Glen Leonard Boese with His Lord!

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My grandfather died 5/18/2012 around 10:18PM here in Sioux Falls, SD at the Avera heart hospital surrounded by his children and grandchildren.  I had the great sorrow-filled joy of being at his bedside as his heart slowed to stop and breathing ended.  Words fail me to express the feelings to experience the death of a man who impacted so many lives.

I will share a few details of his life and what he meant to me and also edit/add/correct this post in the next few days. I know that in the presence of God he is now and that now or in the future he will also meet people who are in the kingdom because he gave selflessly.

If I had to pick two words that summarize his life they would be Jesus and justice and out of that his love for his family and all people.

He attended seminary for a while – but never became a pastor. He spent most of his life farming outside of Springfield, SD.

In the 1950s he and grandma were a part of an intentional interracial church in Chicago.  In 1958 he with two other Euro descent and two African-American brothers drove together in an early freedom ride down through the south.  They personally met Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy.  He told stories of being followed, kicked out of restaurants, hotels, and harassed – however I never learned of this ride until 2010 – because it was not something that came up in regular conversation.  I did know he was a personal friend of and a supporter of Ted Blakey an African-American civil rights and political leader here in South Dakota who lived in Yankton.

As a follower of Jesus he loved on people through his farming, teaching at the high school in Springfield, SD and the University of South Dakota – Springfield before it was closed. He served in his church Friedensburg bible church in many capacities, was involved in the larger conference of his church, and also semi retired at age 55 to serve with Mennonite Mission Network and Habitat for Humanity in Ziare (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as a missionary for 8 1/2 years – nearly dying in the last 1/2 year due to kidney failure related to anti-Malaria drugs. (He as also VERY insistent that if he should die in Africa his body was to be left in Africa).  Then serving for several years in a school on a Hopi Native American reservation in Arizona.

He was one of the few men in my life who was not a pastor and yet modeled and lived the priesthood of all believers and took the Bible and church seriously and joyfully.  When his son Ted (Theodore) who is my biological father had divorced my mother it was him and grandma that really kept us connected with the Boese family through the following years.  He also reached out to my step father Fred once they had returned from mission service and were back in the SD area.

When visiting him he poured out grace and encouragement.  He did this with many people.  He was also ready for a good spirited theological/Biblical and political debate (he was an old-school Democrat) at the drop of a hat – to push people to really wrestle with Jesus’ teachings.

He had a favorite t-shirt in the last few years (of which I suspect he had more than one of) that said “Live simply – that other’s may simply live.”  He lived this motto – he and grandma gave to others, to missions, to world relief – of their lives and their funds.  When they built a house to retire in outside of Springfield it was built into a side of a hill, repurposed materials for much of it and highly energy efficient from passive solar and so on.

Grandpa embodied, lived out kingdom values spiritually and physically.  In fact he insisted that he be buried in a basic coffin within 24 hours and no extra funeral frills – requesting that the money saved be given to the (his mission work was part of the predecessor to what is now the) Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission http://www.aimmintl.org/

I will miss him.  But he is present with the Lord.  One day I will see him again and we will joke, debate and worship together in the presence of Jesus Christ the ruler overall.  And together we will bow before the One, the Lamb of God who gave it all – so we can give it all for Jesus.  And that will be a glorious day.

I love you grandpa and will miss you.  Talk to the Lord about your family.  Some are afar off and others will need the encouragement you can give as part of the “Cloud of Witnesses”.

Your first grandchild,

-Shelby

Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints.
(Psalm 116:15 ESV)

 

 

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When Charity Turns Toxic Bob Lupton

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When Charity Turns Toxic  Bob Lupton

Is the Church’s service really helping the community? How to make good on good intentions.

There’s a growing scandal the majority of Americans both refuse to see and actively perpetuate—that while Americans are very generous in charitable giving, much of that money is either wasted or actually harms the people it’s targeted to help.

Here’s the truth: Giving to those in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy people.

And it is churches that remain the greatest abusers. American churches are at the forefront of the burgeoning compassion industry, spending billions on dependency-producing food pantries, clothes closets, service projects that serve mainly themselves and mission trips that turn people into beggars.

It’s important to be clear: There are different moments and different motivations for charity. In times of crisis, for example, the moment demands immediate intervention. When an earthquake devastates Haiti, food, water, shelter and medical supplies are essential to save lives. But when the bleeding has stopped and the rebuilding begins, the moment becomes one of focusing on development strategies. Therein lies a problem. It is far easier to raise money and mobilize volunteers for emergency assistance than it is to plan and execute the reconstruction of infrastructure and economy. Thus, the tendency is to remain in relief mode long after the transition to development should have taken place. But doing so perpetuates a victim mentality that actually disempowers those being served.

