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~ Richard A. Davis blogging

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Category Archives: church

Ellul on the 20th century decline of the church

21 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by radiescent in church, Ellul, Quotes

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Ellul

The decline of the western Church seems fortunate to me in the sense that those who drift away from the church never really belonged to it. There was a crisis in this church. But it was a crisis dating back to the eighteenth century whose results appeared only in the nineteen-fifties. And it had to happen to purify the situation: now the truth of God can again be proclaimed, free from political and social compromises, from class distinctions, and above all, from the illegitimate use of the Christianity. By God’s grace, it is no longer useful to be a Christian or to make reference to the church and the Bible.

FROM: Jacques Ellul, In Season Out of Season: An Introduction to the Thought of Jacques Ellul (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), 210–211.

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Morning Devotion for Peace Building Workshop – 24 June 2015

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by radiescent in Catholic Social Teaching, Christian ethics, church, climate change, environment, sermon, violence

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climate change, violence

Dr. Richard A. Davis, PTC Faculty

Reading — Isaiah 24:3-6 (NRSV)

3 The earth shall be utterly laid waste
and utterly despoiled;
for the LORD has spoken this word.
4 The earth dries up and withers,
the world languishes and withers;
the heavens languish together with the earth.
5 The earth lies polluted
under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed laws,
violated the statutes,
broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse devours the earth,
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled,
and few people are left.

Reflection

Last week saw a greatly anticipated event as Pope Francis issued his second encyclical letter, “Laudato Si’“. The title is Latin, and can be translated “Praise be to you”. The subtitle in English is “On Care for Our Common Home.” For non-Catholics an encyclical letter is a message issued by the Pope for teaching the church, and sometimes others. In this case The Pope addressed his encyclical to all peoples on planet Earth. It was largely on the topic of climate change, which, as we know, is an especially important issue for our Pacific region. The Pope’s wider concern was that humanity is destroying the earth and that we humans need to take greater care of the planet on which we depend on for our very survival.

In place the Pope used colourful language in the encyclical. For example, he wrote:

“The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”

He also commented on the kind of situation some of us face in the Pacific. He wrote:

“it is essential to show special care for indigenous communities and their cultural traditions … in various parts of the world, pressure is being put on them to abandon their homelands to make room for agricultural or mining projects which are undertaken without regard for the degradation of nature and culture.”

What does this all this have to do with peace, our special concern this week?

First of all, and most simply, war and conflict is not good for the environment. As Pope Francis rightly observes:

“War always does grave harm to the environment and to the cultural riches of peoples, risks which are magnified when one considers nuclear arms and biological weapons.”

To anyone who has been in conflict or even seen the photos of war, this seems obvious. But even in peacetime, preparations for war are massively harmful. For example, the USA is planning to use Pagan Island, far north of Papua New Guinea, for live bombing practice and land invasion training. This is expected to devastate the pristine forest, home to some rare species. And we all know of the damage done by nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific by both the American and the French.

So it makes sense to say that peace, true peace (in which we are not preparing for war), brings a huge benefit for the environment. But there is another, perhaps more important link between peace the environmental care. And that is that one cannot harm the environment too much without oppressing people and undermining the basis for peace.

Isaiah makes clear the connection between environmental degradation and human sin. In Isaiah 24:5, he writes

The earth lies polluted
under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed laws,
violated the statutes,
broken the everlasting covenant.

Firstly, we could say that according to the Pope’s analysis, humanity is at war with the planet. The land and sea and atmosphere have been violated and laid waste by our extraction, production, and consumption. Mining and oil companies have penetrated and attacked the earth so that the earth will be forced to give up its riches. And we have all treated the land and atmosphere as a dumping ground for our waste. I think that this imagery helps us to see more clearly what we are doing to the earth.

We can predict that this war on the planet will become increasingly aggressive as the earth gives up its resources less and less readily. Oil used to be easier to find, but now oil companies are moving to drill in the fragile Arctic. They are already extracting oil and gas through fracking which involves violating mother earth to force it to give up its hidden wealth.

We should also be aware that this is also a war on people. Communities are disrupted and displaced to make way for oil and gas extraction and mining. These practices of extracting and then burning fossil fuels have become the kind of curse that Isaiah wrote about. In verse six he says:

Therefore a curse devours the earth,
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled,
and few people are left.

People are already suffering for these industries, whether through air pollution, sea level rise, or other climate change related problems. Scientists fear that the worst is to come.

This curse is often justified in the name of human domination over nature. And here is another important link between peace and the environment. The domination of other humans and the domination of nature are mutually reinforcing. What does this mean? Let me give two examples.

