Author: CQ

Reformation Lecture Available

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Commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation by watching Stephen Chester’s lecture, “Reading the Bible with Luther after 500 Years: Reflections on Luther’s Legacy and Why It Still Matters.” The recording is available here (lecture begins at 8.20, with image corrected at 12 minutes).

As both Bible translator and interpreter, Martin Luther revolutionized the experience of engaging God’s word for millions of Christians. Yet 500 years later, just as in his own lifetime, Luther’s legacy is still very much contested. What was the nature of Luther’s achievement with the Bible? In the midst of all the controversy surrounding Luther, can we gain a clear picture of his contribution? And as readers of Scripture today, what should we be thankful for and what must we be cautious about? What is best left in the sixteenth century and what might still be vital for us as we struggle faithfully to interpret the same texts in and for contemporary contexts?

Following the lecture, Dr. Chester engages with the following audience questions:

  • Can Luther’s Pauline interpretation and that of the New Perspective on Paul be harmonized? (at 52.30 min)
  • What was the content of Luther’s spiritual despair (Anfechtungen), and can his experience of despair leading to spiritual insight prove pastorally useful? (58.40)
  • If Luther and Calvin were sitting down together, what would they talk about? (104.20)
  • Did Luther’s understanding of the gospel cure his obsessive scrupulosity – perhaps OCD, as Ian Osborne, Can Christianity Cure Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, argues? (107.30)
  • To what extent did Luther’s reading of Scripture lead to his anti-Jewish writings? Can we disentangle this from ways Luther read Paul rightly? (111.25)
  • What role did Katharine von Bora, Luther’s wife, play in Luther’s life and reforming work? (115.20)
  • How can we bring reformation to today’s church as Luther did to his? (120.17)

Happy Reformation Day, 2017!

Reading the Bible with Martin Luther after 500 Years

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Join us October 27 for a public lecture commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, co-sponsored by North Park Theological Seminary and the Commission on Covenant History.

Delivering the lecture is New Testament professor Stephen Chester, whose Covenant Quarterly article, “Reading Paul with the Reformers,” draws from his recent book, Reading Paul with the Reformers: Reconciling Old and New Perspectives (Eerdmans, 2017).

“Reading the Bible with Martin Luther after 500 Years: Reflections on Luther’s Legacy and Why It Still Matters” will begin at 7:30pm in Isaacson Chapel, Nyvall Hall, located on North Park’s campus, 3225 W. Foster Avenue.

As both Bible translator and interpreter, Martin Luther revolutionized the experience of engaging God’s word for millions of Christians. Yet 500 years later, just as in his own lifetime, Luther’s legacy is still very much contested. What was the nature of Luther’s achievement with the Bible? In the midst of all the controversy surrounding Luther, can we gain a clear picture of his contribution? And as readers of Scripture today, what should we be thankful for and what must we be cautious about? What is best left in the sixteenth century and what might still be vital for us as we struggle faithfully to interpret the same texts in and for contemporary contexts?

Please join us! For those not in the Chicagoland area, the lecture will be recorded and subsequently published here.

Reading Scripture Today: An Interview with Sujin Pak

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Sujin Pak is assistant professor of the history of Christianity at Duke Divinity School. Her article, “The Perspicuity of Scripture, Justification by Faith Alone, and the Role of the Church in Reading Scripture with the Protestant Reformers,” is published in our most recent issue of the Covenant Quarterly. In this interview she addresses the pastoral implications of her article. (Read Pak’s full article here.)

G. Sujin Pak

How has your research impacted your own reading of Scripture? 