Food pantries and soup kitchens are common examples of this tendency to continue to “feed fish” when most of the recipients need to “learn to fish.” To be sure, hunger is real. Sometimes it’s a matter of life and death. Hunger is a crisis issue when a famine sweeps sub-Saharan Africa. But it is a chronic issue, not a crisis, in urban America. In 40 years of inner-city ministry, I have never seen a starving person. Poor nutrition, yes, but not starvation. So, why do charities and churches continue to use crisis-intervention strategies that foster dependency when chronic needs call for development?

On the surface, feeding, clothing and sheltering the poor seems to fulfill the Matthew 25 mandate to directly serve Christ. And unconditional giving seems to reflect the unconditional grace we have received from Christ. A closer look, however, reveals a less redemptive reality. What if such giving is perpetuating unhealthy dependency? What if it’s supporting a destructive lifestyle? What if these well-meaning services diminish the dignity of recipients and erode their work ethic? Surely Christ intended the Church’s compassion to be helpful, not hurtful.

The following are several questions that will help you determine whether your service to the poor will be transformative or toxic.

Whose needs are you serving?

You want this to be a meaningful experience for your group. But if most of your planning energy is invested toward ensuring the event will be “a life-changing experience” for your members, this may be a clue that the event’s focus is more about serving your group than serving the poor. This is a particularly difficult question for missions pastors and youth leaders since they are hired to minister to church members. A well-organized, spiritually motivated, project-specific mission trip can be very satisfying for volunteers and yield moving accounts for back-home reporting. It is doubtful, however, that a “what-works-best-for-us” approach will have transformative impact among those who are expected to accommodate the schedules and preferences of their resourced visitors.

Is the proposed activity meeting a real need?

An African woman recently told me that as a child she never understood why Americans loved to paint so much. In preparation for the Americans’ arrival in her rural village, her classmates were instructed to deface the school building with mud and stones so their guests would have something to paint. Her entire school building was repainted five times in the four years she was a student there. Extreme example? Perhaps. But unfortunately, it’s representative of the “make-work projects” often created to make compassionate volunteers feel good about serving. If a project is truly important to those being served, they will be the first investors in that effort with their own leadership, labor and resources.

Is the proposed mission a top priority?

A group recently returning from Haiti recounted their experience of seeing mothers carrying infants wrapped in dirty rags and newspapers. Moved with compassion, the mission group purchased blankets and distributed them to the mothers. The following day, the blankets appeared in the shops along the street, sold by the mothers to local merchants. Discovering the babies still swaddled in filth, the missioners were highly incensed—until it was explained to them that the mothers sold the blankets to buy food for their babies. Food, not blankets, was the higher priority. To determine the true hierarchy of need, enough time must be spent among the needy to understand the daily survival pressures they face. Repairing a widow’s rotting porch may not be as important as getting her water turned back on. Adapting the mission to the priorities of the poor is key to redemptive service.

Are the poor capable of doing this for themselves?

The poor are weakened when well-meaning people deprive them of the incentives and rewards of their own hard-won achievements by doing for them what they have the capacity to do for themselves. As one leader of a microlending ministry in Nicaragua lamented when describing the effects of U.S. church partnerships, “They are turning my people into beggars.” Why get a loan to build their own church, the peasants reason, when the Americans will do it for them? Predictable byproducts of such service include increased dependency, erosion of work ethic and loss of dignity. Conversely, partnerships, lending relationships and mutual investments require joint effort and grow indigenous capacity.

How will you measure success?

Typically, churches evaluate their service projects and mission trips by the number of volunteers involved, the activities performed and the impact on participants. Less attention is paid to the results on the receiving end of charity. If, however, preserving the dignity and self-esteem of recipients is important to you, then you will need to assess the amount of mutual collaboration, leadership sharing and reciprocity structured into your event. If your goal is to actually empower those you serve, you will focus less on activities performed and more on measurable longer-term outcomes, such as leadership development, increased self-sufficiency and educational and economic progress.

Is it cost-effective?

I know of one campus ministry that, on a spring break mission trip to paint an orphanage in Honduras, spent enough money on the trip (transportation, food, lodging, etc.) to have hired two unemployed local painters and two full-time teachers and to supply new uniforms for every child in the school.

