Many UCC and “mainline” churches feel themselves to be weak and powerless. Even when the problem isn’t defective theology, it may entail a decided lack of faith in God’s power to work through such a small number. The sense of futility is heightened whenever small, struggling (for now) churches, compare themselves to mega churches. After all, weren’t the Mega Churches doing everything right? Weren’t the Mega Churches better than everyone else because they geared their services to “seekers” instead of mature believers? That was always the “failure” of the traditional church we were told.
The trend seems to have megashifted in the Mega Church however according to Christianity Today:
After modeling a seeker-sensitive approach to church growth for three decades, Willow Creek Community Church now plans to gear its weekend services toward mature believers seeking to grow in their faith.
The change comes on the heels of an ongoing four-year research effort first made public late last summer in Reveal: Where Are You?, a book coauthored by executive pastor Greg Hawkins. Hawkins said during an annual student ministries conference in April that Willow Creek would also replace its midweek services with classes on theology and the Bible.
Call it “Back to the Future of Church” … Mega Churches everywhere are trying to put back “relationship” into a “relationship with Jesus Christ.” While small churches have rightly been criticized when they act like dysfunctional families they at least still remember what it may be like to be a family instead of a faceless crowd.
There IS hope for the small mainline church if they seek to identify the “unreached people group” God has placed at their door. There IS hope for the small mainline church if we will renew our faith in the Sovereign God. Our forebears in the faith were Pilgrims, Puritans, and Reformers who faced death. Making friends with people who don’t go to church shouldn’t be that hard in comparison. As the descendants of deaconesses who served the sick, missionaries who braved fever and wild animals, helping people in our communities in the Name of Jesus Christ shouldn’t be such a big deal either.
But the myth that we must be a “Mega Church” to have a “real ministry” is a convenient lie we embrace to justify doing nothing.
Editor’s Note: Sadly Rev. John Thomas has called for a “Sacred Conversation on Race” to be held on Trinity Sunday. The only hope for the human community is to enter into union and communion with the Triune God exclusively through Jesus Christ. Why? Because the Holy Trinity - in the mysterious union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God - embodies the perfect community of love and “shalom” that humanity craves. The United Church of Christ has too long neglected the historic Trinitarian orthodoxy of it’s Congregational, Evangelical and Reformed forebears. The United Church - and Rev. Wright - have waffled on the fact that salvation is found only in Jesus Christ. Entering into any discussion of race, racial reconciliation, or unity within the church without re-establishing our connection with the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of Jesus Christ as the unique Savior of the World is, at best, premature and will be ill informed even if such a call to “dialog” were sincere in the first place rather than a smokescreen to hide the true beliefs of a small percentage of the larger church and it’s current leadership.
CONFESSING MOVEMENT CALLS UCC TO SUSPEND DIALOGUE ON RACE
Given the present reality of our church and society, we call on the leadership of the United Church of Christ to suspend plans to initiate a church wide “dialogue on race,” scheduled to begin May 18th!
While we applaud the many faithful pastors who will use this Sunday to speak to their congregations in a Godly way about racial reconciliation, this is not the time for the UCC to seek further publicity in this way. This is an historic hour in America. Whether we will vote for or against him, the candidacy of our Christian brother and United Church of Christ member Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States has shattered our racial barriers as no other event in our history. He has called us to a unity and hope that transcends our history of racial division. Unfortunately, the President and leadership of the United Church of Christ, in support of UCC Pastor Jeremiah Wright, damaged Obama’s candidacy by refocusing attention on racial division in a way that, sadly, energized racism in the nation. We call our church not to compound this error by engaging in ‘dialogue’ on the pain of the past or the issues that divide.
The United Church of Christ is in no position to offer leadership on this subject. The presidency of John Thomas has had a poor record on race - landmarked by the alienation of the entire Puerto Rico Conference and the failure to respond to the African American Pastors Memorandum of 2004. The United Church of Christ is one of the least racially diverse protestant denominations in the United States.
Now is the time to authenticate the unity that begins with personal transformation through faith in Jesus Christ. Only when we die to ourselves and receive life in Jesus Christ do we become a people of one blood, one name, one character, one history and one future. We call on the United Church of Christ to live our Christ-given unity in repentance and humility rather than presume to dialogue about race.
Excerpt: Since Wright is the only reason the UCC is calling for a “sacred conversation” this Sunday, it’s appropriate we ask questions not just of ourselves, but also about him:
Does Wright yearn for true reconciliation between the races? Or, the defeat of one race and triumph of another? What, if any, progress does he see in America’s race relations?
After completing three articles on Luke inspired by reading Taylor Caldwell’s “Dear and Glorious Physician” historical novel about Luke, I turn now to sharing decades of memories with regard to the author of a Gospel and the Book of Acts.
I think I first read Luke and Acts during my sophomore year of High School. After God sovereignly drew me to Himself in November of 1971, His Holy Spirit put a hunger in me to read His holy written Word–the Bible. After trying unsuccessfully to start from the
beginning and reading all the way through the Bible (I bogged down in Leviticus and Numbers), I started reading (a couple times, I think) the “Good News for Modern Man” version (remember the simple pictures–the one of Jesus healing a blind man continues to be in an eye hospital in central Asia) of the New Testament and Psalms. So, I think I read Luke and Acts twice during that time.
Also during my High School years, I had an early morning Quiet Time, consisting of Bible reading and study along with prayer. While I used various study guides during those years, most of the time I read William Barclay’s commentaries in the “Daily Study Bible” series. The Scotsman Barclay combined classical scholarship with a fresh translation and helpful application. Whenever I see my surviving copies of Barclay’s commentaries, I have a very sentimental feeling and one of gratitude to God as well.
I’m sure I studied Luke and Acts in college, but I do not recall any specifics at this time.
