Month: December 2008

The Bold Challenge

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

What if each one of us challenged our ministers and teachers to preach nothing but Christ and Him crucified for an entire year?

What might happen if our churches heard nothing but the pure, unadulterated gospel of Jesus the Savior for twelve months straight?

How many might come into a relationship – either for the first time, or an even closer one – with the God of grace through His only begotten Son and inspired by His Holy Spirit if their time of worship and learning revolved around the One whom the law and prophets anticipate, the gospels celebrate, the epistles inaugurate, and holy revelation consummates?

Suppose every message shared; every sermon delivered; every class taught came back to the life and death and resurrection of the Messiah who makes it possible for us to live again, too?

Would His presence in our assemblies become more tangible, more real, more perceptible?

Would His influence in our lives become more welcome, more obvious, more of a blessing?

I can’t make a challenge like this without being willing to take it up myself.

In 2009, I am resolved to blog nothing but Christ Jesus and Him crucified in this place. If what I write about here does not point to Him – directly or indirectly – it is not worth writing about here and I will not do it.

Sweet Little Baby Jesus Boy

/ W. Keith Brenton / 13 Comments

Oh, how much easier life would seem if He had just remained sweet little baby Jesus boy … had never grown up in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man … had never made life-shattering challenges to our selfishness … had never lived them out perfectly and died to capstone them and lived again to conquer sin and death for all time.

But there He is, big as Life, standing in our Way, speaking the Truth and keeping us from the self we want to be and achieve and accumulate and perish as.

Called upon as Son of God and Man to cause the rising and falling of many, and piercing our souls with His singular sword also.

If we could just get over Him, get under Him, get around Him, get through Him somehow … we could live the way we wanted to and die stuffed full of ourselves.

And we can’t.

All that’s left for us is to “get” Him; try to comprehend Him; wrap our heads and hearts and souls and arms around Him … beg for mercy from His terrible, irresistible perfection and find perfect love there.

Sweet little baby Jesus boy.

Won’t stay in the box of a manger. Won’t stay in the box of a tomb. Won’t stay in the box of Christmas decorations that we’d like to keep Him in for the other 364 days of each year.

Won’t stay out of our lives, because He loves us too much to let us live only for ourselves and die miserably for nothing at all.

The associate minister at my church is right:

This Child is Dangerous.

Incarnation

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

I’ve had a truly crummy day, and don’t feel like blogging.

I’ve had to talk to both my children – separately – about academic integrity today while keeping in my anger that the new phone/Internet/cable was down when I needed to be doing urgent things online; that the dog had seen fit to wolf down an entire box of doughnuts AND a bag of frosted pretzels; that the garage door opener has gone on the fritz and will require an expensive repair call; that our planned family trip to Ireland next summer has been seriously jeopardized. It’s also my son’s 16th birthday today, and has been possibly the suckiest one ever for him, since we’ve had damp or dangerous weather three days in a row now and the State Police will not conduct the driving portion of the license exam. In addition, Angi put together his favorite red velvet birthday cake mix and left it in the oven to help preside at UALR’s winter graduation … and I followed my nose to its singed remains about an hour ago. If she said anything to me about it when she left, I didn’t hear her two rooms away.

If you want to read something profound and seasonal and spirit-lifting, read John Mark Hicks’s blog entry, Christmas: The Incarnation of God and/or Royce Ogle’s Merry Christmas.

I wish I could put two cogent thoughts together right now, but I can’t. I wish I could weave a great tapestry of meaning on how I wish Advent could be about shouldering the responsibility for being God-in-the-flesh as Jesus was rather than about indolently anticipating His return as if we had nothing better to do. But Paul already wrote the second letter to Thessalonica and I know I couldn’t do better than that.

Nor could I do any better than the two brothers I linked to above, who understand what Incarnation means and the sufficiency of it – and write about it powerfully and persuasively.

This evening I learned that incarnational living sometimes means dashing out in the <1/4-mile visibility fog to go to Kroger's and pick up a couple more red velvet cake mixes and a small bottle of cooking oil, recruiting my daughter to help me clean up the cake pan and mix the new one and pop it in the oven before Mom gets home and brother comes out of his room.