The cost of most mission trips is out of all proportion to the return on investment when comparing it against the actual value of the service being performed. The billions spent annually on such junkets might be justified as a legitimate cost of spiritual development for church members, but it lacks integrity if billed as effective mission strategy. Wise stewardship requires thoughtful assessment of the cost-effectiveness of mission investments. Mission projects can be genuinely redemptive. But the best ones are joint ventures with mature, indigenous ministries that understand both the culture and healthy cross-cultural partnering. Such ministries can, for example, help you put together a “code of conduct” to guide volunteers toward sensitive, mutually transforming relationships.

Achieving redemptive outcomes requires a paradigm shift from one-way giving to reciprocal exchange. This is not an easy shift. It’s much more complex to organize a food co-op that recipients support and manage than to operate a volunteer food pantry. It is easier by far to pack suitcases full of clothes for poor village people than to help them develop micro-enterprises that enable them to provide their own clothes. But an honest look at the actual results of charity proves the benefits of developing people outweigh the extra effort it costs.

This article is just part of one that appears in the Spring 2012 issue of Neue.

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Cynics and Deconstruction – So What?

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Like I mentioned in my sermon on sunday I am not all that impressed with someone who can tear something down.  Some can do it more deliberately – others not so much.  So what if you can tear something down and leave a piles of trash around.

What impresses me are those that can grow and/or build creative communities through ideas that make human flourishing increase.

Can you deconstruct and then reuse, recycle and recreate with ideas, things and relationships.

That’s the beauty of the life, teachings and power of Jesus – prophet leads to priest and king.  Creating new life-giving realities.  I have less and less time for those who do not bring life and recreative/creative power to others in a meaningful (a way that others can connect with) way.

 

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‘You do realize you people are making up a new religion, right?’

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Shel Boese – Anabaptists have been trying to call the church away from civil-religion jesus  towards the Jesus of the Kingdom of God for 500 years.  I am SO glad to hear more and more younger Evangelicals and Renewalists (Pentecostals, pentecostals, charismatics/post-charismatics) rediscover the scandal of Jesus – and push back against the Civil Religion (Mormonization and Islamization of Christianity).  Pentecostals and others have often been torn between the two visions – but at their best “get” the Kingdom because of signs and wonders/mystical and aesthetic openness through prayer and worship.

I try to not define myself as much by what Im against it’s a battle.  In this case I would say much of the conservative-fundamentalist evangelical world is moving toward the Mormonization or Islamization of the church – buying the civil religion theology of these religions and imposing them on the New Testament through twisting the OT/misuse – forgetting the NT modifies significantly how you read the OT.

 http://pastorjonathanmartin.com/uncategorized/thoughts-on-mitt-romney-liberty-university-and-the-civil-religion/

“But in recent years, evangelicals have moved towards civil religion at a breathtaking pace. We have accepted the categories given us by the world, that we are broken down into two categories: conservatives and liberals. We are given a narrative in which these labels supersede any particulars of Christian faith as to how we understand who the people of God are in the world.

[...]

If I sound wound up about this, I’m actually not. And I certainly don’t want people who have signed up for conservative civil religion to sign up for a more liberal civil religion, because neither will bring you to the kingdom of God and thus neither will change the world. I am quite thankful for this new development, because the more we degenerate into civil religion, the more authentic Christianity can stand apart from all of the parodies. I actually think it’s a gift.

This is not an angry editorial written with clenched teeth. No, this is much friendlier. I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to roll down the window and tenderly say, ‘You do realize you people are making up a new religion, right?’ ” – Jonathan Martin

 

 

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How to Avoid Spiritual Bankruptcy – Frank Viola

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How to Avoid Spiritual Bankruptcy – Frank Viola

I’ve been following the Lord for a little over 30 years now. And as I’ve watched the passing parade, some of the most zealous, devout, committed Christians that I knew in their 20s and 30s are now atheists in their 40s.

They filed Chapter 7 on their Christian life.

Each of them shared one of three things in common:

  1. They chose to become offended by God when He didn’t meet their expectations.
  2. They chose to become bitter at others when they didn’t meet their expectations.
  3. They made provision for their flesh and crossed an invisible line in which they were completely overtaken by it.

Holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith (1 Timothy 1:19).

Likewise, some of the people who claimed to be utterly dedicated to the vision of God’s central mission later abandoned it for an easier, less costly, more popular and convenient life.

They filed Chapter 11 on their spiritual progress.

The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful (Matthew 13:22).