If we think it is OK to remove the top of mountain to get at the gold and copper underneath, we might also think that it is OK to remove the head of the person protesting the arrival of the miners.

Or, if we think is OK to rape someone’s mother, it will probably not occur to us that there is anything wrong with violating mother Earth.

I’m not sure which way the connection works, perhaps we dominate people because we have first dominated the earth, or perhaps we dominate the earth because we first dominated people. Whichever way it is, I’m convinced that these forms of domination and power and violence are closely linked.

In this vein, the Pope writes of our sister creature, earth:

“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.”

To be peace-makers means that we must seek to be peace at God, with God’s creation and with each other. We cannot separate these.

Isaiah would, I think, agree. The earth suffers not only because we violate the earth, but also because we don’t follow the statutes and laws of God, which are often rules about how we treat each other.

But Isaiah also offers a glimmer of hope. In the middle of chapter 24 there is a group praising and honouring of God. It is difficult to tell whether these people are oblivious to the destruction of the earth, or whether they are a faithful remnant in the midst of the unfolding chaos.

One interpretation comes from the Ancient Christian theologian Eusebius of Caesarea. In commenting on Isaiah 24:15, which in the Septuagint translation partly reads “the Glory of the Lord is in the islands of the Sea”, he speaks of the church, “Which is located in the midst of the godless nations as if an island in the sea.”

What might this mean for us in a world of conflict and environmental degradation?

  • Can our churches be islands of peace in nations at war?
  • Can our churches demonstrate a way of life that respects both our world and our people?
  • Can our churches bring the reconciliation of Jesus to fighting factions and the Spirit of God into how we life at peace with other creatures of God?

If our churches can do these things then perhaps we might be able to claim to be those islands of the sea which show the Glory of God. We can be a faithful remnant in a world that is actively destroying its social and environmental fabric.

Eusebius also evokes an image of a church surrounded by a potentially hostile culture. This image also speaks to our lands in a time of climate change. It is other nations, those that surround us, that have largely caused climate change, with the island nations of the Pacific paying a heavy price for their greed.

The sea when it rises will transform from being a source of food and a means of travel into that which washes whole nations into a hostile sea. Can our churches live a different way of live and show the world how to live at peace with the earth and each other?

To be this church we need to transform conflict in our hearts, communities and with the earth. To do so we need to embrace an ecological way of thinking that recognises our interconnectedness. As the Pope reminds us:

“everything is interconnected, and that genuine care for our own lives and our relationships with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice and faithfulness to others.”

Not only is everything in nature interconnected, meaning that the tree is connected to the bird to the sea and to the atmosphere, but human behaviour is connected to how we relate to other creatures.

In being peace builders we are helping to heal not only human relationships, but also harm to mother earth. There is no more important task today.

Amen.

SERMON: Fifth Sunday of Easter (18 May 2014)

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by radiescent in church, Scotland, sermon, worship

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Sermon Preached by Dr Richard A. Davis at St Ronan’s, Eastbourne, 18 May 2014

SCRIPTURE READINGS

  • John 14:1-14
  • Acts 7:55-60
  • 1 Peter 2:2-10

SERMON

For our nation and our church these are times when we are tearing down and building up. No more so than in our second biggest city, Christchurch, which is still recovering from the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. I was amazed to see on Campbell Live the other night Christchurch’s CBD, which still has so many empty sites and so few people walking around.

Some of the shops and offices that previously buzzed with workers, shoppers, and tourists, now no longer exist and people are finding other places to be. The churches there have also been hit hard, requiring a rethinking of their mission, building needs, and an unanticipated pastoral focus on healing the hurts of such disruption. People are in mourning, not only for those killed in the quakes, but also for their city, neighborhoods, and homes.

In Lower Hutt at the moment there is outcry about demolishing the Town Hall and Horticultural Hall, landmarks in our city, and sites of so many happy memories. My own parents, who celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary this month had their wedding reception in the Horticultural Hall, considered the venue in those days. But perhaps if these halls are demolished a new generation can make their memories in new places fit for new purposes.

Human buildings fit for human purposes are essential for human flourishing, but this morning I wish to focus on the building up of the church by Christ, who makes his church out of “living stones”, as we heard read this morning from Peter’s first letter. This passage, rich with metaphors, speaks directly to our life as Christians growing from new born infants in the faith, to become a people set apart for the purposes of God.

This passage from 1 Peter offers counsel, as individuals, and as a church. Indeed, the passage talks of our role as living stones that are bound together to form a new people with a new role in the world.