She helped a lot. As we were cleaning up again a moment ago, she said, “That was fun! I know you were having a bad day today. It’s better now, isn’t it? You were lucky I really didn’t have homework tonight.”

And she was, of course, perfectly right.

Instruments of His Peace, Part II

/ W. Keith Brenton / 6 Comments

Wow. That Part I sure was a long time ago. Wonder why I didn’t mark it “Part I”?

Maybe because, as I confessed last year, I am a world-class conflict avoider, and I said only as much as I could stand to say.

And because I continue to encounter people of good faith and firm conviction within the fellowship of Churches of Christ who simply believe with all of their hearts that the Bible (or at least most of the New Testament) inarguably forbids worshiping God through Christ today with instruments of music other than the voice … well, because of that, I can’t just let the subject drop.

A dwindling few of them have gone beyond the pale in making personal attack, judgment and condemnation on the question (which, for them, is no question at all). Yet many more have not. They simply teach that it is sin, that it displeases God and – some would say – will eventually lead to eternity in hell.

The teaching is based on presumption of the authority of the Bible as an end-to-end book of law, its complete sufficiency in all matters and questions of right and wrong, and therefore, righteousness and damnation.

That’s the first problem I have with this teaching. Where does the Bible claim to be – or even imply that it is – only law and wholly sufficient in every possible question or practice?

The answer might go, Well, 2 Timothy 3:16, for one.

Is that what it says, though? Does it say “all-sufficient”? Or just “useful”?

How about 2 Peter 1:3?

Where does that say “scripture” or “God’s Word”? Doesn’t it say “divine power” and “knowledge through him who called us”? And if that somehow necessarily implies scripture and only scripture (and somehow I doubt that the revelation of God’s divine power and the one who called us is limited to scripture, since I see Him living through His Spirit in other Christians all the time) let’s just go there. Let’s go to scripture. What does scripture say about worship with music?

Let’s start with the examples: Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26 and Acts 16:25.

Great example. If Jesus could sing with His followers on the way out to the garden and His imminent arrest, I should be able to do the same, even weighed down with my own sorrows. Same for Paul and Silas in jail. I don’t see any instruments there. I’ll grant that they probably didn’t lug any out to the garden or into the jail. (Though neither of those examples is in a church/synagogue setting.)

But Matthew 18:20!

It’s a great comfort to know that Jesus is with us when two or three of us are gathered to pray and ask God for something … but does He say that makes it a church in musical worship together?

The commands, then: Ephesians 5:18-20.

I’m not sure I’d call them “commands,” since Jesus only gave us one that enveloped the two most important ones in the law. Why not call them “principles”? I completely agree with the principle that we should be filled with the Spirit, rather that with alcoholic spirits – and that thanksgiving for everthing through Christ should characterize our songs to each other. The setting seems to be, not so much gathered worship, as it is everyday living.

Colossians 3:16: more thanksgiving.

Absolutely. Plus the opportunity to teach and admonish each other through song. Same surround: daily living, rather than just gathered worship.

And James 5:13.

Okay, I’m not convinced that this is talking exclusively about worship in a gathered setting, since the subject and verb are singular – but it’s a wonderful principle for any of us to sing songs of praise when happy. Just as Jesus did and Paul could when suffering – Jesus before leaving for the garden; Paul while in prison after being beaten.

All right then! Finally, the rest of the commands: Romans 15:9, 1 Corinthians 14:15.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Neither of those is a command. Both say “I shall,” or “I will.” They’re expressing more of that gratitude from the heart. Are they examples? Maybe. Let’s take ’em one at a time. Romans 15:9 is quoting Psalm 69:9, perhaps as prophecy that the Lord’s name will be sung to the nations. It was a prophecy that included Gentiles – an important point in Paul’s letter to Rome.

1 Corinthians 14:15 is attempting to set straight some problems with some people speaking – even praying – in tongues during gathered worship, but without anyone translating, interpreting.

The point is that none of these passages has, as its primary tenor, the question of worship with or without musical instruments in an assembly.