I teach a class on the “History of Biblical Interpretation” that spans from early church to contemporary interpreters. This course has not only enriched my own thinking about and engagement with Scripture but also helped me locate the Protestant Reformers within this larger history. One of the things that strikes me most about pre-modern readings of Scripture is that they steadfastly keep before them a sense of the purposes for which Scripture (as a text of a faithful community) is given—namely, that Scripture is a gift of God to God’s people to reveal God’s saving purposes centered in Jesus Christ. This, therefore, refocuses one’s purposes for reading: it is not so much for the exact knowledge one can obtain or about employing the exactly right method of reading (though, it certainly secondarily could be some of these things); it is first and foremost an opportunity to encounter God in Christ through the intercession of the Holy Spirit. And, as pre-moderns describe this, this encounter promises to be transformative: to call one out of one’s own self-absorbed ways and perspectives to a journey toward holiness and wisdom—toward Christ, the very Wisdom of God.

Thus, the journey of reading Scripture is not really about finding that right method. Pre-modern theologians employed a large variety of methods, methods often clearly shaped by the available tools of their contexts and specific situations they were addressing. Moreover, pre-modern readers of Scripture affirmed that there can be multiple faithful readings of a text; there is not just a singular correct reading. For me personally, this allows for a freedom, beauty, and creativity in my encounter of the Triune God through Scripture and casts off the shackles of my anxiety to “find that one right meaning.” This is not to say, though, that faithful reading is boundless (with no limits, as if anything goes). Rather, pre-modern readers of Scripture paint a picture of a beautiful playground for biblical interpretation that is bounded by the convictions that constitute the core of Christian identity—convictions such as Trinity, centrality of Christ, christology (two natures of Christ), incarnation, belief in the Holy Spirit, and commitment to the church in which many pre-modern theologians point to the Apostle’s Creed as a guide to these core convictions of Christian identity about which Scripture testifies.

In your article, you make the point that the Reformers’ affirmation of Scripture’s clarity “could never entail a larger array of persons claiming to have the singular, authoritative reading of Scripture” but that “this may very well be the reality in many Protestant churches today.” How have you seen this play out practically in the church?

Truly grasping the implications of Luther and Calvin’s doctrine of justification by faith alone as it shapes their views of Scripture’s clarity has proven incredibly slippery in subsequent generations. First, I should clarify that there are other ways to hold to a doctrine of Scripture’s perspicuity beyond what Luther and Calvin asserted, but it seems that many claim Luther and Calvin (for their views of Scripture’s clarity) without recognizing how profoundly Luther and Calvin built this claim upon a doctrine of justification by faith alone. I think for Luther and Calvin the convictions of Scripture’s clarity and accessibility were not meant to promote multiple claims to an authoritative reading; they were meant to open up a space for the Spirit’s working in the church, an opportunity for a profound submission (and discovery) of the Spirit’s work of illuminating Scripture, in which they believed the Spirit would always be consistent with itself. Luther and Calvin recognized in this the need for a communal process of discernment. Hence, they often pointed to the pattern of 1 Corinthians 14 in which two or three provide an interpretation and “the others weigh what is said” (1 Cor. 14:29). Though, when this increasingly lead to what they viewed as “disorderly” practices, Luther and Calvin emphasized the need for ordained ministerial leaders to provide leadership and counsel for the public ministry of God’s Word, which ultimately ended up placing the proclamation and interpretation of Scripture soundly within the preacher/pastor’s hands and downplayed their earlier emphases upon the priesthood of all believers. Continue Reading →

An Open Letter to Covenant Women (1989)

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Over the next few weeks we’ll feature a series of responses to Lenore Knight Johnson’s study, “Four Decades Later: Credentialed Clergywomen in the ECC.” We begin the series with a letter issued June 12, 1989, from the Board of the Ministry, responding to the ten-year study conducted by Mary Miller. The letter was written by Jean Lambert on behalf of the Board, and is reprinted in Kelly Johnston’s article, “Jean C. Lambert: Covenant Pastor, Theologian, Pioneer,” pp. 16-19.

An open letter to each woman seeking to obey Christ’s call to ministry in the Covenant Church, both volunteer lay workers in local congregations, and pastors, missionaries, and staff ministers.

We have been thinking together about the situation of women and men in ministry in the Covenant Church, and we want first to affirm some convictions, and then offer some interpretation we think important.

