What one believes about missionaries reflects on how one reads and interprets the Bible. Jesus made several comments about the need for missionaries – one of them being, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28.19-20).

The disciple Peter added importance to the command when he said “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4.12).

Many people, both Christians and non-Christians, believe something quite different – that all religions contain God’s truth for the world and therefore we should live with one another and respect one another no matter what our religion may be. There is truth here too, especially about respect and living together peacefully, but Christianity claims exceptionalism and by the very words of Jesus. Christianity has always been a missionary faith, avoiding the sword to convert. Christians use, instead, the words of Scripture and the invisible power of the Holy Spirit to change people’s lives.

My favorite missionary is St. Boniface, the patron saint of Germany, who is credited with establishing Christianity among the ancient Germanic tribal peoples.

It isn’t often that one can trace one’s Christian beginnings back 1200 years or more to a single missionary who was responsible for bringing the Gospel to one’s ancestors who then passed it on generation after generation. I can because I am a Friesian. Friesians are a Germanic tribe whose origins are in Germany and Holland along the low-lying coastal areas of the North Sea. It is the land of dikes, canals, giant windmills, seafarers, farmers and merchants.

My grandparents, all Friesians, immigrated to the United States. In Germany they were Roman Catholic before the Reformation and almost totally Lutheran and Reformed Christians afterwards. In the United States, most of them either continued as Reformed (Presbyterian) or Lutheran while a few became members of other denominations.

Boniface grew up in a wealthy family in England and became a monk. At the age of 40 he went to Europe as a missionary and his first mission field was the Friesians. But the Friesians were not easy to convert. They held firmly to their paganism. This caused St. Boniface to move south and east into what is now known as Germany where the Pope made him a Missionary Bishop.

He must have been an extra ordinary missionary for quickly Germany was swept into the Christian fold – except the Friesians. The Pope declared the Friesians to be the most strong-minded and stubborn of the German tribes. They kept resisting the Gospel and those who brought the message.

Near the end of his life, Boniface decided to go back to Friesland and try again. This time he was successful, so successful that the Friesian pagans decided enough was enough. Part of their animosity towards Boniface was his destruction of many of the old religious shrines in his ardor to bring Friesland under the Christian umbrella.

A famous incident in Boniface’s ministry happened around 723 and it led to his martyrdom shortly thereafter. Boniface arrived in a Friesian village and began to preach near the base of Thor’s Oak, a sacred tree in their religion. To prove the superiority of the Christian God over Thor, Boniface took an axe to the tree beseeching Thor to strike him dead if he felled the holy oak. According to the legend, Thor failed to respond and Boniface downed the tree, aided by a great wind that, as if by miracle, helped blow the ancient oak to the ground. This caused many pagans to desert Thor and embrace the Christian God. Boniface promptly took the tree splinters, made a cross, and eventually used the rest of the wood to build a church where the tree once stood. However, this event was also the beginning of the end.

In 724 he returned to Friesland to baptize a number of new Friesian converts. The pagan Friesians attacked and killed Boniface and the new Friesian Christians. Boniface became a martyr.

Boniface was later deigned worthy of sainthood and buried in Fulda, Germany. He lies in a church called St. Boniface. Outside the church there is a huge statue with his arm held high above his head with a small, thin cross clutched in his hand – maybe in remembrance of the cross he made from the huge oak that was a part of the final victory in Christianizing all of the German tribes.

I have driven throughout Germany on two different occasions and one of my remembrances is of the high church steeple with a small cross at the top. They can be seen miles away – always a reminder of the calling of an Englishman to be a missionary to those “who sat in great darkness” – and of his tremendous success – so that even I, a descendant of those first Friesians who became Christians, can look back over the centuries of history and connect my Christian history to this Englishman who was willing to take up his cross and follow Christ to a strange land and culture.

One of my favorite hymns in recent years is “Lift High the Cross.” It was the final hymn the group of missionaries sang with whom my wife and I underwent training – an ecumenical group of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Lutherans and the Reformed Church in America – before we were sent abroad to do what Boniface did – lift high the cross. The words of the hymn are

Come, Christians follow where our Savior trod,
the Lamb victorious, Christ, the Son of God.
Each newborn servant of the Crucified
bears on the brow the seal of Christ who died.
O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree,
your death has brought us life eternally.
So, shall our song of triumph ever be:
Praise to the Crucified for victory.
Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim
till all the world adore His sacred name.

My next two blogs are going to be about missionaries. Much of the church would not exist without them. This week learn about how the church was planted in Malawi in Africa by Scottish missionaries and next week about the missionary who brought the Gospel to Germany.

Presbyterians were alerted to the need for missionaries in Africa when David Livingstone pleaded with the British Parliament in 1857 to carry on the work he had initiated there. However, it was not until his death in Zambia in 1873 and his burial in Westminster Abby in 1874, that missionaries actually went to Malawi.

The first Presbyterian missionaries were from the Free Church of Scotland. They settled in the north of Nyasaland, as Malawi was then known, and founded the Livingstonia Mission. After five years of work, five missionaries had died and there was only one convert, Albert Namalambe, who is remembered today as Malawi’s first Christian.

The second wave of Presbyterians came from the Church of Scotland and located in the southern part of Malawi in Blantyre. By 1891 they had built the first permanent church building in South Central Africa

The third group of Presbyterian missionaries came in 1888 and settled in the central area of Malawi. This group came from South Africa and was sponsored by the Dutch Reformed Church. Though Reformed in name, this church shared a Reformation heritage with Presbyterians.