Other issues are at hand, and are significantly more important. They are issues of the heart: being sober but joyful, teaching and admonishing, communicating clearly.

The question of the presence or absence of instruments just isn’t there.

If they must be authorized specifically, must not also a song leader, song books or sheet music, pitch pipes, amplification devices, slide or graphic projections also be authorized specifically in order to be scripturally acceptable to God? Does that not take these scriptures and make them say what they do not say?

Who gets to decide which of those supplements are expedient – a term not used with regard to worship in scripture – and which are not?

Does that not make the argument for authorization either man’s teaching binding on no one or God’s teaching binding in every instance in which a question of authorization might arise?

And if, as many from Eusebius until this day have argued, instruments cannot and do not praise God … do the instruments play themselves? Or are they played as the expression of human beings – plucked, stroked, even breathed into by human beings into whom God has breathed the breath of life? Can anyone watch and hear a virtuoso like Yo Yo Ma and still say that only the cello played; that the music did not come from the artist’s very heart and soul as well?

Can you do that with a pitch pipe?

When God breathes His Spirit into us, we become the instruments of His peace. He plays us as His instruments to make His music in this world. It is no longer we who live, but Christ living in us.

Finally, if the argument is made from Romans 14 (which irretrievably puts the question of instrumental/a cappella worship into the category of disputable matters and items of conscience – rather than God’s clear command), neither side can presume to say, “Then why don’t you just see it and do it my way in order to have my fellowship!”

Bottom line, then. Fellowship cannot be extended or denied based upon man’s teaching or preference or interpretation of that which is not specifically and clearly spelled out in scripture. Turning such matters into issues of salvation is arrogant judgmentalism in the extreme. If someone worships differently in such matters; in a way that offends your conscience or mine, we don’t have to worship in that way. But in order to be instruments of His peace, we absolutely must

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. ~ Romans 15:7

Good folks – whether we like instrumental worship or not; whether we agree with a cappella-only worship or not as a practice – if we have any heart at all for maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, we must stop preaching Christian brothers and sisters into hell over an issue that our fellowship has raised as some sort of misguided mark of holy distinction from God.

Being “right” about a cappella worship is not one of what we have called five acts of salvation (or any of the other opportunities we have to accept, proclaim and be like Jesus Christ). Nor is instrumental worship “sin” – or it would it not have been in the Old Testament and would be in Revelation 5‘s kingdom-to-come, too?

No one is compelled by scripture to observe the practice they don’t like. No one has to give up the one they prefer.

But we must give up hatefulness and judgment and divisiveness and promoting man’s teachings as if they were God’s.

A Horn of Salvation

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

Take a moment and read the song of Zechariah upon regaining the power of speech after the birth of his son, John, in Luke 1:67-79.

The song of Mary which precedes his (46-55) gets far more of our attention at this season when we remember the birth of Jesus.

They are similar in many ways.

Each begins with praise to God. Both are prophetic in nature, foretelling and forth-telling the promises God would fulfill through these two babies.

One would bring God’s salvation.

The other would prepare His path.

One would increase.

The other would decrease.

(You can even tell which is which, by the few number of lines in Zechariah’s song which are specifically about his son, and how many are about Mary’s.)

In fact, John’s death would even bring home the inescapable reality of what was ahead for Jesus. Still, the Savior would set His face resolutely toward Jerusalem until He was nailed down and then lifted up there.

Zechariah’s Spirit-filled song worships God “… because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David ….” And the term is pretty much lost on us, even if we have seen it in dozens of Old Testament prophecies.

If you have an NIV Bible, you may have a footnote at the end of the word “horn” that says: “Horn here symbolizes strength.”

Sure, in the broad sense. But think about how many different ways the word is used in the Old Testament. A horn could be a ram’s horn, blown to sound the “all-clear” to go up the mountain of God (Exodus 19:3) or to topple Jericho’s walls (Joshua 6:4) … the redemption of Isaac (Genesis 22:13) … a part of the altar where atoning sacrificial blood was painted (Exodus 29:12; 30:10, et al) … a container for king-anointing oil (1 Samuel 16:13) … a last grasp from which to beg mercy (1 Kings 1:50; 2:28) … a deadly weapon against the Lord’s enemies (22:11) … instruments of worship to God (don’t shoot me, now! 1 Chronicles 15:28 and other citations) … a prophetic symbol of royalty and power (Daniel 7:24) … and more that I don’t really need to go into, in order for you to get my point!

