The Challenge of Education

Last week, an interesting thing happened in England. The consequences of this action will, I believe, reach far beyond the shores of that country and encompass the world. The Royal Society asked their Director of Education, Professor Michael Reiss, to step down from his position because of comments that he made regarding the teaching of evolution in the classroom.

To quote from Dr. Keith S. Taber’s letter to the Times Educational Supplement (see http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/learning-science-concepts/message/835 for the entire letter and the responses),

The gist of Prof. Reiss’ argument was that the appropriate response to students who raise their beliefs in class when they are taught the scientific theory of natural selection should not be to ignore, dismiss or ridicule the students’ views, but rather to respect their ideas as a starting point for discussion, and to challenge them through the scientific arguments that have led to evolution by natural selection becoming some a strongly supported and widely accepted model for how life on earth has developed.

Professor Reiss is not supporting creationism or intelligent design, nor is he arguing for the inclusion of these topics in the science curriculum. But he is arguing that teachers should respect the views of their students and use those views as a starting point for discussion.

Too often, teachers dismiss the ideas of students as irrelevant or meaningless to the discussion. And this doesn’t just apply to those who teach evolution with an all-or-nothing approach; any time we present our ideas as the only choice or the only option, we risk alienating students and those who are seeking answers to critical and crucial questions in their lives.

Education should be the number one priority in our lives but it doesn’t seem to be that. We argue for accountability from our teachers but all we ask them to do is teach an ever-increasing number of facts with no connection to the real world and without the means to analyze the facts or even develop the ability to discern what constitutes a good idea and what constitutes a bad idea. As I noted earlier, “Are We Ready For The Future?”, we quite easily deal with short-term problems because we have short-term visions. But what will happen if we encounter a complex problem that cannot be solved quickly and simply? What will happen if we encounter a problem that has never been described?

When Dmitri Mendeleev first proposed his first periodic table, the major problem that he had to overcome was that of the “missing” elements. Others before him had attempted to push the elements together, leaving no holes in their predicted tables. But this solution failed to provide suitable explanations for the observed properties of the known elements and the relationship between elements that showed similar properties. What Mendeleev did was to use the observed physical and chemical properties of the known elements and reason that there were other un-discovered elements. To make his periodic table work, he left holes where he felt that elements should go; he then provided information about what the properties of these elements would be. The most commonly cited examples are Mendeleev’s “eka-aluminum” and “eka-silicon”. “Eka-aluminum” would have properties similar to that of aluminum and indium; “eka-silicon” would have properties similar to that of silicon and tin. We know these two elements today as gallium and germanium.

But Mendeleev’s periodic table does not have holes in it to account for the Noble Gases nor did he predict their existence. He did not predict their existence because he had no evidence to suggest their presence in our environment. Helium would not be discovered until two years after Mendeleev’s periodic table was published and only through an examination of the spectrum of the sun

With our knowledge of electrons and electron structure, we could easily see how to place the Nobel Gases in the periodic table but Mendeleev did not have that information. How will we handle such problems in our future?

The only way that Mendeleev was able to even predict the existence of some elements was through his ability to see relationships between the elements and how elements could be grouped together because of similar properties. If all we do is teach basic facts and do little to go beyond those facts, such “break-through” thoughts will be few and far between in the future.

Now, some will tell me that once helium was discovered, it would have been intuitively obvious that there were other similar gases necessary to fill the holes that the discovery of helium would have automatically created. And that is true, but you have to have that sense of discovery and that is not present in an environment in which only facts are taught and questioning is not allowed.

To teach students to question things is a very risky thing to do; because it will cause many students to question the fundamental things that they have been taught. But if the fundamental things are sound, the questioning will cause no disturbance. If there are problems with those fundamentals, perhaps they should be questioned.

Teachers need to respect the belief systems of their students; it is how the students operate. But they also need to move beyond the teaching of facts and begin including questioning and analysis in their presentation of the facts. This will be a challenge but the benefit will be that future problems will be solved, not unknown.

Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

I’ve Been Tagged!

Allan Bevere tagged me from a meme created by L.L. Barkat.

Here are the rules should you decide to keep them:

1. Write about 5 specific ways blogging has affected you, either positively or negatively.
2. Link back to the person who tagged you
3. Link back to this parent post (L.L. Barkat is not so much interested in generating links, but rather in tracking the meme so she can perhaps do a summary post later on that looks at patterns and interesting discoveries.)
4. Tag a few friends or five, or none at all
5. Post these rules— or just have fun breaking them

So, how blogging has changed me:

1. The one thing that blogging has done is keep in the practice of writing each week.
2. I have to agree with Allan that I have been surprised by the vitriol that exists out there.  I had heard about it in connection with other blogs but I am surprised by how many who call themselves Christians do not act like Christians.
3. I also have to agree with Allan in that it has connected me with many thoughtful and faithful people.  I have been reconnected with classmates from college and found others who are also alumni of Truman State University - Andy, “tag, you’re it!.  (Helen, if you were blogging, I would tag you as well
4. I have found others who see the value of science and religion in one’s life and how both are important to a complete life - Henry, “tag, you’re it!”
5. When I started blogging, I knew nothing about the blogosphere or the extent to which it extends out into the world.  I forget who it was that brought me into the Methoblog so I am going to thank Jay Voorhees - Jay, “tag,you’re it!”.  Also, I can’t remember who invited me to join the RevGalBlogPals list so I am going thank Rev. Abi - Abi, “tag, you’re it!”.  I don’t participate as much as I did or should but they have shown me the need to redefine what is meant by a community.
6. To meet the requirements for five people, you, the reader, are invited to participate.