Both the Scots and the Dutch were influenced by a leader of the Reformation, John Calvin. Although history assigns October 31, 1517 as the official beginning of the Reformation, the day Martin Luther nailed 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, John Calvin, a Frenchman, was also speaking and writing concerning the need for changes in the Church as it then existed.

While Luther was making his mark on Germany, John Calvin was in Geneva, Switzerland leading a reformation in the churches of that city. A number of people from across Europe came to learn from him. One was John Knox, who after being tutored by Calvin, returned home and fathered the Presbyterian Church in Scotland.

As Calvin’s influence grew, his reformation influenced both Germany and the Netherlands (as well as other European countries) where the congregations were known as Reformed Churches. This name was used to distinguish them from the unreformed Roman Catholic Church. The word Presbyterian came later and is taken from a Greek word which means elder. Thus, the Presbyterian Church is a church governed by elders.

During the Colonial period, when the Dutch moved into South Africa, they took their church, then known as the Dutch Reformed Church, with them. They eventually were invited to fill the gap with missionaries in central Malawi.
Today these three areas are known as Synods. Livingstonia Synod is in the north, Nkhoma Synod is in the center and Blantyre Synod is in the south. In 1926 the three Synods joined to form a national church, the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP).

Although not a denomination with bishops and archbishops, Presbyterian and Reformed Churches work together globally through The World Alliance of Reformed Churches which is composed of denominations that are Calvinistic in theology and Presbyterian in church organization. Presently there are 214 national bodies of these churches in 107 countries with a membership of 75 million.
Today there are over five million Presbyterian Christians in Malawi – because of missionaries. Some are suggesting, and I concur, maybe it is time for missionaries from Malawi to return to the United States to revive our flagging churches.

Recently “The Charlotte Observer,” a newspaper near where Billy Graham lives, had an article telling how the elderly evangelist has been praying for another “spiritual awakening.” I think it is an interesting prayer because the prayer implies our nation presently needs spiritual renewal and that Billy Graham believes it strongly enough to make it a matter of prayer.

With all of the Christian churches in this country, with all of the religious television and radio programs and with all the Christian literature available everywhere, an alien might not see what Graham does. However, I agree with Graham – the Christian religion is everywhere but I see no large scale spiritual awakening with all the preaching, praying and worship going on.

Mega-churches are still abounding, but a recent study of a well-known and respected mega-church in the Chicago area showed those sitting in their packed pews were not evolving into mature Christian believers. What the church felt was a new and effective way to reach people when it was started a few years ago turned out to be “fluff stuff.” As the Bible teaches, they were providing milk for spiritual babies and children and they never got around to weaning their congregation away from spiritual pabulum. Paul teaches that without adult spiritual food Christians behave “according to human inclinations.” (I Cor. 3.2-3).

What was once called a new Reformation, the Pentecostal Movement, has not produced a significant number of theologians to curb the tendency they have to interpret Scriptures too literally and too loosely. In my experience with and reading about these Christians, they tend to drift away from the core of the Gospel and often end up with questionable beliefs.

Let me illustrate by one very recent encounter with a Pentecostal. He told me his church has done surgery on people in their sanctuary with no medical personnel, tools, drugs, doctors or machines present. He vividly described the removal of a brain tumor one Sunday which came out of a person’s head and floated over the congregation until it fell on the floor. He and many others saw it with their own eyes and so he believes and feels others should take advantage of this miraculous method of healing. I have been invited to attend his church to see these miraculous healings that he claims come by faith and prayer.

Some call what this man described as the “Signs and Wonders Movement.” Those in this movement believe those who do not have faith in God will be converted when they see the mighty miracles God performs. My personal feeling is that this may attract a handful of the curious, but not many others. Like the snake handlers, they do not find many followers.

In a category all of its own is television Christianity that has almost totally been usurped by a capitalistic interpretation of the Gospel. Far too many television ministers believe God wants everyone to be monetarily wealthy whereas traditional Christianity has always taught never to measure wealth by worldly possessions or positions.

Many of these TV evangelists live lavishly, rattle around in their multi-bedroom mansions, own several expensive limousines, fly everywhere in their comfortable private jets and personally ignore Biblical sexual morality while at the same time firmly believing that they are living the life God wants for them.

Added to their gospel of wealth is health. They teach that Jesus died to take away our pain and suffering on this side of heaven and if we do experience pain and illness on earth, it is due to a failure of faith. All one has to do is “name it and claim it” and Jesus, the genie, provides heaven on earth – in some cases, according to some of these evangelists, it comes only with the power of positive thinking!

These clergy television “stars” also advocate consumerism as a way of life – we deserve the plush things this world has to offer. When God promises us plenty, we are not to live as poor paupers but as prosperous people – bigger barns and bins become the signs of God’s blessings and benefits rather than of our trust in wealth.

Traditional churches are in trouble as well. They have become confused as to their mission in the aftermath of all the changes they are experiencing. Some are leaving to form more doctrinally pure denominations, perhaps believing that this is the direction that will save them institutionally and help them discover better ways to propagate the Gospel. But that seems to be the wrong direction since Jesus said that it would be in our unity and togetherness that the world would see the church as his bride and cause them to believe in Him. (John 17:21). The fracturing of the church into smaller and smaller chunks doesn’t seem to give new light and life to the many who are still seeking to find the church as it is supposed to be – one that loves and serves on our Lord’s behalf.