And, to my eye, virtually all of them have a meaning that Jesus in one way or another completes, fulfills, embodies in the salvation He brings. Strength … sure.

But so very much more.

I’ve blogged before that I believe certain terms are used in scripture because of their richness of heritage and meaning; not so that we can argue about which meaning is “right” but because of the depth and wealth of the total etymology.

The reason I tend to think that this is one of them is that line in Zechariah’s song in the very next verse, “(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago)”.

Terms like “horn of salvation,” used frequently by the prophets, are not mere puns or double-entendres but gold-mines of deep wisdom.

To someone who loves words like I do, they are the Divine Artist’s signature hidden in the details of His masterwork.

And I think we skip over them because we don’t understand them; they’re mysterious and peculiar and perplexing – like John the Baptist himself.

Yet if we’re not paying attention to them, we’re missing out on part of the path that was prepared for the Christ.

What I Miss Most About Being A Sinner

/ W. Keith Brenton / 9 Comments

Suppose I actually wrote a post on that topic.

Suppose I actually asked you to write comments about it.

Suppose we were all completely honest and candid and shameless in the way we expressed our thoughts regarding it.

Suppose we confessed our lust. Our lust for stuff. Our lust for power and influence. Our lust for flesh. Our lust for self-satisfaction. Our lust for being right all the time. Our lust for acclaim and attention. Our lust for uniqueness, distinctiveness, better-than-ness.

Would we be able to say what Paul did?

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.

I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. ~ Philippians 3:7-11

I don’t know about you, but I can’t write anything that I miss most about being a sinner.

Because I still am.

The Pattern for the Church

/ W. Keith Brenton / 10 Comments

Last night I finished reading The Jesus Proposal by Rubel Shelly and John York.

Yes, I know; most folks in my tribe of Christianity started and finished reading it years ago when it was first published. (Those who are of a mind to seek to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, anyway.) But I am behind on my reading list by several years, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that my LIFE Group at church is studying this tome, I might not have made time for it for a few more years.

You see, I’ve been trying to spend more time in scripture itself and less time with books telling me what the authors think it says.

The Jesus Proposal states many of the same conclusions that I have reached in my study of scripture and have blogged about here – and states them far more eloquently than I could.

(David U, it’s quite possible that the book you are always nudging me to write has already been written!)

So I would encourage you to purchase or borrow it, read it, and weigh it carefully.

But first, read an article from the archives of New Wineskins that predates my tenure as its WebServant or Managing Editor: On Second Look, Maybe There Is a Pattern by Mark Black (January-August 2001 edition).

Meditate on the implications of the author’s premise: that the companion works of Luke and Acts form a pattern for living and community set by Christ and imitated by His followers … that the early church did virtually everything they did; taught everything they taught; helped in every way they helped because Jesus did so first.

Then, when you have a copy of The Jesus Proposal in your hands, think about the implications of living as part of that Christ-centered, Christ-fascinated church – and how much broader your definition of that church might become; how much more inclusive and how much more characterized by the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Now excuse me; I need to go back to the Leafwood Publishers site right now and order Shelly and York’s followup work, The Jesus Community.

4-Dimensional Jesus

/ W. Keith Brenton / 8 Comments

“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” ~ Luke 2:52

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” ~ Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27

That’s right. He grew four ways: in wisdom (mentally, intellectually; in mind), in stature (or strength; physically; in the ability to do things to His glory), in favor with God (spiritually; in His soul), and in favor with men (socially; in His heart for others).

Because we are all created differently, each of us is going to have strengths and weaknesses in each of those four areas of life and perception. (Jeff Childers of ACU has quite a wonderful way of graphing those differences, in fact.) So, as a community of believers, we have an opportunity to grow and fill out each other’s deficits and have our deficits enriched by their gifts.

