Tag: church

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Remembering Gregg Strawbridge: A Pastor’s Pastor

Pastoral theology is that branch that examines the challenges and sundry issues that relate to the pastor’s role among his people. It extends to pastoral care, homiletics, and a host of topics. It is an all-exhaustive theological field that expresses the minister’s presence, authority, and love for his people.

The most practical level impacts directly the personal life of the pastor: his learning, leisure, and friendship. These are the areas that stir my pastoral ministry and that play so very deeply into shaping the pastor I am today. Nevertheless, these pursuits become meaningless without another; someone who shares the same professional, academic, and ecclesiastical heart; someone with whom you can be open and to whom you can say, “Yes, me too; I feel that way, and I know that angst.”

For me, Rev. Dr. Gregg Strawbridge was the embodiment of everything good about pastoral theology. Gregg carried with him the insatiable thirst to see pastoral ministry alive in the academy, around the grill, and the mentoring. Gregg was and will be the gift of God to edify men contemplating or already invested in the life of the church.

At the young age of 57, my dear brother left us! He left us with honor and grace, but he left us. And my heart aches immensely at his absence. He was to me, a model; but more, he was the enlivening partner that I needed 13 years ago when we first met and the enriching friend I spoke with a day before his death.

For the last few years, we have talked on the phone at least monthly about everything. You see, Gregg was the pastor a pastor needed. He was the friend of those who were at the end of their pastoral ministry with no hope, to those struggling with little hope, and to those who were full of hope. He was the person God used to stir optimism and sobriety about the life of the church.

For the last three days before his death, we spoke on the phone three times, exchanged emails about book projects, and offered each other laughter; but to be honest, it was Gregg offering me life in it all. I never felt quite competent enough to meet his theological excellence. But Gregg never once made me feel as if I had a lot of catching up to do, or that I was never going to achieve something, rather, he treated me as an equal, even though his repertoire was replete with accomplishments, recognized projects, and a theological mind that was ahead of many of his contemporaries.

To us, he was just an ordinary pastor. Like many of us who do this for a living, he just wanted to talk, share his pastoral struggles, and I, like an eager child, speedily shared with him mine. I needed him to listen, but I needed him to simply speak; speak into my life and speak into my pastorate.

When I say Gregg was an ordinary pastor, it is an extraordinary-ordinary. He was unbelievably gifted, and that is not to embellish his accomplishments, it’s to state the reality of the kindness of God to pour the benediction of Gregg Strawbridge on us, on my denomination, and in my own life.

Dr. Strawbridge was a talented musician; the kind that touched a guitar and made magic, the kind that could compose and harmonize and provide something beautiful. Perhaps our mutual affection for music brought us closer, though his musical abilities were incomparable. It is safe to say that Gregg lived musically, throwing a note here and there, and wherever those notes went it offered joy to the recipients. I grabbed as many of his notes as I could since we first met.

One would think that with all his gifts, he would be intimidating and unapproachable. His academic prowess was all over his resume and his writing abilities were vast dealing with issues in classical education, covenant baptism and communion, eschatology, apologetics, music, typology, and an astounding love for the good, true, and beautiful. And don’t forget sailing.

Gregg was the kind of biblicist that inspired you to love Jesus more fully in the text of Scriptures. He always took you deeper into the life of Christ because he loved his Lord. We would take a Sunday text he was preaching on, open our Bibles, and spend the 30-60 minutes talking through it, looking for insights to preach more clearly. He was my visionary inspiration. Every time we met at a conference or when I got off the phone, I wanted to produce something for the kingdom, improve in some area, and be a better pastor.

But even though he was the guy recognized at conferences, the men whose debates brought many to change their positions, and though he was sought after for his wisdom, Gregg was approachable in every way. There was not one intimidating bone in his body. One would feel completely at ease with him. His charm, kindness, and experience would flow into every conversation because he believed that pastoral theology was the kind of thing that was practiced charitably, even though at times that included some heated dialogue. But refining was his love language and the common good was Gregg’s goal as a leader in his denomination and as a powerful proponent of orthodoxy everywhere else. Gregg was indefatigable for the kingdom. He was evangelistic for the kingdom and pushed the claims of Jesus in life and now he proclaims his excellencies in death.