Point: There are no guarantees when it comes to our walk with the Lord. What God knows mortals do not.

The truth is, all of us are hanging by grace. Every day.

“The one who endures until the end will be delivered,” Jesus said.

John wrote, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us” (1 John 2:19).

The entire culture is pressing on us to take our eye off the ball. To divert our attention from Jesus to the flesh, the world, and the enticements of the enemy. Egypt, Babylon, and Sodom cry out to us every day from every quarter….(Read the Rest HERE)

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How to Believe without Being Fundamentalist

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Shel Boese / Shelby Boese – When we talk about “third-way” christianity I am often referring to Anabaptism,  Rogers’ article also moves in this direction too.  This paragraph is worth the whole read because it sums up the crazy-making out there and the struggle those of us who hold to the authority of the Bible as expressed within orthodox faith face.

The result is that many people who are not prone to fundamentalism can’t find an evangelical church that preaches and teaches the gospel and essential Christian doctrine without apology or compromise (Shel: welcome to Mercy Church!). So they join a fundamentalist or neo-fundamentalist church and get sucked into that ethos or just endure sermons and lessons that harshly condemn anything other than rigid, narrow, absolutistic conservative Protestantism and that promote as “biblical truth” things like youth earth creationism, TULIP Calvinism, restriction of salvation to the evangelized, dispensationalism, etc. Or, they join a liberal church that promotes a culturally accommodated version of Christianity in which therapy and social transformation totally replace doctrine and virtually anything goes in terms of beliefs and lifestyles.

How to Believe without Being Fundamentalist May 13, 2012 By rogereolson

How to Believe without Being Fundamentalist

Because of the prevalence of fundamentalism (and what I have here called “neo-fundamentalism”) in American religious life, many moderate Christian pastors struggle with how to preach and teach Christian truth, doctrine, without being absolutistic, narrow, presumptuous and exclusive. I receive questions like that all the time and it seems to be a question hanging “in the air,” so to speak, in many, if not most, moderate Christian churches and educational institutions.

I have been critically reviewing chapters in The Gospel as Center. I often have the impression that these authors, all members of something called The Gospel Coalition, have a fundamentalist mentality. That is, they approach and exposit doctrine from within a fundamentalist ethos. In varying degrees they treat truth as black and white (absolutistic). Beliefs are either “gospel truth” or heresy. (There are, of course, exceptions to this. One came up in the chapter I most recently reviewed. It had to do with tolerance of both cessationism and continuationism. However, the author condemned belief in the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a second definite work of grace as “horribly mistaken.” That kind of language is, to me, fundamentalist. It was the kind of rhetoric used by fundamentalist forces that tried to keep Pentecostals out of the National Association of Evangelicals when it was formed in 1942.)

One way I describe fundamentalism (as an ethos) is its tendency to shift most beliefs from the “opinion” and “doctrine” categories into the “dogma” category. (I’ve explained these three categories and their inevitability and importance in detail in several of my books.) That is to say, beliefs most Christians view as important but not essential get re-placed in the category of essentials of the faith (“fundamentals”).  One example of that in the current neo-fundamentalist phenomenon is monergism.

In this climate, dominated as it is by neo-fundamentalists and (in the social and political arenas) the religious right, many moderate to progressive evangelicals struggle with how to preach and teach Christian truth. Some even struggle with the idea of truth itself. The result can be the reduction of Christianity to a spirituality consistent with anything and everything. I have spoken in churches that would not consider themselves “liberal” that have deacons or elders who do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, miracles, etc. They are afraid to deal with them, that is, exclude them from leadership positions, lest they come across as fundamentalistic.

In this atmosphere of absolutism and fear the traditional evangelical middle, what I call moderate evangelicalism, is disappearing. Oh, it’s not gone; it’s just not as prominent as it used to be. The result is that many people who are not prone to fundamentalism can’t find an evangelical church that preaches and teaches the gospel and essential Christian doctrine without apology or compromise. So they join a fundamentalist or neo-fundamentalist church and get sucked into that ethos or just endure sermons and lessons that harshly condemn anything other than rigid, narrow, absolutistic conservative Protestantism and that promote as “biblical truth” things like youth earth creationism, TULIP Calvinism, restriction of salvation to the evangelized, dispensationalism, etc. Or, they join a liberal church that promotes a culturally accommodated version of Christianity in which therapy and social transformation totally replace doctrine and virtually anything goes in terms of beliefs and lifestyles.