But, don’t you think God wants us to grow in all four dimensions, just as Jesus did?

(Remember Ephesians 3:14-20 from the previous post?)

Heart | Soul | Mind | Strength

/ W. Keith Brenton / 9 Comments

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” ~ Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27

That’s Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 … and adding a few words. You won’t find “and with all your mind” in Moses’ revelation of God’s law for Israel.

But I do not believe He intended to add it to the exclusion of the other three.

That’s where much of Christianity has majored – with all our minds – to the exaltation of reason and logic above the love of the heart which is at the core of the instruction’s meaning and intent.

At the other end of the extreme, much of Christianity has majored in the love of the heart, to the exclusion of reason and logic altogether. So these two emphases conflict, without even enough common ground to stand upon while bickering about which is more God-like.

Far too little of Christianity has even minored in loving the Lord our God with all our strength … doing with our might what our hands find to do, as an old gospel song phrases it.

And that leaves the world to judge by our inaction how little of Christianity, and to what pathetic degree, has sold its “self” to love the Lord our God with all our souls.

Jesus didn’t seem to be stating this as a multiple-choice question: “Heart | Soul | Mind | Strength – Choose One!”

None of them is optional. All four dimensions are needed.

But – as I have maintained elsewhere in some thoughts about a comprehensive hermeneutic – our preoccupation as Christians with either heart or mind has been shortsighted at the very least: “If we exclude emotional approaches, we become heartless. If we exclude logical approaches, we become brainless.”

I would now like to add what I didn’t perceive before: “If we exclude action, we become purposeless. If we exclude selflessness, we become soulless.”

One-dimensional Christianity has left us conflicted, unfulfilled and largely impotent.

God created us to be four-dimensional creatures: to aspire to the height of intelligence and the full breadth of affection to the depth of our souls and then to carry out that love world-wide in time-consuming, self-consuming activity.

That was the prayer of Paul for the saints at Ephesus:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how WIDE and LONG and HIGH and DEEP is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~ Ephesians 3:14-20

The four ways all those dimensions point is outward from the Center of the universe.

To see them, we need look no farther than the cross.

Concealed Congregation; Revealed Reconciliation

/ W. Keith Brenton / 10 Comments

I have been hesitant to explain why my blog no longer carries any overt references to my home congregation. It’s a long story, and although it has a satisfactory ending, it’s still difficult to tell.

And I have no interest in re-opening old wounds.

Almost eighteen months ago – possibly triggered by something fairly innocuous that I mentioned on this blog – there was a conflict at the church where I worship and work. It escalated into a confrontation between those who were unhappy with changes that had taken place over the previous few years and those who served as elders at that time. The elders agreed to meet with those who were unhappy and learned that many of their concerns were as much fear about future changes as they were about changes already made. The elders candidly addressed most of those concerns at that meeting.

But the dissatisfaction and suspicion did not go away. Almost a month later, the elders – and a couple of ministry staffers – received an e-mail from a young couple that I will call “Devon” and “Kara” because those are not their real names, nor similar to them, nor are they the names of anyone else at my church.

The e-mail was forwarded to me by one of the recipients with the simple comment, “You need to know about this.” It contained three other areas of concern (not your concerns or really even mine), but this blog was the fourth:

Keith Brenton’s Blog

I recently was provided Keith Brenton’s blog site. It is http://keithbrenton.blogspot.com. Each of you should read this blog if you have not already. This blog references Keith’s employment with our church. We are shocked and disappointed that the Elders at our church would support and allow a paid staff member to have such a blog site represent the Church at our church. On this blog site, Keith advocates instrumental music, women Deacons and Elders and questions the validity of laws against abortion and homosexual marriage. I have a very hard time supporting the salary of paid staff with ideology such as this. Keith represents Christ’s Church at our church and, in his job; he is in charge of representing our church to the rest of the world.

Quotes from the blog include:

Speaking on women’s roles – “I don’t think it’s a lack of courage that keeps me from splitting a church over this. It’s just a matter of timing.”