While attending Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I took a “Life and Times of Jesus” class–on the Gospels. One option for a paper was to answer the question, “If you could have only one Gospel, which one would it be and why?” The title of my paper was
“Luke Alone Remains.” I posited a nuclear holocaust having occurred (I was pretty naive about that, but work with me here) and a bishop writing a person who had found a surviving copy of the Gospel of Luke.
By the middle 80’s (I think) I had begun to ponder the possibility of writing two novels about Luke–one about his Gospel and one concerning Acts. When, a few years, I took up Caldwell’s novel I put it down after a hundred or so pages because I feared it might color my thoughts.
Having finished it today, I realize that I did not need to worry. While it is a wonderful book, I found in the final hundred or so pages a traditional perspective of one particular Christian faith community is presented. (The almost last paragraph of the novel has distinct similarities with J. R. R. Tolkien’s presentation of the Elven Queen Galadriel–you can see what Tolkein has to say about Galadriel and Mary in the book of his letters, compiled by his son Christopher). If I ever write my novels on these subjects, they will be based upon the biblical text and not legends or additions.
Having written the various posts on Luke–especially the one on Luke as author–I have a renewed respect for this Gentile physician author who loved His Lord and sought so faithfully to vividly and accurately portray Him and the birth of His Church!
Editor’s Note: This is an open letter from Dr. Robert Gagnon of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a PCUSA institution. The original may be found here. It responds to a dangerous new trend of punishing Blacks who speak out when they do not appreciate having their struggle against racism equated with with efforts to promote the sinful lifestyle of homosexuality. Dr. Robert Gagnon authored The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, the definitive work on the subject.
May 6, 2008
President Lloyd Jacobs
University of Toledo
Dear President Jacobs,
Your suspension of Ms. Crystal Dixon , Associate Vice President of Human Resources at the University of Toledo, for rejecting a comparison between homosexuality on the one hand and being black or handicapped on the other hand constitutes, in my view, a gross injustice and an expression of the very intolerance that you claim to abhor. The disciplinary action is also predicated on a lack of knowledge and thus prejudice. I have read of your action first at worldnetdaily.com, then the full exchange at www.toledofreepress.com (the editor’s editorial, Ms. Dixon’s response, your response, and finally the news of the suspension).
Ms. Dixon is absolutely right that sexual orientation is not akin to race or sex. Unlike a homosexual orientation, race and sex are 100% congenitally predetermined, cannot be fundamentally changed in their essence by cultural influences, and are not a primary or direct desire for behavior that is incompatible with embodied structures.
Of course, generally people don’t wake up one morning and say, “I think I’ll be a homosexual.” Yet that is different from arguing that homosexual development is always and only something “given” like race and sex. Even the Kinsey Institute has acknowledged that nine out of ten persons with same-sex attractions will experience at least one shift on the Kinsey spectrum from 0 to 6 during their life; six out of ten will experience two or more shifts. The intensity of impulses, and sometimes even their direction, can and often do change over time. Like various forms of sexual impulses, the degree to which a homosexual “orientation” becomes fixed in an individual’s brain and the intensity with which it is experienced, at least in part and for some, can be affected by choices regarding fantasy life, responses to social and environmental factors in childhood and adolescence, the degree to which one acts on impulses, and the degree of self-motivation for change.
Even Edward Stein, a scholar of law and philosophy who is strongly supportive of homosexual unions, has challenged deterministic models of homosexual development. He posits instead a nondeterministic model that incorporates a significant role for choice—often blind, incremental, and indirect but choice nonetheless (The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999]). This is what the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review had to say about Stein’s book: “A landmark book…. It so pulls the rug out from under biological arguments for lesbian and gay rights that anyone from now on who appeals to such arguments will have to answer to Edward Stein’s objections” (from back cover).
Without discounting congenital influences on some homosexual development—which may create a higher risk factor for homosexual development, but nothing like a deterministic fait accompli—microcultural factors (family and peer socialization) and macrocultural factors (societal incentives for, or sanctions against, homosexual practice; demographics) probably have a significant impact on the level of incidence of homosexuality in the population.
Consider the following:
1. The authors of the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey—still the best representative survey of sexual practices in the United States—had started their study with the belief that a relatively uniform distribution of homosexuality in social groups “would fit with certain analogies to genetically or biologically based traits such as left-handedness or intelligence. However, that is exactly what we do not find. Homosexuality … is clearly distributed differentially within categories of … social and demographic variables” (Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels, The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States [Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994], 307-10). “An environment that provides increased opportunities for and fewer negative sanctions against same-gender sexuality may both allow and even elicit expression of same-gender interest and sexual behavior…. There is evidence for the effect of the degree of urbanization of residence while growing up on reported homosexuality. This effect is quite marked and strong for men.” They also found that the relation of education to same-gender sexuality to “stand out for women in a way that it does not for men.” Women who were college graduates were significantly more likely to report same-sex partners, same sex desire, and homosexual/bisexual identity than were women who had only a high school degree or less. Laumann et al. attributed the difference, in part, to “greater social and sexual liberalism … and … greater sexual experimentation” that coincides with education. The fact that women are much less likely than men to be exclusively attracted to persons of the same sex and much more likely to vary sexual preference over time suggests that education is a cultural variable that can impact the incidence of homosexuality on some women.
2. A 1992 study of nearly 35,000 Minnesota junior and senior high school students concluded that “responses to individual sexual orientation items varied with age, religiosity, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status…. The findings suggest an unfolding of sexual identity during adolescence, influenced by sexual experience and demographic factors” (G. Remafedi, et al., “Demography of sexual orientation in adolescents,” Pediatrics 89:4 [Apr. 1992]: 714-21.
