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It used to be a saying in my Reformed tradition that if someone in a Reformed Church said, "Full-time Christian Ministry," and meant by that only full-time pastors and missionaries, that person had forgotten our theology. We believe all Christians are full time ministers, and that our most significant ministry consists in being good fathers and mothers, gardeners and bakers, political officeholders and janitors. All work is Kingdom work if done for Christ according to Christian principles. We are part of God's work of reclaiming the fallen world, of bringing godly order into the chaos of sinful fallenness, of extending God's Kingdom (God's Kingly Rule) into human life, which will find its fulfillment in the world to come.

The Lutherans believe also that our vocation, our work in the world, is our major service to God. They embed this understanding in the Lutheran Two Kingdoms teaching, but the outcome is pretty much the same as in the Reformed teaching. Here is a very good presentation of the Lutheran position on work, from Christianity Today.

American evangelicals have fallen away from a major Protestant principle when they view pastors as somehow having a higher calling than dogcatchers. We all are priests to God, and exercise our priestly function whether we are handling the bread and wine of the eucharist, or bedpans.
Hell is not popular in contemporary American Christianity. In this post Frederica Mathewes-Green explains and tries to revive Christian belief in hell.

Before reading: Mathewes-Green is Eastern Orthodox and so her approach and explanation reflect the Orthodox understanding, not the Western. In the East, sin and salvation are not primarily understood in forensic terms, never have been. Rather than the law court being the dominant conceptual framework (as in the West, at least since Anselm), the dominant concept for understanding sin and salvation is the family. Also, depravity (fallen and sinful human nature) in Orthodoxy is usually more understood as a "tarnishing" of the image of God, rather than the severly distorted almost beyond recognition image of God in fallen humanity as understood in the West at least since Augustine.

btw, I find it interesting that Orthodoxy, which is a patriarchal form of Christianity--males only as priests and bishops, God is Father and Jesus is the incarnate Son, etc--has recognized some strong women as saints. I'm not nominating Mathewes-Green for sainthood, but she is a strong woman whose writing is usually featured on Orthodox websites.

25/11: Men in Church

For about a century and a half now, women have outnumbered men in American churches. Look over the average American congregation on Sunday morning--more women than men. Even if you mentally remove the widows--women do live longer--and concentrate on the middle-aged and younger the results are the same in most churches.

Why? Perhaps no one answer can be given, but certainly a major reason is the "feminization of Christianity." Beginning in the 19th century, Christianity was feminized: emotion was valued more than reason, hymnody reflected a female perspective ("I Come to the Garden Alone"), and Jesus was portrayed in a feminine manner (Softly and Tenderly, Jesus Is Calling). The God of Wrath and Judgment was eased out he back door, to be replaced by the God of Compassion and Acceptance. The Augustinian/Calvinist God of Command was replaced by the Divine Lover. The "Hard Sayings" of Jesus were not highlighted in devotional literature.

This morning I attended an Antiochian Orthodox Christian church. My daughter and her fiancee were received as catechumens. He was the one first attracted to Orthodoxy. As I looked around at the congregation I noticed at least as many men as women attended. Why? This essay offers some answers.

Here are the first two paragraphs:

In a time when churches of every description are faced with Vanishing Male Syndrome, men are showing up at Eastern Orthodox churches in numbers that, if not numerically impressive, are proportionately intriguing. This may be the only church which attracts and holds men in numbers equal to women. As Leon Podles wrote in his 1999 book, "The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity," "The Orthodox are the only Christians who write basso profundo church music, or need to."

Rather than guess why this is, I emailed a hundred Orthodox men, most of whom joined the Church as adults. What do they think makes this church particularly attractive to men? Their responses, below, may spark some ideas for leaders in other churches, who are looking for ways to keep guys in the pews.


From 1987-1994 I served as pastor of a rural Reformed congregation that was traditional Dutch. We had about equal numbers of men and women on Sunday mornings, including complete families--husband, wife, children. What we had in common with the Orthodoxy of the essay was a conservative theology that emphasized God, strong expectations for the Christian life, relatively little emphasis on the trivialities of pietism (several of our men gathered outside the building to smoke, many of them drank beer at home), male leadership of the congregation, and worship that focused on God and God's Word.
Tenured faculty members have passed a No Confidence resolution on President Richard Roberts. Story.

Oral Roberts University is significant in American Christianity because it an attempt to fuse pentecostalism with the institutional structure of a liberal arts university (as opposed to small Bible Colleges) and a modern medical center.

Pentecostalism has tended to favor personalities over structures and established procedures. It seems like Richard Roberts inherited the presidency because he was Oral's son. In this case, leadership change suffered from the pentecostal prediliction toward personalities and away from structural procedures.
When Senator Grassley thinks he smells something rotten, there probably is a problem. Grassley is not motivated by any anti-religious bias, and has not been a grand-standing publicity seeker. He currently is leading an investigation into the finances of several televangelists.

Story on Joyce Meyers from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I think my favorite detail is the marble-topped commode.

This story depends on the work of the Post-Dispatch, but also carries the list of other evangelists being investigated. These are

Creflo and Taffi Dollar of College Park, Ga., whose "Changing Your World" broadcasts are seen in 150 countries, owns two Rolls-Royces, private jets, a mansion in Atlanta and a $2.5 million apartment in Manhattan.

-Benny Hinn of Grapevine, Texas, whose daily television program, "This is Your Day!" is seen in more than 100 countries.

-Eddie Long of Lithonia, Ga., who preaches anti-gay themes and says God blesses people financially as well as spiritually.

-Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Newark, Texas. He is a practitioner of the Word of Faith movement which believes that faith will reward people spiritually and financially.

-Randy and Paula White of Tampa, Fla., who founded the Without Walls International Church, and listed as their possessions a $1.9 million jet and $3.5 million condominium in New York. In August, they announced their divorce.

Some days I despair of American Protestantism. One problem, while Protestants traditionally have criticized Roman Catholicism as "man-centered" because of the primacy of the pope, they have been quick to elevate leaders into celebrity status with no oversight. Look at the newspaper ads this Saturday for churches in your community. Notice that the pictures of the pastor appear in the Protestant ads, not the Roman Catholic, or Orthodox.
According to information compiled by insurers of pastors, things have changed for the worse.

Clergy experience over 90 percent more stress-related disorders than other people of a similar age. Stress and stress-related illnesses are primary factors for the deterioration of health in the clergy population. Thirty years ago the clergy profession ranked as one of the healthiest in the U.S. Today the reverse is true; clergy are experiencing some of the worst health trends in the nation.

In a related development, compared to past generations, clergy today are leaving their jobs in significant numbers, even those in mid-life.

As regular readers know, I am a member of the clergy--an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America. I pastor a small, primarily Native American, congregation and teach college courses to help support our family. So I take this news personally.

But, my point is not to whine. Instead, I have two things to say. First, if you are a Christian, pray for your pastor(s) and think about how you can be supportive. Second, I wonder what this information says about modern American culture, both within and without congregations. Future posts to follow.
Read this article combining interviews with six evangelical thinkers if you consider yourself an evangelical, are curious about evangelicals, or have never thought about evangelicalism. From Touchstone.