Convictions

  1. We are committed to an inclusive ministry in pilgrimage toward a whole church.
  2. We care about you. We value your commitment to Christ, respect your willingness to study and prepare for ministry, desire to be your colleagues.
  3. We hear your pain and respect your anger, as we heard it expressed by some of you in Mary Miller’s report of your responses to her questionnaire, published in the Covenant Quarterly.
  4. We are distressed by the continuing atmosphere of coolness or hostility encountered by all too many women who hold positions of leadership throughout the Covenant church.
  5. We do not claim complete understanding of the sexism that is one of the dominant evils in our society, yet we are committed to learning what it is, how it affects women and men, how it distorts our common life in Christ; we are committed to repenting of sexism so the Spirit of God can transform us. And,
  6. As part of our ongoing work in a church always being reformed by God’s Spirit, a church growing more whole as we believe Christ intends, we urge you to join us in considering some “facts of life” we believe affect our common life in church work: the search for a call, the consideration of volunteer possibilities, the selection or interview process, entering into work, how one is received, how one perceives oneself in ministry, how we respond to situations of frustration, conflict, and fulfillment. We think putting these facts into open conversation will help us all be stronger, saner, and more faithful.

Facts

Fact 1: American society is sexist, specifically masculinist. (It is also racist, ageist, classist…but we aren’t addressing all of that here!) Though we do not understand it fully, it is clear that sexism is both a psycho/cultural bias and complex of social institutions. It operates largely unconsciously, though its “symptoms” may be observed by the seeing eye. This complex reality – sexism – is based on an ancient intuition that the biological differences between men and women are a natural and revealed “message” about superiority/inferiority, value and worthlessness, competence/incompetence, appropriateness/inappropriateness.

To say our society is “sexist” has implications on three levels: Continue Reading →

NPTS Post-Election Statement

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The faculty and staff of North Park Theological Seminary offer the following statement in response to our current national climate. Though we write primarily to our students, we hope to bless our larger community of faith as we all engage in dialogue, discernment, and action.

The United States has experienced a contentious election and post-election season marked by fear, polarization, and violence. The political climate reveals longstanding national sins of racism, elevation of whiteness, misogyny, nativism, and economic disparity. As faculty and staff members of North Park Theological Seminary who represent varying degrees of privilege and power, we join our voices with those who are most vulnerable.

We submit to the Lordship of Christ who humbled himself unto death. As members of his body, we strive to consider others above ourselves (Phil. 2:2–8) and to serve one another in humility (Matt. 20:26–28). As one body, if one member suffers, all suffer (1 Cor. 12:26); if one weeps, the body laments with them (Rom. 12:15).

A large part of our community is weeping. The fear of deportation is real. The anxiety of being assaulted is real. The fear of being forgotten or mistreated is real. Many people of color, women, and other marginalized groups feel increasingly alienated not only in the political context but in much of the white evangelical culture as well.

Regardless of where Christians stand politically, the gospel demands we recognize vulnerable populations among us who find themselves further marginalized in the wake of the recent election. The gospel also demands that Christians recognize ways we benefit from and participate in structural injustices. Ignoring policies that denigrate and even endanger vulnerable groups is not a faithful option, even if privilege allows some to do so. When we have power, we use it justly and for the good of all.

In the midst of real suffering within our community, we seek not only to love our neighbor but to know our neighbor (Lk. 10:29), through our conversations, classroom discussions, and times of prayer. We hope to embody a community in which walls of hostility are broken down (Eph. 2:14) and where love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18).