3. J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, using the Australian Twin Register, showed that only one out of ten times when one member of an identical twin pair self-identified as non-heterosexual (a generous 2 to 6 on the Kinsey spectrum) did the co-twin likewise self-identify (J. Michael Bailey, et al., “Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 [2000]: 524-36). Bailey admitted that two of his previous identical twin studies, done in the early 1990s and positing a 50% concordance rate for homosexuality, had been riddled with sample bias because they recruited participants by advertising in gay publications.
4. The Columbia and Yale authors of one twin study using an enormous and nationally representative sample of adolescents (30,000) concluded: “Less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same-sex romantic preferences” (Peter S. Bearman and Hannah Brückner, “Opposite-Sex Twins and Adolescent Same-Sex Attraction,” American Journal of Sociology 107.5 [2002]: 1179-1205). They found no significant difference in concordance rates for non-heterosexuality among identical twin pairs (6.7%) and fraternal twin pairs (7.2%), even though the latter are no more genetically “identical” than non-twin siblings. Moreover, they found that opposite-sex twins were twice as likely to report same-sex attraction as same-sex twins; and that males without older brothers among opposite-sex twins were twice as likely to report same-sex attraction (18.7%) than their male counterparts with older brothers (8.8%).
5. According to William H. James, “There is an abundance of data suggesting that male homosexuals and paedophiles report having experienced more sexual abuse (however defined) in childhood (CSA) than do heterosexual controls…. There are grounds for supposing that some of the reports are veridical [causally related], and there is support from a longitudinal study reporting a small but significant increase in paedophilia in adulthood following CSA. To summarize: most boys who experience CSA do not later develop into homosexuals or paedophiles. However, the available evidence suggests that a few do so as a result of the abuse” (”Two Hypotheses on the Causes of Male Homosexuality and Paedophilia,” Journal of Biosocial Sciences 36 [2004]: 371-374; the quotation is from the abstract).
6. Another study indicates influences from family structure: Morten Frisch and Anders Hviid, concluded in a 2006 study that men were more likely to marry homosexually if their parents had divorced or cohabited for only a short duration, if parental cohabitation had been characterized by long periods of a father’s absence, or if paternal identity were unknown. Women were more likely to marry homosexually if their parents had a short marriage or if the mother had been absent during the child’s adolescence because of abandonment of death. For each extra year that one’s parents stayed married, the percentage of those who married heterosexually went up 1.6% among sons and 1% among daughters, while the percentage of those who married homosexually went down 1.8% among sons and 1.4% among daughters. The study also found that having older brothers increased the likelihood of marrying heterosexually, a result that stands in tension with a Canadian study that found that the incidence of homosexuality increases in proportion to the number of older brothers.
The above studies should suffice for demonstrating the error of comparing an impulse-related condition like homosexuality with race and sex, so far as origination is concerned. Nor can they be compared as behavioral conditions. Homosexual attractions are a desire for a form of behavior that is structurally discordant; race and sex are not in the first instance impulse-related conditions, much less impulses for behavior that is incompatible with embodied structures. This leads to the next issue.
Why is homosexual practice wrong? One can point to the disproportionately high rate of measurable harm that attends male homosexual relationships and female homosexual relationships. The former exhibit markedly higher numbers of sex partners over the course of life and a markedly higher incidence of sexually transmitted infections, even relative to homosexual females. The latter exhibit a markedly higher incidence of mental health issues and markedly shorter durations of sexual unions on average, even relative to homosexual males.
Many would like to attribute these higher rates of measurable harm primarily to societal “homophobia.” Yet such a supposition (for that is all that it is) is contradicted by two facts. First, these problems persist, at similar rates, even in the most homosex-affirming cultures within parts of the United States, in Canada, and in the most sexually “liberal” countries of Western Europe. Second, societal “homophobia” doesn’t explain why the types of harm affect homosexual males and homosexual females at different rates and in ways that reflect male-female differences.
For example, significantly higher rates both of sexual partners over the course of life and of STIs are exactly what we would expect of all-male sexual bonds since, as cross-cultural (and even cross-species) studies have shown, males find monogamy more difficult than females. Put two men together in a sexual bond without the benefit of female socialization and the results are predictable. Similarly, the fact that homosexual females exhibit higher rates of mental health complications is a reflection of the reality that females generally experience higher rates of such problems than do males. Women generally invest more of their self-worth in relationships, which creates a special problem for mental health when the relationships fail. This problem gets ratcheted up in all-female unions. Moreover, homosexual females experience shorter-term relationships on average, even in comparison to male homosexual bonds, because females generally put greater demands on the quality of the relationship as a means to satisfying their own individual needs, which in turn puts greater stress on the relationship. Put two women together, each making the same high demands of neediness on the other, and one will predictably get a relatively short union. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule but the exceptions don’t invalidate the rule.
Putting two (or more) people of the same sex in a sexual union does nothing for moderating the extremes of a given sex or filling in the gaps of a given sex. It rather exacerbates the extremes and highlights the gaps. That is the nature of a one-sex sexual bond. This measurable reality discloses the non-measurable problem of attempting sexual merger with someone who is not a true sexual complement. The disproportionately high rates of problems cited above, as bad as they are, are only symptoms of the root problem.
What is the root problem? The root problem is erotic attraction for, and the attempt to merge sexually with, what one already is as a sexual being. Those who claim an exclusive orientation toward members of the same sex tacitly know that what they desire from a person of the same sex is something that they believe is unobtainable from a person of the other sex; namely, more of the essential quality of their own sex. A male wants more maleness, which he believes is unobtainable from a sexual bond with a female. Conversely, a female wants more femaleness, which she believes is unobtainable from a sexual relationship with a male, even a gender-nonconforming male.
It is axiomatic and undeniable that a male or a female is only one half of a complete sexual whole since, obviously, there are two primary sexes. The logic of a male-female sexual bond is that the two primary sexual halves are united into a single complementary sexual whole. The logic of a same-sex sexual bond is that each partner is only half his or her own sex, which unites to form a whole male or a whole female. Such a union dishonors the integrity and completeness of one’s maleness, if male, or femaleness, if female.