What a strange expression – “living stones”. Clearly there are no such things as a stones that live, but here is an expression of a truth of our life together as a church.

But, what is the church? There is no simple answer to this question.

Some would see it as a club of Christians who agree to come together for a common purpose. But this voluntaristic view of the church denies the role Christians have traditionally affirmed for the role of Christ in making the church.

Another answer is that churches are the stones, glass, and wood that combine to provide us places of worship, hospitality, and community life. This is some truth in this position – churches are buildings. And there is a good case that buildings offer an architectural testimony to the community that worships there.

What do you think or feel when you see a church? If you have visited the magnificent cathedrals of Europe, or the ancient churches of the Middle East, you will surely agree that the very buildings, their surroundings, and furnishings cry out, even if the priests are silent when you visit.

Churches are testimonies to a continuity of Christian witness in those places, and they come to be identified with very places they are in. Consider St Paul’s in London, Notre Dame in Paris, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, St Basil’s in Moscow. These cities are unimaginable without them. Closer to home the Christchurch cathedral, still on the logo of the City Council, stands as a reminder of Christianity’s place at the heart of the city.

But as we all know, the church is the people even more than the buildings. The early Christians had no separate buildings they worshiped in. They would have met in each other’s homes to read letters from the first Christian leaders and to read the scriptures together. They practiced radical hospitality, attracting new Christians by the lives they lived together.

What does it mean to be a royal or holy priesthood? Over the years this phrase has been used to suggest that the Church stands separate from the world. We are made from stones the world has rejected, standing on the cornerstone that the world rejected and crucified.

Many of us may have suffered for being Christians. And with an increasingly secular society that we live in the church cannot ask for any special favours. With the rise of militant atheism, and with more people rejecting faith altogether, the mocking of faith is something we need to prepare for. We are being separated from the mainstream, whether we like it or not.

I was very fortunate to spend several years studying theology in Edinburgh. Many weekends I would travel to the Highlands to go “hillwalking” – this isn’t tramping, but climbing hills much lower than our mountains, but usually in conditions that made them challenging nonetheless.

One common feature of the hills of Scotland are the dry stone walls that marked out fields and sometimes provide useful markers up ridges. They were usually built from the stones on the fields nearby. Made without any mortar, it is remarkable that these walls can withstand extreme climates and strong winds.

It is said that a good wall-maker will only pick up each stone once and find its perfect place in the wall without putting it back down. When you see how many stones there are, you don’t want to be lifting them up and then putting them back down, only to have to lift them back up again. A good wall builder can do maybe three metres in a day, which entails lifting about three tonnes of stone. This requires years of experience.

 

Stone wall

We can see ourselves as stones like these, living stones in the phrases of Peter. We are those stones, rejected from the pasture, pushed to the margins, and perceived to be useless in the field where the real action takes place. But in the hands of Christ we are placed, all of us, whatever our size or shape into our perfect place in the structure that fulfills his purpose. And once picked up by Christ out of the dirt, we are not put down, Christ uses us, in unison with others to build his Kingdom. We all have our place in his church, working together for the good of all.

A field is pointless without a wall around it; indeed it is not a field at all. The sheep will escape, or the ram will get in when you don’t want it to. The wall made of the stones pushed to the margins makes the pasture useful. In the hands of the skilled wall-maker the stones make the pasture what it was meant to be. This is an important point. The wall serves the pasture it encloses, it helps to make the pasture the best it can be.

Does our church serve the world with a message of peace, justice, and reconciliation? Or it is interested only in its own integrity, becoming a wall without any purpose except one that points to the fact it was formed by its maker?

As we know, in addition to wall-building, stones have many uses, and some are far from humane. Our reading from Acts this morning recounts the story of Stephen, the first Christian martyr who was stoned outside Jerusalem.

This is the very reversal of the images I have been using where the stones come together in unity to build up something new for Christ. In the story of Stephen one can imagine that if not enough stones were lying around, the people may have started to dismantle a wall or path using those stones to kill Stephen. If so, the rejection of Christ and the killing of Christ’s messenger meant the breaking up of the stones into individual weapons of violence and death.

Before he was condemned, Stephen, in this speech to the crowd, reminds the people of what the prophet Isaiah had said: “Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands”. Instead, as we learn from Peter, God builds his church out of living stones.

It is worth noting that Saul was present at the stoning, and approved of Stephen’s execution. This Saul later converted on the road to Damascus, became St Paul, the first Christian theologian, who was himself flogged, shipwrecked and imprisoned and may himself have been martyred by beheading or upside down crucifixion. Who knows what effect Stephen’s martyrdom had on him, and the others? We shall never know, but to this day the stories of martyrs have continued to inspire Christian faith.