Our Roman Catholic Pope, Francis, recently called for a New Pentecost – which indicates at least the Pope sees that a spiritual renewal would be of great benefit to his church as well.

So, I’m with Billy Graham! I believe this “gospel-gospel-everywhere” has left us a spiritually starved nation.

The new Graham TV programs will be called “My Hope America with Billy Graham.” These programs will eventually be broadcast by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and will be seen around the world. Graham says he has been asking God to use him one more time to speak to this nation. Graham says “I think the Lord is going to use this program mightily.”

The goal of this new evangelistic thrust is “to get more people into the churches – and then to let the pastors take it from there.” I hope the churches of our country are up to the task.

My first summer job out of high school was working construction. I had a dirty job on the form truck of a paving crew. We picked up the forms on which the paving machine rode after the cement had dried and then returned them out front of the paving machine so it could continue down the road.

We were finishing a long stretch of highway and the next paving job was a month away so I thought I might have to find work somewhere else to finish the summer. The boss sent me and two other young guys about a mile away with shovels to smooth the dirt around a culvert. When we arrived there was a shade tree at the edge of the highway. The two guys sat in the shade while I smoothed and graded the dirt. Suddenly, a slow flying plane came our way and circled us twice and then went away and landed a mile or so down the road.

As the plane flew away the two guys who stood and waved at the pilot returned to sit under the tree while I finished the work. Then we drove back to the paving crew. As we arrived, a man came up to the truck and asked who was working while the other two sat in the shade. I spoke up. Then the man explained that he owned the company and he had just flown in to oversee the closing of this project. He told the two shade sitters they were fired and that I would have a job driving one of their gravel trucks for the rest of the summer.

Sometimes, we can’t escape the eyes of others as we do things we shouldn’t be doing. Humans don’t see every wrong we do, only some of it. God, however, sees all the wrong we do or think.

This truth was also illustrated during my high school days. Boys who had cars took their girl friends to a secluded place as the night darkened. One warm, summer night I was parked with a girl friend, car windows open. A car approached and then stopped alongside and someone yelled, “Remember, God is watching.”

That’s a life lesson – often we can’t hide our evil from bosses or peers, and we certainly can’t hide them from God. As the old gospel hymn says, “You cannot hide from God though mountains cover you!” God knows our inward most thoughts.

Old Testament David, the sinner/saint, knew this when he wrote, “Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall hold me…. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You.” David ends this thought by asking God, who knows the secrets of his heart and the evil in his life, to lead him to a more positive life which is “the way everlasting“(Psalm 139).

We can get away with some things with other human beings – like lies. Our inward lives that we choose to withhold from others can become a possible life-long secret. We may have done some serious wrongs in our life but weren’t caught and so have never been in jail – but we cannot keep these things from God. We can’t hide anything from God. Eventually, we have to give account of the life we lived. Jesus says “for every idle word men (we) may speak, they (we) will give account of it in the Day of Judgment (Matt. 12.36).

Common theology today or what I sometimes call “street theology” believes we do not have to face judgment upon death. We tend to believe there is an immediate transition from this life to the next. This life is our hell and then we proceed into a white light that is the foyer of heaven. Next comes an indescribable peace and love and we enter heaven which is a huge waiting room for gathering the deceased as they wait for their loved ones to join them. Pets may be included in this gathering.

Earth was filled with imperfections but heaven leaves them all behind. Earth was filled with emotional turmoil and physical pain but heaven is a place of joy and healing. Even though my description of the afterlife is quite common, there is a problem. That isn’t what the Bible teaches. The Bible says when death arrives the first thing on our plate is judgment (Hebrews 9.27).

It also teaches that we don’t have to approach the final judgment on our own merit. It says it helps on judgment day if we know the Teacher who taught humankind how to live in this world and get ready for the next. And, if we actually were one of his children who He asked to work in his field and even though we may have delayed getting involved, if we did engage later, we will find favor (grace). But the key is knowing the Teacher and serving Him while we live here “below.”

The Bible teaches that life is not hell but rather a time of preparation for unending life. Life here may toss us into situations that are “hell on earth” but it also teaches that when we know the Teacher, we do not walk those deep valleys of pain and sorrow alone. The great mistake we can make while alive is to ignore the Teacher and His teachings that are found in the Bible, in worship, in prayer, in the fellowship and teaching of the church and the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.

I just spent Memorial Day in the cemeteries of my great grandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and cousins. All professed knowing the Teacher and were active in His Vineyard as elders, deacons, teachers, ministers and musicians. I’m glad I know that about their faith because it gives me some indication of what happened to them when they faced their Maker. I have followed in their footsteps.

Death for some is graduation day. For others who did not finish the course, I pray God’s mercy gave them more time to get past the qualifications for final entrance into the place all of us want to spend forever. As an ultimate definition, Heaven is where God is and Hell is where God isn’t.

I recently ran across an article by Stephen Matson who was on the Staff of Northwestern College in St. Paul, MN when he wrote it. One paragraph caught my attention, “I used to be like the Pharisees, someone who proudly believed certain things that I thought were utterly and undeniably true — until I realized that I didn’t.” I believe those growing in their faith have to reach that same threshold sooner or later in life or be mired forever in the likeness and behavior of the Pharisees.