The last words I said to him on the phone a day before his death was how much his productivity and pastoral life inspired me. He humbly replied, “Thanks, man!” I didn’t know that would be our last conversation. I keep waiting for another reply to my last email, another phone call to talk about our writing plans, or to talk about some ideas he had for wordmp3, or to talk about church life. And to be honest, though he was one of my dearest friends, he was ultimately my pastor; the embodiment of what makes shepherding desirable. And I will miss him greatly: his voice, humor, intellect, and our long conversations.

Rest in peace, friend! The world made sense to me and so many because you poured into us so purposefully!

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How to read the Gospels?

To study the Gospels is to study the first-century context in its depth. To read the first four books that shape the main corpus of the story of Jesus is to inundate ourselves in a world that is foreign to our eyes, our ears, and our taste. We are called to experience the dusty days of Jerusalem and the rain of God’s mercies among stubborn people. When we read the Gospels in their fullness, we find our own lives ingrained in the doubts of the disciples, the victories of the kingdom, and the corporate undoing of Jesus’ antagonists.

This entire endeavor begins early as we consider the genealogy of Jesus. There, in that vast array of heroic characters, we are considering a long line from Abraham to Mary that connects the Scriptures in all its covenant unity. It traces the lineage of our forefathers with the precision of a scalpel surgically tuned to its purpose. Far from tedious, it reveals in vivid language the precipitous fall of every attempt to break the sacred line. The Scriptures stir the imagination to see the unfolding drama of the sacred violence of old and the new sacred peace far as the curse is found; the journey through the wilderness to the arrival at the promised mount of Calvary.

To read the Gospels is to witness the fulfillment of history, the impending doom of an old world that was ready to die to make room for a new world. This new world brings with it the entire glory of Old Covenant history to the forefront as the writers retrace the steps of Israel leading to her final days in the destruction of the Temple. Yet, in Israel’s final days, God’s saints are not left to wander again in the wilderness, but a new Israel steps in to relive Israel’s history and journey through the wilderness to triumph over every failure of Israel’s past. In Jesus, the old Israel gives way to a new Israel with a new Moses and a new kingdom.

The Gospels set the stage for the subversion of the present authority structures by a new-born King whose very presence rifled Satan’s fold and the Herodian throne. In his birth, he overthrows the principalities of the day and fulfills the promise to be a light to the Gentiles. Jesus’ Epiphany glory in his infancy provides the environment for everything else that unfolds in the New Covenant Scriptures. For in his birth, the Gentiles appear, the religious leaders sneer, the earthly powers jeer, and the angels cheer. Indeed, the life of Jesus’ birth signals the future ministry of Jesus bringing blessings to the Gentiles, conflicting with the religious leaders, provoking political figures to take a stand and to receive the ministry of angelic beings and the glorious saints.

The Gospels introduce us to a world that is perishing under the weight and burden of sin only to engulf us into a new world where righteousness and hope prevail. The kingship of Jesus becomes the Gospels’ exceedingly great project: to reveal Christ as Lord and to see his kingship confound worldly wisdom and bring salvation to the cosmos. 

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The Danger of Theology

Dear friend,

You inquired about the nature of theological study. You asked whether your interest in theology meant that you should pursue work in the church or academy or whether you should strive to be an intelligent layman in the kirk.

I started my journey over 20 years ago and have loved every single aspect of it. Theological and pastoral pursuits are my bread and butter and chicken wings. But I wish to begin, first and foremost, by offering some cautions. I don’t want to write to you about the virtues of studying theology or even your future, except to say the “study of God”–“theos logia”–is electrifying, mysterious, and dangerous. Here I wish only to alert you first to the “danger” of studying theology.

One of the great dangers is to assume that theology can be neat and tidy. If we simply have all our categories in order we can right the world’s wrongs. If we grasp fully the intricacies of the ontological Trinity, we will be able to grasp theology in summa. Even though theology comes down from heaven, we shouldn’t assume we have developed an appetite for heavenly things. In fact, I have witnessed too many theological students whose appetite for heavenly things is so small that I hope to never see their faces in the pulpit or leading a study. Be cautious to attend to those matters of piety first. A proud man in the Church is a dangerous man for the church.

Sometimes we treat theology like an engineer treats numbers. Studying theology becomes like reading an encyclopedia of facts. But we must be aware that in every endeavor of reading and studying and writing, we bring presuppositions, experiences, frustrations, and much more to the task. Therefore, we shouldn’t expect that straightforward propositions apply to all situations nor that they should be mechanically applied. Theology, especially pastoral theology, is deeply intimate.

Sometimes, “trust in God” works for the weary, but at other times it can be understood as simplistic and unsympathetic. “All things work together for good” can make a great bumper sticker but de-contextualized, it can seem cheap and even offensive. Be cautious that your theological studies don’t minimize pain or trivialize real concerns. Know your Bible, but know your people as well.

Theology can be difficult to apply. It requires wisdom. In fact, it requires humility to speak into someone’s life. The more we think through it, the more we live together, make mistakes together, the more we learn to speak the truth in love and connect theology to human experience. That is my first real caution as you continue your studies and consider your future. Many cheers and clarity in your pursuits.

Sincerely,

Pastor Brito

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Abraham Kuyper for Dummies

Have you ever wanted a quick and dirty guide to the old, dead, white guy by the name of Abraham Kuyper? The demand was overwhelming, and I obliged the need of the masses. In this episode, I discuss the five principles that guide a Kuyperian viewpoint, namely,

a) Trinitarianism

b) Great Commission

c) Incarnational Lenses

d) Doxological

e) Church as Didactic

Please leave a comment and spread the wealth.

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News Updates: DeSantis, COVID, and More

1) There are many people like David Brooks and David French who want a “conservatism of manners” and not a “conservatism based on eternal truths.” This distinction made by Al Mohler is a fine one to explain the current movement of many who were once stalwart conservative voices moving ever so slowly, or in the case of some, above the speed limit, towards leftist ideology.

I am reminded of a section in my little book “The Trinitarian Father” where I observed that parenting is a covenantal thing. So too is politics. The grown man with kids who thinks it’s cute to flirt with Bidenism will discover a few years down the road that sweet manners–however good and noble–is not the crown of policy, nor is it the principal thing in politics. His children sitting under his teaching will discover that Biden didn’t go far enough and that they need to bring back the spirit of Bern. Your politics follow your religion, and your religion will be slowly turning towards David Brooks if you view niceties as the prime virtue.

For additional information, my piece over at kuyperian.com has been gaining lots of attraction. I wrote yesterday about how changes towards wokism occur. I argue that these changes are perspectival. If we break them down to existential (experiences), situational (cultural-historical), and normative (the authority of the Bible), we can arrive at a more accurate interpretive model for how these stalwarts move incrementally towards woke and BLM rhetoric.

2) Jeff Childers, who writes a daily update on COVIDness, observed that Middlebury College in Vermont has a 99% vaccination rate. Still, they have suspended “live classes, sports, and performing arts — again — after fifty students and employees tested positive for the virus.” $60K of tuition a year, and they are back to April of 2020 again. Can I get a refund? P.S. Oh, and Gavin Newsom is reimposing a statewide mask mandate.

3) Governor Ron DeSantis–also known as St. DeSantis–just gave state workers “an end-of-the-year holiday surprise: A couple of four-day weekends to celebrate Christmas and the New Year.” With the housing market in Florida booming with New Yorkers and Dave Rubin (by the way, welcome Dave!), those employees better rest for the work ahead. As a side note, I am pushing for a DeSantis 2022 re-election campaign in Florida. Stay local, Goburnator!

4) Dr. Joe Boot notes that “conversion therapy” is now prohibited in Canada. Technically, this means that pastoral counseling aimed at exhorting men and women to believe the Gospel and follow God’s creation order for man and woman in sex and marriage is now illegal. But don’t worry, the MP’s voted unanimously to adopt such measures.

5) Jesus is Lord! And this means that the central reality of postmillennial eschatology reigns supreme. Don’t believe the versions of peace the world offers. Christ is Lord, and the volume of peace belongs to him. In this world, Christians hear his voice loud and clear (John 10). Keep listening!

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Ten Feasting Propositions

I begin with the assumption that the church has been powerfully de-ritualized this season. Habits die quickly or become rusty when not exercised. As Dru Johnson notes in his book “Human Rites,” we need to know our rites. The more we understand our rituals the more meaningful they become. And we have forgotten those rites and/or meaningfully ceased to practice them. I offer ten brief notes on recovering the ritual of feasting in this age:

First, we eat without thanksgiving. Gluttony exists because thanksgiving does not. Eating is not a neutral exercise. Christians eat as acts of triumph over the world.

Second, the ritual of eating is undervalued in America. In this country, food is consumption. We eat because we want to, therefore we eat without intentionality. When rites become trite, our experiences become trivial, and the doors for abuse open wider.

Third, corporate eating is de-valued because we allow teenagers to rule over the table. Parents must re-assert their authority over the table, and keep food at the table and not on laps in front of laptops.

Fourth, feasting suffers when worship looks like a funeral. If every head is bowed and eyes are closed, we cannot see the feast or hear the feasters. Feasting is diminished when worship is feast-less in character.

Fifth, feasting is best formalized and appointed. When it is that way, it can be adorned with fancy napkins and plates. It allows family members to long for something better. We are gnostics to think that immediacy is best. Christians understand that better feasts mean preparing more to enjoy better.

Sixth, feasts are more meaningful when we incorporate singing. Feasts in the Bible are celebrations of our freedom from bondage. Singing to Yahweh a new song is declaring Pharaoh will never rule over our appetites again.

Seventh, there is no friendship without Christ. There are shared experiences and stories, but friendship is rooted in a shared Christ. Feasts are accentuated when brothers dwell together.

Eighth, relationships change and are re-directed. Someone who was a friend in eighth grade may not be a friend now. God gives us a rotation of friends through life because He knows that our changes will require new people to speak into our particular phases of life. Feasts restore friendships and renew friendships and are the genesis of new friendships.

Ninth, many of us are worse friends than we think, but we have better friends than we deserve. Feasts create the environment for friendship rituals to be exercised in service and communion.

Tenth, all rituals require meaning. All good things require work. Therefore, all feasting is meaningful work. It provides true health for the Christian.

Real health is grounded in a proper relationship with God, and since this relationship is in part sacramental, it involves physical things. The purpose of these physical aspects is not, however, to provide mechanical health to the “human biological machine.” Rather, the purpose of these physical aspects is to communicate to us, in a mystery, the grace of God (JBJ, See “Studies in Food and Faith”).

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John Frame on Seeing our Sins