A homosexual person, despite what he or she may think, is not half of his or her own sex but half of the full male-female sexual spectrum. A person may be in need of “structural affirmation” from members of the same sex, but not “structural supplementation.” Merging sexually with another of the same sex does not make one “more” male, if male, or “more” female, if female. Rather, it has the opposite effect of regularizing the self-misperception that one can complete one’s own sex only by uniting sexually with someone of the same sex.
The closest parallels to adult-committed homosexual relations are not ethnicity or gender but rather adult-committed incestuous unions and adult-committed polysexual unions (i.e., sexual unions involving more than two persons concurrently). The root problem with adult-committed incest must be applicable even when the relationship will not produce children (e.g., when one partner is infertile or takes birth-control precautions; or in a case of homosexual incest). That root problem is that two people who are too much alike on the level of kinship and who are thus already members of the same “flesh” attempt to become “one flesh.” It is an instance of too much structural sameness, not enough complementary otherness. This is the same problem with homosexual bonds, only now the sameness is more keenly felt on the level of sex or gender. So adult-committed incest and adult-committed homosexual unions are analogically related.
As regards polyamorous unions of a committed sort (i.e. unions with three or more sex partners), the connection with homosexual practice is not analogical but foundational. That is to say, the restriction of validated sexual unions to two persons at any one time is ultimately predicated on the dimorphism, or “twoness,” of the sexes. A sexual union between a man and a woman so brings together the full range of human sexuality that a third party is neither necessary nor desirable. Once the importance of the twoness of the sexes is disregarded, there no longer remains a logical or nature-based reason for limiting the number of partners in a sexual bond to two. This is especially so since many people experience an innate and intense polysexual orientation that is not of their own choosing.
Nor can the counterargument be made that a person can only really love one other person concurrently. For parents don’t love their first child any less when a second child comes. Moreover, most people have many intimate (but non-sexual) friends, not just one. Yes, there is something special about sexual bonds that requires a limitation to two persons. But that “something special” is the fact that a man is the true sexual complement to a woman and a woman to a man, on a holistic level: anatomically, physiologically, and psychologically. To disregard that obvious reality is to leave oneself without rational grounds for dismissing consensual and committed sexual unions involving more than two persons. Since a limitation of sexual unions to two persons is predicated on the foundation of a two-sexes prerequisite, faithful homosexual unions must be a greater sexual violation than faithful polysexual unions inasmuch as the foundation is more important than the structure built on the foundation.
So, given your full affirmation of homosexual activity, you are left with Oprah Winfrey’s conclusion after meeting some economically upscale, adult-committed polygamists for a 2007 show: “The best part of doing this job … [is that] I come in with one idea and then I leave a little more open about the whole idea. And what I realize … is that in every situation there are people who give things a bad name. There are difficulties and then there are people who handle those difficulties differently” (”Polygamy in America: Lisa Ling Reports,” http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200710/tows_past_20071026.jhtml?promocode=ssend20071026TD; full video at http://video.aol.com/video-search/query/oprah%20winfrey%20&%20lisa%20ling).
Give America more exposure to upscale, adult-committed polygamous bonds (and adult-committed incestuous bonds) and America will learn to be more tolerant of such bonds, as Oprah has. Those who dismiss a polygamy analogy and an incest analogy on the grounds that polygamy and incest always produce “demonstrable harm” are simply responding out of their “polyphobia” and “incest-phobia.” And then you can suspend people who say critical things about such relationships, once you overcome your own prejudices.
Of course, one can choose to remain logically inconsistent. Yet my point to you is not merely a slippery slope argument, although supporters of homosexual unions such as yourself are providing both the slope and the grease. My point is that if you find adult-committed incest and adult-committed polyamory offensive on formal or structural grounds, you should find adult-committed homosexual practice even more offensive. And don’t forget that an appeal to a biologically based orientation is not a moral argument. As two researchers who have worked hard to demonstrate congenital influences on homosexual development have admitted: “No clear conclusions about the morality of a behavior can be made from the mere fact of biological causation, because all behavior is biologically caused” (Brian S. Mustanski and J. Michael Bailey, “A therapist’s guide to the genetics of human sexual orientation,” Sexual and Relationship Therapy 18:4 [2003]: 432).
I hope as a president of a university you will provide your students with an example of thoughtful and rigorous reflection rather than the kind of harsh, knee-jerk response that you have thus far taken. Instead of suspending Ms. Dixon you should be singing her praises for her honesty and her courage of conviction.
Sincerely,
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Author of: The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001)
Co-author of: Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress, 2003)
On page 525 of Taylor Caldwell’s historical novel about Luke, the author has Luke meeting with the brothers Zebedee James and John. At one point John says, “‘It is commanded of us that we must bring the tidings to all the nations of the world.’”
Luke replies, “‘I am one of the “nations of the world.”‘”
Luke is the only Gospel writer who is a Gentile (one who is not Jewish). References to “the nations” can be found in his Gospel. In 2:10 the angels announce to the shepherds, “‘I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.’”
Simeon says the following to Mary and Joseph in 2:30-32, “‘For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’”
Luke records the healing of ten men from leprosy in 17:11-19. When only one of the ten–a Samaritan (a group of people despised by most Jews)–returns to thank Jesus, Jesus says, “‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’”
Near the end of Luke’s Gospel (24:45b-48b), the bodily risen Jesus Christ tells His disciples, “‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’”
This provides an excellent transition to the Book of Acts, wherein Jesus says in 1:8, “‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’”
In Acts 2, Luke records the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the speaking of various (Gentile) tongues, and people from all over the known world repent, are baptized and become believers.
In Acts 10 God speaks to Peter in a vision, which leads to his preaching the Gospel to a Gentile Roman military man named Cornelius. In verses 34 and 35 we read, “Then Peter began to speak: ‘I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.’”