Being like the Pharisees is the inability to re-think one’s theology or to incorporate new information. The usual result of that mind-set is to hunker down amid the swirling sea of change

When we decide to move forward it becomes a significant step in our spiritual growth – to understand that when we thought like a child and believed like a child we were children but when we grow into adulthood we have to leave so much of that behind by understanding it was our starting point rather than our final destination.

Of course there are too many Christians who cap their growth at the Pharisee stage or at other various levels and then form their own churches or join churches who feel as they do. To reinforce their intransigency they usually brand others as not having the truth. They then spend enormous amounts of energy trying to convert those who are already Christians by using fear or implying that they are not real Christians – they are one or two doctrines away from the truth which only their Pharisee-type-religion possesses.

I met such a Christian recently. I started visiting with him when I saw him sitting in a booth in a café. He was reading a Bible. We soon found out about each other. He is a Christian who is not highly educated. I am a highly educated Christian. He told me how many years ago he came to faith in a highly emotional way. In many ways, he is to be admired. He knows what is between the covers of his huge King James Bible and he interprets each word of it literally. He is not afraid to joyfully share his faith. He is a pillar in his church. He prays for me. So why does he fit into the group of Christians who are hunkered down in their faith and won’t move forward beyond what he absolutely knows to be true? Because, he believes that every Christian has to have exactly the same spiritual experience he had nearly 50 years ago. To him, I am not a Christian because even though I see his faith experience as valid, he doesn’t see mine that way – because mine does not replicate his. Now, we may have to go to another restaurant on Sunday morning for breakfast because we are locked into his radar – educated people who worship but who “are not saved” like he was saved.

Groups like this maintain their existence for a time but if they are to last for any amount of time, they have to rely almost solely on their children to believe as they do or proselytize others like myself to squeeze into their mold of the Christian faith. In the whole scheme of Christianity they tend to become inconsequential as they cling to the belief that they alone have the pearl of great price.

These types of Christians build a wall to protect their personal doctrines because they cannot deal with change in culture or different but valid understandings of the Christian faith. They are fearful that if they change they will fall out of favor with the Almighty. One of their popular hymns always has been “Give me that old time religion! Give me that old time religion! Give me that old time religion! It’s good enough for me!” Backwards is good, forward is questionable! In the words of another old hymn, their theology is “Hold the fort for I (Jesus) am coming!”

Until I was 12 years old, I knew nothing of the Bible other than the King James Version (KJV). In 1947, my Sunday School teacher warned my class of an impending catastrophe. She claimed that if we accepted the new translation, the Revised Standard Version (RSV), which, according to her, had not been translated properly, Christianity would move quickly away from the truth.

The result was that some Christians moved forward with the RSV while others dug in their heels and stayed with the KJV. When I listen to Christian radio and television programs these days, some 65 years later, I notice there are a number of ministers who still read Scripture from the King James Bible. I have heard laity say King James English sounds more godly and sacred. English has changed so much since King James but apparently the near perfectness, in their minds, of that translation, supersedes the necessity for modern people to understand what the Bible says in the English language of today.

Change is difficult. Moving from what we think we know as truth to what I would call a greater truth, is a step of faith growing Christians take all the time. Growing as a Christian is when the Holy Spirit leads us forward. Phariseeism is when we think the Holy Spirit has a tether on us so that we will not be led astray. Growing Christians see that God deals with each one of us in different ways so that our spiritual experiences are not the same. Phariseeism is when we are thoroughly convinced every spiritual experience is nearly the same and those who haven’t walked that line are off the narrow path which leads to spiritual safety and certainty.

Bill Tammeus, writing in a recent “Presbyterian Outlook” magazine says one of these small/giant steps forward is to understand not only Biblical literalism but also Biblical metaphor. He believes, and I agree, that if we don’t move beyond literalism we may eventually move away from faith. I believe we are seeing that in our time with the growing numbers of “nones” in our society, mostly younger people who have abandoned the faith of their parents because the faith of their Sunday School days caused too many questions as they approached adulthood.

Tammeus believes children not taught the power of metaphor in Scripture may think the church is irrelevant as they grow older and more educated. He says the Bible is written as a sufficient revelation of who God is and it was written in religious language, which is inevitably metaphorical. He says it is critical for Christians to “understand not all truth is literal.”

Stephen Matson concludes, “Wise people admit when they’re wrong, but when it comes to theology most people spend all of their time and energy buttressing and protecting their own personal beliefs instead of critically, prayerfully, humbly, and honestly questioning them…. Thankfully, through the grace of an unchanging God, I changed. When the time comes, are we willing to accept and embrace change within ourselves and those around us?” He asks God to help us to move forward rather than to become immoveable.

I’ve been reading a book by R. C. Sproul called Lifeviews. The subtitle is “Understanding the Ideas that Shape Society Today.” In one of the chapters he discusses the definitions of liberals and liberalism. It is about this that I am writing.

Sproul is a Conservative Calvinist, who according to Wikipedia, left the United Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in 1979 and joined the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). In his mind, at least, the issue was liberalism in the PCUSA. In this book he shares his interpretation of liberal and liberalism, part of which I will contest.

He defines liberal as a good word that means a free thinker, one who is open and tolerant, and one who is scientific and responsible. He says the word includes all of those elements we regard from a Christian perspective as being virtuous. That’s a good starting place and more conservatives should be more open to this definition.

