Archbishop+Jensen
A Global Anglican Future Conference is planned for June 2008. The aim of the Conference is to discuss the future of mission and relationships within the churches of Anglican Communion. The Conference will be chaired by Archbishop Peter Jensen. In a message to his people, he explains why the meeting is necessary. As some of you who read this blog have probably guessed, I am among those former Episcopal priests who found it necessary to realign myself with the main body of the church. One of the statements that Archbishop Jensen made in his communication really weighs heavy on me:
“The American actions. . . . impacted churches all around the world. In particular the churches of the Global South had to own the name ‘Anglican’ while living in societies where the actions of the Americans was condemned by all, especially Muslims. The action of some North Americans severely hurt the witness of these churches. It also hindered the good effect that membership of the Anglican Communion has for those who live in a situation where Christians are in a minority.”
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Important Anglican Conference
Friday, December 28, 2007
My Christmas Message
There is Christianity lite and there is Christianity heavy. Christianity lite is “loving our neighbor” and the story of the Good Samaritan. Christianity heavy on the other hand is distilled in Martin Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” It goes like this: (I suggest you study each phrase carefully.)
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing: Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
During the current run for presidency, most of the candidates have felt called on to give a statement of their faith, and those who did, treated us to Christianity lite. During the You Tube debate, even the minister Huckabee described his belief as “Loving your neighbor” and “Except you do this unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.”
If that is the sum of being Christian, then who needs a major revelation from the Creator of the Universe to tell us that? Most world systems from Communism, Atheism, Islam etc. have their systems of helping their neighbors. Loving your neighbor is what the secular mind believes religion to be all about and is the type of doctrine a secular mind would develop should a person be so disposed to make up his or her own religion.
We live in a very dangerous and evil world. Christianity lite does not give us an explanation of evil. With Christianity lite, politicians can end up looking for only psychologically understandable sources of evil and consequently psychological remedies such as: People in the ghettos are violent because they are physically or psychologically deprived. People in the Middle East attack us because they feel under cultural threat from us. People throughout the underdeveloped world butcher each other because they are exploited. If we would only love our neighbors, meet their needs, reduce their frustrations, we could have peace on earth.
Naive explanations lead to naive solutions. Naivete regarding evil leaves people exposed to evil. Posted by the Rev. Don Clark, Ed.D.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Jesus Prepares
Just finished listening this morning to the TV preacher John Hagee. He was describing the Father’s last minute instructions to His son before He would be born on earth. He was to be born in a manger so He could understand human poverty. He would be kicked around a lot so He could understand human suffering. And, He would be a small business carpenter so He would know what it was like to live under a tax and spend government.
Read More......Sunday, December 16, 2007
God Changed the Rules
Fifty two years ago, in the movie “A Man Called Peter,” the Rev. Peter Marshall said to his wife: “Katherine, the Lord puts a desire in our hearts and then he fulfils it.” I paid attention to what he said, and God has done exactly that for me all my life. I was accepted into all the graduate programs I had desired, all the churches in which I desired to be their pastor, the clinical programs I wanted, and the exact university I wanted to teach in. I was selected for the Peace Corps. I met and married the perfect wife after only two dates and after seeing her in a dream. All the opportunities seemed impossible at first and all supernatural when they happened.
I decided to write this post today because I realize that after all these years, God changed the rules. Five years ago, as I was retiring from both the university and from the church, people were asking me, “Now what?” And for the first time in my life, I did not know. However, life happened: One day my wife said, “Look what I found in the paper, they are starting the first Tai Chi classes for seniors at the Senior Center.” So off I went, hardly knowing what Tai Chi was.
The next important chapter post-retirement, was attending a conference at Morningstar Ministries on learning to use the new media in spreading the Gospel. The folks from Charisma Magazine taught us about blogging. I had never heard of blogging. I came home and started my first Christian blog. In a short while, my local Republican party heard about my blogging and said, “Hey, we need you to blog to counteract the very active local blog on the Left. So, I started political blogging.
As always a very active person, it would be hard to admit that I was aging. As I look back now, I can see how, without me being aware, the Lord was fixing it so I did not have to deal with limitations. He knew I had to stop the pounding of my 10 K races. So, he dangled in front of me something I had hardly heard of, Tai Chi–the perfect exercise for one as they age. Secondly, He knew it was stressful to be supply preaching all over the place, so he slipped me into a ministry from my easy chair–blogging. He knew it was getting harder to handle all my volunteer work, traveling all over, so he gave me a community action work to do while settled in my warm, cozy home. Not one of these activities had I known about before so that I could desire them. God is so good!!
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Holy Days, Are They Comparable?