In the previous chapter Luke relates the conversion of the Jewish teacher and leader and persecutor of Christians: Saul who will become known as Paul. For most of the rest of the Book of Acts Luke records Paul’s living out his life verse as he boldly plants churches where none have been planted before–among the Gentiles. Paul’s life verse is Isaiah 49:6, which says: And now the LORD says to His Servant: “‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
May we all–empowered by the Holy Spirit–prayerfully seek to have Luke’s keen vision and seek to pray and live for the fulfillment of Luke’s global Christian mission emphasis!
Editor’s Note: This article (c) 2008 by the U.S. Center for World Mission and is reprinted with permission of the Global Prayer Digest. To subscribe to this daily prayer update for unreached people groups, you may send an email to subscribe to: subscribe-brigada-pubs-globalprayerdiges@hub.xc.org
For more information about the Global Prayer Digest send email to: keith.carey@uscwm.org
The article raises an important point. Many people come to North America, see the tragedy of our broken families and broken communities and attribute the widespread failure to Christianity. We Christians ourselves live lives indistinguishable from those outside Christ. To that degree our selfishness, immodesty, vulgarity, and demonstrable lack of love for our spouse, children and neighbors and - to use an old-fashioned term - general “worldliness” disgrace Christ and mock Him before the eyes of a watching world.
Will American Families Help or Hinder Reaching the Unreached in North America?
-by Delisa Harris
There are often some stark contrasts between secular American families and immigrant families that come to our shores. Immigrant family groups include great-grandparents, grandparents, several siblings, many parents and their children. They have great aunts, uncles, as well as all their families who sometimes live in one giant household. Needless to say, the unreached people groups have their own dysfunctional characteristics, and they are far from ideal. But in many ways these immigrant families come closer to biblical standards than secularized, overly independent American families.
It wasn’t always this way. Before America’s Industrial Revolution, families lived together, worked together and met the needs of one other just as they did in the rest of the world. Americans who ran family farms or family businesses could not have survived if members separated and became independent of each other like they do today. There was no choice but to remain in an extended family. But as American society became more urbanized and people began to work for others outside the family, the pattern slowly dissolved.
America, which is known all over the world for being a “Christian” nation, has abandoned biblical family values and adopted secularized ones. The American family has been disintegrating over the last century. We have reached the point that close to 40 percent of our adult population is single, compared to closer to three percent in the year 1900. The divorce rate is about 50 percent. American society today has redefined our families to include only a husband and wife and perhaps children. American family members endure economic, physical and emotional distance from one another. As immigrants integrate into American society, they will adopt our dysfunctional, unbiblical patterns. Only obedience to biblical teachings can solve the rampant problems of American families that threaten to infect the rest of the world.
Materialism and Independence: The American Idols
When parents are not committed to their spouses they divorce and the family splits up. Why don’t family members provide the accountability to prevent husbands and wives from destroying their marriages? Often it’s because people think that it’s none of their business. The results are tragic. Children from broken homes or single family homes may have never seen or known their fathers and mothers living together. They grow up without committed male or female role models. This is far from what God intended!
From a young age, children are taught by their parents to be independent. Aging parents often pride themselves on being
independent of their children. Dependency is the last thing that family members want. Americans think that dependency is a sign of weakness. Dependency can be a weakness if there isn’t any give and take. How do we distinguish between healthy and unhealthy dependency?
When infants are born, they are completely dependent on their parents to care for them and meet their needs. As they grow older, children learn to meet their own needs and the needs of others. One-way dependency ideally morphs into loving interdependency, not independence.
Materialism is promoted in our society to the point that people can’t even think of having children because they can’t afford to give everything to them that our society say they “should” have; some have abortions. The self-centeredness of the independent, materialistic life contrasts starkly with what the Bible teaches about putting others before yourself. “Life a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us…(Eph. 5:1b, NIV).
What Does the Bible Say?
The Bible tells us that loving, mutually-dependent family relationships were God’s ideal since the time of Adam and Eve. The
Bible teaches that relationships of mutual dependency are both good and very important to God. This begins with a dependent relationship with God. Getting to know God and developing a relationship with Him begins by being raised by godly, caring parents. Our relationships with our parents help us understand our relationship with God. Parents who establish close, dependent relationships with God can help pass on this legacy to their children. It is in this relationship that believers can bring glory to the Creator. Our highest priority should be our relationship with God followed by our relationship with family and community (Matt. 22:37-39).
Since the sin of Adam and Eve, there have been no perfect family relationships. But healing has come from Jesus, the Great Healer, and our broken relationships with God and others can be restored because of what Jesus did on the cross. God desires us to be whole and to be a reflection of His holiness before Him and to the world around us.
Where Do We Go From Here?
In order to reach unreached people groups, it is time that we seriously look at our own families and see how we can live in the way that God intended. We don’t want to transplant unbiblical family values to other cultures either in North America or through mission efforts abroad. Some people in Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist cultures see the American family and decide that they don’t want to have anything to do with American “religion,” Christianity. For this reason, they may never give Jesus a chance to work in their lives.
Are we willing to change our view of family so it reflects God’s intent? We as parents need to train our children to understand the
meaning of family and of communal living, as well as the biblical basis for serving one another, healthy dependency, and imparting
wisdom and encouragement to each other. The Bible teaches us how to honor and respect the elderly. A good way to do this is to view our seniors as life coaches, just as God intended. According to the book of James, true religion is to look after the orphans and widows. These are people who have no community or family to care for them.
This category can include people who have parents but are not being parented in a godly way. Women who have lost their husbands or have husbands who do not love, care, protect, or provide for them are like widows who need our care. Let’s re-think the way we do mission work to make sure we are helping to strengthen, not weaken families.
Let’s Pray!