So what is the disappearing middle ground I talk about and seek? It holds firmly and uncompromisingly to Jesus Christ as God and Savior and lovingly excludes from leadership persons who claim to be Christians (are may very well be saved) but who do not believe in the divine Lordship of Jesus Christ or his sole Saviorhood.  At the same time, people inhabiting this middle ground admit that they do not know or fully understand all that this confession means, that they are not privy to God’s own mind so that they can explain how the incarnation works. But THAT Jesus Christ was and is God incarnate is part and parcel of authentic Christianity.

People inhabiting this middle ground do not look around for Christians who do not agree with every slight interpretation of the incarnation and condemn them as heretics. For example, one conservative evangelical theologian-philosopher I know argues that the kenotic theory, that the Son of God set aside his attributes of glory so that he did not always know he was the Son of God from heaven, the second person of the Trinity, and that his power to do miracles was a gift from the Holy Spirit rather than his ability to use his deity, is heresy. I suspect that if that theologian-philosopher explained to most evangelicals who read and listen to him what HE believes about the incarnation (viz., that Jesus was omniscient even as a baby) they would be shocked and ask him what Luke 2:52 means.

My point is that it is possible to hold firmly to, proclaim and teach, the incarnation of God, the deity of Jesus Christ, even a full bodied doctrine of the Trinity, and not do it in a rigid, narrow, absolutistic way. One mark of fundamentalism and neo-fundamentalism is going beyond belief in and proclamation of the incarnation to insistence on a certain theory of how it worked as essential to the incarnation and deity of Jesus Christ.

We can say lovingly and unapologetically that we believe in Jesus Christ as God and Savior, the only Mediator between God and humanity, without including in that confession interesting but non-essential theories of how that can be the case. We can share with each other and non-Christian inquirers our theories (e.g., kenoticism) without implying that they do not “really” believe in the incarnation or the deity of Christ unless they agree with us. In other words, we can have our secondary doctrines and interpretations without absolutizing them. (Actually, I know very few if any people who do this with the kenotic theory of Christology. More commonly it’s the other way around—neo-fundamentalists tend to confuse their own theory of Jesus’ deity and humanity, the incarnation, which usually is something called the “two minds theory,” with belief in the incarnation itself so that people who do not agree are suspect of not even believing in the deity of Jesus Christ.)

Surely it is possible also to preach and teach that Jesus is the one and only Savior of humanity, Lord of creation, redeemer, friend, without insisting that people who have the disadvantage of never hearing his name have no hope of being saved through him. Now that might be your opinion and you might share that in a teaching situation, but only neo-fundamentalists feel the need to preach that (restrictivism) as part and parcel of the gospel itself.

If a person lacks confidence that Jesus Christ is God and Savior, the one Lord of everything, the only Mediator between God and humanity, friend of the friendless and hope of the hopeless, then he or she should not be in the Christian ministry. Does that sound fundamentalist? If so, then you’re confused about what Christianity is. There’s nothing fundamentalist about holding fast to belief in the incarnation and even insisting on belief in it as intrinsic, essential to mature Christian life and faith.

The same MUST be said about universal sin and need of redemption, salvation through Christ’s death and resurrection alone by means of God’s grace alone through faith. The same MUST be said about miracles, especially the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The same MUST be said about every person’s need for repentance and faith as trust in Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, for reconciliation with God and a right relationship with him. These are not the private preserve of fundamentalists. Fundamentalism appears when these essentials of Christian belief are loaded with non-essential theories and when Charles Hodge’s (or some other Protestant orthodox) systematic theology is equated with the gospel itself.

Who are some balanced, sane, moderate evangelicals to read in this regard? I recommend John Stott (e.g., Authentic Christianity), Donald Bloesch (e.g., Essentials of Evangelical Theology), Alan Sell (e.g., Doctrine and Devotion), Stanley Grenz, (e.g.,Created for Community). There are others, of course, who strike the right balance, but these have been among my guides in seeking balanced evangelical Christianity that avoids both fundamentalism (and neo-fundamentalism) and theological liberalism.

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What One Person On Fire Can Do

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Shel Boese / Shelby Boese – Mercy Church is affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance.  A group that was started because one person got serious about God’s mission in the world.  May AB Simpson’s story inspire you to ask what is God ready to work through me?