The diversity police want us to stop saying Merry Christmas at this time of the year, substituting instead Happy Holidays or the like. For centuries in our country, this season of the year has been to celebrate the night the Creator of the Entire Universe visited his creation!!
Now we are being asked to make room for other Holy Days as follows:
Chanukah the Festival of Lights, is a celebration of the victory of the Maccabees and the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple. It also commemorates the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days.
The Bodhi Day signifies the day when Lord Buddha achieved ‘Bodhi’ (Release From The Bodily Imprisonment). It was the day, when He attained “Enlightenment.
Kwanzaa is an African American and Pan-African holiday bringing a cultural message which speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense.
Eid al-Adha is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims worldwide as a commemoration of Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael for Allah. It does not always fall in this season.
As the kids like to exclaim: “Big Whoo!”
Monday, November 19, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Leaving the Sinking Ship
For those puzzled over the meltdown of the Episcopal Church, I ran across this quote: “The Church must be taken back from the shallow ephemeral wedding of Church to current culture and morality measured by social acceptability. Or as G.K. Chesterton would say, “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
Monday, November 12, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
How the Episcopal Church Tore Itself Apart
The Episcopal Church in America has split. Following is an op-ed piece I ran across which goes straight to the heart of the cause of the split. Some of you may not even care one way or another, but for those of us who went through the split, it has been painful. The op-ed piece: “This is what it comes down to: Conservatives vs. liberals, constructionists vs. activists. You want to know how this argument is going to end? Look at the personalities of those involved in the decision-making, look at how they apply their personal overarching views and you, too, can play prognosticator.
That’s how it works when you are trying to discern how the U.S. Supreme Court, which began its 2007-08 term last week, will rule on the myriad cases before it. Will the conservative constructionists, who believe that the Founding Fathers actually were pretty clear in their intent and that that intent hasn’t changed over the years, form the majority?
Or will the liberal activists, who believe the Founding Fathers always meant for the Constitution to be interpreted in the context of the current times, be the deciding factor in cases this year?
Take away the discussion about the Supreme Court, insert the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, and you could be having the same discussion.
The Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the American branch, is divided in the same way between conservative constructionists and liberal activists. The former believe that the Scriptures are plainly written, can be plainly interpreted and that the meaning has not changed over time.
The latter believe the Scriptures are to be understood both in the context in which they were written and the context in which the believers now live, and that their meaning does change with the times. The former believe that culture cannot and should not influence interpretation. The latter believe that culture always influences interpretation.”
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Another Christian in the Crosshairs
The Left wing media are now after another Conservative. This time it is the outspoken Conservative, Ann Coulter. The latest furor erupted over an exchange Coulter had Monday with CNBC host Donny Deutsch on his show, "The Big Idea," during which she said the country would be better off if everyone were Christian. When Deutsch -- who is Jewish -- asked if she wanted to get rid of Judaism, Coulter responded, "We just want Jews to be perfected."
Some Jews are outraged and are calling for Ann’s head. The picture that immediately came to my mind was St.Paul standing before King Agrippa. Agrippa said to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” And Paul replied, “I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”
There was neither prejudice nor superiority in Paul’s profession. Paul just wished for King Agrippa, all the blessings of recognizing the king’s own Messiah. Can’t you just imagine the trouble for Paul today if he suggested something like that?
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The Prophets Dilemma
The following comes from my political blog 
Is George Bush a modern day prophet? Because the story of the prophet Jonah is quoted by Jews for Yom Kipper this week, two editorial writers, Michael Oren and Mark Gerson, were inspired to editorialize in the Wall Street Journal regarding the plight of prophets.
Ordered by God to go down and call the people of Ninevah to repentance in order to escape destruction, Jonah found himself in a Catch 22. He realized if the people of Ninevah listened to him, destruction would not come. Then when nothing happened, they would be furious at him for making them give up their good times for no reason. On the other hand, if he did not go and they were destroyed, he would have to live with that. So Jonah cut and ran. Forced later to prophesy anyway to the people, everything happened like he expected. The people were angry with him.
The writers then give modern examples of Jonah’s dilemma. Churchill predicted that a rising Germany was a threat. But, if he pre-emptively attacked, would people thank him for averting World War II or accuse him of unnecessarily starting it. Truman prophesied that Japan would never surrender and that a quarter million Gis would die taking the mainland. He dropped the bombs, ending the war. Then he faced the judgement of historians who claimed it was unnecessary. God alone knows if those two made the right decisions and He is not telling us.
Which leads to George Bush. He prophesied that Islamic fascists would get weapons of mass destruction. He took the battle to them. Has that action kept the jihadists off balance for these past five years of no attacks on our homeland, or caused the problem, as some charge? Only God knows. We can never know.