Pray that those who are reaching out to unreached people groups in North America will demonstrate godly family patterns that will draw extended families to the Lord.
Pray that missionaries around the world will help strengthen Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist families by introducing them to Christ.
But the outrage from the World Council of Churches is both belated and hollow because, after all, it was the goal of the World Council to create the very “regime change” that paved the way for Mugabe to “rule” there in the first place.
It was, after all, money diverted from mainline denominations to the World Council of Churches that, in part, financed the war that paved the way for the Mugabe regime. This money was collected in various mainline denominations under the ruse of helping feed starving children in Africa. But instead the money financed the martyrdom of Christian missionaries from WCC member denominations and whoever else got in the way of the Marxist forces.
Sincere Christians in the mainline who believed they had been working for finance Christian Mission instead of Marxist killing were stunned. One man in particular would become the nemesis of the theological dementia that was leaving the mainline incapable of discerning between mission and mayhem thanks to this event - Parker Williamson.
Williamson was a hunger action enabler for the PCUS mission board, which was the equivalent of the reunited denominations General Assembly Council. Toting a stack of brochures depicting children with bloated bellies, Williamson traveled from church to church to raise money for the denomination’s hunger program.
But unknown to Williamson during his fund-raising trips was that the mission board had politicized the hunger campaign. Besides giving the money he had raised for food and technical assistance, the board, through the World Council of Churches, was financing guerrilla warfare under the guise of “attacking hungers root causes.”
The Rhodesian guerrillas who shot down the plane had been recipients of Presbyterian mission money. “When I found out, I went ballistic,” Williamson said. “I felt I had betrayed Presbyterians by my participation in that program.”
Indeed all the average people in the pews of mainline churches were duped and betrayed through these actions and, to this day, still are betrayed by the mainline’s moral failure in supporting this reign of terror and failing to either admit or denounce it. Calling for Mugabe to act with honor now after a lifetime of pillage and slaughter reveals our own delusional state if sincerely issued and our hypocrisy otherwise.
Should Mugabe retain his office, we will undoubtedly at some point be called by the World Council to “help” his staggered economy with debt forgiveness and other unconditional aid without any recognition whatsoever that we have participated in the degradation of this society already. Further help will simply provide the funding for another boat load of weaponry for suppressing dissent and martyring of the Christians we claim as our brothers and sisters.
The World Council of Churches might have pathetically argued for helping enthrone Mugabe by stating that “the ends justified the means”. (One wonders how an ostensibly “Christian” organization aligning itself with one of the most murderous ideologies in history could have attempted that task, but they might have.) In this instance though, that plea to pragmatism would have at least required their funding of guerrillas to actually have made food more accessible to the average villager. It did not. By some estimates, the average lifespan has decreased to age 34 and inflation is at 500,000%! None of the “justice” promised by the revolutionaries occurred. Instead Mugabe’s pillaging of the farms and inept management of the economy has bankrupt a once wealthy nation turning it into a violent backwater. As a result the World Council could not even claim regarding Zimbabwe that the “ends justified the means”. One functioning structure - however imperfect - was replaced by something far worse.
But today, the World Council of Churches and the mainline denominations supporting that institution continue making moral pronouncements such as this most recent one regarding Mugabe with a straight face - as if there were no blood on our hands already as willing accomplices to his killing spree!
We prattle on, taking the high ground of moral superiority on every conceivable issue under the sun - except, in practice, the wanton dismembering of defenseless babies in the womb - and do not even acknowledge our own culpability for genocide, reverse apartheid, famine, martyrdom and every other evil perpetrated under the Mugabe regime.
This appalling display of moral callousness is at the root of our demise. We confuse mayhem with mission. We confuse atheist killing sprees with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We denounce, on the one hand, the “School of the Americas” because of tenuous connections with “right wind death squads” operating in the shadows, while financing left wing armies operating in the open. We rightly denounce the failures of the American Empire and advance even more hideous Stalinist ones in their place. We denounce racism and yet defend a practice that Margaret Sanger encouraged to control people she considered “subhuman”, namely, Blacks. In doing so we have been party and accomplice to the death of more Blacks than the “KKK” Rev. Jeremiah Wright properly rails against. Despite the painful contradictions, we pretend ourselves the champions of moral clarity. We are as free from self-examination and as full of self-righteousness as any of the “fundamentalists” we denounce. We are gutter drunks pronouncing ourselves sober and unimpaired.
Like Nebuchadnezzar boasting of his prowess and glory we make these and similiar pronouncements continually through our various organs of outrage. The sad moral reality is that we have the moral discernment of Nebuchadnezzar when he was reduced to living as an animal. Our moral sensibilities are consistently aligned with movements of genocide at the level of nations, races, and children despite our talk of peacemaking and protests of love.
As Ascension Day draws close, we are reminded of Christ’s victory over Sin and Satan and over the Principalities and Powers. He is the “other king” the Apostle Paul renounced, the True Lord enthroned in heaven against the false earthly Lords. As Pentecost draws near, we are reminded that Jesus Christ has definitively created the New Community of His Body the Church as a tangible alternative and transcendent critique of flawed human communities.
These two astounding realities are made filthy by the sins we have embraced in Christ’s name and dared to call “holy”.
Have others sinned? Have the “fundamentalists” sinned? Have the “evangelicals” failed in many ways? To be sure. But the mainline can only repent for itself and shifting blame to others is no substitute for our own repentance.
Like Nebuchadnezzar our way forward is radical and simple. It is not enough to try to cover up our sin with new pronouncements. It is not enough to ignore the insane moral ambiguity and compromise in which we find ourselves. What we are called to do is repent of the past and make amends as far as we might. We are called to relearn Jesus Christ and renew our sincere adherence to God’s Word instead of presuming ourselves superior to it. Mugabe himself stands as witness to the moral abyss to which our sense of smug superiority over the Word of God and Gospel of Jesus Christ has lead us.
