Convictions About God 1996/2011 (1)

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[Back in the mid-1990s, I co-pastored with my wife Kathleen in a rural Mennonite congregation in the Midwest. Not long before we moved to Virginia for me to begin teaching I did a series of sermons trying to state in concise terms what I understood to be key Christian beliefs. I am going to post excerpts from those sermons here as an exercise in reflection. I will follow each post from 1996 with a post looking briefly at changes (and lack thereof) in my convictions in the past 15 years.]

What Do We Believe About God?

Ted Grimsrud—January 7, 1996

At our 1995 General Assembly, North American Mennonites approved a confession of faith.  The Apostle Peter wrote that we are responsible “always to be ready to give an answer to anyone who demands from us an accounting for the hope that is in us” (1 Pt 3:15).  We are responsible to explain about our faith.  Use of our new Confession of Faith can help us to answer for our faith.

For us to be able to talk about our convictions with others—be it our children and grandchildren, our neighbors who are Christians and those who are not—we need to have clarity within our own hearts and minds about those convictions. Here are some of the most basic questions for Christians: What do we believe about God?  What do we believe about Jesus Christ?  What do we believe about the Holy Spirit? These are the questions I will be dealing with.

What do we believe about God?  That is today’s issue.  I will read from the very first paragraph of our Confession of Faith.  “We believe that God exists and is pleased with all who draw near by faith.  We worship the one holy and loving God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally.  We believe that God has created all things visible and invisible, has brought salvation and new life to humanity through Jesus Christ, and continues to sustain the church and all things until the end of the age.” Continue reading “Convictions About God 1996/2011 (1)” →

Why Pacifism?

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Ted Grimsrud—June 21, 2011

In many Mennonite churches, the first Sunday in July is designated Peace Sunday. In recognition of that important upcoming “church holiday” (more important to me than about any other), I am posting some appropriate reflections.

As I think about pacifism these days, often my dad comes to mind.  At one point in his life, my dad was a warrior.  In 1940, more than a year before Pearl Harbor, he chose to enlist in the Army.  He certainly wasn’t a warmonger, but he felt a strong sense of loyalty to his country.

My dad spent four years fighting against the Japanese.  He was wounded, contracted malaria, and saw his best friend (whose name was Ted) killed before his eyes.  And he was proud of his service.

Only one time did he speak of the war to me, when I was 17 and facing the likelihood of being drafted myself.  My dad told me his Army experience had been good; he encouraged me to attend a military academy so I could go in as an officer.  I wasn’t tempted, he didn’t push me, and we never talked about it again.

As I reflect on this now, I find it interesting that my father grew up in a good Christian home—his father and one of his grandfathers were pastors.  Apparently, my father never saw a tension between being a warrior and being a Christian.  I think it never occurred to him that God and Caesar might be competitors for his allegiance….I wish it had. Continue reading “Why Pacifism?” →

Grandchildren and Hope

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Ted Grimsrud—June 18, 2011

When our grandson Elias entered our lives in June, 2006, we could feel the stakes increase immediately. Lots of things mattered more than ever before. This is even more the case since his little sister, Marja, joined him in March, 2010.

I have to be honest and say I simply can’t imagine what their lives will be like when they reach my age. The trends in the wider world certainly are not encouraging.

Yet, how can I be around these two oh-so-beautiful children, so full of life and curiosity and, yes, joy, and not be hopeful? When I see Elias, in many ways as energetic and healthily self-absorbed a pre-schooler as I have ever been around, show such patience and kindness toward his little sister, I imagine anything is possible.

Folksinger Jim Page, in his song “Whose World is This?” raises some of the most profound of questions: “What kind of world will our children receive, after all is said and done? What kind of creed have we come to believe that they may never receive one? What kind of world will our children receive, after all is said and done? What kind of creed must we come to believe if they are to receive one?”

Obviously, the “creed” we must believe—and practice—is the one Jesus insisted summarized the law and prophets: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

As I said, the big picture is not encouraging. As we hurtle down the path of environmental devastation, big media and big politics (funded by those who profit from the devastation) act as if we can keep exploiting the earth forever (“drill, baby, drill!”). The U.S. wins the Cold War—and embarks on a two-decade-long expansion of our military to the point now where we spend more on weapons of war than the rest of the world combined.