What Exactly Is Equality? And What Do We Expect?

I gave a sermon on Sunday (10 August 2008 ) in which the presentation probably was not one of my better ones. I forgot that I am God’s representative and Christ’s disciple and that the words that I speak have to be His words, not mine. I have been on a roll lately and I was thinking that it was my ability that was doing it. But it wasn’t my ability and I need to remember that.

But the sermon itself was a good one and I felt that it was appropriate for the Scriptures as well as the moment that is this Sunday. It was the responses that I received from some people that prompt me to post these thoughts. These thoughts are accompanied by some other thoughts from two other venues that I believe are related.

Somewhere in hearing what I was saying, the idea of equality became equated with the idea of affirmative action. I said nothing in the sermon about affirmation action and the idea that these two concepts are equivalent pushes the idea behind both.

After the first service a person came to me and said that I should be careful “pushing the envelope” when it comes to equality. This person told me that they had recently lost their job because someone else (a person of a different race) demanded a job with their company and threatened action if it was not given to them. If this is true, then this person’s company was wrong but, like so many other things going on in this country today, not willing to fight for what is right. A person who is already employed should not be fired or released simply because someone threatens a lawsuit in an effort to get a job. I don’t believe that the affirmative action laws were written that way.

But if this first individual’s claim that they lost a job to someone who threatened a lawsuit because of discrimination is correct, then we have a serious problem. Somewhere along the line, we have equated affirmative action with equality. They are not the same thing and we should not even think that they are.

The purpose of affirmative action was and is to say that companies who have two individuals with equal skills are to hire the one who represents a class of individuals who have been discriminated against in the past. It was not meant to mean that such individuals are to be hired regardless of their abilities or skills or to put someone out of a job that he has held for years. Yet, that seems to be what we have done. Through affirmative action, we created quotas saying that we need so many people of one kind and so many people of another, so that our company or organization represents society. That’s fine and dandy, provided the people have the proper skills and abilities. If they don’t, then they shouldn’t be hired.

Another person came to me after the second service and offered something that was somewhat similar, that their company was giving jobs to foreign nationals in preference to American workers. I am not sure if this was outsourcing or a modification of a training program. But if we are supposed to give away jobs in the name of equality, then we have a serious problem.

As a society, we are demanding quality goods at a cheaper price. I don’t believe this is possible. Quality comes with a price; that is not to say that low cost goods are not good quality but more often than not, low cost brings low quality.

The problems of the American automobile industry come, in part, from their belief that cheap Japanese imports were low quality. They once were but the Japanese borrowed our ideas about quality control and improved the quality of their products. But Detroit held onto the belief that Japanese cars were poor quality and kept producing their traditional models until they suddenly realized they were losing business. Now, it may be too late for the traditional auto industry.

In response to the demand for low prices, American industry created outsourcing. Outsourcing is American business’s response to society’s demands for low prices for common goods and it has been taken to extremes. Now, I am not a fan of outsourcing; as I noted in another piece (“Economics 101”) some creditors have outsourced their collection calls to India and other points overseas.

Both of these comments indicated one critical problem with our response in the 70’s to the demand for equality in the 60’s. We never made the playing field equal. Too many of our students come out of schools with diplomas that suggest they are qualified but they are woefully unprepared because their schools are under-equipped to meet the demands of society. I am not alone in this view.

I subscribe to a particular listserv and the recent discussion has been on student self-esteem. The tone of the discussion suggested that students come into college with the expectation that they need not do any more than show up for class and they will get an “A” in that course. They haven’t been pushed to succeed in their prior experiences and they have never experienced any sort of failure. Failure is not acceptable because it will destroy their self-esteem.

I believe Thomas Edison once said that it took him over 100 tries to get it right; in other words, he failed 99 times before he found the right way. But he never looked at 99 attempts as failures; he always said that he found 99 ways that would not work.

Our problem today is that we don’t allow our students to fail; we find some way to pass them, even when they are not ready. Students enter college expecting the same environment that past them through high school. As a result when they enter college they are not ready for the work that is required nor are they willing to learn the things that they need to learn in order to succeed. In other words, we are setting our students up to fail because we do not demand that they learn what is required at the lower levels which will allow them to enter college and perform at college levels.

A colleague of mine indicated that we needed to take students at the level where they are, no matter what their preparation, and help them along. And I agreed, especially because as high school teacher that was my philosophy. I have always held the view that the goal of education should be to give students the skills needed so they can learn more on their own after each class is completed.