However, for Sproul, when it comes to theology, liberal is not a good word. He says theological liberalism means “a distinctive movement to reconstruct Christianity….” It is a liberalism that attempts “to extract from the New Testament anything that was of a supernatural flavor: miracles, the Resurrection, the atonement of Jesus, the Transfiguration, and the Virgin Birth.”

Sproul is correct, at least partially. There are Christians who have attempted to find the human Jesus at the expense of the Jesus who is also divine. But not all those who are called liberal have rejected the supernatural in Scripture and it is about this group of liberals that I write, a group I call liberal evangelicals – a group Sproul has ignored – for whatever reason!

The glitch in Sproul’s argument is his contention that liberalism always leads to the social gospel and his only definition of the social gospel is humanism which is bad and not Christian.

It is so much easier for Sproul to win a theological battle when he (or we) set up a single theological position as good and right and anything different is bad and wrong. When we hold such a rigid position we can easily dismiss every position other than our own but in doing so, we isolate ourselves from other possibilities that also may hold merit.

The position I raise is that many pastors, theologians and lay Christians have not rejected the supernatural in the gospel and in addition, have also included the social gospel as a valuable part of their Christian mission. These are “the liberal evangelicals.” They are not a new group. They have been among us for centuries – such as those who consciences were seared by human slavery. They fought for justice in spite of the fact that many Christians accepted slavery as something the Bible condones.

Martin Luther King preached for integration and against segregation and for justice and equal treatment for African Americans. That was the social gospel! I have met many over the years who considered King a liberal heretic because they felt he was not about the basic essential of the gospel which is salvation through Jesus Christ.

I was raised in an evangelical PCUSA Church and served two congregations who could be described as solidly in that theological zone. Then in my tenth year of ordination I visibly became part of the Civil Rights Movement which emphasized justice for those Americans who had been legislated into segregation after the Civil War and who’s right to vote had been nearly obliterated. It was then, for the first time in my life, after participating in this aspect of the social gospel in the South, that I was labeled a liberal by both pastors and laity. As far as I know, that branded me as a liberal and it stuck.

Sproul’s assumption does not always hold true, that by adopting the social gospel as a part of one’s ministry, one leaves the genuine gospel behind. The liberal evangelical believes the gospel that Sproul argues for is incomplete without caring for the poor, and letting the oppressed go free….(Luke 4.18). The social gospel was clearly a part of the mission of the Messiah and therefore it should be in the genes of every Christian.

Climate change is also a current social issue that Christians who are conservative call liberal, and therefore a cause easily dismissed as the social gospel. Many in this group have bought into the theology that God will make a new heaven and a new earth so it won’t matter if we save this planet. A congressman said recently it was for this reason he would drive a new Hummer and those among the conservative crowd kept silent, while others smiled and agreed. The contention among this group is that this is not an issue for the Christian Church. It is humanism; it is the social gospel, not the real gospel.

It is good to see more liberal evangelicals emerging all of the time. One such person is Ron Sider, a faculty member of Eastern Baptist Seminary in New York. He checks in on climate change by writing that “we are destroying our land, water and forests in these ways: by global warming through greenhouse emissions, by depleting the ozone layer and by deforestation. The result will be vastly changing weather patterns and a warming of our global temperatures.” Caring for Mother Earth was a task given humankind at the very outset of life itself according the Book of Genesis.

I believe the social gospel “is where the rubber (the Gospel) hits the road and blessed are those Christians who are in the highways and byways of life calling on Christians and non-Christians alike to protect our planet home, to love their neighbors and enemies and to care for “the underclass.” Christian prophets need help to spread the message in every generation.

So, when Christians hear the word liberal from the mouths of other Christians, they should be a bit more discerning about accepting and hearing the liberal evangelicals. In most cases, those who are involved in social gospel issues are the prophets of our time.

I officiated at the wedding of my grandson recently in a community some distance from where we all live and the church informed me this would be the last wedding “of strangers.” Henceforth, they would only allow church members that privilege.

I certainly understand their position. Even they were saddened by their new policy. However, they feel the growing secularization of our society and fewer of this age group attending and joining a church led them to the decision. Their experience has been of nominal and non-Christian young people treating the church as a rental rather than sacred space.

They have my sympathy. In my last congregation before retirement, a young woman, whom I had never seen before, requested an appointment and as she sat down said, “I have looked at all the sanctuaries in the community and because yours is the most beautiful, I have chosen this church for my wedding.”

I then spent the next few minutes telling her what a church wedding would require – Christian counseling to help the couple to know what it means to have a Christian home and marriage. When I finished she thanked me for my time but thought she and her finance did not want counseling. She said all they wanted to do was to be married in a church because they thought it was a nice setting. I suspect that more and more pastors are running into the same situation. Couples want to be married in a church if the God thing and counseling about Christian marriage can be muted. I think Nevada has had church-looking chapels for a long time and they come with “Marryin’ Sams.”

Peter Gregory is the pastor of First Church, Lambertville, NJ. Writing in “The Presbyterian Outlook,” he says he has opted out of the “over-the-top excess, stress and politics of the American marriage industry.” He writes, “Marriage in America has very little to do with the historic principles of commitment and mutual sacrifice, and much to do with atmospherics, keeping up with the neighbors, image and perception.”

In addition, the Rev. Gregory says modern weddings have become festivals of consumption and consumerism since the average cost, including lavish receptions, averages about $20,000 to $30,000 each.