So much of my pastoral theology can be summarized by John Frame’s theology, but the example below is the kind of synopsis that needs highlighting and underlining. It offers the uniqueness of the Spirit’s role in the application of the Bible. Frame walks us through the simple but yet overlooked task of “seeing” as more than “observing facts,” but “seeing” as acknowledging and being transformed by biblical knowledge. Theology is the application of Scriptures to every area of life. To remove that is to undermine the Spirit’s role.

~~~

-The following is an excerpt from John M. Frame, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 157, 158.

The Spirit’s work also helps us to use and to apply the word. Obviously, the Spirit cannot assure us of the truth of Scripture unless He also teaches us its meaning. And meaning, as we have seen, includes the applications. We can see this in 2 Samuel 11, and 12 for David sinned against God by committing adultery with Bathsheba and by sending her husband, Uriah, to his death. Here, David, the “man after God’s own heart,” seemed trapped in a particular spiritual blindness. What happened to David? In one sense, he knew Scripture perfectly well; he meditated on God’s law day and night. And he was not ignorant about the facts of the case. Yet he was not convicted of sin. But Nathan the prophet came to him and spoke God’s word. He did not immediately rebuke David directly; he told a parable – a story that made David angry at someone else. Then Nathan told David, “you are the man.” At that point, David repented of his sin.

What had David learned from that point? He already knew God’s law, and, in a sense, he already knew the facts. What he learned was an application – what the law said about him. Previously, he may have rationalized something like this: “Kings of the earth have a right to take whatever women they want; and the commander-in-chief has the right to decide who fights on the front line. Therefore my relation with Bathsheba was not really adultery, and my order to Uriah was not really murder.” We all know how that works; we’ve done it ourselves. But what the Spirit did, through Nathan, was to take that rationalization away.

Thus David came to call his actions by the right names: sin, adultery, murder. He came to read his own life in terms of the biblical concepts. He came to see his “relationship” as adultery and his “executive order” as murder…Much of the Spirit’s work in our lives is of this nature – assuring us that Scripture applies to our lives in particular ways. The Spirit does not add to the canon, but His work is really a work of teaching, of revelation. Without that revelation, we could make no use of Scripture at all; it would be a dead letter to us.T

Thus in one sense, the Spirit adds nothing; in another sense, He adds everything.

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New Commentary on Jonah Available!

I have been gone this past week and am beginning to catch up on several little items. Among them is the joyous news of the publication of the second Brito/Lusk commentary. Our commentary on Jonah is now available for pre-order through Athanasius Press. Rumors are that the printed books should be available on December 6th, and furthermore, that there is a 30% discount on all pre-orders. Oh, and if you would like to buy 25+copies of it for a book study or for your congregation, there is a 50% discount.

The Book of Jonah has captured the imagination of God’s people for centuries, and its unique context and content provide one of the richest stories of God’s mercy to the Gentiles through a reluctant prophet.

This commentary is not like the others. While many commentaries on Jonah focus on the disobedience and woes of the prophet–arguing for a sort of prophetic impiety– this work argues for an overarching narrative that sees God’s mercy transcending the reluctance of the prophet and opening the gates to a missiological reformation. Indeed Jonah is a lovely introduction to the Advent season as hope begins to permeate the Old Testament texts awaiting for a greater prophet than Jonah who will come and proclaim justice and righteousness to all the nations of the earth.

On a personal note, this would make a wonderful Christmas gift as a theological and devotional introduction to one of the most read books of the Scriptures. I’d be really honored if you would share the link with your friends and family.

Pastor Lusk and I are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to make this short but meaningful commentary available to the public.

“I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”-Jonah

Jonah Through New Eyes: The Reluctant Prophet
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Fauci, Tyranny, and Beth Moore

Watching Australia, Austria, Netherlands, and other sundry places makes me realize that the roots of paganism were deeply embedded before COVID, which means the seeds of tyrannical governments were ready to burst with violent colors. And so they have. Aaron Ginn has been heroic over on Twitter (https://twitter.com/aginnt) pointing these things out since the very beginning. He revealed the COVID-hysteria in the days when it was still not cool to doubt the science. He’s been vindicated a thousand times.

Compulsory vaccination and lockdowns in Germany, police brutality toward the non-vaccinated in Australia, Netherlands’ police officers going out and about on the streets checking vax passports, and other such things are par for the course. On the other hand, Ginn has also revealed drone footage of wide protests all around the globe from people who will not accept such impositions. Good on them! Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit freedom, and stupid are they that let things carry on, for they shall receive the approval of the left.

Kuyper once wrote that when our convictions are challenged, peace has become a sin and battle our calling. And these days, if you are not fighting or at least pushing back, you idolize peace like the people in Jeremiah’s day (Jer. 6:14). Even if you have fallen for the trap of nice Christianity–as Lewis puts it–you have to at least see that something is not right. Right? Because peace is non-sensical if it is predicated on baseless assertions. Because peace is non-sensical if it is predicated on baseless assertions. The option they offer us is, “Find peace or die!” Anyone should be able to see right through this mercenary strategy.

As for me and my house, we unequivocally affirm that the Church can’t be at peace in any way when her vision and mission are dictated by the mandates of the state. If you tell me to sit back and relax and let the state have its piece of the pie, I am going to stop you mid-sentence and walk out. If you tell me to just play it cool when it comes to the centrality of worship, I am going to theonomy even harder on Sundays.

Nah. Peace schmeesh!

It was one thing when the church stood her ground in the early days, but it’s another thing altogether when the church is the one now saying, “Please, what can I do to help the state’s cause?” This Thanksgiving, we are going to be extra cautious and require every family member to be vaccinated in order to be around them. Let’s show some gratitude for mother Newsom in California.

~~

On a similar note, a few of my friends in Brazil sent me a note about a congregation–among many–who was recommending everyone to seek out the unvaccinated and convince them to be vaccinated and furthermore, to determine whether such unvaxxed were worthy to be officers in the church. Now, if you think the qualifications for officers (I Tim. 3) are serious business, wait until the state begins to set their qualifications! Man, that presbytery examination will be brutal!

This kind of thing allows me as an immigrant to say to my fellow Americans that we are exceptional in the sense that what I say makes sense to so many of you, whereas in many other places what I say sounds like fumigating incense from the caves of Mordor. So, thanks for listening and I trust you will approve this message.

~~

What we have before us is an ever-moving goal post that commander Fauci has no interest in ever stopping. I have argued elsewhere that controlling time is the technique of tyrants, and for Fauci, controlling boundaries is his art. When you think you have fenced everything, he adds five more acres to your work. There is no end in sight because boosters x 20 is just fine math for the religion of scientism.