I see too many students who come into college who do not have the prerequisite skills that a traditional high school graduate should have in order to enter college. (See “Teach Your Children” for a list of what a high school graduate should be able to do.) I also argued that it was necessary to tell the students if they need to examine their own options and make other plans. I am of the opinion that we should not automatically accept students in our classes without the prerequisite skills. It may be that their prior education was lacking and we have to do something about that, but that has to come from beyond what transpires in my classroom or in my organization.

One outcome of the 60’s and the changes of that time was a call for equality. Affirmative action was the result but it was really a band-aid where major surgery was required. Across the nation, many of our schools do not have the technology necessary to prepare the students for life after graduation and they do not have the funds needed to gain the technology. There is the issue of teacher preparation as well, but we will save that for another day. We have done very little to make our schools equal and, if our schools are not equal, then our students will never be put on an equal footing.

When I call for equality, I am calling for situations where everyone has an equal opportunity. I am not calling for some people to receive consideration when they are not qualified. But if they are not qualified, then we need to work to insure that they do become qualified. And if anyone thinks that because something happened years ago in the long forgotten past they are entitled to special benefits or recognition, they need to think again. What happened in the past is no excuse for not doing their best now.

But what has happened in the past should tell us that we need to do more in the present so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated in the future. Our schools are preparing student who are ill-prepared and under-qualified, yet we do not try to make our schools better. We demand quality products but we are unwilling to pay for the quality. We expect our leaders to represent the best and brightest yet we are willing to let mediocrity rule (for those who can remember, Richard Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell to a seat on the Supreme Court in 1970. Against cries that he was mediocre, Senator Roman Hruska stated “Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance?” (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942208,00.html and http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20051005-092022-5265r.htm) That remark is believed to have backfired and damaged Carswell’s cause.)

There are those today who feel that because of whom they are and, solely because of whom they are, they will receive special consideration when it comes to entering heaven. Such individuals will be sadly mistaken when that day comes. On the other hand, those who fail to seek equality in its basic forms will find that the doors to heaven may very well be barred to them as well.

If we seek equality, let us make sure that equality is what we seek and not some action that only gives lip service to the idea. Let us put thinking back into the process of life and let us think about our actions, not simply respond poorly to injustice and the lack of thinking on the part of others.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

A request for prayers

To all, I received the following from a pastor in my district yesterday:
There is a 16 month old girl in my congregation who will be going in to the
hospital on July 7 for surgery to close a hole in her heart. The family is in
need of prayers.

The girl is Molly
Her sister is Skylee
Her mom
and dad are Melissa and Michael.
There are grandparents, siblings to the
parents and other relatives and friends of the family to remember in prayer
also.

If you are members of churches or other religious communities,
would you please ask them to add Molly to their prayer lists. If you know other
prayer warriors, please enlist them.

We are also looking for people who
will commit to being in prayer for the 7 hours or more that the surgery will be
taking place.

If you will let me know of your involvement, I will forward the information to the congregation.

In Christ’s name,
Dr. Tony

Cross-linked with The Methoblog

An Interesting Article

There is an interesting article in the March 21, 2008 print version of The United Methodist Reporter (Worship Trends section).  It is entitled “Blogging Benefits: Pastors discover online community enhances preaching” and mentions several members of The Methoblog.  The on-line version is here.

60 Excuses for a Closed Mind

Just something to think about

1. We tried that before.
2. Our place is different.
3. It costs too much.
4. That’s beyond our control.
5. That’s not my job.
6. We’re all too busy to do that.
7. It’s too radical of a change for this group.
8. We don’t have the time.
9. There is not enough help.
10. That will make the other equipment obsolete.
11. Let’s make a market research test of it first.
12. Our plant is too small for it.
13. Not practical for operating people.
14. The people will never buy it.
15. The supervisors will scream.
16. We’ve never done it before.
17. It’s against company policy.
18. It runs up our overhead.
19. We don’t have the authority.
20. That’s too ivory tower.
21. Let’s get back to reality.
22. That’s not our problem.
23. Why change, it’s still okay.
24. I don’t like the idea.
25. You’re right, but. . .
26. You’re two years ahead of time.
27. We’re not ready for that idea.
28. We don’t have the money, the room, the equipment, the personnel, etc.
29. It isn’t in the budget.
30. It’s a good thought but highly impractical.
31. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks.
32. Let’s hold it in abeyance.
33. Let’s give it more thought.
34. Management would never do something like that.
35. Let’s put it in writing.
36. We’ll be the laughing stock of the public.
37. Not that crazy idea again!
38. We’d lose in the long run.
39. Where did you dig that one up?
40. We did all right without it.
41. That’s what to expect for staff.
42. It’s never been tried.
43. Let’s shelve that idea for the moment.
44. Let’s form a committee.
45. Has anyone else ever done it?
46. Division won’t like it.
47. I don’t see the connection.
48. It won’t work in our plant.
49. What are you really saying?
50. Maybe that will work in your department, but not in mine.
51. The Employee Involvement Committee will never do it.
52. Don’t you think we should look into it before we act?
53. What do they do at our competitor’s plant?
54. Let’s sleep on it.
55. It can’t be done.
56. It’s too much trouble to change.
57. It won’t pay for itself.
58. I know a fellow who it tried it.
59. It’s impossible.
60. We’ve always done it this way.
61. And the all time favorite — WE’RE NO WORSE THAN OUR COMPETITORS!

