Summer Thoughts part II

For church on Sunday I decided to go visit the Greek Orthodox Church of the 12 Holy Apostles across town. While I love the church I'm staying at and will attend there most of the time during the summer I wanted to check out this Orthodox Church across town. Although some of the service was different from what I'm use to (a lot more Greek) it was pretty much the same liturgy. Despite saying and singing the same thing every Sunday for over a year I am still amazed every time God shows me another aspect of beauty in the liturgy. This Sunday was one of those occasions.

As we were going through the Liturgy we came to a line that I know I have sung many times, but this time it struck me as so profound and beautiful. The line simply says:

Let us love one another, so that with one mind we can confess: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It's amazing how this small phrase ties together correct confession and worship with loving one another. It almost seems to be saying that if we do not love one another then we are indeed unable to truly confess the essential belief of the Christian faith - The Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one in essence undivided.

How often have love and doctrine been divided? How long have we thought that we can correct affirm believe without living in love? This seems like a perennial issue for much of the Church and yet we have been confessing since the earliest times that without love we cannot truly make the Christian confession.

Praise the Lord and let us live in love having the mind of Christ who considered equality with God not something to be grasped but he humbled himself even to death on a cross!


Glory to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Amen.

Ray Boltz is a heretic and other thoughts from church on Sunday

I'm not sure if anyone else even knows who Ray Boltz is, but he was a Christian pop singer in the early 90's that was quite popular with our parents generation. Ol' Ray had a sweet curly mullet sorta thing going on with a huge 'stache he was the archetype for the mid-life crisis wanna be "rock/pop star" for the Christian worldview. I'm very familiar (as I'm sure my sister is) with Boltzy because my dad became a huge fan during a Promise Keepers crusade back in the day. Our house and somehow our church became a Ray Boltz extravaganza and I'm sure there are many kids from our church (like myself) that could sing almost all of Ray Ray's songs from memory. Although all the above information is greatly important (or not so much) the point of this post is really not to bash Ray, and his sweet moustache, the point it rather to address theological ideal espoused in one of his songs and indeed much of western theology.

The song I want to draw attention to is "One Drop of Blood" (lyrics: here) and to be honest Ray is primarily guilty of mixing metaphors and not necessarily heresy per se. The metaphors he mixes (and I could be wrong so please correct me) is at the beginning he seems to assert "the accuser of the brethren" is demanding the the plea and later in the song he seems to be saying that the one to whom "their righteousness is filthy rags" is demanding the payment. Either way the music video (yes I've seen it) is what caused me to think of this song in church. In it Ray Ray depicts the courtroom where he stands accused by the prosecutor (probably a satanic figure) and it is the judge (set up as the Father) demands payment.

While we may vary on our theologies of atonement let me humbly suggest that the way this penal substitutionary view has worked itself out since St. Anselm is near heretical.

This is where we get to church. The priest at my church was talking about the cross on Sunday and how there is a view of the cross as a divine extraction of justice. When he was describing all this the scenes from Ray's video kept coming to mind. While my priest did not specifically say this view is heretical let me explain the process that caused me to think this.

This divine extraction of justice is often portrayed in a courtroom setting (as Ray does) and depicts the Father as Judge and sometimes even accuser. This image also portrays Christ as defense and substitution. This image often sets the Father up as condemning and the Son as mercifully intervening. This view seems to violate the essential doctrine of the Trinity. The Father and Christ are not opposed and neither do they have contrary wills. We should not allow analogies of atonement in our churches that are contrary to the Trinitarian doctrine of the church. We cannot and must not see the Father as a vengeful judge and Christ as a merciful ambassador. This dichotomy cannot stand! How can we assert that the Trinity is of one essence and yet has three different wills. Correct Christian theology has always taught that the Trinity is united in will because the three persons are united in essence. Three persons and one substance. This implies that it was not the Father mandating the sending of the Son, but rather the Holy Trinity participating in this act willfully unified.

Contrary to my title, I'm not necessarily claiming that Ray Boltz is a heretic, rather I am just using him as an illustration. I also have not read enough of St. Anselm to know if he espoused these ideas or, as with some theological constructs (i.e. Augustinian theology) it just decayed over time. I am also willing to recieve correction if anything that I have said violates the history of Christian orthodox teaching. I am not an expert on the Trinity, but I do think that what I have said is correct.

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Here is another and possibly even more interesting (read: less nerdy) thing from sunday. Though we practice the same liturgy with a few mild variation every sunday I am continually struck by the beauty and precise articulation of the service. Sometimes I notice phrases or pieces of the liturgy that I have never heard befoer and they sink deep within my soul. Yesterday was one of those occasions.

During one part of the liturgy the priest was offering prayers and he said something similar to: "for those who love us and those who hate us, may you remember in your kingdom always" to which the congregation responds "Amen." I've heard prayers for enemies before (sadly too few) but to have it as a part of the liturgy and to say "remember in your kingdom always" is amazingly beautiful and humble. I ask myself if I could say that about those who have wronged me and to an even greater extent, could I say it about someone if I had been severly wronged. I hope so. It seems to me that it is one thing to pray for those who hate you, but to ask God to remember them in his kingdom is a very bold statement. Hopefully this prayer can resound in all of our hearts. Amen Amen Amen.

Now and even deeper question comes to mind. How does this prayer fit with the above section of my post? If someone is outrightly espousing heresy can we bless them? Is it not our job to refute that heresy and uphold the truth of the faith? I believe that it is, but we must find a way to do it in love and a prayerful spirit. We must have in mind the salvation of the person espousing heresy. Just as Paul says: hand them over to the devil so that their soul maybe saved. Maybe this is an inadequate answer, but it's a start.


May the Lord God remember you all in his Kingdom now and ever,

Ben

Zeal vs. Love

About a week ago I began going back through my blog affixing labels to each post in hopes of categorizing my thoughts according to the list you see off to the right and I began to realize something. My blog has changed drastically in the past two years. Or rather, I have changed drastically in the past two years and it is exemplified in my blog.

As I read back over the older posts I thought to myself, "wow, I use to be such a 'good' Christian." I thought about how the nature of my posts has changed and how it reflects the nature of my spiritual life. I found myself thinking or rather realizing that the critical turning point seems to be seminary. Yes, it seems I have concluded that I was a 'better' Christian before coming to seminary.

I don't want to get into why this is, or exactly what I mean by this just yet (these posts will be forthcoming...maybe). I also don't want to blog about how I got this way or if I think seminary life had a part to play in it or not.

I just say all this to bring up that over the past weeks since I've had this realization I've prayed every day something similar to: "Lord, bring back my zeal for you."

Tonight as I was laying in bed (I got up to write this) I had a different prayer. "Lord, bring back the love that I once had." In saying this it came to my mind that love can cause zeal and often does, but zeal seldom causes love. Zeal can exist on it's own without causing one to love, but Love shifts one's entire paradigm and causes one to be zealous for that which he or she loves.

So this is my new prayer. "Lord bring back and even increase the love I once had for you, for others, and for your church."



"O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen."
- Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian