Well, I’m about to make some dispensationalists mad, but here I go. This is a book review I did for my Eschatology class. The book is called The Bible and The Future by Anthony Hoekema. I hope you enjoy.

The Bible and The Future: A Review of the Book by Anthony A. Hoekema

This book has a total of 20 chapters divided into two parts. The first six chapters are part one entitled “Inaugurated Eschatology.” The last fourteen chapters are part two entitled “Future Eschatology.”
In Chapter One, Hoekema discusses the eschatological outlook of the Old Testament. He does this by looking at several concepts throughout the Old Testament. The first is that of the expectation of a coming redeemer. Then he discusses the concept of the kingdom of God, the new covenant, the restoration of Israel, the outpouring of the Spirit, the day of the Lord, and the new heavens and the new earth. All of these are concepts with which the Old Testament discusses.
In Chapter Two, the nature of New Testament Eschatology is discussed. It is apparent that some of the Old Testament expectations have been fulfilled, but not all of them. As Hoekema notes, there is a tension between the “already” and “not yet.” Hoekema sums up the nature of New Testament eschatology in three observations: (1) the great eschatological event predicted in the Old Testament has happened; (2) what the Old Testament writers seemed to depict as one movement is now seen to involve two stages; the present age and the age of the future; and (3) the relation between these two eschatological stages is that the blessings of the present age are the pledge and guarantee of greater blessings to come.
The Meaning of History is then discussed in Chapter Three. Hoekema examines two views regarding this: that of the Greeks regarding cyclical history and that of the atheistic existentialist. Both views, Hoekema says, are incompatible with Christianity. He makes five points regarding the Christian interpretation of history: (1) History is a working out of God’s purposes; (2) God is the Lord of history; (3) Christ is the center of history; (4) The new age has already been ushered in; and (5) All of history is moving toward a goal, the new heavens and the new earth.
In Chapter Four, the kingdom of God is discussed. Hoekema makes the very important point that according to the very words of John the Baptist, the kingdom of God began when Jesus began his ministry and yet has not reached it’s ultimate fulfillment in the new heavens and the new earth.
Chapter Five discusses the Holy Spirit and Eschatology. Hoekema starts by listing the role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament in three ways: (1) The Holy Spirit will prepare the way for the inbreaking of the final eschatological age by certain prophetic signs; (2) The Spirit is said to be the one that will rest upon the coming redeemer and equip him with the necessary gifts; and (3) The Spirit appears as the source of the future new life of Israel, including both material blessings and ethical renewal. A summary of the rest of the chapter is best summed up by quoting the last paragraph in the chapter. “…In the possession of the Spirit we who are in Christ have a foretaste of the blessings of the age to come, and a pledge and guarantee of the resurrection of the body…”
In Chapter Six, Hoekema elaborates more on the tension between the already and the not yet. He says it is characterized by what we often call “signs of the times” and that the church is involved in this tension. However, the tension should be an incentive for responsible Christian living and that our self-image should reflect this tension. This tension also helps us understand the role of suffering in that of believers and it affects our attitude toward culture.
Hoekema then launches into part two of his work focusing now on Future Eschatology. Unfortunately, because of the fourteen-chapter weight of part two, we can only discuss some of the more important issues. The focus of Hoekema’s work seems to lie in his ammillenialism. He begins this focus by examining some major millennial views and then spends some time critiquing dispensational premillenialism. His first point is that dispensationalism fails to do full justice to the unity of biblical revelation. He also believes that the teaching in dispensationalism that Israel and the Church are two separate entities is in error. He notes that the Old Testament does not teach that there will be a future millennial earthly kingdom nor does it teach a millennial restoration of Jesus to their land, but maintains that most of the passages in the Old Testament that talk about this are talking about the new heaven and the new earth. He also maintains that their belief in the postponement of the kingdom is not supported by Scripture nor is the belief of salvation after Christ returns. In short, Hoekema rejects dispensational millennialism because he rejects dispensationalism of which he does not agree.
Hoekema begins the next chapter by explaining ammillenialism, his belief. He supports the progressive parallelism view of the book of Revelation. Using this background he exegetes Revelation 20:1-6, the only place in the Bible that mentions the millennium. Because of the progressive parallel view that Hoekema takes, Revelation 20:1 would take us back to the beginning of the New Testament era. Hoekema does not take the word “thousand” literally, but rather symbolically standing simply for a long period of time. The binding of Satan is that of Satan not being able to any longer deceive Gentile nations as he did before the first coming of Christ and Hoekema points to the Great Commission as support for this. In that, Christians are commanded tomake disciples of the nations.
This book’s strengths lie in its exhaustive search of the Bible. Whether or not one agrees with Hoekema or not, he does indeed present his argument well. A major strength is that he takes the time to look at the Old Testament eschatological outlook as well as the New Testament. This is where I think that dispensational premillennialists have not done a very good job. He also does a very good job in his chapter on the different views of millennial systems of presenting other’s arguments well and not mischaracterizing them. A weakness of the book is that he offers only one critique of biblical systems other than his own and he does so before he presents his own view, and that seems to be more of a critique of dispensationalism than premillenialism (although I do understand that the two complement each other). It seems much more consistent to present your own view and then offer critiques of others. He spent little to no time on postmillenialism.
However, he does focus on the one dominating millennial view here in his own country of America, that of dispensationalism. That is strength; particularly that he offered an entire chapter to it. In this way, it also contributes very well to current eschatological thought.
As far as my own personal views are concerned, I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church where dispensationalism is the theology taught. Upon leaving the south in order to go to school, I have been challenged by my reformed leanings to dismiss dispensationalism as in error. It is much easier said than done. Dispensationalism has its strong points, but I do agree with Hoekema that it fails to do full justice to biblical revelation. I think that dispensationalism divides things that should not be divided, things such as the church and Israel. I see more unity in covenant theology, but I would not go as far as to say that I am fully persuaded. I have often described myself as a “covenant dispensationalist” because I do see truth in both. It has also been my observation that a great deal of dispensational thought relies heavily on eschatology. I think that dispensational theology is mostly in error here. I believe that Hoekema is correct in his observation that the teaching of the division of Israel and the Church is in error although, as I mentioned, I am not ready to “sell out” to a belief where all the covenants apply to the church either. I agree with Hoekema that the Bible does not teach a future millennial reign of Christ and I hesitantly agree with him on his assessment of the meaning of the word “thousand.” I do wish that there were some more compelling evidence as to the meaning of that word.
I have often marveled at the hyper-literalness approach to the book of Revelation by dispensationalists and their ability to determine what is symbolic and what is not. As Hoekema says, the only place the Bible mentions the millennium is in one place in Scripture and somehow that one mention, I believe has been distorted into something that it is not.
I heartily agree with Hoekema regarding his non-belief of the postponement of the kingdom of God. I believe that the Bible was very clear through the words of John the Baptist and of Jesus that the kingdom of God started a long time ago and is not simply a future manifestation, a sort-of pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by. By emphasizing that, I think that the belief can lend itself to a sort-of delayed materialism where we are more concerned with our laying up of treasures in heaven for our own benefit and pleasure in the afterlife rather than being concerned with becoming an influence here on earth.
I very much enjoyed Hoekema’s book because I have found myself leaning that direction. I like the fact that he took the time to examine what the Old Testament says as well as the New Testament and the time to properly explain terms in their proper context. Prophecy and apocalyptic literature are subjects that many so-called scholars seem to not be so knowledgeable about. Prophecy should not be treated as something in the future but also as a genre of literature and as that it should be properly understood.
In summary, I would heartily recommend Hoekema’s book to anyone who has an interest in the ammillenial point of view. It is very scholarly written and deserves to be heard, especially in this country where the opposite view so prominently exists.

New distribution list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theraisedeyebrowlist/

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is only a test.

You ever have one of those days where you start off quite different than where you end up? Where you end up in a place at the end of the day that you never thought you would be at at the beginning of the day? Yesterday, my day started normal. Up at 5:30, shower, coffee, devotions, some quick computer work, pack up my stuff, and out the door around 7am. A friend called me and asked me for a ride home that night after class and I agreed. I worked all day and had a Eschatology midterm that evening. I finished it quite early and went to the library at school to wait on my friend. He showed up, asked if I minded that he look some stuff up real quick before we left. It wasn’t a problem. He also checked his email and discovered that an old friend of his, a “wanderng brother” was playing at a coffee house with his band open mic night. He asked if I minded a pit stop. No problem again.
Fast forward an hour or so and I’m sitting in a crowded, hot coffee house still in my work clothes (shirt and tie) listening to young teenagers pour out their angst at the world and it felt like I was looking in a mirror at myself about ten years ago. In March of 1994, I was a senior in high school. I had come to a place where although I claimed to be a believer, I was frustrated with the legalism I faced at school and the pride and arrogance I faced at church. I poured out my heart in my poetry and cried on a regular basis because I was having the worst time finding my place in the world. I looked up to Kurt Cobain who I saw as a lost, confused soul pouring out his anger and confusion through his music. Just a month later, he would commit suicide. Seven months later, I would find myself sitting in the gravel pit parking lot of Liberty University crying to God to save me because I realized what a wretched sinner I was. Now ten years later, I was looking back through the eyes of other youth who felt the same way and wanting them to know that I desperately care.
A few minutes later, I was standing outside on one of those cold Michigan nights watching the snow fall and listening to my friend invite the “wandering brother” to church once again. Of course, the brother made an excuse and we left feeling not much better than when we had got there. I took my friend home and thought about my day as my truck took me home. Where was I? Although I have often felt like I was spinning my wheels, I look back at myself ten years ago and realize what a difference that Christ has made. I am moving ahead. By the grace of God, I am.

How do I describe the darkness inside my head?
The noise, the sound of silence mixed with thoughts
of confusion; States of anarchy and perplexity
run amuck to bring me down to destruction.

They--these thoughts, these people--
are indeed trying to destroy me.
They grow weary of my knowledge,
pretending they know me
and trying to place me in their world.

I am not a toy nor a “yes man.”
Faith is not the enemy of knowledge,
but I am the enemy of ignorance.
I hate it, disdain it, abhor it, anger it,
but never serve it.

Clouded thoughts can not think for themselves,
but I try to clear them away, try to see the light,
try to understand what the light is.
I beat my head on this splintered wall
until I bleed from desperation.

Forever I grasp to reach forever
and discover yet again
a bloody mess, empty hands,
and a heart that longs to be found
but forever lost among the darkness.

I never knew Lisa Le Blanc. She was my stepmother-in-law’s sister. Lisa died last Monday after a long struggle with hepatitis. She was only 43. The memorial service was a very painful one, even for someone who had never met her. The most painful part was the slide show shown at the end of pictures from her life. She was simply a beautiful child, a beautiful teenager, a beautiful woman and a beautiful mother. She left behind two beautiful daughters and two beautiful grandchildren, one only 21/2 months old.
The absolute hardest thing about the funeral was the fact that unless Lisa did so unknowingly to her family, she never trusted Christ as her Savior. My stepmother, one of the most godly women I know, prayed for her daily that God would lead her to salvation. Now, my prayers are for Claudia, that her faith will not be shaken in the least by this. That’s a tall order, I know. But Claudia’s faith has shown itself time and again. She has one of the kindest faces and smiles that I have ever seen.
I look back on this week, one that was one of the toughest of my life, and I count myself somewhat lucky. Sure, my car exploded and was wife was diagnosed with colitis, but death tends to really put things in perspective. I have a wife, beautiful and vivacious. I have my health. And most importantly, I have a wonderful relationship with my Savior.
Ironically, yesterday’s Sunday School lesson at my in-law’s Baptist church was on hell. It was very hard to sit there and listen after what I had been through the day before. But my spirit told me that despite the theological issues that I was having with the sermon (very, very dispensational), it was necessary to hear. Hell is a hard pill to swallow, but a very necessary doctrine.
I do believe that a sense of urgency was ignited in my life. I did realize that I am friends with many people that do not know Christ. Not saying anything to them about their soul’s destination is simply not being faithful to my corner of the vineyard. It’s hard reality, but a necessary one.

Early Monday morning, two Detroit police officers were gunned down senselessly and lost their lives. The same day, word came that my wife’s aunt, who was only in her 30’s and had been in a coma for a few months after suffering kidney failure, passed away. She was not a believer. The next day, while on my way to fix a ticket for a headlight out on my car, I blew the engine in that same car. The polite fire chief that drove me to a gas station confessed to me “There are some biorhythms out there today. It started this morning when my dog s---- in my living room floor.”
I spent the next day trying desperately to figure out how to get an auto loan and hearing about an armored car driver that was shot and killed. The next day, after a doctor’s appointment, my wife told me some more bad news. The doctor’s believed that she had colitis, an intestinal bowel disorder that there is no cure for. After applying for a loan with my credit union, I also found out that I was rejected.
That day proved to be too much for me as I finally went to the bathroom at work and cried…and prayed. I confessed to God that I had no idea what was going on. I had never seen such a week of tragedy and pain. I let go of things because I realized that I had no control anyway. That evening, there was more bad news. The brother of a high school friend of my wife’s had been killed in action in Iraq. I finally confessed to my wife, “It’s been a really bad week, hasn’t it?” She agreed.
Shortly thereafter, we received a phone call from my best friend. Steve had a truck, an old S-10 pickup, that he was willing to let me have for only $500, to be paid as I could. After getting off the phone, I told my wife that we had just had an answer to prayer. I then begin to think of what we had seen this week. My wife has been unofficially diagnosed with colitis, to be determined officially by a colonoscopy in a few days. But she probably does not have Crohn’s disease as the doctors originally thought, and that, in itself, is an answer to prayer.
The problem of evil, as it has been called, is something that I cannot explain. I mean, I can give you philosophical arguments to counter it, but I cannot escape the reality of the evil in this world. What I can tell you is that I believe that evil exists in this world because without it, we would never know what joy was. Sometimes, thinly veiled in the background, is that hand of a sovereign God working behind the scenes to draw you closer to Him. Through all the pain, I can still see the faithfulness of my Savior.

“I find through every ounce of pain I feel
That my mind cannot deny that God is real.”

It brings to mind one of my favorite Stephen Curtis Chapman songs:

As I look back on the road I've traveled,
I see so many times He carried me through;
And if there's one thing that I've learned in my life,
My Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

My Redeemer is faithful and true.
Everything He has said He will do,
And every morning His mercies are new.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

My heart rejoices when I read the promise
'There is a place I am preparing for you.'
I know someday I'll see my Lord face to face,
'Cause my Redeemer is faithful and true.
My Redeemer is faithful and true.

And in every situation He has proved His love to me;
When I lack the understanding, He gives more grace to me.

He is immutable. No matter how much I change, He is the Rock, the Fortress. It is resting in that fact that gives me strength to keep going. It is knowing that he if faithful and true that keeps me trusting and believing. It is the only thing…the only thing…that has kept me trusting and believing.

I guess I feel like Pinky and the Brain lately. “Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” I sometimes do not think that anyone thinks about the stuff that I think about. I have written before that 2003 was a rough year. 2004 isn’t shaping up either at this point. I have just recently found out that my wife may have Crohn’s Disease. I have had my own personal struggles recently too. I pretty much crashed Tuesday night, no will to fight any more. It’s been very hard to cope with life.
There have been many moments when I have had to look at God and simply say “Why?” But, of course, I am given no more answers than I ever have been. I have sought solace into people that have thought like I do now. One of the lyrics to a song that I really have connected with says, “Lost sight of the irony of twisted faith, lost sight of my soul and its void…” “Twisted faith” is two words that I found connecting a lot lately. I find that a lot of people have faith for the wrong reasons and in the wrong thing. I’m very tired of people trying to twist faith into something that it is not. It is so made me think this morning that I found myself typing it into a search engine on the internet. I have found myself with a great deal of doubts lately, wondering what the point even is. I have found that my love for theology has warped my sense of being and to put it in the simplest of terms…I do not want to fight anymore. As I browsed through the different things that that search brought up, I thought about if maybe I had somehow misrepresented God, like maybe the God that I am serving is not the true representation of God. Maybe God wasn’t what I thought. Maybe I had misread Scripture or not seen something in the Word that showed God to be. I thought about all the attributes of God: His holiness, His faithfulness, His omniscience. Maybe God wasn’t what I thought He was.
I was told that I had a phone call so I got up from my desk and walked to the back to take the call. It was my wife. She said, “I was just praying for you and I felt that God wanted me to tell you something very simple. And that is simply this. ‘God is faithful.’” To say that I was quite stunned would be an understatement. I thanked my wife, told her I loved her and hung up the phone. If God is faithful, he can only be faithful if he is holy. And He can only be holy if He is a supernatural being “that which nothing greater can be conceived” (Thank you, Anselm). That would imply his omniscience. God really is faithful.

Crisis of the Will

I got my grades back for last semester and I received a 3.6. GPA, two A’s and one B. I now have eight classes remaining. After the winter semester, I will be down to five. If I can take at least one class in the spring/summer semester, there is a strong possibility that I will have my B.A. degree in Christian Thought by Christmas 2004. This has become a startling reality to me. My wife and I have put off some things until I finished school. We would like to have children, but we would like to relocate first. This is for a few reasons, but we would like to be near her family more. My wife misses her family greatly and we would really love to leave Detroit. Detroit has its pros and cons, but for a southern boy like myself, the temperature of –5 last night and those –20 wind chills are a little much. Ohio, although not that much warmer, is looking good right now.
But I’m stuck in an interesting situation. I had one of those “aha” moments a few weeks ago. I began school in 1995 at Tyndale. After financial hardships, and a year out of God’s will, I returned to Tyndale in 1998 to complete my degree. Through those long 6 years, God has changed me. Maybe more appropriately, God has rearranged me. I have a hunger for the truth of God’s Word. I want to study it, break it apart, look at it from all angles. The Bible is the Christian’s “all emcompassing rule of faith and practice.” It is the primary revelation that God has given to us in order to discover more about who He is. I’m passionate about the Word and I become angry when I hear of Christians mistreating, misinterpreting, or misusing the Word of God. I have been told that because of my love for the Word and my spiritual gift of teaching that I am a natural candidate for seminary. I must admit, right now, this makes me squirm. I am very tired of people trying to “pigeon-hole” me into becoming a pastor. The bottom line is, I’ve never really felt called to be a pastor. I have always felt called to minister. I have always believed that to tell God that the only way he could use me was through the pastorate was putting limits on God and what he could do with my life. So, I just said, “Ok, God, here I am. Do what you want.” This doesn’t limit me to the pastorate. I’m not even sure that I could do the job of pastor because of my personality. Although I have decent people skills, I can still come across rather heavy-handed. It is never my intention to be that way unless the situation calls for it. It’s just that my passion sometimes gets in the way of my tact. My gifts, skills, and talents seem to lie more in the academic realm. But I have also been challenged lately to make my faith more practical. To talk of Calvinism, Arminianism, Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, santification, glorification, justification, and all those other “ations” and “isms” just goes over most people’s head. I’ve been challenged by people like Rick Warren to teach theology without using theological words. In other words, don’t talk over your audience.
I have also realized that one of the main reasons that I was considering seminary is that I simply did not know what else to do when I got my degree. As I prayed and thought about it more, I realized that this really showed to me a lack of dependence upon God. Am I scared that I might not be able to accomplish what He may be calling me to do after school? As a good friend once asked me, “Are you making this decision out of fear or faith?” Another startling reality that I have faced is that my degree that I will get in a year or so, although very helpful in some regards, has really done little more than justify me in front of people. In other words, someone may ask, “Well, what does Dave know about this?” “Oh, he has a B.A. degree in Christian Thought.” Should it really matter? Most of the theology I have learned and the spiritual growth that I have had has not been through my academic school, but rather the school of hard knocks. Frankly, I have met many more people with absolutely no degree that have a better handle on academic theology than I do. With that thought in mind, would seminary be the right place for me? I am not saying that I would not benefit from seminary. I am saying that I do not want to tell God what I want to do with my life rather than let Him lead me where He wants me to go.
Although I do love school, I am very tired of it right now. I know that if I decide on seminary, I will have to take a break before I start. I’m ready to take a little time and enjoy my wife more. But when the time comes, I want my choice of seminary to be of and from God. It’s a tough decision. A part of my will wants to move forward and go to seminary and take the world by storm. The other part of my will says, “Hang on. God will put you where he wants you.” I call it a crisis of the will, but I have thought of it as really much more than that. Then again, maybe it’s just growing pains.

This is the latest on the controversy:

X wrote: "The question is not: is white America racist? Not even: is
America racist? Even if the answer is yes, in aces and spades. Rather the
question is: What was the content of MLK's character? As a Christian? As a
minister? As a father and a husband? You tell me. In 25 words or less, if
1Tim.10 won't do."

Dear X,

Of course, I cannot give you an answer to that in twenty-five words or less,
and I would be a fool to try. It's like all the times a reporter has taken
a sentence or two of mine and placed the sound bite on the evening news or
in a newspaper story. The only way that I know how to get a point across is
to lay out what I believe and why I believe it, and that usually takes more
than twenty-five words.

Was Martin Luther King, Jr. guilty of adultery? Sure. So am I, and so are
you. Have you never entertained adulterous thoughts? Our Lord's point in
Matthew 5:28 is not to trivialize sin, nor is it to level all sins as if
they were all equally heinous; it is to cause us to take stock of ourselves
lest we become bloated with self-righteousness as we evaluate the conduct of
others. Would I bring disciplinary charges against someone in my
congregation or presbytery who refused to repent of adultery? Absolutely, I
already have on more than one occasion.

I do not excuse or wink at the theological errors that Dr. King evidently
embraced, any more than I excuse the theological errors of those who deny
justification by faith alone or who teach that everyone who is baptized with
water is regenerated. But I am not ecclesiastically connected with anyone
like that. I have already unequivocally stated that I could not ordain
Martin Luther King, Jr. into the gospel ministry -- among other reasons, for
the same reason I could not ordain Martin Luther into the ministry: I am
Confessionally bound to the Westminster Standards. But I count both Martins
as heroes, just for different reasons. I despise some of Luther's vitriolic
anti-Semitism, but I evaluate this not by the standards of the twenty-first
century West, but by the cultural period in which he spoke. I despise the
idea that Dr. King likely committed adultery, but I evaluate this by the
culture from which he came. The African-American Church, sadly, has tended
to be more tolerant of pastors' sexual sins; whereas, sadly, the
European-American Church has tended to be more tolerant of gluttony and
unforgiveness. We all have feet of clay.

I do not march because I celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. as a paragon of
everything that a Christian minister ought to be any more than I participate
in patriotic activities on the Fourth of July because I endorse the
Democratic Ideal as the summum bonum of civil government, or salute the
American flag because I celebrate the state sponsored terrorism of General
W. T. Sherman toward the civilian populations of Georgia and South Carolina
or the genocide of the U. S. Calvary in the last half of the nineteenth
century toward the Native Americans of the West. I march on that day to
show solidarity with African-Americans as we celebrate the fact that one
hundred, sixty-seven years after the framing of the United States
Constitution it finally began to be applied to all Americans.

Martin Luther King Day isn't fundamentally about an individual human being;
it's about a series of events that began with the United States Supreme
Court's overturning _Plessy v. Ferguson_, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) with _Brown v.
Board of Education_, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), continued on through the victory
of the Montgomery Bus Boycott a couple of years later, the March on
Washington in 1963, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. Martin
Luther King Day celebrates those victories and memorializes the martyrdom
not only of Martin Luther King, Jr., but also that of four Black children,
Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carol Robertson, when
Birmingham, Alabama's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed by a White
terrorist.

Why Martin Luther King, Jr.? Of course, Dr. King had no part in the
original cases that were combined in _Brown_; he didn't live either in
Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia or Delaware. But King's shadow extends
over the rest of the civil rights movement, beginning with Mrs. Rosa Parks'
arrest on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a White
person. Even though Dr. King had been the pastor of the Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church for only a year, he was thrust into the leadership of what
became the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Why? It was his advocacy of the methods
of non-violent confrontation with power:

"We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an
amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling
that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be
saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than
freedom and justice."

Several years later, Dr. King was incarcerated in Birmingham and he wrote:

'You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth?
Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for
negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent
direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a
community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront
the issue.'

Just as a Christmas Tree functions to symbolize all the things that so many
people celebrate at Christmas, Martin Luther King, Jr. functions to
symbolize this struggle non-violently to force this nation 'live out the
true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that
all men are created equal."'

I hope that helps.

Cordially in Christ,
Bob

"Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners, in which he
pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous
in his sight; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only
for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to
them, and received by faith alone." (The Larger Catechism, 70)

Robert Benn Vincent, Sr.
Grace Presbyterian Church
4900 Jackson Street
Alexandria, Louisiana 71303-2509

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

In response to my comments about attending the events on Martin Luther King
Day, someone wrote me: "I wasn't planning to respond on this, but . . .
racism is not the unforgivable sin . . King didn't even sound like he could
affirm the Apostles Creed . . . Adultery/fornication automatically
disqualifies you for the ministry, whether you are Jimmy Swaggart, MLK,
Jesse J, Jimmy Bakker or whoever. MLK might have been a Christian, but he
had no right to be called a minister, period. He disqualified hisself.
Nobody else did, much less any racist white folks . . . Nor is this to deny
that God can judge this nation . . . by visiting a
fraud/hypocrite/opportunist of sorts like MLK upon it . . . and MLK was not
a communist/socialist, right? Still everybody today knows that the only
racist act in town is the white folks. That's the real lesson of all the MLK
Day festivities out there on the street if you can read between the lines of
the media propaganda, much less ignore it and look for yourself."

Dear ___,

Your thinking probably represents that of a lot of White Americans. Racism
is still quite pervasive. And yes, I agree that it is very much present in
the Black community, just as it is in the White. And you are also correct:
when the press touches on racism today, it generally focuses on that of
Whites. Of course, that's quite a change from the time when Walter Cronkite
mocked Dr. King on national television.

I am a Protestant minister who holds to the inerrancy and infallibility of
the Bible, confessing that it is the only rule for faith and life. I try to
preach expository sermons that are true to the text and hit people where
they live, even though I often fall very short of that ideal. Twenty years
ago our congregation established a Christian school that now has close to
five hundred students. We strive for academic excellence, scholarships for
children from poorer homes, and we do our best to teach our students a
biblical world and life view, particularly in our high school, so I tend to
attract a pretty conservative audience to the congregation I serve.

Younger people who haven't done a lot of research aren't bothered by my
joining with leaders in the African-American community trying to work for
the welfare of our community, even though I am often the only White
involved, as, for example, about six months ago, when about thirty of us met
with our mayor, and he promised to appoint a particular African-American man
as the next chief of police -- he's to make the announcement the end of this
week; I pray that he doesn't break his promise. Older folks, particularly
those who have read very extensively, aren't particularly bothered by my
trying to be a bridge between our two, divided communities, but many of them
have been disturbed by my very visible presence at Martin Luther King Day
events, especially back when I was the key-note speaker, and my remarks
ended up on television and in the newspaper.

I've had people try to get rid of me. Once I was very involved on the
opposite side of the fence from the Director of the Louisiana Baptist
Convention. The gentleman quietly went to work on one of my elders, the
president of a bank, trying to undermine his relationship with me. I guess
this was his method in dealing with Baptist preachers that didn't
wholeheartedly support the Cooperative Program, and he thought it would work
with the Presbyterians. But that elder knew that I was committed to the
Bible and telling the truth, and he knew I loved him, so he quietly
dismissed that inveigling denominational bureaucrat and reported the
incident to me. The state head of the Baptists is now dead, and I'm still
very much alive. When I was called to preach, the Lord impressed me with
Jeremiah 1:19, '"They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for
I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.'

I'm sure quite a few of my folks have been embarrassed by me here and there
over the years -- one of my elders was once humiliated and quite angry when
he brought a wealthy couple to church -- they owned a good-sized
manufacturing company. But instead of impressing them, I broke down and
wept in the pulpit. (It was the only time that I remember doing that from
the pulpit, but I was preaching on hell and simply lost control.)

I try to do my pastoral work diligently, so these same folk know that I love
them. I get up and go in the middle of the night when they call. I visit
them when they're sick, in trouble or have a tragedy. I don't say "no" to
their requests unless the request would require me to sin. I've cut short a
vacation to come back to do a funeral. I took seriously what I was told
years ago: a congregation will put up with a whole lot if they know their
pastor loves them.

Bottom line . . . probably not a few of them view me like a kind, old,
generous uncle that's a little bit crazy once in a while, but most of the
time he's the person they call when they're in a fix. I buy the right to be
brazenly bold by letting folks walk all over me on all the things that don't
really matter.

Probably my closest male friend was the Central Louisiana leader of the John
Birch Society a few years back, and he has passed on a lot of things about
Martin Luther King to me. Every year he gives me a subscription to _The New
American_, and I enjoy reading some of its insightful articles. So what is
my response to him?

For most African-Americans, the national Martin Luther King Day holiday is
symbolic of the real beginning of overcoming several hundred years of
oppression within America. It isn't so much about a man, but about an ideal
of freedom. In Central Louisiana, it takes on a thoroughly Evangelical
tone. Legal oppression in America denied Blacks the right not only to read
and write, but sometimes even forbad them legally to marry each other.

Now, I will say this to anybody: that's as wicked as hell. It's damnable,
and it has left America with the legacy of pandemic bastardy. As I see the
influence of the worst elements of this youth-driven sub-culture conquering
the dying remnants of the Christian elements of an older American culture,
especially with regard to the sanctity of marriage, I am reminded that the
Lord our God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children to the third and fourth generation. (Exodus 20:5.) Does 2 Samuel
21:1-14 have anything to say to us in America today, other than, "Thank God,
I'm under the New Covenant!"? As I come to the chilling implications of 2
Samuel 21:14 ("After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land."), I
understand that I am affected by what my ancestors and my federal
representatives did long before my time. It makes me wonder if systemic
racism isn't a curse on American society just like abortion and public
sodomy.

For me, marching in our city's annual Martin Luther King Day parade is like
saluting the American flag, the flag of a nation that has repeatedly refused
to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ in its Constitution, a nation whose
national leaders have included a lot of notorious, godless men -- adulterers
and murderers, like the victorious Union cavalry that committed genocide
against the Native Americans of the Western Plains. But I still love
America and haven't quit praying the words of the early twentieth century
hymn:

"O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!"

Was Dr. King guilty of so much of what his critics say and even some of his
friends acknowledge? Probably so. For me to attend his funeral back in
1968 was a statement to those around me, just as my marching is today. As a
White, Southern male, I acknowledge that I have been greatly influenced by
what my ancestors bequeathed to me. I stand in solidarity with them, owning
up to their failures and mine. In no small way, I see my actions not unlike
the prayer of Daniel:

"O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all
who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong. We have
been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and
laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your
name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the
land . . . O LORD, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered
with shame because we have sinned against you." (Daniel 9:4-8.)

I stand in solidarity with a nation -- perhaps the best nation that has ever
been, but one nonetheless deeply flawed from its inception -- I acknowledge
my corporate, federal connection with this nation, not only now, but with
its history, a wonderful and inspiring history of freedom under law, but
also a history written with the blood of those whom it has oppressed and
enslaved and from whom it has stolen.

Dr. King's written statements represent a variety of theological positions.
Sadly, it's easy to find things that he wrote that are contrary to biblical
Christianity. Like most students, he tried to impress his teachers and win
good grades. He wrote to win over some of the theologically liberal
professors he had at Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University. I
remember back in the sixties getting a perfect score on my zoology final
because I so perfectly traced my professor's particular theory of evolution
with so many intricate details put down to prove it. Did I believe what I
wrote over those three hours? No, but I lacked the intellectual firepower
to take on my professor and still get a good grade, so I hid a little
statement within, just as a conscience salve. Most folk don't do that; they
just vomit back what the professor has laid out. In saying that, I'm not
saying that Dr. King was a thorough-going, consistent, conservative
Protestant Evangelical, but he did confess Jesus Christ, notwithstanding
everything else.

Was he guilty of adultery? I wasn't there; I don't know. But his close
friend, Ralph David Abernathy, said that he was. I've known more than one
White conservative minister who committed adultery, and they're still in the
pulpit. (I don't know why, but folks seem to seek me out and tell me what's
going on in their lives, even at a General Assembly or presbytery meeting.
I guess they know that I'll really listen to them, keep it to myself, tell
them the unvarnished truth and pray for them.)

Were some of the Whites who reached out to Dr. King communists? Did they
reach out to him not because they cared about the plight of Blacks, but
because they sought to destabilize America during the Cold War? Probably
so. Where were all those Whites who "believed the Bible" back then? They
mocked Blacks and refused to allow them to attend White houses of worship --
at least that was my experience in South Carolina, when my Daddy voted with
the rest of the elders to refuse admittance to Blacks.

There have been three mainstream, Black approaches to overcoming the
egregious, violent oppression of the American system: that of Booker T.
Washington, that of Martin Luther King and that of Malcolm X. (Malcolm
Little.)

Dr. Washington and Dr. George Washington Carver sought to help Black folks
without confronting the sins of the American system.

Malcolm X sought to help Black folks by confronting the sins of the American
system _By Any Means Necessary_, including a willingness to use physical
violence.

Dr. King sought to help Black folks by confronting the sins of the American
system honestly but without violence. He sought self-consciously to instill
the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ when he would speak to prepare people
for the outpouring of rage they were soon to experience as they publicly
confronted evil.

As I think about those three methods, I land squarely with Dr. King. He
cited Gandhi, to be sure, but he walked in the methods of the New Testament
in confronting evil -- not unlike the way the Apostle Paul did. Saint Paul
forced the Philippian government officials to come to the jail and public
acknowledge what they had done; he didn't take up arms against them, but he
did confront them: 'But Paul said to the officers: "They beat us publicly
without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into
prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come
themselves and escort us out."' (Acts 16:37.)

Dr. King's good impact on the American system reminds me of the elegant,
open letter of the late A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., Chief Judge of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. (It is well worth reading.
)
Judge Higginbotham wrote to the young African-American judge, Clarence
Thomas, who was about to take Thurgood Marshall's seat on the United States
Supreme Court, reminding him that he stood today on the shoulders of those
who had sacrificed so much. His words remind me of Dr. King's dream at the
Lincoln Memorial back on August 28, 1963:

'I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and
frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply
rooted in the American dream.

'I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men
are created equal."

'I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former
slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together
at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state,
sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed
into an oasis of freedom and justice.

'I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character.

'I have a dream today.'

So, I'll continue to salute the flag and to march in memory of Dr. King. I
hope you'll consider doing so yourself next year.

Cordially in Christ,
Bob

Robert Benn Vincent, Sr.
Grace Presbyterian Church
4900 Jackson Street
Alexandria, Louisiana 71303-2509

A post from a friend of mine:

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Today is probably a lot of people's birthday -- my middle daughter's, for
example. But I want to recognize two men who have played a significant role
in American history, both of whom were professing Christians: Robert E. Lee
and Martin Luther King, Jr.

On January 19, 1807, Robert E. Lee was born in Westmoreland County,
Virginia.

On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia.

Both men were great Americans who sought to follow the Scriptures as they
understood them, and confessed loyalty to Jesus Christ. Neither one was
perfect -- not in life, nor in doctrine. The only hope either one had of
heaven was in the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

I was indirectly named for General Lee, being named for my maternal
grandfather, Robert Lee Benn, who in turn was named for Robert E. Lee. Dr.
Benn was born in Clarke County, Virginia, in 1866, four years before General
Lee died. This was long before I was born, so, of course, I never attended
General Lee's funeral, but I did attend the funeral of Dr. King in Atlanta
back in 1968. It was an event that I will always cherish.

I just got back from a prayer breakfast honoring Dr. King, and I plan to
march in our city's parade a couple of hours from now, just as I have done
for many years. Many times I have been the only white minister to do so,
but, hopefully, I'll be surprised once again this year by a couple of others
who will join the roughly one hundred African-American Evangelical ministers
who walk in remembrance of the man to whom they look in the same way most
white folks look to George Washington.

The keynote speaker at the prayer breakfast was Dr. Herbert Dickerson, Area
Director of Missions for the Louisiana Baptist Convention (Southern
Baptist). He spoke about the influence of Dr. King on his life. Dr.
Dickerson said that there were three key emphases in the life and preaching
of Dr. King.

I. The Image of God: every person bears the image of God, and therefore we
should respect the dignity of every human being.

II. The Authority and Sovereignty of God: It was confidence in the
absolute sovereignty of God that gave Dr. King his courage. 'God is the
only one who can say, "I am." He's here to stay; he's not dead; I'm not
afraid.' "I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the
future."

III. The Power of Loving Service: Dr. King preached at the funeral of
those four black children whose only crime was going to Sunday School. He
preached from the Sermon on the Mount and reaffirmed the power of love to
overcome hate. Dr. King was fond of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The priest and Levite, upon seeing the wounded man along the road to
Jericho, asked: "What will happen to me if I help this man?"

But the Samaritan asked: "What will happen to this man if I don't help him?"

May God bless you on this day.

Cordially in Christ,
Bob

"I believe a kind God has ordered all things for our good" Robert E. Lee,
December 4, 1863

Robert Benn Vincent, Sr.
Grace Presbyterian Church
4900 Jackson Street
Alexandria, Louisiana 71303-2509

Yesterday was the observance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. I caught a PBS special on TV last night about the life of the civil rights leader. It made me think of the tumultuous year that was 1968. I was not even a thought in my parents’ head. My parents did not even meet until 1973. But the 60’s have always intrigued me from a historical perspective, particularly the year of 1968.
At the dawn of the year, the country found itself engulfed in the Vietnam War. There were those who were fighting the war in Vietnam, those who were fighting the fighting of the war in Vietnam, and those who were too old to be called up and too old to protest. However, it was obvious. The war had divided the country.
On January 5th, Dr. Benjamin Spock; William Sloan Coffin the chaplain of Yale University; novelist Mitchell Goodman; Michael Ferber, a graduate student at Harvard; and Marcus Raskin, a peace activist were indicted on charges of conspiracy to encourage violations of the draft laws by a grand jury in Boston. The charges were the result of actions taken at a protest rally the previous October at the Lincoln Memorial. The four were convicted and Raskin acquitted on June 14th. The division over the war went deep. Both intellectuals and the workingman were convinced of each side.
Five days later, the war reached a landmark. The 10,000th plane was lost over Vietnam. Seven days after this, President Johnson delivered his State of the Union address, just like President Bush will do tonight. He said in that speech, “There is no mystery about the questions which must be answered before the bombing is stopped.” At the end of the first month of 1968, the Tet Offensive begins. Nearly 70,000 North Vietnamese troops took part in this broad action, taking the battle from the jungles to the cities. The offensive carried on for weeks and was seen as a major turning point for the American attitude toward the war. At 2:45 that morning the US embassy in Saigon was invaded and held until 9:15AM.
The first day of February found a South Vietnamese security official captured on film executing a Viet Cong prisoner by American photographer Eddie Adams. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph became yet another rallying point for anti-war protestors. Despite later claims that the prisoner had been accused of murdering a Saigon police officer and his family, the image seems to call into question everything claimed and assumed about the American allies, the South Vietnamese. The next day, Richard Nixon entered the New Hampshire Primary declaring his candidacy for President.
Two days later, Martin Luther King delivered a sermon that sounded a great deal like his eulogy. He said, “I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody... that I tried to love and serve humanity,.. Yes, if you want to, say that I was a drum major for peace... for righteousness.”
Three days later, on February 7th, international reporters arrived at the embattled city of Ben Tre in South Vietnam. Peter Arnett, then of the Associated Press, wrote a dispatch quoting an unnamed US major as saying, "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." The quote ran nationwide the next day in Arnett's report. Eleven days later, The US State Department announced the highest US casualty toll of the Vietnam War. The previous week saw 543 Americans killed in action, and 2547 wounded. This was followed on the 27th by a Walter Cronkite report on the Tet Offensive that was highly critical of US officials and directly contradicts official statements on the progress of the war. After listing Tet and several other current military operations as "draw[s]" and chastising American leaders for their optimism, Cronkite advises negotiation "...not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."
The month of March saw the headlines shift from the war to politics. The Eugene McCarthy campaign, benefiting from the work of 2,000 full-time student volunteers and up to 5,000 on the weekends immediately preceding the vote comes within 230 votes of defeating the sitting president Lyndon Johnson during the New Hampshire Primary. These students, participants in what McCarthy referred to as his "children's crusade" had cut their hair, modified their wardrobes, and become "clean for Gene" to contact the conservative voters in the state. Four days later, Senator Robert Kennedy, former Attorney General and brother of former president John F. Kennedy, ends months of debate by announcing that he will enter the 1968 Presidential race. On the same day, U.S. ground troops from Charlie Company rampage through the hamlet of My Lai killing more than 500 Vietnamese civilians from infants to the elderly. The massacre continued for three hours until three American fliers intervened, positioning their helicopter between the troops and the fleeing Vietnamese and eventually carrying a handful of wounded to safety. Five days later, Antonin Novotny resigns the Czech presidency setting off alarm bells in Moscow. The next day leaders of five Warsaw Pact countries met in Dresden, East Germany to discuss the crisis. Six days later, Martin Luther King Jr. lead a march in Memphis that turned violent. After King himself had been led from the scene one 16 year old black boy was killed, 60 people were injured, and over 150 arrested.
But huge news came at the very end of March on the 31st, when President Johnson made a startling announcement: “So, tonight, in the hope that this action will lead to early talks, I am taking the first step to deescalate the conflict. We are reducing--substantially reducing--the present level of hostilities. And we are doing so unilaterally, and at once.” And: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”
Five days later, on April 4th, Martin Luther King Jr. spent the day at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis working and meeting with local leaders on plans for his Poor People's March on Washington to take place late in the month. At 6pm, as he greeted the car and friends in the courtyard, King was shot with one round from a 30.06 rifle. He was declared dead just an hour later at St. Joseph's hospital. After an international manhunt James Earl Ray was arrested on June 27 in England, and convicted of the murder. Ray died in prison in 1998. Robert Kennedy, hearing of the murder just before he is to give a speech in Indianapolis, IN, delivers a powerful extemporaneous eulogy in which he pleads with the audience "to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world."
The King assassination sparks rioting in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Washington, D.C., and many others. Across the country 46 deaths will be blamed on the riots.
One week later, the war again takes the headlines. United States Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford called 24,500 military reserves to action for 2-year commitments, and announced a new troop ceiling of 549,500 American soldiers in Vietnam. The total number of Americans "in country" would peak at some 541,000 in August this year, and declined to 334,000 by 1970. Twelve days later, a rally and occupation of the Low administrative office building at Columbia University, planned to protest the university's participation in the Institute for Defense Analysis is scuttled by conservative students and university security officers. The demonstrators marched to the site of a proposed new gymnasium at Morningside Heights to stage a protest in support of neighbors who use the site for recreation. The action eventually resulted in the occupation of five buildings - Hamilton, Low, Fairweather and Mathematics halls, and the Architecture building. It culminated seven days later when police stormed the buildings and violently removed the students and their supporters at the Columbia administration's request.
On May 3rd, The US and North Vietnamese delegations agreed to begin peace talks in Paris later that month. The formal talks began on May 10th, but not before "Bloody Monday" marks one of the most violent days of the Parisian student revolt on May 6th. Five thousand students marched through the Latin Quarter with support from the student union and the instructors' union. Reports of the ensuing riot conflict, either the police charge unprovoked, or demonstrators harassed them with thrown stones. The fighting was intense with rioters setting up barricades and the police attacking with gas grenades. Over-night the battles subsided, but only after the sympathies of large numbers of French unionists were engaged. One week later, the actions taken by the students and instructors at the Sorbonne inspired sympathetic strikes throughout France. As many as nine million workers went on strike by May 22. President de Gaulle took action to shore up governmental power, making strident radio addresses and authorizing large movements of military troops within the country. These shows of force eventually dissipated the French revolutionary furor.
Two days earlier, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr.'s designated successor, and the Southern Christian Leadership Corps were granted a permit for an encampment on the Mall in Washington, DC. Eventually, despite nearly a solid month of rain, over 2,500 people will eventually occupy Resurrection City. On June 24th the site is raided by police, 124 occupants arrested, and the encampment demolished.
The headlines of June were that of assassination attempts. Valerie Solanis, a struggling actress, and writer, shot Andy Warhol in his New York City loft on June 3rd but Warhol survived. The next day, on the night of the California Primary, Robert Kennedy addressed a large crowd of supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in San Francisco. He had won victories in California and South Dakota and was confident that his campaign would go on to unite the many factions stressing the country. As he left the stage, at 12:13AM on the morning of the 5th, Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Jordanian living in Los Angeles. The motive for the shooting is apparently anger at several pro-Israeli speeches Kennedy had made during the campaign. The forty-two year old Kennedy died in the early morning of June 6th. Two days later, Robert Kennedy's funeral was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Senator Edward Kennedy, the youngest brother of John and Robert delivered the eulogy. After the service, the body and 700 guests departed on a special train for the burial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Almost three weeks later, Ludvik Vaculik released his manifesto "Two Thousand Words". This essay, criticizing Communist rule in Czechoslovakia and concluded with an overt threat to "foreign forces" trying to control the government of the country was seen as a direct challenge to the Soviet Administration who extended ongoing military exercises in the country, and began planning for their invasion later in the summer. The next day, President Johnson signs a bill adding a 10 percent surcharge to income taxes and reducing U.S. government spending. The president effectively admits it has been impossible to provide both "guns and butter."
The month of July was relatively quiet, but August erupts on the 8th with the nomination of Richard Nixon to be the presidential candidate at the Republican Party convention in Miami Beach. The next day Nixon appointed Spiro Agnew of Maryland as his running mate. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, and Ronald Reagan of California had challenged Nixon in his campaign. Twelve days later, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia with over 200,000 Warsaw pact troops, putting an end to the "Prague Spring," and beginning a period of enforced and oppressive "normalization." Six days later, Mayor Richard Daley opens the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. While the convention moves haltingly toward nominating Hubert Humphrey for president, the city's police attempted to enforce an 11 o'clock curfew. On that Monday night demonstrations were widespread, but generally peaceful. The next two days, however, brought increasing tension and violence to the situation. By most accounts, on Wednesday evening Chicago police took action against crowds of demonstrators without provocation. The police beat some marchers unconscious and send at least 100 to emergency rooms while arresting 175. Mayor Daley tried the next day to explain the police action at a press conference. He famously explained: "The policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder." Twenty-eight years later, when the Democrats next held a convention in Chicago, some police officers still on the force wore t-shirts proclaiming, "We kicked their father's butt in '68 and now it's your turn."
Humphrey kicked off his campaign on September 1st at New York City's Labor Day parade. Six days later, Women's Liberation groups, joined by members of New York NOW, targeted the Miss America Beauty Contest in Atlantic City. The protest included theatrical demonstrations including ritual disposal of traditional female roles into the "freedom ashcan." While nothing was actually set on fire, one organizer's comment - quoted in the New York Times the next day - that the protesters "wouldn't do anything dangerous, just a symbolic bra-burning," lives on in the derogatory term "bra-burning feminist."
On October 2nd, Police and military troops in Mexico City reacted violently to yet another student - led protest in Tlatelolco Square. Hundreds of the demonstrators are killed or injured. The next day, George Wallace, who had been running an independent campaign for the presidency which has met significant support in the South and the Midwest, names retired Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis E. LeMay to be his running mate. At the press conference, the general is asked about his position on the use of nuclear weapons, and responds: "I think most military men think it's just another weapon in the arsenal... I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. ... I don't believe the world would end if we exploded a nuclear weapon." Just over a week later, Apollo 7 was launched from Florida for an eleven-day journey, which will orbit the Earth 163 times. The next day, The Summer Olympic Games opened in Mexico City. The games had been boycotted by 32 African nations in protest of South Africa's participation. On the 18th, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, US athletes and medallists in the 200-meter dash further disrupted the games by performing the black power salute during the "Star-Spangled Banner" at their medal ceremony. Two days after that fiasco, Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate on the private island of Skorpios. On Halloween, President Johnson announced a total halt to US bombing in North Vietnam.
Election day finally arrived on November 5th and the winner by a nose was Richard Nixon capturing 43.4% of the total vote. Nixon’s administration inherited a nation still torn by war, but closer to peace that it was a year ago. As a matter of fact, just three weeks later, after stalling for months, the South Vietnamese government agrees to join in the Paris peace talks. As bleak as it seemed though, there was some good news. The nation’s unemployment rate was the lowest it had been in fifteen years and Apollo 8 launched to begin the first U.S. mission to orbit the moon. The books closed on 1968, but not before a great civil rights leader had died, a Presidential candidate had died; an artist had been shot, war had continued, had been protested, and virtually halted. A new President had been elected and had inherited a divided but healing nation. 1969 dawned and the 70’s were yet to come.

There is much in this article that should be addressed, but it seems to be the same old arguments to me, and most of them are red herrings. His contemporary approach is criticized, especially the use of music. The article says, “Does God really love today's cultural ‘variety?’ I doubt that God is pleased when we feed our natural cravings for emotional stimuli. When ancient Israel became bored with God's Word and embraced a wide variety of cultural and spiritual thrills, God disciplined them severely. He even compared his wayward people with a ‘wild donkey... that sniffs at the wind in her desire.’ Jeremiah 2:24.” I hesitate to even address the issue, but it seems to go to the core of what Warren is about. First of all, the statement, “I doubt that God is pleased…” I don’t want to hear “I doubt.” I want to hear “I know!” Give me a reason that God is displeased when we feed our “natural cravings for emotional stimuli.” What does that even mean? Are you including all emotional stimuli? If so, you ruled out most of the Psalms, you ruled out a trip to an amusement park. Heck, you even ruled out a good hearty joke. The article goes on to say, “When ancient Israel became bored with God's Word and embraced a wide variety of cultural and spiritual thrills…” You mean like sexual immorality and idol worship? Is this person really comparing Rick Warren to this? The article goes on to say, “Our human nature (‘the "flesh’) is no different than theirs. We, too, are tempted to trade God's very best for the world's gratifications.” This person needs to define “the world’s gratifications.” What does that mean? Is this person referring to enjoyable worship? If so, if a person enjoys worship, does that mean it is wrong?

Another quote: “When church leaders use energizing music, emotional stimuli and short, light messages to satisfy the flesh with its ‘felt needs,’ they tend to obscure our deeper spiritual needs.” Oh…now I understand. This person has obviously not read Rick’s books. You may critique his theology all you want, but to say that his messages are light and short is just completely wrong. I also find it interesting as I look at the ministry of Jesus, that He met “felt needs.” He didn’t refuse to heal the blind man until the blind man had heard an auditory presentation of the gospel. He just healed him. I believe this is just where the rubber meets the road for most Gen-Xers like myself. I’m really tired of being preached at by people, particularly pastors, who have had virtually no impact on their communities but still insist that their ministry is effective. Well, if their ministry were effective, they would obviously see a difference in their church, specifically a numerical difference. The bottom line is, their presence in the community is not affecting their community like it should, if at all. And just what are these “deeper spiritual needs.” Could that be referring to salvation? Hmmm, this article says that there are 50,000 people are on the church roles of Saddleback. (I do not believe that statistic is accurate, but I will grant it to this person.) Let’ say that 40,000 of these people, 80% if you will, are not genuine conversions. I believe that to accuse any church of having 80% of their church members not be Christian is a pretty devastating claim, but grant me that. That would still leave 10,000 people that are genuine. And that’s a lot more disciples than most pastors see in a lifetime. I do not want to boil all of this down to numbers, but let’s face the real facts. Numbers are at least one way of measuring the success of a church. Anyone who denies this is just not seeing the forest for all of the trees. Even if you do not agree with the theology of a church, you can say that is has been successful by looking at their numbers. The real question is how one defines success. If you see success as using the same methods that someone has used for over a hundred years because they are right or biblical, then I would like to see your argument for this. I don’t think the burden of proof is on Warren here. Anything that he had to prove has been proven by the success of his church.

Warren’s marketing approach has also been criticized. I honestly find this one of the most ridiculous objections. Warren is being criticized because he took the time to learn the demographics of his community. I dare say that most pastors could not tell you the make-up of their community. Is it really wrong to try to understand the people you are ministering to? I would consider this one of the most important things a pastor could do.

The bottom line of all of this is, if one uses the Acts 2 model of the church, then there are many ways a pastor can organize his particular church. Warren has created one within that paradigm that works and he has chosen to share that with others. Personally, I find it one of the most biblical and effective ways that church can be organized and I think the numbers also support this. Like it or not, Warren’s church is the fastest growing in the United States. Could it be that he may be doing something right?

Dave M.

Here is an article that someone posted from the other perspective on Warren and his church. Right after this, I will post my response.

SPIRIT-LED OR PURPOSE DRIVEN?
Part 1





By Berit Kjos

October 9, 2003

NewsWithViews.com

"There are some really good things that Rick Warren brings out," wrote Dave, who visited our website while his church was immersed in the 40-day course based on the Purpose Driven Life. "But they always seems to be mixed with so many confusing and theologically weak points that you go crazy trying to keep it all straight. You will read a great point and then he'll throw in a quote from Mother Theresa or Aldous Huxley and your mind reels. There's a push to paint God as a smiley face in the sky - but you have to ignore His justice and anger! Plus, when you are the only 'naysayers' in a group it gets old - especially when no one else seems to have anything but praise for the book."

Dave speaks for a multitude of troubled people. While Pastor Warren's manual on Christian living has captivated churches around the world, a rising number of discerning readers question its subtle distortions, its half-truths, its conflicting messages and its pragmatic permissiveness: if it works (i.e. brings people into the church), it's okay! "God loves variety!"[2]

Like Dave, many find it hard to resist the popular consensus, especially when Pastor Warren's "rules for growth" tells us to "never criticize what God is blessing."[3] Implying that church growth and changed lives prove God's delight in our human strategies, it cancels His call to "be on guard" and discern deception. While only God can judge the heart of a person, He tells us to help each other follow His guidelines, not be driven by today's new management systems. [see Driven or Led?]

Rick Warren, the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California, has been leading the way and breaking new ground in today's Church Growth Movement. With over 50,000 names on his church roll, he models the success of the church management process he outlined in his earlier book, The Purpose-Driven Church.

He also founded the website, www.pastors.com, "a global Internet community that serves and mentors those in ministry worldwide." It tells us that "over 60,000 pastors subscribe to Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox, a free weekly email newsletter."[4] Then it summarizes his ministry:

"Rick Warren is well known as the pioneer of The Purpose-Driven Church paradigm for church health. More than 250,000 pastors and church leaders from over 125 countries have attended Purpose-Driven Church seminars in 18 languages. Peter Drucker calls him 'the inventor of perpetual revival.' Rick's previous book, The Purpose-Driven Church, has sold over a million copies in 20 languages. Winner of the Gold Medallion Ministry Book of the Year, it is used as a textbook in most seminaries, and was selected as one of the 100 Christian Books That Changed the 20th Century."[4]

Notice the reference to Peter Drucker. What this legendary management guru began teaching large corporations decades ago has now been applied to God's churches as well as to communities and governments around the world. Since the new methods seemed to "work" equally well for churches as for corporations -- and since the measured results offer statistical "proof" of "success" -- pastors around the world have embraced and implemented Drucker's marketing approach to "doing church."

In a 2002 article in Business Week titled "Peter Drucker's Search for Community," Ken Witty describes the world view that drives Drucker's plans and purpose:

"He brings a communitarian philosophy to his consulting.... He said that what he's all about is this search for community, the search for where people and organizations find community for noneconomic satisfaction....

"A lot of his ideas have become so accepted that it's hard for anyone to understand how original they were at the time he introduced them. It's sort of like Freud and psychoanalysis. Peter was the first, for example, to help managers understand that they had to define their businesses from a customer's perspective."[5]

Focusing on the "customer's perspective" brings success. People feel satisfied. They come and they buy. When this process is applied to churches, it works! With polls and surveys, a church can easily uncover the "felt needs" of the people -- then target their services to their current and future consumers.

