Summer Ramblings II

My declaration that I would try to post more often seems to be in vain, as I haven't found the time to post because I've been so busy with work. Here are some random thoughts that go back as far as the weekend around July 4th.

-------Thoughts from the Road------

I found myself in Dayton, OH on the days immediately preceding the 4th of July and had and interesting conversation with one of the guys that works occasional weekends with our company. He found out I was studying to be a pastor and was trying to strike up conversation with me when he asked "What do you think about those new churches people are going to now?" I replied that I didn't know what he meant, to which he replied: "You know, those new churches like Quest and [another large church in our area]. I realized that both of these churches were well known for being "seeker churches" in fact the people at Quest define themselves solely as a "seeker church". I tried to control myself and not launch into a long lecture on the evils of seeker churches and how they are destroying the very fabric of the church, so I told him something ot the effect of "I guess they're ok, I personally don't enjoy them, but you know..."

His response (the reason for retelling this story) was: "Yeah, I don't like them, I really don't get much from them. They're no real message to em." When he said that I about fell off of the case I was sitting on. It just blew me away that this guy who wouldn't call himself a Christian who doesn't claim to live the Christian life or anything along those lines, is repulsed by the seeker churches in the area. It seems that he would rather have the church be the church instead of trying to mask itself and pretend that it is something it's not (entertainment). I just find it amazing that the people these seeker churches are trying to reach aren't interested in them because they're not Christian enough. Crazy!!

I'll avoid getting on my soap box again and allow the above comments to suffice. I just thought it was a cool story.

----- Thoughts on the 4th of July----
Yes, I know it was a while ago, but it still burns me up. It it wasn't for the super-cool combination of fireworks and BBQs I'm very sure I would hate the 4th of July. I don't hate it because I hate America or anything like that. My biggest problem with Independence day is the reaction the protestant church in America has to it. I firmly believe that the Sunday closest to the 4th of July is the most syncretistic day in all of Protestantism. It is a day when we mesh our worship of a Holy and Triune God with our worship for our nation-state. We, as a church, take this Sunday as an opportunity to jump on the "hooray America" bandwagon and become idolators of our nation.

Frankly this syncretism makes me want to vomit. I am not opposed to being patriotic and I am not opposed to supporting our nation's leaders and things of that nature. But there is absolutly no way that the people of God should be so enamoured with a nation-state, whether it be the USA, England, Iraq, or even the political nation of Israel. To be completely supportive of a nation-state is to lose sight of the kingdom of which we are true citizens - namely the Kingdom of God.

There is also absolutly no way that the work of the people of God (the truest sense of liturgy) should be bastardized with hymning any nation! Yes, it is meet and right to thank God for our freedoms and it is good that we should praise him for the blessing of a stable govermental system surrounding us, but we cannot allow that to be the focal point of our liturgy on the Sunday of Independence day, or on any Sunday. I would even go so far as to argue that to sing patriotic songs in the church is a corruption of the purpose for the gathering of the church.

This problem is not isolated to merely the 4th of July, no, this syncretism runs deep within American Christianity and we must begin to uproot it and rid ourselves of it. We must always remember that our hearts and our homes are not of this or any nation-state, we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. Our citizenship is sealed by partaking of our Lord's death. No one and no nation can lay claim upon us except the one into who's death we have been baptized - our glorious bridegroom Jesus Christ.

------- Topics from the list --------

On my last post I put a list of things I was thinking about at the bottom. Here is one of them.

My church history musings:

A while back I got into a discussion about the start of the papacy with some friends and the issue has been nagging me ever since. Most protestant historians date the start of the papacy with Leo the Great (approx. 450ad) some scholars date this earlier and some a little later, but this seems to be the time of general concensus.

My contention is that there could not have been a "Pope" in the way most would understand it until after the Great Schism (1054). I think that any assertion of a papacy before this date is due to anachronistic and westernly biased reading of the early church documents. Although the common arguments for the papacy first originated with Leo the Great it is very clear from reading church history that he is not taken as the supreme bishop. His word does not sway all the other bishops and he does not have the power to control all the other regions of the church. It is my thought that protestant scholars have read church history through a western lens for so long that they fail to understand the eastern idea of "order of primacy." Order of primacy simly means that one is the highest among equals. In other words if the Roman bishop (Leo) had the highest order of primacy he would not have more power than the other bishops, but his opinion would have been held with a little (note little) more weight than some of the others. This does not imply that he has more power, it is just an issue of respect.

I may have not explained that clear enough, but this is what I think we have in the case of Leo and the other early bishops of Rome that the protestant scholars like to refer to as popes. To be clear it is obviously absurd to think that the Great Schism happened and "poof" we have a pope. Yes, this was a growing political force which finally came to a head when the Bishop of Rome acted upon the power he thought he had and inserted a phrase into the Nicene Creed.

I argue that the Bishop of Rome could not have been a true Pope at the point of the Schism because if he was then the rest of the Bishops would have naturally followed his lead by adding this phrase into the creed because he would have been the theological supreme. However, not a single bishop followed this move and thus the Bishop of Rome did not have the power he believed himself to have (and the power which protestant historians credit to him).

I am not intentionally trying to take an Eastern line on this subject, this is just what makes the most sense to me. I think that our historians are reading church history ignoring the concept of "order of primacy" and are thus misconstruing our perception of church history. Yes, I admit I could be wrong, these scholars have much more training than I, but somehow this seems to make the most sense, especially after growing up seeing church history with western eyes and now trying to view it with eastern eyes.

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Well I think that's all I'm going to post for now. I'm tired and need to go to bed. Hopefully I'll post a little more frequently.


Blessings,


Ben