merefaith: two friends on pilgrimage

Check out Wyman Richardson's interview of the author of Towards Baptist Catholicity here at his blog.

Labels: Baptist Catholicity, Baptists

Posted by Chris Schelin at Monday, October 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

In worship we discover that we are engrafted into the story of God. It is in worship that we acquire the skills to recognize who we are - sinners. In Trinitarian worship, we also acquire the skills to discover and live our identity as priests, an identity centered in blessing and offering, or receiving and giving. We receive the forgiving and sacrificial love of Christ, and are enabled to extend this to others through intercession and service. Paul Fiddes describes this ecclesial identity well when he states that the church as a priestly people has the 'power to serve, to focus the presence of the Spirit and to mediate blessing only because it is caught up in the life of the triune God'. To be caught up in the life of God is most certainly a gift of God's grace, one mediated to us through the material Body of Christ. With Schmemann, we need to emphasize that in the church the sum is greater than the parts, not because of human effort but because of the presence of the risen Christ who freely uses 'the created order in the work of redemption, particularly the gathering and building of the church'. The priesthood of all believers is not an internal, spiritual phenomenon, but an ecclesial form of life, sustained by the faithful worship of God.

- Elizabeth Newman, "The Priesthood of All Believers and the Necessity of the Church," in Recycling the Past or Researching History?: Studies in Baptist Historiography and Myths. Anthony R. Cross and Philip E. Thompson, eds. Carlisle: Paternoster, 2005. Final italics mine.

Labels: Baptists, Discipleship, Theology

Posted by Chris Schelin at Wednesday, October 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

According to the story found here.


There are some interesting nuggets in here that one wishes would be explored more, but of course that wouldn't be the case in a brief article for a regular newspaper. I am particularly prone to ask certain theological and ecclesiological questions:

1. Was Bishop Edmonds "consecrated" in the sense that this office is understood as a higher, or at least different, ordination? Or is this simply an installation to a different office that is already validated by a prior ordination?

2. When leaders of the church asked to make Edmonds bishop, how did they understand the office and what did they think they were changing?

3. Edmonds speaks of a move from a "democratic" to a "theocratic" process. How does his elevation to a bishopric change the structure of discernment and decision-making at St. Mark's? How do he and the members of the congregation see the role and value of the average "layperson" in discerning the mind of Christ?

4. Edmonds received the imposition of hands from ministers of various denominations. How do he and his congregation understand the place of his office within the broken unity of the Church catholic? Does he intend for his office to exercise an ecumenical function?

5. Of which Baptist denomination is St. Mark's a member congregation? How does his office fit within the workings of that denomination, or will it fit in any way at all? How are denominational leaders and sister churches reacting to this move?

Labels: Baptists

Posted by Chris Schelin at Monday, October 08, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

This I didn't know before...

*****

I'm quite a fan of soccer and I always enjoy the World Cup as it comes around every four years. I wouldn't mind one day living in or near a city with an MLS team and supporting it. I had known that the MLS is the successor to the defunct North American Soccer League, which crashed and burned in 1984. The vociferous critics of soccer in America say it crashed and burned because it simply isn't this country's sport. I don't think that has to be the case, and apparently it wasn't merely a failure of popularity in a free market of sports that caused the NASL's demise. Consider this from Parnesh Sharma's opinion piece at The Christian Science Monitor:

In its heyday in the late 1970s, the NASL was a serious presence on the US sports scene. The New York Cosmos, the league's flagship franchise, had little trouble filling Giants Stadium, especially when soccer legend Pele joined the team. The NFL, then not quite the juggernaut it is today, watched this development warily. Aided by a willing media, it began to vilify US soccer.

The media portrayed soccer players as foreign invaders, calling them "commie pansies." Soccer was derided as something for immigrants. Fearful of being perceived as un-American, many immigrants disavowed soccer – the pastime of their homelands – and embraced US sports.

In addition to applying pressure to newspapers, radio and television stations, and advertisers, the NFL also prohibited its owners from owning teams in other sports (an action directed chiefly against the NASL). The NASL sued, but the NFL won in court in 1982. The NASL folded in 1984.

*****

Today, however, the MLS is picking up steam, and multiple ownership is allowed by the NFL. More Americans follow the World Cup and sponsorship is up. Ignore the derision of the isolationists, and viva la real football!

Labels: The Pleasures of Life

Posted by Chris Schelin at Monday, October 01, 2007 | Permalink | Comments