Pastor Warren's current tutor in this management process is CMS, a secular "full-service custom marketing and communications agency head-quartered in Covina, California." It's website shows its mission:

"At CMS, we view it as our mission to help our clients grow their businesses. We do this by working with each client identifying opportunities and developing innovative, creative and profitable services which assist them in the execution of effective marketing, sales and communications program.... We are best able to serve clients when they allow us to act as partners.... CMS is made up of a team of talented individuals whose dedication and expertise have earned them a solid reputation for creating results."[6]

Shouldn't we credit God, not clever marketing, with "creating results?" After all, the Bible tells us that the "wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." Man's "wise" ways may fit our human purpose, but they clash with God's purpose. [See 1 Cor 3:19-20; Prov. 3:5-7]

While CMS' partners include the City of West Covina and secular giants such as Quaker and Isuzu Motors America, it also serves clients such as the "Purpose Driven Ministries," "Saddleback Valley Community Church," "Smalley Relationship Center" and "Walk Thru the Bible."[7] The latter was founded and led by Bruce Wilkinson, author of the well marketed bestseller, The Prayer of Jabez.

Part of CMS' success lies in the surveys, polls and tracking that characterize the 21st Century management systems:

"...collecting, organizing and managing data is essential to understanding, evaluating and planning of any successful promotion. That is why we developed our CMS Intelligent Redemption System. It is sophisticated proprietary software that allows us to program and initialize data.... Our purchasing standards and fulfillment procedures build-in tracking and accountability.... CMS Fulfillment Center specializes in direct mail projects, new product introductions, and promotion launches."[8]

No wonder curious visitors are flocking to Purpose-Driven churches. Small wonder pastors around the world are watching, listening, ready to follow.

This fall, "over 13,000 ministers and students" heard Pastor Warren explain the ways of a purpose-driven church at SuperConference 2003, held at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Speaking on 'Attracting a Crowd to Worship,' Warren shared some basic principles behind church growth. He aimed his words at those who were "stuck in the past:"

"I believe that one of the major church issues [of the future] will be how we’re going to reach the next generation with our music,' he said, admitting, 'You can make more people mad with music than anything else in church....

"To insist that all good music came from Europe 200 years ago; there’s a name for that - racism.... Encourage members to re-arrange and rewrite. New songs say God is doing something awesome.”[9] Emphasis added

Do they? It's all too easy to justify our attempts to please the crowds by meeting "felt needs." We simply reinvent God's character and will, claiming that our purpose is His purpose. Assuming that He loves the same things we love, we assign Him an image more like our own. But in Psalm 50:21, God warns us against such presumptuous views of God's nature. "You thought that I was altogether like you," He told His people, "but I will rebuke you...."

Pastor Warren again claimed divine approval during a "Building a Purpose-Driven Church" seminar held at Saddleback Community Church in January, 1998. Basing church growth strategies on personal wants, not on the guidelines of God's Word, he said,

"Now, at Saddleback Church, we are unapologetically contemporary... I passed out a three-by-five card to everybody in the church, and I said, 'You write down the call letters of the radio station you listen to.' I wasn't even asking unbelievers. I was asking the people in the church, 'What kind of music do you listen to?' When I got it back, I didn't have one person who said, 'I listen to organ music.' Not one.... So, we made a strategic decision that we are unapologetically a contemporary music church. And right after we made that decision and stopped trying to please everybody, Saddleback exploded with growth....

"I'll be honest with you, we are loud. We are really, really loud on a weekend service.... I say, 'We're not gonna turn it down.' Now the reason why is baby boomers want to feel the music, not just hear it.... God loves variety!"[2]

Does God really love today's cultural "variety?" I doubt that God is pleased when we feed our natural cravings for emotional stimuli. When ancient Israel became bored with God's Word and embraced a wide variety of cultural and spiritual thrills, God disciplined them severely. He even compared his wayward people with a "wild donkey... that sniffs at the wind in her desire." Jeremiah 2:24

Our human nature (the "flesh") is no different than theirs. We, too, are tempted to trade God's very best for the world's gratifications. That's why He tells us to "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lust against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary one to another..." Galatians 5:17

When church leaders use energizing music, emotional stimuli and short, light messages to satisfy the flesh with its "felt needs," they tend to obscure our deeper spiritual needs. Fed a diet of simplified sermons designed to please everyone, both seekers and believers may lose their appetite for the solid Biblical teaching that -- by His Spirit -- produces conviction of sin, genuine repentance, actual regeneration, true spiritual renewal and the continual joy of walking with Jesus.

Footnotes

1. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002). See "Driven or Led?"

2. Dennis Costella, FOUNDATION Magazine, March-April 1998. www.fundamentalbiblechurch.o rg/Foundation/fbcsdlbk.htm. You can find a very similar message in Rick Warren's article titled " Selecting Worship Music" (July 29, 2002 ) at www.pastorport.com/ministrytoday.asp ?mode=viewarchive&index=18.

The Bible warns against a musical "variety" or usage that serves paganism: "when all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, harp, and lyre, in symphony with all kinds of music, all the people, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the gold image which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up." Daniel 3:7

3. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), page 62.

4. www.pastors.com/aboutus/

5. Ken Witty, "Peter Drucker's Search for Community," Business Week Online, December 24, 2002. www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnfla sh/dec2002/nf20021224_6814.htm

6. www.christian-ministry.com/aboutus_who.htm

7. www.christian-ministry.com/clients.htm

8. www.christian-ministry.com/services_promo. htm

9. Warren on church music, www.sunlandneighborhoodchurch.com/a rticles_view.asp?articleid=1382&columnid

Is God Dead?
1st Revision

By

Dave McDowell


“’Whither is God?’ he cried, ‘I shall tell you where. We have killed him—you and I…God is dead…And we have killed him’” Nietzsche said it. And I must admit, to a certain extent, I agree. “God is not dead,” you say. “He is alive and well.” Well, where is he? You certainly do not find his influence in the Roman Catholic Church these days, a church that has been eaten up and spit out by a clergy sex scandal. Before you start thumping your chest in pride because you are a Protestant, keep in mind that the Episcopal Church appointed it’s first openly gay bishop last year. Mainline Protestant denominations saw a dramatic drop in membership and attendance in the 1990’s This does not include the mammoth Southern Baptist Convention, although the pace of it’s growth did fall dramatically. It seems that the larger denominations have lost their influence in the wake of relativistic teaching and the dichotomy of their stances. The church seems to be at best split in two, at worst, as Nietzsche described God…dead.
However, the same article that trumpeted Mainline Protestantism’s apparent slow death also noted that some denominations did grow. Believe it or not, even in the wake of disaster, the Catholic Church was among them as well as the heretical Mormon church and the Assemblies of God, my old stomping grounds. The study says, “Scholars say the data also show the Pentecostal movement has established itself within mainstream Christianity, attracting middle-class churchgoers with so-called ‘manifestations of the Holy Spirit’ such as speaking in tongues.” It seems that people seeking the truth of Christianity are drawn by experience rather than liturgy. To this denomination, and others patterned after it, God is not dead…and they seem to offer strong arguments for it, namely, for them, the church experience has become relevant.
So is God really dead? Or has it just lost its relevance? If God is dead, I agree with Neitzsche: we have killed him. Not in the literal sense, but through our rigidness and closed minds. We climb up on our high horses and look upon the unchosen world with disdain and we organize our churches to keep out the seeker of truth and to promote our version of social Christianity. Well guess what? That world, which we thought stupid for not seeing the truth, has turned up it’s nose to our hypocrisy and have fled out the doors of churches to find their own significance elsewhere. The fastest growing religion in the United States is no longer Christianity, but Islam. It seems they have offered to people a greater sense of significance, particularly among the black community, where they are also the fastest growing religion. My theory is that the reason people have retreated from Christianity and moved to other religions is that Christianity has lost its relevance in the United States.
However, although Islam carries the honor of being the fastest growing religion in the country and the fastest growing religion among the black community, it does not have the honor of having the fastest growing community of believers. That honor belongs to Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, California. Surprisingly, Saddleback is a Southern Baptist Church, although you would never know that by their style and their growth. Their pastor is Rick Warren, who is most famous for his two “purpose-driven” books. The first book, The Purpose Driven Church came out in 1995 and has sold more than one million copies in twenty different languages. Supporters of the book include W. A. Criswell (who wrote the foreword), Bill Bright, Jerry Falwell, Robert Schuller, Adrian Rogers, and Jack Hayford. But Warren is known more for his recent book The Purpose Driven Life that has sold more than five million copies and has spent numerous weeks on top of the New York Times Best Seller List. One website describes Warren as having “bad reputation in conservative circles.” This seems to be the understatement of the year. Fundamentalists seem to abhor him claiming, “he misuses the Bible, stretching the meaning of passages or even giving passages a meaning that is foreign to them.”
Warren’s beliefs about church structure seemed to be summed up well in a book review posted online:

“The thesis of The Purpose Driven Church is that when churches think first about their health, growth is sure to follow. "If your church is healthy," writes Rick Warren, "growth will occur naturally. Healthy, consistent growth is the result of balancing the five biblical purposes of the church." These five purposes are to "Love the Lord with all your heart," "Love your neighbor as yourself," "Go and make disciples," "[Baptize] them," and "[Teach] them to obey." And those purposes can only be accomplished, argues Warren, when church leaders stop thinking about church-building programs and shift their focus to a "people-building process" involving fellowship, discipleship, worship, and evangelism. Warren, the founder of the fastest-growing Baptist church in American history, has taught seminars to thousands of pastors from all over the world, many of whom have successfully implemented his techniques.”