It’s A Journey, Not A Thought

Here are my thoughts for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost.  I am preaching at Dover UMC (Dover Plains, NY) this weekend.

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As most people know, I have a Ph. D. in Science Education with an emphasis in chemical education. But many people are surprised when they find out I am also a lay minister.

Somehow the training that you receive to be a chemist is not appropriate for the ministry. In one sense, that is correct. In an ideal world, one receives the call to follow Christ at a young age and goes to college to get degrees with a theological orientation. In our society today, those who choose to walk a path that wanders through scientific laboratories automatically eliminate religion from their lives.

We live in an interesting society. It is one that encourages individuality but only when everyone else is doing the same thing. When you choose to walk a different path and find a different solution to the questions in your life, you are often labeled a heretic, a rebel, or sometimes something worse.

To follow Christ is to walk a different path, to take a different journey than the one society thinks you should walk. Being a minister does not mean that you spend all your time in cloistered seminaries, pondering the imponderable and asking great questions of life that are only answerable in the ethereal wonder of life. I have had the pleasure of knowing several individuals whose call to follow Christ came during a first career. One pastor was a lawyer before he heard the call from the Supreme Judge of Life; another was a printer before he began preaching the words of the prophets instead of putting them on paper; and a third was a nurse before she began her work as an assistant to the Great Healer. A good friend of mine is both a Catholic priest and an organic chemist. You can believe in science and God at the same time and suffer no ill effects.

But, at a time when our world is becoming more and more complex, at a time when the direction the world is taking it becomes even more confusing, we are not sure where we can turn for direction and guidance. Do we turn to science and hope that science and technology can build us a better path? Or do we turn to religion and hope that there is substance to something we cannot see or define?

But what we see when we turn to either area makes it even more confusing. Too many people in the church today tells us that science is lying (1) and too many people in science tell us that there is no God and all that churches do is offer some illusion to life.

We would like to find direction in the church today but we sense a dissonance there. We hear and see preachers whose message is one of prosperity through the Gospel. We think to ourselves that it must be working because these preachers command great fees for their appearances and lead lifestyles that reflect the wealth they say we all can gain. There seem to be great crowds wherever they go and we remember that Jesus Christ also had great crowds following Him. But we read in the Gospel that Jesus taught us to give up wealth, not seek it. And we remember that the crowds began to leave Jesus when He spoke of the commitments that one would have to make and the work that people would have to do in order for one soul to be saved.

We remember that Jesus welcomed all who sought Him, not just the rich and the powerful but the poor, the meek, the weak and the sick. We remember Jesus speaking of freeing the oppressed and then we see and hear preachers preach a litany of hatred, exclusion, and war.

We see and hear preachers give us sets of rules that will make our lives better but we see that they don’t follow the rules that they want to impose on us. We see and hear preachers who want to tell us what to believe and how to think. We see and hear preachers who want us to ignore the signs of the world around us because what we find in the real world conflicts with what the Bible tells us. Each day, as these contradictions become so much clearer, that feeling of dissonance comes over us.

Perhaps we can find a life through simple, rational thought. When mankind was just beginning to find its path in this world, it was easy to believe in gods. Gods provided the reason and the answer for why there was rain and wind, snow and cold, hot and dry. Gods provided the reason for why there was war and why we had to fight; gods provided the reason why people got sick and died or just suffered. As we grew in our ability to understand the world around us, these gods diminished in their importance in our lives.

Now we hear that there are no gods; that the God that we worship on Sunday is only a construct of our imagination and not the product of rationale thought. Everything that we seek or desire is found within us, not in a church on Sunday. Only in rational thought based on what we see and hear in the physical world will we find the path that we want to walk.

Proponents of rational thought cannot explain why every culture has some form of Supreme Being. They cannot explain why all cultures have stories that explain how mankind came into existence. The only way they can explain why there is evil in the world is to suggest that it is part of human nature. In a world based solely on empirical evidence, good and evil become part of us and determined by who we are and where we are. Our lives are then controlled by the real world and the concept of free will has no place in our lives. If we have no free will, we cannot choose; if we cannot choose, then there is no hope. And we find in the seemingly safe world of rational thought and empirical evidence the same dissonance that we find in the church.

The problem is that we are not going to find the answers we seek nor determine the direction that we are to go in a wholly scientific setting or in a wholly theological one. Science and religion speak two languages; science speaks the language of facts while religion speaks the language of values. Science attends to objective knowledge about objects in the present whereas religion attends to subjective knowledge about transcendent dimensions of ultimate concern. As Albert Einstein once noted, “Science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind.” Science works best when it explains what is happening and religion works best when it explains what it means to us (2).

