Emerging Pastor

It's said that the very best salesmen will sell you something you don't need, don't want and can't afford and afterwards you will thank them for the privilege. That's the kind of thoughts that come to me when I think of the Catholic church in the Middle Ages. It's not that their product (eternal salvation) isn't needed; it's not that you don't really want it, it's the fact that they are trying to sell you something that you can have for free! They were selling ice to Inuit's and everybody was grateful for the privilege. Well, not everyone was happy. The Catholic church had this nice little racquet going

On the train this morning I was finishing off one of my ethics assignments, this one is about the validity of cohabitation as a pathway to marriage.

It's a very difficult question to answer because of the crossover between sacred and secular views of marriage. The Catholic church insist that marriage has to be performed by a member of the clergy in from to at least two witnesses (the council of Trent) while Martin Luther said that marriage is a secular issue and the church should just stay out of it.

The underlying question for me is how much say can the church have in a secular society. We can not be legislators of all morality (mostly because we abdicated the moral high ground long ago) but at the same time we can be a positive influence on our society guiding them towards a Godly way of living.

After all the foundation of our societies laws are based in Judeo-Christian thought and no one argues that "don't kill" and "don't steal", while going somewhat against our nature are beneficial to society.

That's not the path I went down in my assignment though, I think once people cohabitate they have entered into marriage with each other. Australian law at least recognizes that after a certain amount of time living together you are in a de facto marriage. What we can add to society and people who are considering cohabitating is give them access to pre-marital counseling! And encourage them to make a public commitment of their relationship to their friends and family so they can feel invited to support their relationship together.

When Sally and I were married we could have eloped, had the minimum witnesses and excluded our friends, but by inviting everyone to our wedding ceremony we were saying, join with us on this journey and I think that is something that the cohabitating couples I know are missing out on, the society of friends and family invited to help strengthen a relationship.

It seems that Luther had quite a bee in his bonnet (if he wore a bonnet) about Christians living a Christ-centered life. The first three of his theses all focused on repentance and how it should effect our lives both inside and out.

The Catholic church (at the time as well as now) placed a heavy focus something called penance, it is a theological error stemming from a mistranslation of repentance which kind of stuck, as well as an incorrect belief that the Grace of God is not sufficient to bring us back into relationship with God. At its core, penance means that we have to do something apart from being repentant to get right with God.

Luther calls us to move past this faulty thinking and embrace the heart of Jesus' mission, message and life. We embrace it by cutting through the rubbish and living lives that are repentant. That means being in constant examination of our actions and motives and when we don't act in a way God would like, saying sorry to Him and show a change in attitude that really reflects that we are sorry.

Luthers (translated) words were:

   1. When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

   2. The word cannot be properly understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, i.e. confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.

   3. Yet its meaning is not restricted to repentance in one's heart; for such repentance is null unless it produces outward signs in various mortifications of the flesh.

These we may effectively paraphrase into:

   1. One's whole life should reflect repentance and a heart for the kingdom of God.

   2. The life of the kingdom cannot be administered by clergy, it's up to the individual.

   3. This inner change of heart must have an outward expression also.

The evidence of repentance, indeed the evidence of a Christian life is one that inside and out is loving God by their thoughts and actions. Being constantly on our guard examining our motives and actions isn't really as onerous as it sounds, when you practise a life of repentance you start to become more in-tune with how God want's you to live and it starts to become your default response in situations. In other words, the more you think like Jesus, you become more like Jesus.

Up till now I've been very careful not to speak to much about the emerging / emergent church. It is a deliberate act because while the site has the word emerging in the title it is not about either of these movements, it is about my ministry journey.

I have read quite a lot about the emerging church and love books by Brian McLaren and Mark Driscol. I certainly don't agree with everything they say but there is an important dialogue going on about what is church and it's a dialogue I want to be involved in.

Part of the emerging church movement is to take the post modern deconstructionist approach to doctrine and exegete it in light of how it’s historical context.

Quite apart from my theological studies I was challenged to read through Luther’s 95 theses and I was surprised to discover that this ye olde reformer was really a deconstructionist himself. The reforming and emerging concepts are close enough to call the same. It is the idea of growing closer to God through understanding and living in a right relationship with Him.

Being a devoted Protestant I've never actually read through all of Luthers 95 theses' and I'm betting that you haven't either, so I’m going to post a few every week until we get through them and allow you to offer commentary along with me.

I may paraphrase some of the theses' into more modern terminology but you can read something fairly authentic over at spurgen. Unless you can read German, your not going to get the original.