But the “little picture” seems extraordinarily hopeful. Elias and Marja witness to the power of love in ways that melt my heart, over and over.

I confess that I am unable to hold the big and little pictures together. But somehow, it seems we must find a way. We dare not despair—Elias and Marja forbid that. But we dare not act like all is well—the screaming of the earth forbids that.

Defending Yoder: Part Two—Earl Zimmerman’s Account

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In response to a critical review of his book Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom by John Nugent that challenged his reading of John Howard Yoder, Peter Leithart suggests that it is important not to read his book as mainly about Yoder but mainly about his effort to rehabilitate the image of the Emperor Constantine. I certainly defend the right of an author to try to set the frame for how her or his writings should be read. However, I do tend to think the main point of Leithart’s book is to challenge Yoder’s influence among contemporary evangelical Christians. Or at least this is a main point.

In Part One of these blog posts on “Defending Yoder,” I critiqued Defending Constantine and gave reasons for why I see it as a flawed book. I will return to Leithart in Part Three and discuss several of the reviews I have read that also challenge his perspective. In this post, though, I want to step back and reflect on Yoder’s project.

The best study dealing with Yoder’s thought that I have read is my friend Earl Zimmerman’s book, Practicing the Politics of Jesus: The Origin and Significance of John Howard Yoder’s Social Ethics(Cascadia Publishing House, 2007). I think this book deserves more attention than it has gotten (Leithart shows no evidence of being acquainted with it); hopefully as Yoder’s stature continues to grow, those interested in his theology will recognize the importance of Zimmerman’s contribution. Continue reading “Defending Yoder: Part Two—Earl Zimmerman’s Account” →

Defending Yoder: Part One—Responding to Peter Leithart’s Critique

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Ted Grimsrud—May 29, 2011

When John Howard Yoder passed from the scene in 1997, I can’t imagine even his strongest supporters would have expected that his importance would have continued to grow in the realm of theological ethics as it has. I certainly didn’t. Once indication of Yoder’s importance is the presence of a recent book, Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom by Peter Leithart (IVP Academic, 2010), with a clear agenda of trying to counter Yoder’s growing influence.

Leithart’s is a curious book. After I finished reading it, I tried to figure out how to summarize what precisely he is trying to do. And I have had a difficult time. I suspect there may be some hidden agenda at work, because Leithart simply does not give a clear statement of his own constructive concerns. And, though he seems to have some profound disagreements with Yoder and routinely slips in sharp words disparaging Yoder’s scholarship, he has not produced a simple hatchet job. Actually, when the smoke clears he has affirmed Yoder almost as much as condemned him. I would attribute Leithart’s less than total rejection of Yoder’s ideas to the fact that he actually did read Yoder with some care. Continue reading “Defending Yoder: Part One—Responding to Peter Leithart’s Critique” →

Affirming Life: Learning from Martin Buber

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Ted Grimsrud—May 27, 2011

“Some Mennonite theologians express a growing sentiment that…Mennonites should integrate their theology more fully with that of Christendom.”  However, “perhaps there are other traditions which might be equally helpful theologically for a dissenting tradition, such as Judaism.  It is urgent before going too far down the road the road of Christendom that other options and theological goals be tested.”[1] Perry Yoder, Old Testament professor at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary wrote these words nearly twenty years ago. They are probably even more relevant today.

Yoder’s warning provides the context for my exploration of the insights of Martin Buber, a Jewish theologian who lived from 1878 to 1965, first in Austria and Germany, and then, after 1938, in Israel.  Buber’s most famous book was called I and Thou [I will use the translation by Walter Kaufmann published by Scribners in 1970; page numbers from this book will be in parentheses in the text of this essay.]

I find I and Thou to be a difficult book and hope only to scratch the surface of Buber’s thought.  What I want to offer is not so much an objective summary of Buber’s thinking, but what I could call “reflections stimulated by Martin Buber’s book I and Thou.”

I will organize my reflections around five general themes: one, that the heart of reality is relationships; two, that God is a You and not an It; three, that all of life is spiritual; four, that reality is trustworthy; and five, that life is to be lived in the present. Continue reading “Affirming Life: Learning from Martin Buber” →

Are we living under totalitarianism?