 

Deb Auger
James Bruckner
Mary Chase-Ziolek
Stephen Chester
Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom
Paul de Neui
Timothy L. Johnson
David Kersten
Ellen M. Kogstad
Max Lee
Alexandria Macias
Hauna Ondrey
Amy Oxendale-Imig
Luke Palmerlee
Deborah Penny
John E. Phelan, Jr.
Elizabeth Pierre
Soong-Chan Rah
Stephen Spencer
Al Tizon
Emily Wagner

Related material | “NPTS Faculty Statement on Race & the Justice System”

Wrap Up & Look Ahead

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THAT’S A WRAP

Our Aug/Nov 2016 issue of the Covenant Quarterly focused on the 125th anniversary of North Park Theological Seminary. Historians explored North Park’s origins (Philip J. Anderson) and David Nyvall’s founding vision (Scott Erickson). Former seminary student and professor John Weborg reflected on his rich experience at NPTS, and Al Tizon cast a portrait of the ideal seminary graduate seminary’s should be developing. Finally, seminary dean David Kersten and ECC president Gary Walter outlined challenges and opportunities facing North Park Seminary as it looks to the future.

74.3-4 contributors

The conversation continued on Forum, as a variety of scholars and pastors discussed the impact diversity should have on seminary curriculum (Phillis Sheppard, Mark Tao, Willie O. Peterson, & Jo Ann Deasy), and as current professor and former NPTS president and dean Jay Phelan responded to articles by Kersten and Walter. Thanks to all who contributed to our fall issue and Forum discussion.

UPCOMING

The upcoming Quarterly issue (February 2017) features the fourth decadal study on Covenant clergywomen, surveying and assessing the status of Covenant women in ordained ministry forty years after the ECC’s 1976 vote. The two articles that accompany the study (1) look back at the life and work of one of the first women ordained in the Covenant and (2) even further back to the range of ministry roles open to women within early German Pietism.

Stay tuned for publication – and please contact us if you would like to contribute to related Forum articles or recommend another author. We welcome your input!

The Covenant’s Response to the Civil Rights Movement, 1963–1968

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From Ramelia Williams, “The Evangelical Covenant Church’s Response to the Civil Rights Movement, 1963–1968”:

 

RameliaIn the shadow of World War II, the Covenant Church took an official stance against racial discrimination. The Annual Meeting of 1944 adopted a resolution that reads in part: “We believe that all men are of one blood, and that all discrimination, based upon race, creed or nationality, is not in keeping with the Christian profession and life, and further, that it fosters conflict and war” (YB 1944, p. 133)….Between 1946 and 1968, nearly every Annual Meeting issued a resolution affirming the equal dignity of all people and rejecting racial discrimination, with only six exceptions.

***

Annual Meeting resolutions did not emerge ex nihilo, but were brought by a commission that sought to resource local congregations and guide them in action. In 1944 the Covenant Church established the Committee on Civic Relations to mold a Christian mindset toward various matters of civility. The name was changed in 1948 to Christian Citizenship Commission (and in 1968 to the Commission on Christian Action). The Christian Citizenship Commission would study and offer its opinion on suffrage, civil rights, international wars, political affairs, social ethics, and other important civic issues.

***

The practical action of the commission primarily took place through congregational commissions established at their request and under their direction. At its inception, the commission recommended the establishment of a “committee on civic relations” in every Covenant church, sending letters to each congregation with this request in November 1947. As the 1948 report stated, “Commission members quickly realized that no program of information or action could be implemented unless there were local committees” (YB 1948, p. 92), reporting that sixty churches had formed such a committee. The basic task of these local committees was twofold: (1) to educate their congregation about moral issues facing nation and community, and (2) to guide them in an appropriate response….The 1961 Annual Meeting approved the commission’s proposal that race be adopted as the “issue of the year,” launching a year of “denomination-wide study of Christianity and racial relations.” (YB 1962, p. 163)

***

As recognized by the Covenant Commission on Christian Citizenship, resolutions would be effective only as “interpreted and carried out by the local committees” (YB 1962, p. 163). For this reason I surveyed two congregations located in cities that, historically, have served a prominent role in the denomination: Community Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and North Park Covenant Church in Chicago, Illinois.

***

Read the full article here, including accounts of particular Covenant congregations and publications.