Maybe some churches, however, want to continue to make a Christian witness by allowing couples who are not affiliated with the church to be married in the church. That’s great! However, churches who want this kind of witness need to think about the tremendous amount of time weddings take – if pastors are to make an adequate witness to what a Christian marriage involves. Counseling is a big time consumer of a pastor’s evening meetings – two nights as a minimum while three sessions or even more are desirable to do a good job. If there are a lot of weddings, it takes a lot of time.

It is also important that the pre-wedding counseling take place long enough before the ceremony so that plans for the wedding can be changed or cancelled. I made that mistake once when I discovered that the groom was already physically abusive to the bride. The lateness of the counseling happened only because both were hesitant to come for counseling at all, and then after two sessions, they decided they didn’t need the last one. I said there would be no wedding in the church if they didn’t come so they came later than sooner – within the same week as their scheduled marriage. In the final session the bride broke down and said she was being physically abused by the groom. I told them both I would not proceed until we brought their parents into the counseling, and although the wedding took place, the bride’s parents insisted on further counseling with a professional after the wedding. I have always felt that maybe I let that young bride down by proceeding, even though she insisted, but on the other hand, as so often happens, couples seem able to find a pastor who will marry anyone, anytime, anyplace – no questions asked.

I’ve noticed that larger churches now have the couple take their counseling with professional Christian counselors a rather long time prior to the wedding. I like that idea. It takes the time burden off the pastor, lets the counseling be done by professionals in that field, and allows time to call off the wedding if a mismatch is discovered.

Perhaps it is time again to simplify things. Maybe churches should lead the way in having a couple come to the front of the church at the close of a regular service to be married. This would also cut out the consumerism and consumption aspect of a wedding. A reception could be held after the worship service in the fellowship hall.

I’m sure this would be a hard sell for most young couples but I’m betting some parents would say “Take this $20-$30,000 we would have spent on your wedding and use it on a down payment of a house where you can begin your life together. That would be a much better plan if young couples could stand the cultural blow-back.

I have never refused a wedding although after I explained that I only did Christian weddings, a goodly number went elsewhere. Counseling was always the biggest stumbling block in their leaving and seeking a “rental Church and pastor.”

There is the possibility of another outcome to Christian weddings even if the couple is not Christian. Years ago a non-Christian couple came and asked that I marry them in a small, private ceremony in the church. They knew people in the congregation and respected the ministry of the church in the community. They said they would like to have the counseling to see how a Christian marriage differed from how they understood marriage. It was a fun time both in counseling and during the ceremony because they were so receptive.

After the wedding I never saw them again. However, twenty years later and thousands of miles away I received a letter. It was short. They just thought I’d like to know. They said it started during their wedding counseling. Just a couple of weeks ago, they said, they were led to profess their faith in Christ and be baptized in a Christian congregation – which goes to show that pre-marital counseling is a way of sowing seeds in those who may not know about the One who is the bedrock of a long and happy life together!

“Mother Jones,” the magazine, recently published an article titled, “Returned to Sender.” The introductory sentence is, “Hundreds of evangelical families thought they were bringing God’s word to kids from war-torn countries—by adopting them. And then reality set in.”

The author, Kathryn Joyce, quoted another magazine called “Above Rubies” heralding an “orphan theology movement that had taken hold among mainstream evangelical churches, whose flocks are urged to adopt as an extension of pro-life beliefs, a way to address global poverty and a means of spreading the Gospel in their homes.”

Rick Warren, who serves a mega-church in California, provided the theological basis for the movement when he wrote, “What God does to us spiritually, he expects us to do to orphans physically: be born again and adopted.”

Joyce claims that many of the children adopted were older and taken from their far-off homes and cultures which created new problems when they were thrust into a totally foreign culture – our culture. The result was that some did not adapt well, in part due to the adoptive parents not understanding the strain of the cultural shift. One adopted kid said, “They expected us to adapt in a heartbeat!” One problem with an African child was the adopted parent demanding, while shouting, “Look me in the eye,” when the cultural norm for the child back in Africa was to never look an adult in the eye.

On the other hand, the African children saw their new adoptive parents as “money trees” because that was their African view of Americans – everyone was rich. Having lived in Malawi, I have always wondered what happened to the Malawian child Madonna adopted – a child plucked from poverty into instant wealth. Also, I have often wondered how that child will turn out. I hope and pray for the best. What I observed, however, was that the culture of Malawian children worked positively even in poverty. What these orphans needed was a home. Madonna provided that but the culture of her secular and lavish lifestyle might have impoverished the child in different ways.

Discipline is also different between cultures. Sometimes the problems, says Joyce, appeared to be unsolvable to the adopting parents and so they sent the kids back to their country of origin. Joyce says failed international adoptions have become so common that a panel on the subject at Rick Warren’s Saddleback church drew a very large crowd. Joyce says 6-11% of all U.S. adoptions fail, with the number climbing to nearly 25% for children adopted as adolescents.

I have been in the courtroom for four adoptions and the judge has always said basically the same thing. The parents, surrounded family – actually any family that can attend, are asked to accept the child just as though he or she had been physically born into their family.

I know there are parents who throw away their kids these days, and I find that disheartening. That’s why one of the values of the Christian faith is the promises parents make before God and God’s people when a child is baptized or dedicated as an infant.

In my Presbyterian tradition parents presenting their child for baptism must first state publically that they are Christians. It makes no sense to bring kids and make promises about what we want for their lives if we ourselves do not know or really care who Jesus is and what it means to be a Christian. Once they have stated their faith in Christ, parents then promise to do what it takes to raise their child to be a disciple of Christ, defined as one who obeys God’s Word and shows God’s love.