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Ted Grimsrud – 5/23/11

Well, probably not. In the United States today, we still are able to express ourselves freely. I don’t feel any anxiety about posting this essay, for example, even though it will end up being quite critical of the powers that be in our society.

We still have a lot of power, though more so on the local level, to practice participatory democracy. We still have freedom of the press, problematic as our media might be in practice. I am writing right now in Phoenix, Arizona, and will be traveling home to Virginia tomorrow—I may be annoyed at the airport “security” measures, but I have a great deal of freedom to come and go as I please, to travel thousands of miles across the continent whenever I want.

And yet… Continue reading “Are we living under totalitarianism?” →

Mennonites and alcohol: Fascinating sociological dynamics

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I suppose it was about 25 years ago that a close friend of mine, at the time a Mennonite pastor in the Midwest, stirred up a hornet’s nest by writing a letter to the editor of the Gospel Herald, the weekly denominational magazine. Signed “name withheld,” this letter raised the possibility that maybe Mennonites should rethink their knee-jerk rejection of alcohol (I have to confess that I am going totally by memory here; I don’t recall anything specific about my friend’s argument).

For weeks, it seems, the Herald was filled with letters to the editor ripping into my friend for suggesting the worst of possible heresies. And I am pretty certain that no one wrote a letter defending his points (I certainly didn’t). To suggest that Mennonites should accept the validity of drinking alcoholic beverages simply was outrageous.

Now I knew back then that quite a few Mennonites did indeed drink, but they couldn’t do so publicly it seems (like the old joke—what’s the difference between a Mennonite and a Lutheran? the Lutheran will say hi to you in the liquor store). Continue reading “Mennonites and alcohol: Fascinating sociological dynamics” →

Who Can Stand Against It? The “Good” War and the Beast of Revelation

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Ted Grimsrud—May 13, 2011

[Adapted from a chapel sermon, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, October 5, 2010]

For baby-boomers such as myself (born in 1954), World War II was in the background during our formative years. It was the most destructive event, by far, in all of human history.

However, we still don’t really understand that war and its impact. We would do well to try to come to terms with what happened then, and its on-going presence in our lives. As I reflect on World War II as a Christian, I find myself struggling to find hope. This struggle, perhaps paradoxically, leads me to the book of Revelation. Let me explain why.

I personally have several reasons for trying better to understanding World War II.

I always encounter the long shadow of World War II in discussions with students. For many, the ideas of pacifism are new and foreign. Every semester I face the question, What about World War II? Doesn’t it prove that war at times is necessary—and that pacifism is unrealistic?

No wonder students raise these questions. They have grown up with images of the “Good War.” They hear our leaders, including President Obama, evoke the war against Hitler to show that the only way to pursue the right in extreme circumstances is by force. Continue reading “Who Can Stand Against It? The “Good” War and the Beast of Revelation” →

Romans 13 supports pacifism!

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Ted Grimsrud—May 1, 2011

Several years ago I began a project where I would study the writings of Christians who reject pacifism in order to learn from and respond to them. After spending some time on this, the project moved to the back burner—hopefully to be fired up again before long.

Probably the main thing I learned from the reading I did do was that at the center for almost everyone was an understanding that the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 13 provide about all Christians need in order to realize that it is not God’s will for Christians to be pacifists.

One place where I encountered this use of Romans 13 to support violence surprised me. The staunchly right-wing Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia is well-known to be a deeply traditional Roman Catholic—though that religious affiliation does not seem to hinder Scalia taking strong positions in opposition to current Catholic theology and Papal pronouncements on an issue such as the death penalty. Scalia published a short article justifying his affirmation of the death penalty in the neo-conservative journal First Things. Here, the traditionalist Catholic cites as the core of his position not natural law but the Bible—specifically Romans 13. I didn’t expect that.

So, a Christian pacifist has a problem. How do we respond to these ways of using Romans 13 as a proof text undermining one of our core convictions? We may, appropriately assert that we base our views on a higher authority than Paul: Jesus. But we may also show that Romans 13 actually supports pacifism. Here’s how. Continue reading “Romans 13 supports pacifism!” →