For consideration and discussion:

  • The author expresses that her initial discouragement at the minimal involvement of Covenant congregations in the civil rights movement gave way to greater appreciation through her research. Has Williams’s research impacted your own thoughts on this matter?
  • A running theme through this piece is the ECC’s expressed desire to “bring our practices into line with our beliefs” (Covenant Yearbook 1950, p. 202), and the denomination’s attempts to empower local congregations to that end. How might Covenant polity have impacted – and continue to impact – those attempts, for better or for worse?
  • How does Williams’s historical study relate to the nation, denomination, and local church today? What can it teach us?

Exile & Migration: Toward a Biblical Theology of Immigration and Displacement

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From Bo H. Lim, “Exile and Migration: Toward a Biblical Theology of Immigration and Displacement”:

 

bo lim

The Evangelical Covenant Church is an immigrant church, founded by Swedish immigrants in 1885. At its centennial celebration in 1985, Krister Stendahl exhorted the denomination to maintain its immigrant identity as it moved into its second century. Twenty five years later, marking its 125th anniversary celebration, the denomination yet again affirmed its character as an immigration church as central to its identity. The Covenant’s 2014 resolution on immigration opens with a summary of this identity, providing the foundation for the ethical discussion/exhortation that follows. The aim of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the biblical phenomenon of exile as it relates to immigrant communities so that church leaders might better appropriate this biblical motif for ministry.

***

There was no singular exilic experience. To assume that all Israelites were weeping by the rivers of Babylon under duress from foreign captors is simply inaccurate. Neither should one assume that every Israelite was able to climb the Babylonian social ladder and influence the royal court in the manner of Daniel and his friends. What these approaches reveal is that migration, while impacting groups, affects people differently at an individual and family level. In addition, generations within families may have experienced the exile in markedly different ways. For the poor peasant, exile may have meant no geographical relocation but experiencing colonization by the Babylonian economic empire. For a Judean youth from a class of social elites, exile may have meant living in a Jewish enclave in Babylon and exercising a relatively free existence.

***

Just as reading prophetic literature requires attention to the exegetical nuances of myriad migratory experiences of ancient Israel, Christian ministry demands that the church address the diverse experience of migrants and minority populations. It is no less irresponsible for me to say that the experiences of all immigrants to the U.S. are the same – even those experiences within a single ethnic group – than to assume that the exilic experiences addressed in Jeremiah, Isaiah, Psalm 137, Daniel, and Esther are all the same….Faithfulness requires knowing the particularities of each biblical text as well as the particularities of each individual experiencing migration. To flatten the experiences and texts of migration into one uniform category is not merely an act of intellectual dishonesty; it is an unwillingness to listen to the distinct message of particular texts and a disregard for the unique ways people are impacted by migration.

***

Given that as of 2015, 244 million international migrants live abroad and these numbers continue to climb, the church must develop resources to minister to these populations.

 

Read the full article here.

For consideration and discussion:

  • What narratives inform your thoughts about exile and migration? Biblical? Political? Historical? Experiential?
  • What narratives do you believe inform the thoughts of the people in your circles?
  • How do those narratives impact attitudes and actions?
  • Lim mentioned several people who have spoken into issues surrounding exile and migration, including John Ahn, Steed Davidson, and Frank Ames. Who are some of your favorite writers, thinkers, practitioners and theologians who are speaking into this topic, and what do they have to say?

Sneak Peek: CQ 74:2 | Racial Justice

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The summer issue of the Covenant Quarterly is published! The issue focuses on aspects of racial justice and injustice and features articles by Bo H. Lim, on biblical and contemporary exile and migration, and Ramelia Williams, on the Covenant Church’s pursuit of racial justice in the 1960s. These articles are paired with two sermons: one by Catherine Gilliard following the killing of Michael Brown and a second preached in 1963 by Covenant pastor Douglas Cedarleaf (1914-2000), in print for the first time with introduction and annotations. The issue concludes with the “North Park Seminary Faculty Statement on Race and the Justice System.” View and download full issue and individual articles at covquarterly.com. Here’s a sneak peek.