Baptism can become a ritual without meaning, like weddings in a Church when those being married don’t understand what it means to have a Christian marriage, like “two becoming one,” keeping one’s commitments until death ends the relationship, or the warning which goes to the heart of faithfulness – the admonition against adultery.

So, in a Christian family the lines between birth parents and adoptive parents have to be extinguished – there should not even be any blurriness. The lines between the two have to be erased. They are our children, no matter how they came into our lives, adopted abroad, adopted in our country, or born in a hospital after being conceived by their parents.

I am a pro-adoption person and the story in “Mother Jones” saddens me for several reasons. First, it seems that many adoption services for children from other countries are not giving any training in cultural differences of the children to be adopted or reminded how much skin color still makes a difference in American society.

Secondly, are Christian adoptive parents shying away from adopting American kids who need a home? Is cost a part of the problem? Is it cheaper to adopt kids from abroad? If so, do we need to change some laws to eliminate the financial difference?

Finally, a lot of Christians who are against abortion are also against adoption. I know that opposition is lessening, but there are still grandmas and grandpas around who believe “blood” connections are all important in kin relationships and I’m betting, knowing human nature, those prejudices will never be eliminated “until Jesus comes.” Any couple seeking the adoption of any child has to leave “the blood kin” prejudice behind as a relic of the past and toss it in a drawer where all the prejudices go that we have overcome.

A final thought! Sending an adopted kid back to where they came from probably says a lot more about the parents than it does the kid.

Being a prophetic Christian is very difficult because Christians, on the average, don’t care much for prophets. Yet, when we look at the gifts of the Spirit in I Corinthians 12:4-11, prophecy is there along with “the utterance of wisdom, the utterance of knowledge, faith, healing, the working of miracles, the discernment of spirits, various kinds of tongues and the interpretation of tongues.” Romans 12:5-6 adds teaching, moral exhortation, generosity in giving, and acts of cheerful mercy.

No one has all of the gifts, and on the opposite end we can say that all of us have some of the gifts. We are given the Holy Spirit’s gifts as Christians so we can put them into use during our earthly stay. They are not spiritual trophies to be held in abeyance or buried as the unwise servant buried his talents. They are to be developed and used.

Earl S. Johnson Jr., a retired Presbyterian minister, writing in the April 2013 edition of “The Presbyterian Outlook,” says it must be very important among the gifts since in the Romans passage it is first on the list.

Johnson goes on to explain that Presbyterian Christians are called to proclaim justice, compassion for the weak, peace for those living in violence, and the preservation of God’s creation (The PCUSA Directory of Worship). I saw some Christians reminding us on Facebook about caring for our globe on Earth Day – and every day.

Under the single word prophecy there are different ways to prophesy. The first is to speak about the future. To illustrate, the Old Testament prophets often foretold that Israel would be punished because of her unfaithfulness as a nation and that their punishment would end in war or captivity. Two special traits the Holy Spirit gives to his prophets are seeing evil and its consequences far in advance of others and the courage to say what others don’t want to hear: “Thus says the Lord!” As Jesus said, if the truth is not spoken at times, “the stones will cry out.” The stones may remain silent but his prophets do not.

There are also prophetic utterances that lead people astray. On Facebook this week I read one Christian’s message that the Boston Marathon bombing is evidence that the parousia is near. Another connected politics to the coming of Jesus believing that our president and his policies are a sign that the end is “drawing nigh.” A better prophetic word would be to remind us all that our last breath on earth, that can come so unexpectedly – even today, is the moment of our face-to-face with the Creator and Savior of the Universe. That’s why the spiritual asks, “Are you ready for the judgment day?”

The business of foretelling the future is crowded these days with end-timers. They go to Scripture and see some verse or verses that they then weave into a belief that tells the exact date of the Lord’s return. Their inaccurate prophecies have left people waiting for Jesus on roof tops while others sold every possession they ever owned because they felt there was no need for earthly goods once the end comes. We know these shamans are false because we know how many predictions they have made since Jesus ascended into heaven. Yet, not a one of them has come true! I don’t listen to them. They are charlatans.

A second way to prophesy is to preach the Gospel – not just the nice parts of the Gospel – the entire Gospel! Not just those parts that make listeners feel good! Too many pastors preach on the comfortable side of Gospel and never tackle “the hard sayings of Jesus” like the meaning of Jesus’ words, “Take up your cross and follow me.”

I heard laypersons talking recently about their pastor. They said that every once in a while he “punched them in the gut,” said things they didn’t like to hear but things Jesus said. There is not enough of this kind of preaching today mostly because of a modern understanding that says the most important part of a preacher’s job is to make people feel good about themselves. The Rev. Dr. Robert Schuler of the famed Crystal Cathedral in California believes that preachers should not mention sin because the real problem people have is low self-esteem. That is important, but it is the more difficult part of the Gospel that reminds us, “Thus says the Lord.”

While living in Iowa, I heard a preacher say in a sermon that at the time of the Civil Rights Movement he didn’t speak up because he didn’t want to upset his congregation, but now, years later, he was regretful for his silence. Now, living in the South, I heard a preacher say he was the pastor in a city where racial problems resulted in riots but he was silent. Many years later, he confessed he was sorry for backing off his prophetic responsibility.