Will we observe this season from Ascension to Pentecost as a time of humiliation and repentance and seeking God’s face? Or will we continue in our self-congratulatory moral insanity?
On page 520 of her historical novel Dear and Glorious Physician, Taylor Caldwell writes the following about Luke and his Gospel, “He put nothing in it of his own opinions, but only the information which had been imparted to him.” On one level that opinion is true.
On another level, however, I believe that God works through the personality of each writer of a Bible book. God of course is the co-author of each book, with the Holy Spirit inspiring the Bible as God’s holy written Word.
In his Gospel and in the Book of Acts, Luke brings to bear his Gentile faith- perspective; his keen intellect; and his powerful observation skills, honed as a physician.
He combines these three attributes as a kind of investigative reporter. Here is how Eugene Peterson renders the first part of Luke 1 in The Message Bible: “So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.”
In this article I am going to share with you what others have written concerning Luke the author. I will draw from commentators, authors, and translators.
I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian. “For Luke the chief historical event in which salvation was revealed was the ministry and person of Jesus. We examined his presentation of Jesus in the Gospel and concluded that the message and work of Jesus were presented in terms of salvation. The salvation associated with the messianic age in the Old Testament had become a reality in the ministry of Jesus. In Him the new era had arrived. We then saw that after His passion and exaltation the message of salvation bestowed by Him was the theme of the preaching of the early church. Those who accepted the message and believed in Christ experienced the forgiveness of their sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Leon Morris, The Gospel According to St. Luke (Tyndale New Testament Commentary). “The great thought Luke is expressing [by writing a sequel to his Gospel] is surely that God is working out His purpose. This purpose is seen clearly in the life and work of Jesus, but it did not finish with the earthly ministry of Jesus. It carried right on into the life and witness of the church. The church does not represent a new, completely unrelated act of God. Luke seems to be saying that the work of Jesus led, and in the plan of God was meant to lead, to the life of the church. Some writers like to bring this out by speaking of Luke’s theme as ‘salvation history,’ or by drawing attention to the promise and fulfillment motif.”
John Nolland, Luke 1-9:20 (Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 35a). “The Gospel account may have its own completeness, but Luke did not write it without having Acts already in mind. He is preparing for volume two already in 2:32 where Simeon’s words provide what will be the under girding structure for his later work. Only the reader who already has Acts in hand will do full justice to the subtle literary foreshadowings which Luke from time to time employs. At least in broad outline, Luke already knew as he completed the Gospel what he planned to do in the subsequent volume. In another way also Acts provides us with an invaluable aid to working out how Luke would have us read his Gospel text.”
William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke (The Daily Study Bible Series). “The Gospel according to St. Luke has been called the loveliest book in the world…. There is a legend [followed by Taylor Caldwell] that Luke was a skilled painter…. Certainly he had an eye for vivid things…. First and foremost, Luke’s gospel is an exceedingly careful bit of work. His Greek is notably good. The first four verses are well-nigh the best Greek in the New Testament. In these verses he claims that his work is the product of the most careful research. His opportunities were ample and his sources must have been good. As the trusted companion of Paul he must have known all the great figures of the Church, and we may be sure that he made them tell their story to him. For two years he was Paul’s companion in imprisonment in Caesarea. In the long days Luke had every opportunity for study and research and he must have used them well.”
Ray Ortlund, Inter-Sections: Crossroads in Luke’s Gospel. This book is about Jesus Christ and it’s “mostly taken from the Gospel of Luke, described by Renan as ‘the most beautiful book ever written.’ Tradition says that Luke was also a painter. Whether he really was or not, here he paints with words a master’s portrait of Jesus as the Son of Man. Getting close to those who’d spent their time with Him, and then traveling extensively with the apostle Paul to absorb Him through spiritual eyes, and then being inspired by they power of the Holy Spirit, Luke recorded his material with accuracy and exquisite beauty under the authority of God Himself.”
E. M. Blaiklock, The Acts of the Apostles. (Tyndale New Testament Commentary). “Evidence which may be regarded as conclusive supports the view held commonly by the Church since the middle of the second century, that the Acts of the Apostles was written by Luke, the physician-friend and fellow traveller of Paul. External evidence is far from negligible…. Internal evidence coincides. First, it is clear, and generally admitted, that whoever wrote the third Gospel also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Analysis of style and language places this matter beyond dispute. Secondly, the evidence of archaeology and epigraphy also points with increasing cogency to an author personally familiar with the world of the first century. Thirdly, that person was also a physician. His language has been exhaustively examined, and there is on doubt that there is a colouring of expression and a habit of vocabulary consistent only with a close acquaintance with Greek medical terminology.”
William Barclay, The Acts of the Apostles (The Daily Study Bible Series). “Although the book never says so, form the earliest times Luke has been held to be its writer. About Luke we really know very little: there are only three references to him in the New Testament–Colossians 4:14, Philemon 24, 2 Timothy 4:11. From these three references we can say two things for sure. First, Luke was a doctor; second, he was one of Paul’s most valued helpers and most loyal friends, for he was a companion of Paul in his last imprisonment. One thing we can deduce, the fact that Luke was a Gentile. Colossians 4:11 concludes a list of mentions and greetings from those who are of the circumcision; that is, from Jews; verse 12 begins a new list, and we naturally conclude that the new list are Gentiles. So then we have the very interesting fact that Luke is the only Gentile author in the New Testament.” [PC note: unless someone like Apollos wrote Hebrews.]