If we try to live a life by rules imposed on us through science or religion, we will quickly find ourselves trapped in a prison of our making. Both scientific fundamentalists and religious fundamentalists want us to follow rules that have very little flexibility. They offer a philosophy but not a direction. They give answers but not to the questions that we face each day. Christianity is not a philosophy and Jesus Christ was not a philosopher.

Christianity is a pathway, a way of life. It is not a set of creeds and doctrines that require total obedience. Christianity was, in fact, a reaction to a religion narrowly defined by law and ritual. The people of “The Way” swept through the Mediterranean world like a “mighty wind” of radical freedom. (3)

Instead of a society where the rules focused on what you did within society, a society was created where everyone was free and your concern was for the others as much as it was for yourself. This was an idea first expressed in the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments do not begin with “Here are the Ten Commandments, learn them by rote,” or, “Here are the Ten Commandments, obey them.” Rather, they begin with “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

The Ten Commandments are not rules that confine people but set them free. As Joe Roos noted, the Ten Commandments set you free from using the ways of society to get ahead. (4) You need not covet what your neighbor has or steal their belongings to establish who you are. Yes, they are rules but they are rules to live by, not confine us. They offer direction, not imprisonment. It is a freedom that extends to all and it is a freedom that we must seek for all.

The words of Jeremiah this morning (5) apply today as much as they did some three thousand years ago. Jeremiah speaks of the words of the Lord who warns the people about limiting their understanding to simply following a set of rules. From Jeremiah 4: 22 we read, “My people are foolish and do not know me. They are stupid children who have no understanding. They are clever enough at doing wrong, but they have no idea how to do right!” (6) The terms “foolish” and “silly” that are used in this passage from Jeremiah are contrary to the terms “knowledge” and “understanding”. Understanding means going beyond the basic information. The Lord, through Jeremiah, is warning the people that they are walking the wrong path; they are headed in the wrong direction. Instead of sustaining the world, they are destroying it; all because they have not taken the time to understand what the world is about and what it means.

Paul, in referring to his own career as a prosecutor of Christians (7), says the same thing. He recognizes that his life before his encounter with Christ was one fixed in the law, unchanging in its nature, and essentially doomed to failure and defeat.

The journey with Christ goes beyond the limits of society’s rules. The journey with Christ goes beyond how one thinks of themselves but rather how one thinks of others. If you accept Christ as your savior, you make a commitment to walk a new path and find a new way. If you accept Christ as your Savior, then you go beyond just posting the Ten Commandments on courtroom walls. You seek to put “blessed are the merciful” on the same walls; you seek to put “blessed are the peacemakers” on the walls of the Pentagon. As Jesus pointed out in the parable of the shepherd and the lost sheep (8), you are more concerned for the one who is lost more than the ones who are saved.

If you accept Christ as your savior, you have said that you will not be limited in your belief to just the things around you or things somewhat ethereal. Rather, your world becomes a world of great possibilities, of understanding the world in which we live and the one which was provided by our divine creator.

We are called today to begin this journey. It is a journey that began some two thousand years ago when a group of people gathered in a room to celebrate a journey from slavery and death to freedom. Those in that room that night did not understand that their journey was just beginning; they did not understand that the words of freedom and victory that their teacher and our Lord spoke were not just thoughts but steps. They did not understand then but would in a few days understand what the words of freedom truly meant. We know today what the words of freedom and victory over sin and death mean. Thus we are called to continue the journey that was begun so many years ago. Let us begin that journey.

(1) See “Why the Creation-Evolution Controversy Is Important”

(2) http://www.elca.org/faithandscience/covalence/story/content/06-06-15-peters-1.asp

(3) Adapted from “Why The Christian Right Is Wrong” by Robin Meyers, page 68

(4) Adapted from “The Foolishness of the Cross” by Joe Roos in Sojourners, August 2007

(5) Jeremiah 4: 11 – 22; 22 - 28

(6) Jeremiah 4: 22

(7) 1 Timothy 1: 12 - 17

(8) Luke 15: 1- 10

Another Year Older

Here is my post for tomorrow, Pentecost Sunday.
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Today, being Pentecost Sunday, is what we might consider the birth of the church. It is that moment when the Holy Spirit empowered the gathered in Jerusalem to go out into the world and carry forth the mission and Gospel proclaimed by Jesus Christ.

But, just like any person or organization who celebrates a birthday, we should pause for a moment and consider what the passage of time as brought to the church. Now I consider myself evangelical but not Pentecostal; in fact, I am not totally sure what it means when you say you are Pentecostal. One of the difficulties that we have today is that the public image of those who claim to be Pentecostal or Evangelical is probably very different from what it actually is.

The difficulty Peter had that one morning some two thousand years ago (1) is still with the church today. What do we mean when we say that we are Pentecostal; what do we mean when we say that we are Evangelical?

One of the many choir directors that I have sung for used to encourage us to sing more like Pentecostals, which I took to mean sing with more spirit. Those who call themselves Pentecostal inherited the idea of a subsequent crisis experience that could be called “entire sanctification”, “perfect love”, “Christian perfection”, or “heart purity” from John Wesley. While believing in baptism by water as a sign of God’s grace, Pentecostals also believed in baptism by the Holy Spirit as a “second blessing.” Wesley suggested this in a 1766 publication, “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection”. It was from Wesley and these ideas that the Holiness Movement developed the theology of the “second blessing”.