There are still people who are being killed for professing Christ. This week a pregnant women, Meriam Yehya from Sudan was condemned to prison, lashing and hanging for apostasy in abandoning Islam for Christianity and for refusing to renounce her faith in Christ.

Have you ever wondered what you would do if faced with death because of your faith? Would you take the chance to renounce your faith and escape death? You might feel like me – I know what I would like to do in that situation, but I’m uncertain what I would do until I’m placed in that position.

Christians who face persecution because of their faith may remain faithful for two reasons. First, that they have built their faith on the sure, unshakeable foundation of Christ. Second, they have a community of other Christians around them supporting them and perhaps facing persecution together. As living stones of the church we are not isolated from communities of support, but are bound together by God into a structure that can withstand anything the world can throw at it.

In the church today images of stones may be useful in thinking through the meaning of church and our role in it. As some churches are demolished, rebuilt, or sold, brick by brick, the image of living stones can be useful as we know, as Stephen reminds us, that God is not bound by the work of human hands and lives in our midst.

Finally, in addition to the image of living stones, I wish to offer another image of stones for our churches today. In a declining church, some of our Presbyterian parishes may feel isolated as other parishes around them close, encouraging them to look further afield for help. Such churches, rather than being a stone bound to others in a strong church, may appear to be more like a stepping stone – far enough apart to be just in reach from the next with a long stride. One should not be disheartened by such an image; anyone who has been hill-walking in Scotland will know that hikers seek out those stepping stones which are just above water in order to make the journey with dry feet and a sure stable foothold. Those stones carry us forward, and we can be grateful for them, whether we stand there only the once, or whether it’s a daily or weekly resting spot on our journey of life.

Amen.

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Bonhoeffer on Voluntary Poverty

27 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by radiescent in church, poverty, Uncategorized

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divestment

Dietrich Bonhoeffer solves church fossil fuel divestment issue – “The church is church only when it is there for others. As a first step it must give away all its property to those in need.”, Letters and Papers from Prison (DBWE, 503).

Global Institute of Theology (2010)

26 Tuesday Jan 2010

Posted by radiescent in church, conference

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John Calvin

John Calvin

I have been selected to attend the second Global Institute of Theology (GIT) in June 2010. I will be representing the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ).

“The GIT will be a place of exposure to the local context and of reflection through a series of courses. It is also a great opportunity to build up an ecumenical leadership for the future,” said Douwe Visser, executive secretary for Theology and Ecumenical Engagement for the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC).

GIT is organized by the Office for Theology and Ecumenical Engagement of the WARC. This will most likley be the last thing they do as they are forming a new body, combining with the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC) to form a new body called the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). This will represent more than 80 million Reformed Christians worldwide. I will be at the Uniting General Council to witness the merger.

The GIT will be held in Chicago and Grand Rapids in June 2010. The academic partners will be McCormick Seminary in Chicago and Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids. I will be the only Kiwi going and only one of two from the South Pacific. I’m also one of two from Scotland. In total 70 students from member churches will be there with more than half from the “Global South”.

The GIT will be run by an international faculty of renowned academic theologians. The core course will on the theme of the Uniting General Council: “Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”. And there will be the following four elective courses:

  • Intercultural Theology
  • New Directions in Mission for the 21st century
  • Reading the Bible in Context
  • Theology and Mission of the Church in the Americas

This fantastic opportunity doesn’t come cheap, however. I have no funding for this event, except for a slight discount from the organisers. The PCANZ hadn’t budgeted for this and neither did I. So, if you know of any people or organisations that wish to support young theologians, Reformed theology, and ecumenism, then let me know.

Readers can of course support me for this, and my studies in general, in the usual ways listed here:
http://www.rad.net.nz/886.0.html

If you are wondering who I am, or have forgotten, I’m doing a PhD in political theology at the University of Edinburgh. I’m a PCANZ-supported scholar, with funding primarily from the Council of World Mission and PCANZ. I’m also an Elder of the PCANZ, and a member of St Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wellington. When in Edinburgh I attend Greyfriars Kirk.

Some Links for Further Information:

  • The Global Institute of Theology
  • PCANZ on WARC
  • Global Institute of Theology offered in 2010

Presbyterian Social Witness

16 Monday Jul 2007

Posted by radiescent in church

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Is this article is true is would appear that the problems within PCANZ around its social witness are shared by the its large North American cousin, PCUSA:

Commentary: ACSWP Seeks More Attention and Clout

Also see:

  • PCANZ to leave CASI
  • More on CASI…

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