F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (The New International Commentary on the New Testament). “Luke, then, announces that his purpose in writing his History was to give a certain Theophilus an accurate and orderly account of the origins of Christianity, about which Theophilus had some information already. For the later part of his narrative he could draw largely on his own experiences; for the earlier part he could depend on reliable first-hand informants. His first volume is in essence a record of the apostolic witness to Jesus’ ministry of word, deed, suffering and triumph. His second volume takes up the tale after the resurrection of Jesus and carries it on for some thirty years; he traces the progress of Christianity from Judaea to Rome, and ends with the chief herald of the gospel proclaiming it at the heart of the empire with the full acquiescence of the imperial authorities.”
F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary. “Whatever the truth there may be in the late tradition that Luke was a painter, he certainly was an artist in words. Many will endorse the verdict of Renan, that his Gospel ‘is the most beautiful book there is.’ How immensely poorer we should be without his description of the herald angels with their Gloria in excelsis, the Parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, the story of the Emmaus road! It is the same artist who in his second book depicts for us in vivid and unforgettable words the scene where Peter stands and knocks at Mary’s door, the earthquake at Philippi, the uproar in the Ephesian theatre, the riot in Jerusalm when Paul was arrested, the appearance of Paul before Agrippa,.the storm and shipwreck on the voyage to Rome, the fire of sticks and the viper at Malta. Renan also said that it was ‘the most literary of the Gospels.’ We may extend this judgment to Acts and call the combined work the most literary part of the New Testament…. We find more really classical Greek in Luke’s writings than anywhere else in the New Testament, or in the Greek Bible, for that matter, although even in Luke’s writings there is also a great deal of Greek that is not classical.”
J. B. Phillips, The Young Church in Action: A Translation of the Acts of the Apostles. “The secular history of the period covered by this book of the New Testament… is of little importance compared with the spiritual history which is recorded, although of course at the time exactly the reverse must have appeared to be the case…. Yet the history told by Luke, fragmentary though it is, is the real history. The work done by the Holy Spirit through men and women is not only more important in the yes of Heaven, but actually has a far more lasting influence on human affairs than that of any secular authority. It is perfectly possible that the unpublicized and almost unknown activities of the Spirit through His human agents today are of more permanent importance than all the news recorded in the whole of the popular press.”
Eugene Peterson, The Message Bible. From the introductory essay to the Gospel of Luke. “Luke is a most vigorous champion of the outsider. An outsider himself, the only Gentile in an all-Jewish cast of New Testament writers, he shows how Jesus includes those who typically were treated as outsiders by the religious establishment of the day: women, common laborers (sheepherders), the racially different (Samaritans), the poor. He will not countenance religion as a club. As Luke tells the story, all of us who have found ourselves on the outside looking in on life with no hope of gaining entrance (and who of us hasn’t felt it?) now find the doors wide open, found and welcomed by God in Jesus.”
Eugene Peterson, The Message Bible. From the introductory essay to the Book of Acts. “Because the story of Jesus is so impressive… there is a danger that we will be impressed, but only be impressed…. It is Luke’s task to prevent that, to prevent us from becoming mere spectators to Jesus, fans of the Message. Of the original quartet of writers on Jesus, Luke alone continues to tell the story as the apostles and disciples live it into the next generation. The remarkable thing is that it continues to be essentially the same story. Luke continues his narration with hardly a break, a pause perhaps to dip his pen in the inkwell, writing in the same style, using the same vocabulary.”
Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a series on “The Dear and Glorious Physician” - Luke. The image is an icon of St. Luke.
(c) 2008 Phil Corr, Ph.D.
I am nearing the end of Taylor Caldwell’s majestic historical novel on Luke the Gospel writer. Doubleday published “Dear and Glorious Physician” in 1959, after forty six years of research and writing, according to the author.
It is a tour de force of creative writing that weaves together artistic license with rigorous historical research. She brings various Gospel characters into Luke’s life.
While I do have a few quibbles of a historical nature, the most significant disagreement I have with her is on the ethnicity of Mary and Jesus. Caldwell presents them both as Northern European in appearance, when in all likelihood they were Middle Eastern Semitic in countenance.
Caldwell does provide a fascinating discussion in a rare footnote on the subject of world wide darkness at the time of Jesus’ death. Writing on page 420, she presents the following evidence: “An enormous earthquake occurred at this hour in Nicaea. In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, Phlegon wrote that ‘a great darkness’ occurred all over Europe which was inexplicable to the astronomers. The records of Rome, according to Tertullian [a second century Christian], made note of a complete and universal darkness.
The title “Dear and Glorious Physician” is drawn from a letter of Paul. Luke eventually became Paul’s doctor.
Luke wrote the Gospel that bears his name. He also wrote the Book of Acts, which is so important to understanding the early years of the Church. If you read Acts carefully you will notice that it at times switches to a “we” narrative. Those sections have to do with Luke being present during those events.
Because the “we” narrative begins when Paul is in Toras (Troy), some people wonder whether Luke is the “Man from Macedonia” who appears to Paul in a vision. That vision or dream leads to Paul entering Europe to proclaim the Gospel and plant churches.
T.M. Moore and the Fellowship of Ailbe - a fellowship for pastors and church leaders - announces a new monthly teleconference to encourage
1) Church wide prayer for the renewal, revival and reformation of Christ’s Church
2) Local prayer groups
Here is how local pastors and men’s prayer groups may participate:
Join us to Pray for Revival!
The Fellowship of Ailbe is calling men to unite together in prayer for revival. Register now to join us each third Thursday of the month, 9:00-10:00 Eastern time, as we lift our voices together by teleconference to pray for revival.
You must register for this special activity. Each month you will receive a reminder and materials to help you in preparing to pray for revival. You will also be given instructions on the various ways that you can connect with our teleconference. For those who are interested, our prayer coordinator, Carl Waggoner, is available to help you begin a Prayer for Revival group in your home or church, using the materials available through this ministry.
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Phil Corr’s work on the web can be seen at: 
Editor’s Note: This is an open letter from Dr. Robert Gagnon of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a PCUSA institution. The original may be found 
On April 25th, 2008 the 