Wesley’s colleague, John Fletcher, was the first to call this second blessing a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” and described it as an experience which brought spiritual power to the recipient as well as an inner cleansing. (2)  During the nineteenth century, thousands of Methodists claimed to receive this experience, though no one at that time saw any connection with this spirituality and the speaking of tongues or any of the attributes that we identify Pentecostalism with today. (3)

For most people, it is the speaking of tongues that is the most common evidence of the baptism by the Holy Spirit. But the most prominent characteristic should be the emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals believe that everyone that has been genuinely saved has the Holy Spirit living in them and working through them.

Pentecostals may differ from other Christians because they believe that it is the second baptism, the one by the Holy Spirit that opens them up to a closer fellowship with the Holy Spirit and empowers them for Christian service. Just as that first day in Jerusalem where all those gathered from the many lands spoke in their own tongue but were understood by everyone (4), so too do Pentecostals see the speaking in tongues as the normative proof (though not the only or sufficient proof) of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Here there are major differences with other churches and denominations. (5)

As I was reading about and trying to write about the Pentecostal movement, I could not help but think that perhaps I am a Pentecostal, perhaps not in actuality but in spirit. If you have accepted Christ in your heart and have allowed the Holy Spirit to come into your life, how can you not be Pentecostal? Of course, I do not speak in tongues, either in the way that many Pentecostals would have me to do nor do I even speak a foreign language. But it is the empowerment by the Holy Spirit that has brought me to this point; it is the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that allows me to know that I am alive and a servant of Christ.

Though I may speak with bravest fire,
And have the gift to all inspire,
And have not love, my words are vain,
As sounding brass, and hopeless gain.

Though I may give all I possess,
And striving so my love profess,
But not be given by love within,
The profit soon turns strangely thin.

Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control,
Our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed;
By this we worship, and are freed. (6)

I think that the same is true for being an Evangelical. Today people see Evangelicals as close-minded, judgmental, and strict interpreters of the Bible. But to be an Evangelical in the truest meaning of the word is to be one who spreads the Gospel, not limits it. Those who claim to be Evangelical are quick to condemn those who are in sin; those who claim to be Evangelical are quick to shut the doors of the church to those who most need what the church can provide.

I have struggled long and hard with this transformation of the nature of evangelism. I thought, and still actually do, that to be evangelical was to take the message of the Gospel out into the world. Yes, we are to make all who would hear disciples, for that is the Great Commission. But it is not up to us to decide who should hear; we are to tell everyone. Those who would choose not to hear will face the consequences; it is not up to us to decide what punishment awaits those who do not hear. After all, Jesus told his disciples that when there were those who would not hear, they (the disciples) should just walk on to the next town where the reception would be better. And those today who would pass judgment today are perhaps like those of Jesus’ day who choose not to hear the Gospel message.

On this day, when the Holy Spirit descended upon all those gathered in Jerusalem and empowered them to take the Gospel out into the world, we should pause and think about what it means for us. We are all, in one sense, Pentecostal. We have acknowledged that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior; we have accepted the Holy Spirit into our hearts.

Having done so, we are in a position to do those things which we could not do. As Paul wrote to the Romans (7), we could not see any hope in our lives before we accepted Christ as our Savior. Now that hope exists. Before Christ, we were unable to pray or communicate with God; but now, with the Holy Spirit, we are able to do just that. It stands to reason that we are able now to do many things which before we could not do

In those last days before Jesus left, He told His disciples that there was much they did not know. But after He left, the Holy Spirit would come and bring them the ability to know the truth. With the coming of the Holy Spirit would come the true meaning of righteousness and justice. Just as we are Pentecostal, so too are we all Evangelical.

Like those gathered that morning in Jerusalem, we celebrate the presence of the Lord and the Holy Spirit by our attitudes. And having received the Holy Spirit, we are now empowered to take the Gospel message out into the world, not to condemn the world or shut it out. But we take the Gospel message out into the world to offer the hope to the lost and justice for the oppressed.

Let us take this opportunity to see what it is that we have been given in the way of a birthday present and let us find ways to share this wonderful gift with others.

---

(1)  Acts 2: 14

(2)  John Fletcher, Checks to Antinominianism, 1777

(3)  Adapted from http://www.oru.edu/university/library/holyspirit/pentorg1.html

(4)  Acts 2: 5 - 12

(5)  Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecostal

(6)  http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/i/giftlove.htm

(7)  Romans 8: 22 - 27

The best of the year

Gavin Richardson conducted a survey that asked each member of the Methodist Blog Ring what their top 5 blogs of 2005 were. The list from each member is at http://gavoweb.blogs.com/mbrtop5/

This is my list:

1. Tenants of The Vineyard - 1 October 2005
2. The Coming Revival - 19 November 2005
3. Further Comments on the Coming Revival - 25 November 2005
4. What Child Is This? - 18 December 2005
5. So This Is Christmas - 24 December 2005
6. What Is A Person Worth? - 17 September 2005
7. Who Goes First? - 28 September 2005

Send me an e-mail (TonyMitchellPhD at verizon.net) if you have one you think I missed. Or you can post a comment to this note.

