Original post at http://hackingchristianity.net/2013/05/nitpicking-mark-5-in-the-common-english-study-bible-ceb.html

It’s not always nice to nitpick, but when it comes to the Bible, I feel a certain obligation. After all, my schooling was in the Bible, I use the Bible every day, so if not a resident theologian like myself, who will do the nitpicking?

My nitpick addresses the release of the Common English Bible’s Study Bible. The CEB was launched with much fanfare by the United Methodist Publishing House and Cokesbury–little wonder, because a new translation is like printing money for a publishing house–and is soon to be put into a study bible form.

The CEB has a sample PDF out on the Gospel of Mark (issuu here). So just like always ordering enchiladas at a new Mexican restaurant, I turned to my tried and true passage that I adore for its complexity: the healing of the Gerasene Demoniac in Mark 5. There’s a textual nuance there that I wanted to see if they framed “correctly” (quotes meaning my interpretation, of course).

Here’s the passage in the Common English Bible (5:14-16):

People came to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the man who used to be demon-possessed. They saw the very man who had been filled with many demons sitting there fully dressed and completely sane, and they were filled with awe. Those who had actually seen what had happened to the demon-possessed man told the others about the pigs. Then they pleaded with Jesus to leave their region.

So the test comes at the bottom of the page, where for this passage the Common English Study Bible has this commentary:

5:15 filled with awe: or they feared. The people’s response to Jesus’ throwing out the demons is the same as the disciples’ response to Jesus’ power over the wind and sea (see Mark 4:41).

You see my problem? The text reads that the people were not in awe of Jesus throwing out the demons.  They were in awe of seeing the Demoniac sitting normally and in his right mind. The awe was at the Demoniac, not at Jesus’ action. They are told of Jesus’ action in the very next line, and their response is to ask him to leave. No “awe” there.

Thankfully, my church’s library is by far the best church library I’ve ever seen, curated by a five-person committee every week. Really! So a brief trip there yielded three other Study Bibles that directly address this passage (many other study bibles do not, sadly):

The Discipleship Study Bible:

5:15 Afraid The people  do not trust this new circumstance of wholeness; they fear the disruptive power that brought it about. Change is threatening, even change for the better.

The Harper-Collins Study Bible:

5:15 They were afraid: either awestruck in the presence of the supernatural or fearful of Jesus’ power .

The Oxford Annotated Bible (4th Edition):

14-17 They feared: the people were apprehensive that Jesus had disrupted their delicately balanced adjustment to the alien possession.

You see the difference? The purpose of a Study Bible is to offer background when there’s support, and open-ended commentary when there is nuance. For the Harper-Collins and the Oxford, they recognize the “awe”  as directed towards the situation not Jesus directly. The Discipleship study bible gets it most accurately, in my opinion, because the “awe” is at the man not Jesus.

It’s a nitpicky line, but one of those distinctions that I look for. I’m not saying “Don’t buy this book” but I do want to caution against study resources that miss little nuances like this. Again, in my opinion.

Thoughts?

Original post at http://hackingchristianity.net/2013/05/the-creed-is-freeing-worship-hack.html

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of hanging out with a church planter who does lots of missional church behind-the-scenes work: getting to know the community, the people, the needs, and the aspirations…and allowing those factors to dictate what the church looks like.

And what she told me shocked me.

She told me of a conversation with the pastor of an evangelical church plant in Portland–the heart of the None Zone and one of the cities with the lowest rates of Christian attendance–who said that his congregation recites the Apostle’s Creed every Sunday.

I was like…what?

That’s a mainline church thing. That’s a stuffy Frozen Chosen thing to do. Saying the Creed, being high liturgy. Why would they do it?

The pastor replied that “Saying the Creed is freeing.”

What? Freeing? Excuse me, Mister Pastor Person, you realize that the Creed is Creedal, as in you are giving you assent to the beliefs in the Creed. How is that freeing?

He said that for his congregation, most are post-evangelical: people who have left evangelical traditions with their intricate moral codes and expectations for one reason or another.

So when his church says the Creed, they are saying “This is IT. This is ALL there is. Outside of the 10 Commandments and the Great Commandment, this is all you have to believe.”

And in its simplicity–especially for post-evangelicals who are used to rigorous expectations and serpentine moral structures such as at Mars Hill–the Creed can be freeing indeed.

Two thoughts in response:

1. I wonder if when I look at church websites and they have page after page of “Beliefs” in the belief section if they aren’t turning these same type of people away.
2. I also wonder if in the worship context if the beliefs we espouse are framed as freeing not restrictive? Are they obligatory or emancipatory? Are they squeezing people’s minds or are they giving voice to that beyond ourselves?

I’m not sure.