~~~

Let me add a translation for those who are watching this thing unravel in other ways in the Christian community. You may have seen that there is now an attempt to talk about how we can deconstruct the faith to build it back again. Inerrancy and the historical Adam are such things that need to be reconstructed because it has fallen into the hands of fundamentalists like yours truly. But when they come for Adam and Revelation, they necessarily come for Jesus and inspiration.

I am actually one of those who think all these things come together, and I am actually one of those who believe the entire deconstructionist tables need to be overthrown. Why is it that everyone who falls in the affirmations above also falls for the affirmations below? “Correlation for $1000, Alex!”

I firmly believe that not one square inch should be given to Jonathan Merrit, Peter Enns, and Beth Moore. If you stand with me in the first two but hit the pause button on the third name, I can understand your frustration. But I have been around this theological block give or take 20 years, and I can see from my vantage point when certain things lead to Rome, and when certain things lead to Fauci.

There is no going back to normal. But again, the old normal stinketh and needed to be replaced/reformed with God’s normal. Pastors need a healthy dose of courage, parishioners need to encourage their pastors and one another in realizing that power resides in heaven. The Church needs to proclaim that the time for gentility ended when Jesus sat at the right hand of the Father, and our call is absolute dominion. Anything else is accepting the premise of neutrality.

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Pursuing Wisdom in Covid-hysteria

In the Bible, the pursuit of wisdom is a tree of life (Prov. 3:18). It’s a tree that keeps giving. It does not dry up because it is an unending gift from above (James 1:5). When we ask for it, God offers it fully and unadulterated for the taking. The tree is ours, but yet our hunger for another tempts us to despise wisdom. We would rather chase after the wisdom of scientism and expertise-ism rather than rely solely on the wisdom from above.

When the COVID-esteria began, leaders in our church and many other churches prayed that God would give us wisdom; that we would not take the most desirable tree. We prayed that God would give us the wisdom to see the problems of today (Matt. 6:34), rather than concern ourselves with tomorrow. We prayed that our hermeneutical lens would not be fear, but faith and fortitude. Thus, we carefully thought-through decisions about closing our doors to worship for a temporary time, or whether we could navigate one Sunday at a time with open doors. We decided on the latter and never once shut down our doors.

This decision does not entitle us to some divine peek into celestial rivers, but it does grant us a healthy dose of wisdom for dealing with hard times in the future and just how much we can handle. We are grateful for God’s good gifts and for how he answered us during that season and our congregation has seen very closely what a loving neighbor actually looks like.

Not to minimize the season. In fact, there were sick saints, set-up adjustments, hospital visits, and even the death of loved ones related to congregational members. We give thanks to God that he sustained our people through these 22 months. There is no pride, but sheer gratitude. We know that many things could have been different whether we had kept our gates open or not.

This is all good and gooder and full of glad-tidings, but it does lead to one overarching principle that I touched upon in the beginning. As an illustration, there is a video making the rounds about a United Methodist pastor who sits down in contentment and professionalism and explains why his congregation will now start requiring vaccine passports or a negative result in the last 72 hours as a way of having access to the sanctuary of God on Sunday morning. To this display of Adamic naivete, I argued that the United Methodist Church should stop ordaining women because most of their male pastors do just fine playing the role of a weak woman from the pulpit. That’s my subtle argument for male-priesthood only in case you were wondering. The strong women know that their role is a different one in the body, but these cowardly voices playing the role of men continue to add more barriers to the house of God. Since I know a couple of faithful Methodist ministers, I leave a modicum of decency in their bodies.

If you are following the score so far, it’s Tree of Life -73 and the pursuit of immaturity far ahead in our day. But there are still those lingering voices out there–like mine and many others–whose congregations are living quiet and peaceable lives doing our cultural, theological, and liturgical thing outside of the scope of visibility. But, I suspect we are content with this and gladly will stay away from any spotlight unless we are driven to opine, and opine we will should we be forced.

Eating from the Tree of Life is not a very attractive, applaud-seeking technique, but it is the way of wisdom, and those who get a taste of it, develop an appetite for it when it is popular or when it is not. Pursuing the Tree of Life gives us an insight into the times, and it allows us to see the times for what it is. Time-tyrants wish to take our capacity to eat from this tree, and they will tempt us with serpentine pleasure to skip the tree and eat from the shiny one down the road. The Church should refuse such offers and crush a few ideological heads when it creeps in our territory enticing us to more scientific ways of looking at the world.