Speaking on abortion and homosexual marriage – “The One Where I Lose Friends” “Because I dare to ask the question: What good does it do to pass laws against abortion and homosexual marriage?”. “If you say, “It protects our marriages, our children, the unborn, and our culture,” my response is: how?”.

Right side of Blog page – Partners to Peek at references a link to “Gal328.Org” where the following is stated: “The purpose of this site is to promote gender justice in the Church of Christ by…”. “Concretely, gender justice in the Church of Christ includes opening traditionally masculine leadership roles and activities (deacon, elder, minister, worship leader, preacher, teacher, etc.) to women, and encouraging men to discover and cultivate their gifts for activities traditionally performed by women.”.

Can we as a Church support this type of representation?

[closing summary paragraph deleted]

Sincerely,
Devon and Kara

You can imagine how my heart was pounding when I read this. As I recall, I was honestly too astonished to be angry at first. I was embarrassed. Someone had misunderstood at least part of what I was trying to communicate, and as an aspiring writer, I should have been concerned with communicating as clearly as possible. And I think those initial reactions may have been essential in keeping the situation from getting completely out of control.

I went to my knees. I asked for guidance. And the response I received was a very quick and complete recollection of a conflict management training series I attended at church in Abilene a few years before. The answer was clear: “Go to him.” It’s what Jesus calls me to do, whether I have sinned against a brother and he has something against me (Matthew 5:23-24) or whether he has sinned against me (Matthew 18:15). I needed to respond to him, and I needed to do so quickly. I e-mailed back:

Dear Devon, Kara, elders and fellow staff members,

[One of the original addressees] forwarded this letter to me, and it wouldn’t be honest of me to pretend that I have not read it or would not like to respond to it.

Devon and Kara, I can only address your points regarding my blog, and would have preferred that you had come to me privately first (as Jesus advised in Matthew 18) so that we might have had the opportunity to discuss them together, before proceeding to the next step of engaging witnesses. I would have hoped that if my blog URL was given to you by someone who had a problem with it, that he or she might have shown me the same courtesy.

I have tried to be careful not to identify my blog overtly with [name of our church], nor to leave the impression that it represents our church’s views. I do use it as a free forum to express both my beliefs and doubts, and to pose questions and invite answers and dialogue. I believe that to be an essential part of the process in heeding Paul’s instruction to “Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good.”

I do take issue with some of the conclusions you have reached about it, and feel that they were made in haste.

The lines you quote are certainly disturbing, as are many quotes when taken out of context.

Speaking on women’s roles – “I don’t think it’s a lack of courage that keeps me from splitting a church over this. It’s just a matter of timing.” This quote occurs in the comments to a post at http://keithbrenton.blogspot.com/2006/08/worship-gifts-and-women.html, and in the entire context of the comment you can see that I am aware that teaching these and some other questions at [name of our church] would be divisive, and that I have no intention of doing so. The word “timing” refers to the perceived urgency of the issue from the point of view of the commenter to whom I was responding; even indisputable changes take time to be evaluated and accepted. Later, you will also read that some of what I wrote was conjectural and therefore something to be discussed in a blog, not necessarily to be taught.

Speaking on abortion and homosexual marriage – “The One Where I Lose Friends” “Because I dare to ask the question: What good does it do to pass laws against abortion and homosexual marriage?”. “If you say, “It protects our marriages, our children, the unborn, and our culture,” my response is: how?”. Again, in the comments of this post at http://keithbrenton.blogspot.com/2005/01/one-where-i-lose-friends.html, I finally answered what I hoped other commenters would realize and answer: “People of our culture are plainly puzzled as to WHY Christians oppose homosexual marriage or unlimited abortion. To them: Unlike murder, they’re not perceived as wrong. Unlike murder, they’re not perceived as causing harm. Unlike murder, they’re practically untraceable and unenforceable. So what good does it do to pass such laws? None. IF WE AS FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST DON’T COMMUNICATE WHY.” And in my post at http://keithbrenton.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-right-to-choose.html, I tried to answer the question why it’s wrong. The point is, passing a law alone is not enough.