The next president also has to be a prophet. Should we nuke the rogue nations before they use theirs and risk accusations of provoking Armageddon? Or, do we wait and see what happens? No wonder Jonah tried to high tail it out of town. Why does anyone want to be a leader?
Posted from the WSJ 9/21/07
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Prayer Failed? Don't Look to the New Testament
The other day, someone reading my blog was upset about what I had written on prayer. She had lost her son and she was the type who would take what I said and blame herself for her failed prayer. Once again, I became aware of how difficult it is to teach on the prayer of faith. I asked God to help me answer her pain, but I had to admit to her that He gave me no response.
If you include Jesus commanding sicknesses away as His type of praying, none of His prayers for healing went unanswered. If you omit one prayer of Paul’s, I don’t think there are any instances of prayers in the New Testament not being answered. (As to Paul’s prayer about his thorn in the flesh, I am among those who thinks his thorn was the persecution he suffered. I know other’s think it was an illness, however his statements are ambiguous at best). Therefore, if I tried to explain a failed prayer, I would have to go outside the New Testament to make up an explanation. There are no examples to point to.
So, I fell back on a story. When I first started learning to pray for healing, God put me together with three of His experienced prophets–all itinerant mountain preachers/prophets. They invited me to their regular prayer meetings.
Shortly after beginning with them, I read an article in Charisma Magazine by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in which he was outlining reasons why sometimes God did not heal. The article irritated me and I wrote a letter in which I said the following: “Babe Ruth was known as the home run king but he was also known as the strike out king. When I pray for healing, I would rather go for a home run every time. Even if in doing so I would sometimes strike out, I still would rather go down swinging.”
Charisma published my letter, and the night it arrived was a prayer night. Arriving a little late, one of the prophets entered the room saying, “Don I had a vision about you. It was strange. I saw you in a baseball cap and God said to tell you that you would not strike out.”
With no experience of prophecy that on target, I went ballistic. I accused all three of them of conspiring together in order to sell me on prophecy and I did not think that was funny. However, in a few moments, experienced psychologist that I am, I could see total confusion written on every face.
Not one person in that room knew what I was talking about! The poor young man who had given the prophesy had never even heard of Charisma Magazine! I spent a lot of the next hour apologizing and asking for forgiveness for my false accusations. (In atonement, I later bought the prophet a year's subscription to Charisma.)
When one of the presidential candidates was asked recently if he would be willing to be a vice-president, he indignantly responded that you don’t run for president thinking about being vice-president. No, and you can’t hit for the bleachers already making up your excuses as to why you might strike out. You can’t pray the prayer of faith if you are thinking of what you will tell yourself if you fail. Like Paul, I have to be true to the heavenly vision given me.
Unfortunately, in our Christian walk we have to become grownups. If we have a failed prayer, we can not look to the New Testament for our explanation. The only thing we can do when we fail is dust ourselves off, pick up another bat and practice, practice, practice.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Christians say yes to tongues
ChristiaNet.com, the world's largest Christian Portal with twelve million monthly page loads, recently asked, "Is it Biblical for Christians to speak in tongues today?" ChristiaNet's president. 5,000 Christians responded to the question of using the gift of tongues in today's times and 71% said "Yes."
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Loving God with all we have
I was riding in a truck the other day. The owner had two well-behaved boxer dogs in the back seat. However, the moment the owner left the truck to buy something, I was set upon by these two giant dogs. They licked me. They nibbled me. They slobbered all over my head, shoulders and arms. One jumped in my lap, licking me in the face; the other on my back nibbling the top of my head. It was hilarious. It reminded me of the commercial in which puppies are giving all this love to a little boy and he is giggling with delight. I was doing the same. Never had I experienced such total demonstration of affection!!
I have written on this subject before of our animals’ devotion to us as model for our love for God. That experience in the truck drove the message deeper. The first commandment–Love the Lord thy God with everything in you. I could just hear the Lord saying: “Donald, I sent you these devoted creatures for you to model how I want to be loved–with everything that is in you.”
I still say, if God enjoys being loved on half as much as I did that day in the truck, I can understand why He created us.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Social Conservatives and Rudy
Interesting new thought on Sunday talk show regarding choices for Social Conservatives/Christian Right. Because of his success with crime in the Big City, and because of his cool headedness after 9/11, many Republicans believe that Giuliani has the best track record to protect us from our enemies. The observer said the question was whether Social Conservatives would be willing to make the trade off of their regular issues of abortion and traditional marriage on the one hand, for the struggle against the threat from a fast growing world-wide anti-Christian movement on the other hand.
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