Earl Johnson says another way to prophesy is to express Christian convictions in public ways through nonviolent protest and civil disobedience even though these methods bring the risk of getting arrested, risking one’s life, putting one’s family open to unpleasant criticism and causing problems in one’s church.

My favorite Prophet is Jeremiah who was called at a time when he was still young (Jer. 1.6). On one occasion he was trying to get Israel to understand that God was going to allow Nebuchadnezzar to rule over their land because of their waywardness. The false prophets rebutted him by saying they were the ones who spoke for God and the future would be rosy. They did not see Nebuchadnezzar in the picture. So, to dramatize the predicament and future of Israel, God instructed Jeremiah to put the yoke of an ox around his neck and carry it with him as he spoke to the leaders and people of Israel about the will of God (Jer. 27.2).

The spiritual gifts God gives to his people through the Holy Spirit, says Earl Johnson, “are more than innate talents which are part of our DNA or psychological makeup….They are apportioned to us individually by the action of the Holy Spirit for the work of the church.”

Johnson says that in spite of our not liking the prophets, in the end they become our Christian heroes, like John the Baptist, Dietrich Bonheoffer and Martin Luther King, who all died to fulfill God’s prophetic call. Why do we kill these men of God? Why is it that in their dying we finally come to understand the truth that they were God’s spokespersons to us? Why do we persecute them when they are living and preaching and marching and debating and being rejected? Why do they have to write us a “Letter from the Birmingham Jail?”

Rev. Johnson says his family tells him that he shouldn’t feel bad about not being prophetic because he wasn’t given that gift. We have all heard that before – even from those who should be prophesying. But Rev. Johnson replies, “Maybe so. But the Spirit keeps nagging me. Is it possible that my words and deeds lack prophetic urgency when it comes to issues like fracking, gun control or the use of drones, not because the call is absent, but because I want to ignore it, am afraid of danger or do not want to risk the church’s unity?”

He concludes by writing, “Pentecost is a good time to put away all rationalization and excuses and consider what it means concretely “to share with Christ in establishing God’s just, peaceable and loving rule in the world.” And I agree. Prophetic voices are always needed – but if there was ever a time to employ the special gift God has placed on us, it is now. Today is always the day of salvation. Today is always the day we need to hear a word from the Lord – from you and me, our friends and relatives as well as the stranger.

I’m a fan of Tyler Perry and I saw his latest movie a week or so ago titled “Temptation.” I’d recommend it to teenagers, young married couples and all married couples. Perry, known for his Christian witness in Hollywood films, packs a punch in this one. The message is not subtle, it is real. It clearly and tearfully deals not only with the power of temptation but also with the consequences of yielding to fantasies and desires.

The story is about a young Southern couple who grow up in the church. At least the gal’s mother is a Christian. They fall in love in childhood and all the way through high school and college they are a pair. Finally, they are married – a Christian marriage in a Christian Church.

They move to a northern city where he plans to eventually work his way to the ownership of a small pharmacy and she has her eyes set on being a counselor with her own shingle.

They both find jobs, he in a mom and pop pharmacy that will be available for sale when the owner retires. She finds a position in a company that matches singles/divorced with persons who are compatible with each other. She doesn’t like her work. She wants her own counseling business.

After six years of marriage, the routine becomes boring for her. Husband is engrossed getting ready for the day when the pharmacy will be his. The crisis comes in the form of a temptation. At work she has a client who is wealthy, her age, who is a computer genius, and who wants to co-opt her to write a computer program so he can partner with the company for whom she works. He has a private jet, the best car money can buy, an expensive condo and charisma. When her husband forgets her birthday, the handsome, relatively new, male acquaintance, turns on the charm and plants the seeds that maybe he is the one who can make her life more fulfilling by putting up the money for her own counseling business. He professes his love for the young, married woman and says that she will have a world of pleasure at her fingertips through his wealth. That’s the temptation and she succumbs.

In the midst of all this her mother comes for a visit. The husband is beside himself. He wants his wife back. So mom takes her aside and reminds her she is a Christian who needs to get back to church, so that the spiritual nourishment the church provided her as a child, teen and young adult can be replenished. Mom finishes by saying that she will be praying for her beloved daughter. But the daughter, blinded by her own leap into sin, rejects her mother’s counsel.

When the young wife comes home with her new boy friend to fetch her computer, they find the mother with a group of Christian friends praying for her to come back to her husband. The overtly nice but inwardly evil boy friend is offended by such nonsense and when mother stands up to him he punches her to the ground. This is the turning point for the young woman. In this violence she begins to see the “other” side of him, the evil that was lurking within his heart. When they return to his condo, she prepares to leave. He won’t have it and beats her bloody and leaves her wounded.

Husband comes to the rescue but the consequences of her fling have infected her with aids. Yielding to temptation cost a marriage, her health, her first love, her faith (at least for a time) and hours of loneliness in the future.

The end of the movie shows the husband owning the pharmacy, remarried with a young child, giving aids medications to his ex-wife. She has grown old quickly after her beating, infection and divorce but as she leaves the pharmacy she is on her way to her mother’s home where both of them will head for church. The prodigal daughter in the end had been found – she lost everything but the pearl of great price.

We usually don’t talk about the results of sin – but it is there and some bear a terrible price for rationalizing the consequences of temptation and proceeding into the danger zone without a clear idea of what trouble lies beyond the moment of pleasure.