour market, somewhere across the planet. It all happens without a voice for the people in the affected community, nor even the voice of the government of the nation.

The same inner dynamics that work for the economy, will also work for organizations of all sorts. It could mean that oversight that once came from the church courts, now comes from Oro or from Point Ministries in Alpharetta, Georgia. There is something about God-with-us that is always so very local. Even the regional governance of the Presbyterians (presbyteries, and the like) are little more than cooperatives, sharing the wisdom and discernment of the local congregation with locals elsewhere.

Globalization may be something that we just have to deal with in our age. As it is with common law marriage, perhaps we just have to find a way of being the church in a context where that’s the way of it.

Proponents will likely argue that the church is not a parallel to the global economy and that none of this would ever happen. Possibly the church can overcome the top-down power structures of the corporations. But I’m not comfortable going there too quickly. It’s a discussion that needs to happen. Maybe we can model something that more resembles the Realm of God as a witness to Christ among us. There may be more theology in this decision than first meets the eye. Trinity Community Church has put up on our screens a lot of homework that must be done within The Presbyterian Church in Canada.

I just read the article about Trinity Community Church in the December issue of the Presbyterian Record and want to say that as a mature long-time Christian I always felt fed, inspired and encouraged by Carey’s messages at Trinity. I have attended many church services during my 57 years and found Trinity quite by accident. I was turned on to a church as never before — enough to drive 40 minutes every Sunday to the 8:30 service from Penetanguishene! I now feel like a lost soul, since the drive to south Barrie or Orillia is just that much farther and the 8:30 service is no longer. I am now searching for a church closer to home that can provide me with the same uplifting message and experience that I had from Trinity. Not an easy task! The Presbyterian Church made a HUGE mistake in not finding a way to keep Trinity\’s ministry within its denomination!