Have a good year.

Who Goes First?

I am preaching this morning at Poughquag United Methodist Church. Here is the text that I will use. Let me know what you think.

Tony

This was the 19th Sunday after Pentecost; the Scriptures were Exodus 17: 1 - 17, Philippians 2: 1 - 13, and Matthew 21: 23- 32.

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Some of you might think that there is a connection between the title of my sermon and Abbott and Costello’s comedy routine, “Who’s on first?” There is something of a connection but it is more about how the routine is done rather than the routine itself. For those who do not remember or have never heard this classic routine, it is a dialogue between two individuals about the makeup of a baseball team. The problem is that one individual says “Who is on first” as a declarative statement while the other uses the same phrase as a question. There is much confusion as the two individuals work out the players and their positions.

But the reason for my title and the connection to this routine is the fact that it is something that challenges us to listen carefully to what is being said. I personally lament the loss of such comedy and feel that the comedy of today is too quick and visceral, as opposed to the thoughtful political satire that I first heard growing up. It was comedy that challenged us and made us think, something I fear is no longer prevalent in society today. In fact, our society seems a far cry from the society in which I grew up, one in which challenges were a part of our life.

In 1961, John Kennedy spoke before an audience in Houston, Texas, and declared that this country would go to the moon. After summarizing the recorded history of civilization, President Kennedy concluded,

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it–we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world’s leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. (http://www.jfklibrary.org/j091262.htm)

But I fear that the spirit of the challenges put forth that hot September day in 1962 is long gone. Those of that generation remember the energy and spirit that filled the days; those of my generation, just children, were the beneficiaries of that spirit. But that spirit and the challenges that were laid before us in those days seemed to have disappeared in the past forty years. Even though NASA announced plans to return to the moon in the coming years, it was done as almost an afterthought, “gee, we haven’t been there; maybe we should go and see if things have changed.” And now, as members of Congress began to discuss how to pay for the cleanup in Louisiana and the Gulf, cutting the return to the moon was mentioned as one way to pay for it. No discussion was mentioned about other ways to recover the cost if it would take away from the pet projects of Congress and the Administration.

That we do not seek a challenge today should not be surprising. In 1990, the noted entrepreneur Charles Handy noted,

“Later on, I came to realize that I learned nothing at school which I now remember except this — that all problems had already been solved by someone, and that the answer was around, in the back of the book or the teacher’s head. Learning seemed to mean transferring answers from them to me.

A few paragraphs later Mr. Handy quoted John Dewey,

“Learning is discovery but discovery doesn’t happen unless you are looking. Necessity may be the mother of invention but curiosity is the mother of discovery.” (From The Age of Unreason by Charles Handy, 1990)

If we have removed the nature of discovery and have made life without challenges, it should not be a surprise that life is the way it is today. It should not be a surprise that the change in how society views challenges has affected the modern church. Much has been made about the decline in church membership, especially in the United Methodist Church. Some have said that the decline in membership in the mainline churches has occurred because the church has failed to answer the basic questions of its members.

Members today are looking for answers and many churches are failing to provide them with the answers. Tony Campolo has suggested that many denominational leaders failed to give enough attention to people who were subjectively aware of their own sinfulness and longing for a message of deliverance. The reason that evangelical churches have experienced such phenomenal growth in the past few years is probably because they have responded to the calls of the people who wanted to feel a cleansing from sin and experience the ecstasy of being “filled with the Spirit.”

But I fear that these new churches are going to quickly find that their brand of the Gospel is no better than what people criticize the United Methodist church for, a message that is designed to make the listener feel good and not worried about the world outside the church walls. Many of these new churches take away the symbols of the church, especially the Cross; for fear that it will scare away the people.

I will not deny that churches have failed in their primary mission. The mission of the church is and will always be to save souls. But I believe, as I believe John Wesley did, that you cannot save a person’s soul if they are hungry, if they are naked or homeless, or if they are oppressed. For the United Methodist Church, the problem is and will continue to be that we have failed to establish why we believe what we believe. We have forgotten that once we have accepted Christ as our personal Savior, we must work to help others find Christ in their lives. We no longer challenge people. But that is what Christ did; he challenged his listeners and followers. As we read the Gospel lesson for today, we need to see that Christ is challenging us to determine which of the two sons we might be.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus asks “which son are we? Are we the faithful or the unfaithful son?” Both of the sons lied to the father but one changed his mind and went to work while the other never followed through. Like the Pharisees, we know the answer to the question – the hero of this parable is the son who did what his father asked. But who among us has not been like the second son? We all know how hard is it to keep the promises that we have made. We would rather direct this parable to others. All of those right-wing Christians, the TV evangelists with their success-oriented gospels and mega-churches, they are the ones who should be the subjects of this parable. (Adapted from “Showing Up” by Roger Lovette, “Living by the word”, Christian Century, 20 September 2005)

We should never see the Bible as closed and only an answer book. To do so would be a grave error on our part. If we do, we will continue to use scripture to attack others and thus perpetuate violence against one another and justify harm in God’s name. When this is done, we limit God.