Unfortunately, Warren has his share of critics. One website says:

“Warren mocks churches which ‘seem to think that the 1950s was the golden age, and they are determined to preserve that era in their church’ (p. 55). He later makes it clear what he means by this. He encourages young pastors to leave behind that old-fashioned church music in favor of jazz or rock or whatever turns your people on! He encourages churches to imitate the culture and "dress down" for church…He is desperately trying to be relevant, and in the process has lost all sense of being ‘set apart.’ Walking into church with food and drink, dressed down as if at the mall, and hearing rock & jazz music may be relevant, but it is NOT much different from the world.

Interestingly though, the same website elsewhere says, “Rick Warren's church (and others like it) have attracted thousands. His methods do work. He says that the reason for the spectacular growth has been his emphasis on creating a ‘purpose driven church.’” However, the author contributes Warren’s success to pragmatism.
Another critic is Nathan Busenitz of Shepherd’s Fellowship “an association of churches rallying around the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, the importance of expository preaching, and the centrality of a biblical philosophy of ministry.” He sums up the basic fundamentalist view in his final assessment: “While Warren’s book does offer some practical tips for making a church larger, it fails to expound the foundational theological truths that make a church more biblical. Because it overemphasizes the felt needs of unbelievers and de-emphasizes the priority of clear biblical teaching, The Purpose-Driven Church seems to be driven by the wrong purpose—namely, a man-centered desire for acceptance and influence rather than a God-centered affinity for truth.” My favorite one, I believe is this gross straw man representation of Warren’s beliefs: “The Purpose-Driven Church is based on the (unbiblical) concept that we should aim to make sinners feel comfortable at church.”
Whether or not you agree with Warren’s methodology, you cannot deny the numerical success of Saddleback. As of the time of this writing, it is fast approaching 20,000 in attendance. According to Warren, the majority of the membership of his church is not transfer growth, as in members coming from another church, but rather conversion growth of previous unbelievers. If the conversions are genuine, and I believe they are, this is one of the most successful churches in the history of the world. As a matter of fact, the only way you can attack Warren is by denying that these conversions are genuine. That usually is the basic ploy of fundamentalists and others who attack his methodology.
One of most interesting things to note is that the same people who criticize Warren’s methodology are the same people who will not offer an alternative. They insist on using the same tired out methods that they have been using for over one hundred years even though it is very clear that this country has moved from a modern context to a postmodern one. These are the same people who slink in the shadows because their priest has become a child-molester. These are the same people who sit in the pew of the Episcopal Church and listen to a gay heretic blaspheme the Word of God. These are the same people who sit in a church pew like the frozen chosen and do not get out and do the work of the ministry.
Is God dead? To the people who are content to sit on a pew week after week and criticize one of the most successful evangelists in the history of the United States, God is dead. He is dead because they have killed Him. At least their God is dead. My God is alive and well and continues to move and work in the lives of men like Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Jerry Falwell, Adrian Rogers, Jack Hayford and Bill Hybels, just to name a few, who do not criticize obvious works of God and who continue to engage this world with the real gospel, the one of love and not of criticism and hate. These men infect their individual churches with the fire of the love of God and, as a result, wonder of wonders, they grow!
God, let us not grow weary in well doing! Let us spur on the men of You who in their faithfulness to continue to spread your love and let us shun those of a critical spirit who seek to tear down the workings of Your Spirit and to kill God with their futile ramblings. Let us remind those who would criticize Your move in the words of my friend Steve Sparks, a youth pastor in Jackson, Michigan: “I like the way he does it better than the way you don’t do it.”

Friedrich Nietsche, “The Gay Science,” in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. And trans. W. Kauffman (New York Viking, 1954), p. 95.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N40/long-5.40w.html
Ibid
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9704/14/egypt.islam/
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030904-stinger02.htm
http://www.westchasechurch.org/missions.htm
http://www.biblebb.com/files/pdc.htm
Ibid
http://www.challies.com/archives/000037.html
Ibid
Ibid
http://flashmarket.com/a/0310201063/Purpose_Driven%C2%AE_Church_The.html
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Letter/v8n2.htm
Ibid
http://www.gracechurch.org/sfellowship/
http://www.biblebb.com/files/pdc.htm
http://www.christianity-books.com/PurposeDriven_Church_The_0310201063.html

I've fixed some things and added a link to the church that my wife and I have been attending, Metro South Church.

Last year, the youth group that I was working with at the church that I did belong to performed a "human music video" to the song "There's A Reason" by MercyMe. In the drama group, called "Paradigm Shift", I played Jesus and was actually lifted up and nailed to an imaginary cross to emphasize that Jesus really is the reason for...well...everything. My wife bought this CD for my Christmas stocking this year. We exchanged out stockings last night. Driving to work this morning, this song came on and I had actually forgotten that it was on the CD. I fought back tears remembering the good times I had with the youth group and being reminded of what this season is about which we tend to forget. I have included on the right (not the left as I wrote last time) a link to MercyMe's website. Here are the lyrics to the song "There's A Reason."

Now's the time
Let the redeemed celebrate
If you know what I know
You can't wipe the smile off your face
Oh people, stand up and praise

CHORUS
There's a reason to dance
There's a reason to sing
Of the sacred romance
With our Savior and King
We lift up our hands
We fall on our knees
To the Son of Man
The reason we are free

There's a reason

All glory to
The King of Kings, Lord if Lords
Oh the value of Your worth
No worldly treasures can afford

And we praise You forevermore

REPEAT CHORUS

There's a reason to stand
There's a reason to shout, to shout Your name on high
So we take up our cross, there's a reason to die
Because Jesus is alive

There's a reason

REPEAT CHORUS

There's a reason
You are the reason
The reason we are free


There's also a tremendous song called "Word of God Speak" on the same album. Here are the lyrics for it.

I'm finding myself at a loss for words
And the funny thing is it's okay
The last thing I need is to be heard
But to hear what You would say

CHORUS
Word of God speak
Would You pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your majesty
To be still and know
That You're in this place
Please let me stay and rest
In Your holiness
Word of God speak

I'm finding myself in the midst of You
Beyond the music, beyond the noise
All that I need is to be with You
And in the quiet hear Your voice

REPEAT CHORUS 2x

I'm finding myself at a loss for words
And the funny thing is it's okay

Hey guys. I'm finally figuring out this blog thing and diggin' it. There are new links on the left. The first is to the Yahoo group that I moderate called "Noah's Mark." The second is my Yahoo profile. Some of you may have noticed that my email address has changed. If you email me at davemcdowell@charter.net you will still find me. That email address is being forwarded to my new address which is:

covenantsealedindreams@yahoo.com

You may wonder where the name comes from. It is from a Project 86 song called "Spill Me" which I really like. I will print the lyrics below. Merrry Christmas!

My Back is so full of scrapes
With the miles I've walked of waste
Fade and fall away against
And numb my hunger to taste
What's the basis for change?
Excuses to feed my ego's rage?
I cling to my comfort to quench because
I'm content with my sadistic wretch
Find every reason not to kill the halfway beast
that steals my only peace
Don't expect it to rest Until its home is a naturalistic nest
But there is no coincidence But there is no compromise
Rise.
Close my grip on the floodgates
and lean on the back of the covenant sealed in dreams
Anticipate the backlash
Uncountable grins fade to screams
Doubt's an ocean away on a sea that my last mistake drowned unwillingly
I don't have the trust to float inside the waves that seek to spill me.
Rise.
Unrealistic ideals Promises I can't keep I don't have those luxuries
I don't have the time you do to sleep
So now it starts And now it begins I've waited too long for this
For your fear to interfere again So now my vision's secured

I have been doing my share of thinking for the past few days. In a week and a half, I will take my last final for this semester and begin to prepare for the J-mester and then the winter semester. After this semester, I will only have eight classes left and as of Spring 2004, I will only be five classes away. I have been doing a lot of thinking about the future and even more about the past. 2003 has definitely been the most turbulent year that I have had since I moved to Michigan.
The year started out very discouraging. On the Sunday between Christmas and New Years, my wife and I were asked to resign as youth sponsors at our church due to doctrinal differences. After much prayer, we also resigned our membership three weeks later. At the time, I was taking a class called Spiritual Formation. Little did I know at the time that this had to be ordained of God. I was challenged to develop the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Scripture reading, and meditation.
I then learned, just a few weeks later, that there was a possibility that my school may close. I was (am) a senior and if I had to transfer, I stood to loose a lot of credits. I was discouraged as I scrambled to find another school. At the eleventh hour, my school, William Tyndale College in Farmington Hills, Michigan affiliated with Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Many of you may know this school because of Pat Robertson. As scary as this was, it also reenergized me to get my degree finished.
In November 2002, my wife and I moved into a five-bedroom home that belonged to my in-laws. My father-in-law had lost his job just before Christmas 2001 and had subsequently accepted a job in Canton, Ohio, where their family is originally from. Eleven months later, the house still had not sold and we moved into it to house sit. In July, my wife and I were given the opportunity to purchase a mobile home. We jumped on it and moved out of the house. The entire summer, we maintained both the one-acre property of my in-laws and our own fixer-upper mobile home. It was challenging and I learned my share of how to do landscaping and fix things. Needless to say, when the final grass mowing came in October I was very happy.
This fall, I began to take three classes including a 300 level Biblical Literature class, my first semester of Greek, and a class called Philosophy of Church Ministry. Believe it or not, but the church class is harder than my other two combined, but it has been challenging and has really stretched my ideas concerning church. I took all three of these classes in addition to working full-time, being married, and tackling several nagging health problems. I also had to try and tackle a pattern of sin in a particular area in my life that had got way out of control.
As I look back on this year and this semester, a saying comes back to mind that I heard a while back. “Life is hard, but God is good.” I have learned some valuable lessons and I continue to grow spiritually and I have learned that all of that cost something. That in itself was a valuable lesson.