I feel I should mention that these comments are not something that can be edited or changed once posted; only deleted or left as is. Only the posts above them are editable later. My blog has always been open to anyone who wants to make comments, and I have only removed a couple because they were abusive – and many because they were spam.

I have on occasion posted at Gal328.org, and while I do not agree with every article nor post there (in fact, its editors have posted a couple of articles with which they disagree), it is another forum to discuss the question of women’s gifts used in worship. You should understand that I see Romans 12:1-2 as a call to worship 24/7, involving more than our worship together. I read Galatians 3:28 and see a principle that there is no division by lines of race, social class, nor gender in Christ. If we believe “silent” means “silent” in the absolute sense, then women should not be allowed to sing, to read scripture congregationally with men, nor even to lead in worship among other women only, nor to teach in their homes with their husbands as Aquila and Priscilla did with Apollos. I don’t think any of us reads that word absolutely. What forums like this do is seek what the meaning of words like “silence” really is, with respect to the principles that are clearly expressed in scripture.

My blog links to a lot of other blogs and sites where there are posts and articles with which I disagree, and sometimes do so in their comments. Linking to another blog or site is not an unconditional approval of everything on it; only an acknowledgment that it has driven me deeper into scripture, study, prayer and dialogue with others.

Often they do so by posting provocative questions; troubling questions that force me to re-examine my positions – and often to confess my guilt outright when convicted of wrong. I try to do the same in my own blog, and that’s why it is named “Blog in My Own Eye.”

I hope this clears up some misconceptions as I saw them in your letter. I don’t have any illusion that any of us will suddenly all agree as a result, but I am obviously a proponent of dialogue and I hope we will feel free to speak to each other about the truth in love on these matters.

Thank you for your kindness in reading this response.

Your brother,

– Keith Brenton

His response was swift, well-measured and gracious, also copied to all of the original recipients. In the meantime, another instruction of Jesus had been banging at the back of my head like a skillet – Matthew 5:41: “If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” No one was forcing me to do anything – or even suggesting a course of action – but I still felt compelled to make an offer. I offered to remove all references to the name of my home church and to anyone whom I had mentioned by name attending there from the posts on this blog – and all links on it that might lead one to the church’s Web site. As I explained in the offer, I could not change comments after those posts – and it made the phrasing of some of the touched-up posts a little awkward, but I was certainly willing to do so. I also posted a disclaimer for those not familiar with blogging which still appears at the bottom of the “Blogs to Behold” link at the right. I didn’t wait to hear if the offer was necessary. I just set to it.

Within an hour, I was done.

The next day, I received a phone call from the brother who had written the e-mail, asking about spending a lunch hour together. We agreed to meet as soon as possible – which happened to be a day that neither of us could really afford time to eat lunch. But we did get together at the church, and had an excellent conversation. I told him how much I valued him and his wife and their children; how important they were (and still are!) to our church. He explained that there were things he would have phrased differently, in retrospect. I asked him to pray for both of us right then and there, and he did so with a heartfelt wisdom that I still find a blessing.

I don’t imagine that either of us changed the other’s way of looking at scripture or worship or very many other issues … but we did significantly change the way we see each other that day.

I don’t know who provided the links to the excerpts from my blog, nor to how many people, nor even what might have been said with regard to them. I didn’t feel it was my place to ask … and I do feel that if there was a conflict that needed to be resolved, it should be the responsibility of those who perceive it to pursue reconciliation. It makes worship difficult at times, knowing that – all these months later – there could still be folks I love and respect that have something against me, trying to worship in the same place at the same time.

I believe that the ministry of reconciliation is what God calls us to put our heads, hands and hearts to doing; not just between ourselves and Him, but also among ourselves. I believe it is possible, with the help of God, His Son, and His Son’s unifying Spirit.

And I know from experience that it is a lot easier when it takes place between people who are willing to try.

So, that’s why I don’t post the name of my church here. Not because I am ashamed of it – quite the contrary; there are lots of times I would like to share wonderful things happening in the fellowship of my church family. Not because I believe my church is somehow ashamed of me, though it’s quite possible that some are.

But because I made a promise, and I intend to keep it.