We must listen and read passages such as these very carefully and honor the questions and tensions that they raise in us. If we listen with “new ears” we always will hear something different from what we expect. (Adapted from The Interpreter’s Bible – a commentary in twelve volumes, Volume 7 – Abingdon Press, 1951)  To take the Bible seriously, to assume that they say what they mean and mean what they say is the beginning of our troubles. Those who would argue that the Bible is unerring and unquestionable do not deal with the contradictions that it contains. Some of Jesus’ instructions are burdensome not because they involve contradictions but because they are so demanding. The proposition that love, forgiveness and peaceableness are the only neighborly relationships acceptable to God is difficult for us weak and violent humans to understand, though it would not be to literalists. (Adapted from “The Burden of the Gospels” by Windell Berry, Christian Century, 20 September 2005)

We have to remind ourselves is what we do that makes the difference. In 1969 I began to look very seriously at what it meant to be a Methodist. I thought it was what I did that counted the most, not what I believed. But I was reminded that if I did not believe in Christ as my savior, then it really didn’t matter what I did. But, on the other hand, if I believed as John Wesley did, then I needed to put my thoughts into action. It is a reliance on words and words alone that have brought the United Methodist Church to the brink; it will be the words that many evangelists speak today that will drive away those who are searching for meaning in this dark and gloomy world.

It is our actions of which Paul writes “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” (Philippians 2: 4 - 6)

The first people of God complained loudly and long that God had forsaken them in the desert of the Sinai. They had complained when the Egyptian army was bearing down on them while they stood on the edge of the Red Sea. They had complained when there was no food to eat and they felt that they would die of hunger. And in today’s reading, they are complaining about a lack of water. It is almost as if the people of Israel do not want the challenge of reaching the Promised Land. Each week we have heard how the people of Israel felt that their times in Egypt were better times than were their travels through the Wilderness. To hear them say it, it would be better to have died in slavery, content with living in oppression than it would have been to reach the Promised Land, the home of their forefathers. But not everyone criticized Moses. God tells Moses to take with him selected elders and then He will provide the water.

William Willimon, formerly the Chaplain at Duke University and now the Bishop of the North Alabama Conference recently told the following story,

On one of my worst days, a grueling eight-hour marathon of appointments, I was about ready to go home when I was informed I had one more appointment. Two older women walked into my office.

“We’ve come to Birmingham from Cullman to tell you about our ministry,” one said. “Gladys’s grandson was busted, DUI. We went over to the youth prison camp to visit him. Sad to say, we had never been there before. We were appalled by the conditions, those young men packed in there like animals. We got to know them. Are you aware that only 10 percent of them can read? An illiterate 19-year-old and we wonder why he’s in prison!”

“Well, we began reading classes,” the other one said, “Sarah taught school before she retired. Then that led to a Bible study group in the evening. We’re up to three Bible study groups a week. Two friends of ours who can’t get out bake cookies for the boys. We’ve also enlisted wonderful nurses who help with the VD. Some of them said that those cookies were the first gift they have received.”

“And you want the conference to take responsibility for this ministry?” I asked with bureaucratic indifference.

“No, we don’t want to mess it up,” Sarah responded.

“You need me to come up with some money for you?”

“Don’t need any money. If we need something, we get it from our little church,” she said.

“Then why have you come down here to tell me about this?” I asked.

“Well, we know that being a bishop must be one of the most depressing jobs in the church — too many things that we are not doing that Jesus expects us to do. So Gladys thought it would be nice if we came down here to tell you to take heart. Something’s going right, that is, up in Cullman. (From “First-year bishop” by William H. Willimon, Christian Century, 20 September 2005)

Bishop Willimon said that he took heart that with all the troubles that he saw, in a world of darkness there was a glimmer of hope by the people of God in a small town in northern Alabama.

So too is it for us. There are those who relish the challenge; there are those who see God’s glory rather than God’s wrath. There are the ones who, when faced with poverty, sickness, or oppression, react and seek resolution. There are those who avoid challenge. There are the ones who seek to blame or say that person’s sorrow is a reflection of their sin and whatever happens is because they have fallen from God’s favor. We need to be more of the former than the latter; we need to hear God calling us to work in the vineyard and we need to answer that call.

It is no longer a question of who will go first but rather what will be done first. We are faced with two questions today. For some, it is the same question as the disciples were given so many years ago in the hills of Galilee, “Who do you say that I am?” And there are others who are hearing the question that Mary Magdalene heard that first Easter morning some two thousand years ago, “Who do you seek?” Those seeking the answer will find that answer in the words we say and the things that we do.

This is the day that the challenge is placed before us. You are challenged to answer the questions that have been posed before you and you are challenged to help others find the answers as well. How will you respond?