The wiki article is a nice summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Benjamin_Simpson

Albert Benjamin “A.B.” Simpson (December 15, 1843 – October 29, 1919) was a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), an evangelical Protestant denomination with an emphasis on global evangelism.[1]

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[edit]Early life and ministry

Simpson was born in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Canada as the third son and fourth child of James Simpson, Jr. and Janet Clark. Author Harold H. Simpson has gathered an extensive genealogy of Cavendish families in Cavendish: Its History, Its People. His research establishes the Clark family (A.B. Simpson’s mother’s side) as one of the founding families of Cavendish in 1790, along with the Simpson family, and he traces common ancestors between Albert B. Simpson and Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables.

The young Albert was raised in a strict Calvinistic Scottish Presbyterian and Puritan tradition. His conversion of faith began under the ministry of Henry Grattan Guinness, a visiting evangelist from Ireland during the revival of 1859.[2] Simpson spent some time in the Chatham, Ontario area, and received his theological training in Toronto at Knox College, University of Toronto. After graduating in 1865, Simpson was subsequently ordained in the Canada Presbyterian Church, the largest of the Presbyterian groups in Canada that merged after his departure for the United States. At age 21, he accepted a call to the large Knox Presbyterian Church (closed in 1971) in nearby Hamilton, Ontario.

In December 1873, at age 30, Simpson left Canada and assumed the pulpit of the largest Presbyterian church in Louisville, Kentucky, the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. It was in Louisville that he first conceived of preaching the gospel to the common man by building a simple tabernacle structure for that purpose. Despite his success at the Chestnut Street Church, Simpson was frustrated by their reluctance to embrace this burden for wider evangelistic endeavor.

In 1880, Simpson was called to the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church in New York City where he immediately began reaching out to the world with the gospel. Beside active evangelistic work in the church, he published a missionary journal, The Gospel in All Lands, the first missionary journal with pictures. Simpson also founded and began publishing an illustrated magazine entitled The Word, Work, and World. By 1911, this magazine became known as The Alliance Weekly, then Alliance Life, and is now called a.life. It is the official publication of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, in the USA and Canada.

By 1881, after only two fruitful years at Thirteenth Presbyterian, he resigned in order to begin an independent gospel ministry to the many new immigrants and the neglected masses of New York City. Simpson began informal training classes in 1882 in order to reach “the neglected peoples of the world with the neglected resources of the church”. By 1883, a formal program was in place and ministers and missionaries were being trained in a multi-cultural context (This school was the beginning of Nyack College and Alliance Theological Seminary). In 1889, Simpson and his church family moved into their new home at the corner of 44th St. and 8th Av. called the New York Tabernacle. This became the base not only of his ministry of evangelism in the city but also of his growing work of worldwide missions.

[edit]Teaching

Logo of The C&MA

Simpson’s disciplined upbringing and his natural genius made him a most effective communicator of the Word of God. His preaching brought great blessing and converts wherever he preached and his unique gospel of Jesus became known as the Four Fold Gospel: “Jesus our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King”. The Four Fold Gospel is symbolized in the logo of the C&MA : the Cross, the Laver, the Pitcher and the Crown. He came to his special emphasis in ministry through his absolute Christ-centeredness in doctrine and experience.

Plagued by illness for much of his life since childhood, Simpson experienced divine healing after understanding it to be part of the blessing of abiding in Christ as Life and healing. He emphasized healing in his Four Fold Gospel and usually devoted one meeting a week for teaching, testimonies and prayer on these lines. Although such teaching isolated him (and the C&MA) from the mainline churches that either did not emphasize or outright rejected healing, Simpson’s uncompromising trust in the Word and power of God kept him steadily forging ahead of his times without criticism or rancor with those who disagreed.

Simpson’s heart for evangelism was to become the driving force behind the creation of the C&MA. Initially, the Christian and Missionary Alliance was not founded as a denomination, but as an organized movement of world evangelism. Today, the C&MA plays a leadership role in global evangelism.

In his 1890 book, A Larger Christian Life, Simpson discussed his vision for the church:

He is showing us the plan for a Christian church that is much more than an association of congenial friends to listen once a week to an intellectual discourse and musical entertainment and carry on by proxy a mechanism of Christian work; but rather a church that can be at once the mother and home of every form of help and blessing which Jesus came to give to lost and suffering men, the birthplace and the home of souls, the fountain of healing and cleansing, the sheltering home for the orphan and distressed, the school for the culture and training of God’s children, the armory where they are equipped for the battle of the Lord and the army which fights those battles in His name. Such a center of population in this sad and sinful world![3]

Simpson composed the lyrics of over 120 hymns,[4] 77 of which appear in the C&MA’s 1962 hymnal, Hymns of the Christian Life.[5]

His missionary vision is illustrated by these words of his hymn, “The Missionary Cry”:

The Master’s coming draweth near.
The Son of Man will soon appear,
His Kingdom is at hand.
But ere that glorious day can be,
The Gospel of the Kingdom, we
Must preach in every land.[6]

[edit]Influence on Pentecostalism

During the beginning of the twentieth century, Simpson became closely involved with the growing Pentecostal movement, an offshoot of the Holiness movement. It was common for Pentecostal pastors and missionaries to receive their training at the Missionary Training Institute, now Nyack College, Nyack, New York, that Simpson founded. Because of this, Simpson and the C&MA had a great influence on Pentecostalism, in particular the Assemblies of God and the Church of the Foursquare Gospel. This influence included evangelistic emphasis, C&MA doctrine (especially on healing and his articulation of a “fourfold gospel”), and Simpson’s hymns and books.[7]

There eventually developed a severe division within the C&MA organization over “the initial evidence doctrine” within Pentecostalism. While Simpson and the C&MA wholeheartedly embraced the Filling of the Holy Spirit and all the spiritual gifts, including tongues, they could not embrace the position that only tongues would be the initial evidence for that Baptism experience.

[edit]Legacy

A number of C&MA churches bear Simpson’s name, as does Simpson University in Redding, California, the Albert B. Simpson school in Lima, Peru and the A. B. Simpson Alliance School in Zamboanga City, Philippines. A.B. Simpson and his wife, Margaret, are buried on the Rockland County Campus of Nyack College in Nyack, New York.

[edit]Notes

  1. ^ Albert Benjamin Simpson Bio, www.hymntime.com. Accessed 2009-05-17.
  2. ^ Austin, Alvyn (2007). China’s millions: the China Inland Mission and late Qing society, 1832-1905. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 96.ISBN 0-8028-2975-9. OCLC 76828852.
  3. ^ A.B. Simpson, A Larger Christian Life. p. 153.
  4. ^ “People ” Simpson, A. B. (Albert B.), 1843-1919 ” Texts”. Hymnary.org. Retrieved 2011-12-11.
  5. ^ Hymns of the Christian Life: A Book of Worship in Song Emphasizing Evangelism, Missions, and the Deeper Life, 1962 revised and enlarged edition. Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1962.
  6. ^ Hymn 338, Hymns of the Christian Life, No. 2, 1897. http://www.archive.org/details/hymnsofchristian00simp
  7. ^ Blumhofer, Edith L. The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism Volume 1—To 1941. Springfield, Missouri: Gospel Publishing House, 1989. ISBN 0-88243-457-8. Pages 29-31.

[edit]References

  • Austin, Alvyn (2007). China’s Millions: The China Inland Mission and Late Qing Society. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2975-7.
  • Tozer, A.W. (1943). Wingspread: Albert B. Simpson–a Study in Spiritual Altitude. Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications.
  • Van De Walle, Bernie A. (2009). The Heart of the Gospel: A. B. Simpson, the Fourfold Gospel, and Late Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Theology. Eugene, OR: Pickwick.ISBN 978-1-55635-940-8.

[edit]External links

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Be Like Jesus – Not a Politician: Why I Simply Do Not Care How Babylon Defines Marriage

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Some thoughts rolling around my head on this issue…

1) Its wrong to die on any political battlefield that puts wall between people and Jesus.  I agree with the political point that Rachel Held-Evans makes here about winning the culture war but loosing a generation: http://rachelheldevans.com/win-culture-war-lose-generation-amendment-one-north-carolina

2) Jesus’ kingdom is NOT OF THIS WORLD.  Political change does not change people truly, it does not change hearts nor does it even create the desire for change, two things the Spirit of Jesus in the church and the human heart experiencing compassion through someone else does.  We are about life-change starting now by salvation through Jesus outrageous love and the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit in Theosis – the fullness of which comes in the life of the world to come after death (or the end of the world as we know it). If my politics slam the gates of the kingdom of God on you BEFORE I ever get to introduce you to Jesus through my life, faults and grace – I’ve failed you.  Ney, I’ve failed my Lord.

excursus: Note Jesus consistently rejected aligning with political parties and even religious parties in his day (note no separation of church and state at all in his day – but advocates of various levels of enmeshment and political action to deal with Rome).  This also meant that he could call people to follow him from the violent zealots to the Helenized.  Do our churches have that kind of appeal – so full of Jesus that some from the most extreme ends of the spectrum are willing to make their politics secondary to Jesus?  NOT if you keep making the Civil Religion Jesus the center instead of the Jesus of the Bible and the Living Resurrected Lord Jesus who is present by the Holy Spirit in the Church!

