Category Archives: Topics

February 19, 2016

East Meets West: Francis and Kirill Made History Last Week

By Clarke Morledge
Roman Catholic Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill made history in February, 2016. (Photo credit: Edgar Jimenez / Flickr | Larry Koester / Flickr)

Roman Catholic Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill made history in February, 2016. (Photo credit: Edgar Jimenez / Flickr | Larry Koester / Flickr)

I recently attended a Roman Catholic funeral mass for a neighbor of mine. It had been years since I had attended a Catholic memorial service. Catholic worshipers genuflected, as the sanctuary filled up with smoke from the priest’s incense, an ancient practice of the church, things that you would never see in my Protestant Evangelical church. It reminded me of just how disconnected Protestant Evangelicals can become from other traditions within greater Christendom….

In my town, the two largest churches are made up of Protestant Evangelicals (my church) and the Roman Catholics, respectively. A number of decades ago, a group of families from Greece settled in the area, and opened up a bunch of restaurants. These families became the backbone of a relatively new Greek Orthodox church in town, opened just a few years ago.

Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants make up the three great wings of Christianity, and yet these traditions are often isolated from one another. In general, Protestant Evangelicals know about Roman Catholics, but their reactions to Catholicism are mixed. Some are curiously fascinated with the traditions associated with Catholicism, and they are drawn to certain aspects of Catholic piety. They read their Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, and J.R.R. Tolkien, and they like the idea of going off to a Catholic monastery once in awhile for a retreat. But they do not always understand the whole “transubstantiation” thing… much less the incense. On the other side are those who have run as far away as they can from Rome, ditching their rosary as an “instrument of Satan,” believing that not a lot has really changed since the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. But probably, most Evangelicals stand somewhere in the middle, curious… yet cautious… about the Roman pontiff and his followers, … and those funny looking hats the Pope wears.

Evangelicals know even less about the Eastern Orthodox, such as the Greeks who have those restaurants in town. The Orthodox have the funny hats, too. The Orthodox have their “smells and bells,” which for the typical Protestant Evangelical leads to great bemusement. “But are they really Christians?,” many perplexed Protestant Evangelicals will honestly ask. That is what you get when you rely on movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding for information about the Eastern church.

This sense of unfamiliarity is probably why last week’s meeting between Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill does not register on the typical Protestant Evangelical radar. But it really should.

When Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill embraced one another in Cuba, it was the first time in about 1,000 years since the chief leader of the Roman Catholic church met with one of the highest ranking leaders in Eastern Orthodoxy. In 1054, the Eastern and Western churches split, technically about a relatively obscure dispute over a line in the Nicene Creed, the filioque controversy, but mostly it was over who was really leading the church: was it the bishop of Rome, the Pope, or was it a college of bishops, as advocated by the great churches of the East?

The closest analogy in the Protestant Evangelical world that could come to mind is if cessessationist Bible teacher, John MacArthur, would have a meeting and a handshake with charismatic evangelist, Joyce Meyer. Now, that would rock a lot of people’s worlds!

It is difficult to say what might come of this meeting between the Pope and the Russian church leader. It was not like the Pope was meeting with all of the Eastern Orthodox leaders.  The balance of influence wielded by the Greek, Russian, Antiochene, and various other Eastern churches is a sensitive matter. Both leaders made a joint plea  for unity and a call to aid Syrian and other Christians, enduring hardship due to war, and the threat of terrible persecution.

Nevertheless, it was historic. Could this be the start of some real reconciliation? Christianity Today’s coverage of the meeting is worth reading.

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February 18, 2016

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Story of Don McClanen

By Clarke Morledge

Don McClanen was a young, college basketball coach when he persisted and persisted to have a meeting with Branch Rickey. Rickey, who is most known today as the Brooklyn Dodgers executive, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, by signing Jackie Robinson, finally met with McClanen for an historic five hour meeting. It was out of this meeting that the vision for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) was born in 1954.

Don McClanen died this week at the age of 91.

I was not much of an athlete in college, but when the track and field coach of the local high school and a student called me to find out if I would play guitar at their local FCA meetings, I accepted. FCA meets in groups called “huddles,” and I was impressed by the fact that on many campuses, FCA was often the only interdenominational Christian fellowship group encouraging young people to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ through prayer, Bible study and worship.

It is quite common now for professional athletes to make bold proclamations of their faith in public, but this would be hard to imagine if it  had not been for Don McClanen’s commitment to reach young people for Jesus. McClanen’s personal vision for FCA was in response to reading that at least 17 million American youth in the early 1950s had no church experience or exposure to the Gospel.

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February 11, 2016

People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue

By Clarke Morledge
People To Be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue, by Preston Sprinkle. Moving past the culture wars to love people with biblical truth.

People To Be Loved: Why Homosexuality is Not Just an Issue, by Preston Sprinkle. Moving past the culture wars to listen…. and love people with biblical truth.

What is THE number one issue impacting the evangelical church today, especially among young people? Some may think I am going out on a limb here to be so bold. Okay. I get that. But I am going to say it anyway.