Musing for today…thoughts?

Original post at http://hackingchristianity.net/2013/05/dreamumc-synchblog-may-13th.html

DreamUMC, the bi-weekly internet chat between Methodists across the globe is turning one year old…and to celebrate, we are having a synchblog on a topic before our evening chat.

This blog will be participating in responding to the question “Is Schism the best future for the UMC? Why / Why not?”

From my previous blog posts, you can guess my response. But come check it out on Monday. See you then.

If you want to join in the synchblog, here’s the details at the DreamUMC website.

Original post at http://hackingchristianity.net/2013/05/and-so-it-begins-again-umc-clergy-trial.html

You may have heard of Rev. Dr. Thomas Ogletree. He’s kind of a Methodist statesman. He was the dean of Yale Divinity School and Drew Divinity School. He’s written tons of books and articles. He wrote the section in our Book of Discipline on the Quadrilateral. In short, he’s taught and lived Christian Ethics for his entire life and few people have the breadth and depth of knowledge about working within and without a religious system than Ogletree does.

And out of that Christian ethic, he has chosen to violate the doctrine and polity of the United Methodist Church. Last October, Ogletree officiated at the wedding of his son to his longtime partner, which is in violation of the rules that clergy share.

The New York Times has a great short article for context about Ogletree and the trial.

Dr. Ogletree, 79, is now facing a possible canonical trial for his action, accused by several New York United Methodist ministers of violating church rules. While he would not be the first United Methodist minister to face discipline for performing a same-sex wedding, he could well be the one with the highest profile. He is a retired dean of Yale Divinity School, a veteran of the nation’s civil rights struggles and a scholar of the very type of ethical issues he is now confronting.

“Sometimes, when what is officially the law is wrong, you try to get the law changed,” Dr. Ogletree, a native of Birmingham, Ala., said in a courtly Southern drawl over a recent lunch at Yale, where he remains an emeritus professor of theological ethics. “But if you can’t, you break it.”

While every clergy trial is a terrible terrible thing, I suspect this will be kind of like the trial of Dumbledore and Harry Potter before the Ministry of Magic. Did Harry use magic outside of the rules? Yes. But why? And was it okay? Or were there other forces at work? Such questions will be had at Ogletree’s trial and it will be fascinating to see whom the prosecution pairs with a theological titan like Ogletree.

For an example of the type of argument Ogletree is capable of, he wrote an article on Reconciling Ministries Network that I’m still trying to wrap my head around.

I am deeply grateful, moreover, for the opening section of The Book of Discipline, which reminds us of serious flaws and shortcomings manifest in the larger history of Methodism.  Shortcomings specifically listed include our previous accommodation of racial segregation by establishing a race-based Central Jurisdiction, and our extended denial of ordination rights and prominent leadership roles for women.   These unjust practices were by no means easily addressed or overcome.  Indeed, the struggles to eliminate them generated serious conflicts within the church, conflicts that were only resolved by persistent efforts to press for more just and inclusive church practices.

Indeed, such practices were based originally on a few lines in the Bible, and then over time the Methodist church chose to go a different way–to our benefit. Ogletree expounds:

I fully embrace the basic theological commitments that undergird the mission of The United Methodist Church.  Indeed, I had the honor to play a role in drafting the section on “Our Theological Task” (par. 104, Part II of the Discipline, “Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task”).  Drawing upon John Wesley’s teachings, this section emphasizes the priority of biblical authority, and it underscores as well the indispensable roles of tradition, reason, and experience in informing our efforts to comprehend and appropriate the biblical witness.  These principles are clearly incompatible with attempts to settle complex theological and ethical issues by “proof texting,” i.e., the citation of carefully selected biblical texts that allegedly provide definitive resolutions of particular issues.  The self-conscious inclusion of tradition, reason, and experience in our critical engagements with biblical resources actually deepens our discernment of the profound, life-transforming promises of the gospel message.

Just as secular court cases take a single instance and extrapolate it for other instances, I wonder how far-reaching of effects a church trial like this will have on the burgeoning movement to remove the Quadrilateral from our polity and doctrine. But that’s for another blog post…

In the meantime, it hurts my heart when our church’s judicial process becomes front and center to the news rather than our mission, ministry, outreach, and witness to the world. May that witness to the world be made evident in our church trial and that the world can see our unity in diversity on display in life-giving ways.  We’ll be watching this one closely.

My challenge to readers: While any blog post on LGBT issues in the UMC brings out the snakes, let me posit a direct question:

• What is your understanding of Christian Ethics? How would you define it?
• Is it adherence to the community’s rules or to your own sense of yourself? Or is it both?
• What circumstances would it be allowable for a person to violate church law due to their Christian ethic?

Discuss!