Bo H. Lim

Bo H. Lim

Bo H. Lim, university chaplain and associate professor of Old Testament at Seattle Pacific University, offers fresh readings of Israel’s exile that in turn resource contemporary ministry to immigrant communities.

“Engaging the topic of immigration through the lens of exilic biblical texts provides an opportunity for Christians who are deeply committed to the Scriptures to engage of most pressing issues of our day. For a denomination that self-identifies as an immigrant, Scriptural, and missional people, an understanding of the biblical exile is fundamental to living into its mission… Given that as of 2015, 244 million international migrants live abroad and these numbers continue to climb, the church must develop resources to minister to these populations.”

from “Exile and Migration: Toward a Biblical Theology of Immigration and Displacement”

 

Ramelia Williams

Ramelia Williams

Recent NPTS graduate Ramelia Williams surveys the Covenant Church’s involvement in the civil rights movement at the denominational and congregational levels.

“Initially discouraged by the minimal involvement among Covenant congregations, the more I researched the more I appreciated the remarkable courage required to fight prejudice in a racially hostile society. My research bears witness to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in the church and denominational leaders that defied the status quo and proclaimed through their actions the presence of the kingdom of God on earth.”

from “The Evangelical Covenant Church’s Response to the Civil Rights Movement, 1963–1968”

 

Douglas Cedarleaf, n.d., CAHL 5611

Douglas Cedarleaf, n.d., CAHL 5611

“Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done,” a powerful 1963 sermon by Covenant pastor Douglas Cedarleaf (1914-2000), is printed in transcription with a historical introduction.

“I am asking at this moment for you to decide in your own soul whether or not you can mix up God’s will with our keeping a tenth of our population submerged. Do you want to pray with me that God will sharpen the teeth of Bull Connor’s dogs? Do you want to pray with me that more black men will be shot in the back? Do you want to join me in prayer that the fire hoses be made ever greater in their pressure so we can mow down these people and put them back in their place where they belong? Now if you choose this road, you have a right to do this and defy the law of America. You have a right to do this and defy the law of God, if this is your wish. But no one has ever defied the law of God and found peace.”

from “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done”

 

Catherine Gilliard

Catherine Gilliard

Catherine Gilliard is co-pastor of New Life Covenant Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Her sermon “Watching, Not Waiting,” was preached after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

“Sadly we, the church, have also been far too silent about the tension arising in our nation—and far too silent about the present signs of God’s kingdom breaking through, even as the violence increases. The voices speaking about injustice are rarely people of God who bring the hope of Christ into the dialogue. It’s as if we too truly believe that there is another answer to the sinful activities that sustain injustice other than the power of Christ…. What is the redemptive story we offer local communities in this time when a great healing is needed?”

from “Watching, Not Waiting: A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent”

 

This issue concludes with a statement by North Park Seminary faculty on race and the justice system.

“As faculty and staff of North Park Theological Seminary we join our voice to those of our university, denomination, neighborhood, city, and nation and declare unequivocally: Black lives matter. We affirm the dignity of every human being as made in the image of God, created to flourish physically, emotionally, spirituality, socially, culturally, and economically. As one body in Christ, if one part of the body suffers we all suffer; if one part of the body cannot breathe, none of us can breathe.”

from “North Park Theological Seminary Faculty Statement on Race and the Justice System”

 

View and download full issue and individual articles here. We will be hosting discussions on these articles and related topics here at Forum in the coming weeks; be sure to sign up for email updates and join the conversation.

Resources: Congregational Health, Culture & Leadership

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Want to read more about adaptive leadership, transforming congregational culture, and other topics discussed in 74:1 Quarterly articles? We asked regional directors of congregational vitality what books & websites have proven valuable in their work. The following lists are gathered from their recommendations. [Editor’s note: additional recommendations, drawn from certificate in congregational vitality bibliographies, added March 31, 2016.]

Recommended websites

Recommended books

[additional resources from congregational vitality certificate bibliography; added March 31, 2016]

What resources have shaped your pastoral leadership? Share these in the comments section.