I am not a betting person, but if I did wager, I think I would be right on this one: If you actually have a frank conversation with people under the age of 30 in the church today, it should not be difficult to arrive at a consensus: the issue, broadly speaking, is about gender and its relationship to sexuality. This would include issues like transgender, same-sex marriage, and same-sex attraction in general. What does it mean to be male? Or female? Young people, particularly those already in our churches, have a lot of questions about these issues and what the Bible has to say about them. But let us focus in on one of these in particular: homosexuality.

Unless you have been living in a cave for the past twenty years, you might have noticed a gigantic sea change regarding public opinion regarding same-sex attraction in Western culture. Hollywood personalities, like Ellen Degeneres, have in a sense, normalized social acceptance of same-sex behavior. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declared same-sex marriage to be a legal right. Even Super Bowl Half-Time shows appear to be joining in on the cultural realignment, in the minds of many. The situation has been building for some time, but looking back, it seems like the changes have been happening overnight.

When I have had discussions with Christians since the June, 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, most have voiced the sentiment that America is going to “hell in a hand basket.” For many believers, this recent mega-shift in Western culture is an indication of a spirally downward decadence of a once Christian culture. Many fear that we have become Sodom and Gomorrah. Conservative Christian intellectuals wring their hands over what to do about the crisis of morality in the West.

The issue at a cultural level is indeed significant. We could spend a lot of energy debating what many consider to be cultural moral decline.

However, that is not what I want to talk about here. Can we shift gears on this discussion? Because the issue is deeper than Supreme Court decisions. The issue hits a lot closer to home.

It involves our churches.

It involves people with names, hurts and stories.

It involves family members, children of Christian parents, neighbors, co-workers, and friends.

It probably involves someone you know.

Homosexuality is not just an issue.

It is about people to be loved.

Chances are very high that a young person growing up today, in an evangelical church, personally knows of someone, perhaps even a close friend, who struggles with questions of same-sex attraction. But such a friendship puts that young person into a real quandary. Many Christians somehow “know” that the Bible condemns homosexuality, but they simply do not know how to care for friends or family members who wrestle with feelings of same-sex attraction. They know somehow that same-sex marriage is wrong, but what do you say to someone in your school, workplace, or church who admits, “Hey, I think I might be gay?”

Sadly, most local churches are not equipped to handle these type of issues. There are a few cases where someone, who has questions about their own same-sex attraction feelings can talk to a friend or small group about their dilemma. But these situations are sadly rare. If someone has mustered up the courage to step forward to tell their pastor or other trusted Christian leader that they have some sort of same-sex attraction, many times they are met with an awkward response.  Some are gently told to keep quiet, as this is an embarrassing type of sin. Or, it is simply too controversial to talk about in a local church setting. So, the same-sex attracted person is then encouraged to find help in some para-church ministry, shuttled off to talk with some expert or Christian psychotherapist outside of the local church for support.

In some cases, these type of para-church support systems work. Many times, however, they do not. The worst cases end in tragedy. Teenagers who wrestle with their sexuality are getting thrown out of their Christian homes, something that justifiably enrages mainstream journalists. The suicide rate of people who struggle with same-sex attraction type issues is staggering, and many blame the Christian church for the problem.

Many Christians today are seeing how badly things are going with this type of approach to homosexuality. Some, like young author Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, argue that evangelical Christians need to change their view on homosexuality, simply accepting that same-sex behavior through gay and lesbian marriage is actually a good thing and approved of by God. Vines, and others, go on to argue that Christians who oppose same-sex marriage are simply “on the wrong side of history” and need to get over their “fear” of the homosexual.

In response, some people simply refuse to talk about the subject and prefer to sweep it under the rug.

Others are saying, “Hey, not so fast. We get the idea that the church has been handling the issue of homosexuality in the church rather poorly.  This is a point well taken. But perhaps we need to rethink this a bit more before dismissing two-thousand years of Christian teaching. Let us take another look at what is going on. What does the Bible actually teach on this subject?”

I know that the emotions are intense. A number of Christian families I know are deeply divided. In some circles, talking about “same-sex attraction” has become a taboo, for fear of offending someone. Some families know that there are simply some conversation topics at Christmas dinner that are not to be discussed!

The reputation of the church has suffered in the midst of this crisis. Blogger Rachel Held Evans is worth listening to here. Evans notes that according to author David Kinnaman, in his book unChristian, a recent Barna Group survey among Americans 16-29 years old indicates that the word “anti-homosexual” is the most common word that describes the Christian faith.

Really? I mean, I surely would not want to be associated with any group or movement primarily known for hating people, whether that be same-sex attracted people, much less anyone else!

This issue does not and will not go away. The names and faces of people who have the courage to speak up about their own sexual struggles still trouble us. How does someone, who does not have a super-deep knowledge of the Bible, know what to think? Has the church really been wrong on this for two-thousand years?