 

The New Testament tells us the nation that God blesses is HIS nation, the holy Nation of those bought by the Blood of the Lamb.  All kingdoms of the world are simply tools, under the influence of Satan and yet used by God.  They are passing.  There is no “Christian nation” defined by ballots, borders, bullets or bombs.  NOW yes there are Christian influenced nations and policies – but at the end of the day they are not the Kingdom of God – they are not EVER to be thought of as an extension of His kingdom nor of the church.

Civil religion Christianity is an idol and a cheap knock off that will always leave you angry, fearful, and under the sway of politicians, pundits and demons.  It’s also a huge idol in America, and in much of the American church – effectively drawing people away from the real deal.

(FYI this is why in part I am not Mormon or Muslim – Religions that teach the sword is directly connected to their power.  That coercion is acceptable as a tool – and therefore the goal should be to establish a Mormon or Islamic Shariah-based state.  Jesus EXPLICITLY rejected the state/politics as the way to make society better.)

3) Political issues are used by Satan to get the church off mission and onto another mission.  America is best place to live so far.  But it’s still a form of Babylon – perhaps the best kind of Babylon there can possibly be – but still at the end of the day it’s a Babylon.  We are to bless it and work to make it a better place – but our first call is to follow Jesus – that’s the best way to make America a better place.

Be like Jesus -NOT like a politician.  (repeat this to self three times).

AND before all you lefties think I’m preaching to your choir – it applies as much to you as the fundamentalist right!  Many of you are as blinded and co-opted by civil religion as the hard-right is.  Do I need to whip out all the media and hollywood “messianic” swooning from the 2008 election as a recent over the top crazy example? (Or the leaked newsweek cover for 5/14 of the rainbow haloed pres?)

4) How the church defines marriage HAS NEVER BEEN the purpose of marriage definitions in the state/legal area.  Marriage is a covenant in the church BUT its a contract in the world.

5) IF you are going to “defend marriage” through ballots, borders, bombs,  then we REALLY should be working on laws that end divorce and strongly prosecute any alienation of affection, repeal all “no-fault” divorces, go after adulterers with prison time, and generally insist on tracking everyone’s sexual activity.   Focusing on 1.7% to 10% of the population through defining marriage as a one man/one woman – is just a grand distraction from the real enemies of marriage.  (Those are in your heart – what laws will change YOUR heart? hmm…  )

6) Now for a (not so ?) radical suggestion: I believe (perhaps!) the church should work at REMOVING all legal forms of Marriage.  Marriage is NOT a civil contract – it is spiritual and religious.  Therefore should be protected as worship is and who religious groups can hire is, but not sanctioned by the law.  Instead we can advocate for legal civil union/domestic partnerships for all people defining contractual obligations when such arrangements go south and to protect children from destructive/abusive situations.

Quite frankly I say this in most weddings that I perform that as a follower of Jesus and ordained by His church for it’s service, “In the eyes of the state marriage is simply a right to sue someone you would not otherwise be able to if you have a break up.  In the eyes of God/the Church marriage is a covenant – it’s about entering into a new and enduring kind of relationship – what you will do – not so much about something you appeal to.”

So perhaps the best response is on Three-fronts:

1) Begin understanding that Biblical marriage is not about the state – and in fact a counter-intuitive move would be to encouraging believers to no longer pursue legal marriage (perhaps just a domestic partnership to still participate in the system – until we can make marriage no longer a legal category) – believers however ABSOLUTELY should be married by the church community – we should make celebrating covenant marriage and christian sexuality a higher priority.  

2) Work to build up marriages through teachings, helping people create healthy relational and sexual boundaries, getting serious about lust, porn, sexual slavery/trafficking, and loving people outrageously when they are not where the church is on the value of exclusive covenantal  relationships and Christian sexuality.

3) Work on a third-way view of sexuality – the liberals AND the fundamentalist-conservatives both get this one VERY wrong.  From Fred Phelps to Dan Savage – foaming their hatred and misrepresentation of the Bible and sex – we have got to get real.  I written much on this before.  But the church should not be sucked into the current soft science view of orientation or sexuality. The whole H or LGBTQ approach is couched in western soft sciences that are shifting and will look different another 50 years from now.  So let’s not go all funde or liberal – let’s step back and look at the texts as if they might be teaching us something we are not hearing.  I believe they are.

Love is the path to holiness.  Political posturing is not.

 

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