Continue reading

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February 2, 2016

The Eagle and Child in All of Us

By John Paine

And let us hold unwaveringly to the hope that we confess, for the one who made the promise is trustworthy. And let us take thought of how to spur one another on to love and good works, not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and even more so because you see the day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:23-25, NET)

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Outside Christ Church College, Oxford. One of the most beautiful and profoundly ‘magical’ places we have ever been. Scenes from Harry Potter movies were shot here. Albert Einstein, John Locke, John Wesley, Lewis Carroll, and 13 of the 26 Prime Ministers from Oxford studied here. Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland was inspired here, and Alice was the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church.

Yesterday, Marion and I travelled to Oxford and had a late lunch in the renowned Eagle and Child pub, where a group of famous Christians met regularly to encourage one another. We sat in the same nook where J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and others discussed ideas that shaped some of the most significant English literature to come out of the twentieth century. I couldn’t help feeling a little exuberant, so I took a few snaps with my cell phone and sent them off to friends and family.

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I really didn’t want to write this post. I’ve never read any Tolkien. I’m no C.S. Lewis scholar. I find it difficult to read Lewis’ philosophical theology, preferring instead to listen to his books using Audible. His writing is undeniably brilliant and packed with words that connect the intellect to our faith. But as Dick Woodward once told me, “C.S. Lewis made things complicated, but I spent my entire ministry trying to make them simple—so people would understand.” One of the great wonders of the Christian Faith is that it works on both very simple and very complex levels.

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Tuesday mornings at the Eagle and Child pub. This is where Tolkien, Lewis and others sat. The Gloucester sausages and steak and ale pie were quite good. We were late for lunch, so it wasn’t too crowded.

When Clarke received our photos from the Eagle and Child, he prodded me, reluctantly, into writing this post. But it occurred to me while sitting in the Eagle and Child that I have experienced and benefitted from the encouragement of some wonderful brothers and sisters. Brothers like Dave Thompson who will send long, deep, profound emails of encouragement at all hours of the night. And Dave Rudy, who always can add to any topic I may bring up (it’s amazing how much Dave has studied and absorbed). And Rob Campbell, who is the most devotionally devoted person I have ever met (and a finer friend you could not have). And Clarke Morledge himself, with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things theological and hermeneutical (his zeal is as contagious as his heart). And Ken Petzinger, a Princeton-educated physicist who is living proof that Christians also come with extreme intellectual capacity (and who always has something current to share from his personal studies). And Dick Woodward, who was such an encourager and gifted teacher. And Iris Rudy, who is such a good listener (and who commands respect when she speaks). And Tina Campbell, who works at being the most compassionate and hospitable person I know (and succeeds magnificently). And Marion, whom I could never thank appropriately for being such a wonderful, selfless person (and in whom I continually see the Gospel lived out).

So when the writer of Hebrews states, “And let us take thought of how to spur one another on to love and good works, not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and even more so because you see the day drawing near,” l get it. I am thankful for the Eagle and Child that all of us have experienced.

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The University of Oxford has 38 Colleges and 6 Permanent Private Halls (PPHs) of religious foundation. There are cathedrals, churches and scenes like this everywhere you turn. I hope that you can visit Oxford soon!

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January 7, 2016

Second Temple Judaism Timeline

By Clarke Morledge
Second Temple in Jerusalem, from the Holyland Model in Jerusalem. I saw this on my trip to Jerusalem years ago, but this photo from Wikipedia is better.

Second Temple in Jerusalem, from the Holyland Model in Jerusalem. Based on the writings of Josephus. I saw this on my trip to Jerusalem years ago, but this photo from Wikipedia is better.

When the Jews returned from the Exile in Babylon, in the late sixth century B.C., Jerusalem and its original temple lay in ruins.  Leaders like Nehemiah and Ezra helped to lead the people to rebuild the city and the temple. This “Second Temple” survived until being destroyed in 70 A.D., by the Romans. During that 600 year period, the Jews were dominated by a range of empires, including the Persians, the Greeks, the Syrians, and finally the Romans, though they were able to manage a brief period of self-rule during the Maccabean Revolt. Much of the later part of the Second Temple period is unfamiliar to many students of the Bible, as the last prophet we have in the Old Testament is Malachi, leaving about a four hundred year gap in the biblical chronology unaccounted for until the birth of Jesus. But modern scholarship today indicates that knowing this period of Israel’s history is critical to understanding the cultural context for the New Testament.

Recently, I discovering this interactive timeline for the Second Temple Judaism period at the BibleOdyssey.org, sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature.  I have been looking to something like this for awhile, so I am glad that BibleOdyssey.org put it together fairly recently. This is a great reference tool for your study of the Bible.

Just a word of caution: the Society of Biblical Literature includes a very wide spectrum of scholarship, conservative evangelical as well as liberal critical, so some of the dates given for a few of the biblical books might raise a few eyebrows.  For a comparable list of dates for the writing of Old Testament books from a conservative evangelical perspective, you might want to look as well at Matt Slick’s listing at CARM.org.

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