Holy Joys Podcast
A discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church. A ministry of holyjoys.org.
Holy Joys Podcast
Roe v. Wade and Christian Social Witness
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Johnathan Arnold and David Fry discuss the church's social witness and how Christians can approach the issues of the day.
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Yeah, that's excellent. Because we often meet people where we want them to be instead of where they are. And uh that that aspiration that we have, they just simply can't envision because of where they are. You know, the darkness of their sin, the hopelessness in which they're in, Jesus met people exactly where they were, and offered them hope, and the church has to do the same.
SPEAKER_00You're listening to the Holy Joys Podcast, co-hosted by Jonathan Arnold and Dr. David Front. Visit us at holyjoys.org and stay tuned for weekly discussions of theology and ministry practice. All for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's been a few weeks since we have podcasted summer's been pretty busy, I think, for both of us. I was uh away on the Appalachian Trail for a week, and then you just got back from vacation, right? We did, yeah, New England. Okay.
SPEAKER_02What did you do up there? Uh we toured all of the states and uh did some camping, uh, visited Boston, New York City. Um yeah, a lot of sightseeing, a lot of history. We love history, so uh we're able to uh see a lot of the revolutionary history, and uh and then of course in New York, uh that was a quick sightseeing kind of a run through. We had a couple nights there in New York City.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm not too far from New York City, but I hardly ever get there. Seems like when you're closer, sometimes you don't take advantage of it. But anyway, I uh been just trying to get through the summer here. We have a lot of people in and out at the church, but finished up a series on Philippians and just kind of bouncing around in the Psalms now. Uh tenants has been been up and down, so I've been hesitant to start a new series. Um, but what are you what are you doing as far as your preaching goes?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I am preaching a little mini-series on the beginning of Acts. So we're in the season of Pentecost, and so uh I uh came back from vacation and thought, you know, I want to uh give more attention to uh these events at the beginning of Acts, and so I've started reading a couple of commentaries, and which I usually do, I usually read uh a commentary straight through as I study a book. And so I'm reading Daryl Bach's uh commentary. Of course, he did the two-volume Luke set, which is uh great uh commentaries in the Baker exegetical commentary set, and then uh Ben Wetherington's uh commentary on the book of Acts. Uh both of them are excellent, and I'm really, really enjoying uh those.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I just got the ancient Christian commentary on scripture, the whole series. They had it on Lagos. In fact, I think it's all this month. Somebody wants to check it out. Um normally I think it's like seven seven hundred dollars, but it was uh closer to 300, and they prorated it because I already own several of the volumes, so got a pretty good deal on that. But basically, as I'm preaching through the Psalms, uh I'm just reading uh everything there and then a couple other commentaries that I have. Really interested in the patristic interpretation of the Psalms because on Wednesday nights we've been doing a class on how to get more out of your Bible reading, so biblical interpretation, and we're moving towards now a few lessons on uh typology and spiritual exegesis. And um, so I've really just been focused here this uh last month or two on trying to get a better hold on why the fathers interpret the way they do. And we have we come to a modern commentary, and then you read a patristic commentary, and sometimes almost like night and day, they just have different assumptions, they just have different um just a totally different way of looking at scripture. Uh, obviously some similarities, but trying to understand what lies behind that the difference of approach.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, some of the newer commentaries, depending on uh how historically informed they are, do tend to be kind of a very flat in their in their reading. And uh now some like the ones I'm I'm reading here now, uh they certainly have uh a lied dynamic to them. They're they're uh not afraid of of theological interpretation and recognizing that the Bible's for the church. So I appreciate that. But yeah, sometimes modern commentaries, if they just use a real strict uh kind of a literary critical or a modern approach to exegesis, it can be rather flat and that is quite uh in contrast to what Christians have uh historically done. So I I am you mentioned that class, uh, I'm teaching, uh actually finishing up here in the next couple of weeks, a uh class just called Christian faith, and we are going through uh line by line through the Apostles' Creed. And this is actually the first class of a uh four-part series uh that begins. Uh this would be the first one, Christian faith, and then we go to Christian discipleship, and then church membership and church ministry. And uh we've created a certificate program, and so those who complete those four uh classes, which it takes about a year uh to do, I usually teach two in the fall and two in the spring, and this one uh by uh just by demand, there were people asking to uh take the next class, and so I happen to be doing it during the summer, which I usually don't. But um enjoying that. So that's a that's an interesting thing happening now, and we'll be finishing that up. And something else you mentioned, actually going back to uh our vacation, um, we stopped by a uh a place in Seneca Falls, New York. The I think it's called the Women's Right, it's a national national park site, uh, women's rights celebrating that. And so I started doing a little bit of reading, and I was looking for a place to just kind of take a little rest and break up our trip. And so we stopped by there, and uh so two things happened. Uh one is as I started reading about it, uh I realized that this uh convention that is celebrated at this site uh took place in 1848 that has to do with uh with suffrage and uh the the increased uh privileges uh or increasing privileges of women in the 19th century. Uh that this convention actually took place in a Wesleyan Methodist church.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_02And of course, the Wesleyan Methodist Church was not very old at that time, but the uh what they call the meeting house is still there, and uh it's actually part of the national park, and uh so we went in there, and that was really, really neat to see uh the role that the Wesleyan Methodists had uh in in uh that part of the history. But that also happened to be the same day that the Supreme Court overturned uh Roe vs. Wade. Oh wow. So we happened to be at the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, and as the park was closing, because we were there like between four and five o'clock, as the park was closing, then a number of protesters, probably you know, 50, uh 60 protesters uh came out uh to and to that park and they were standing out on the sidewalk. So that was an interesting uh time to be there and to see. I wish I'd had some more time to interact with the ones who were there, uh, but we were trying to get across the state of New York, and so we we left pretty promptly. But uh fascinating times and interesting history. Uh very, very fascinating to be there at that site and to see um where people have taken uh the idea of of rights, uh, which uh is quite a different discussion uh in 2022 as it was in 1848.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah, of course, social justice has a lot of different meanings for different people, but I learned recently that the Methodist Episcopal Church was the first, uh, at least American denomination to come out with a social creed uh back in 1908, so very beginning of the 20th century, and it calls for equal rights and complete justice for all people in all stations of life, um, abolition of child labor, suppression of the sweating system, a living wage in every industry. Uh so just very interesting how historically Methodists have been really on the cutting edge. And it goes back to Wesley himself, of course, with his writings on slavery and poverty and his interest in alleviating the suffering of people caring about people as whole persons. Um now I think because of the turn that social justice has taken, uh, we tend to be allergic to that. But um, you know, going back through our Methodist tradition and through the history of the church, there's a truly just have a rich history of social involvement. Right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm glad you bring that up because I think that's important for uh especially uh conservative Wesleyans to recognize that Methodists have uh historically been on the cutting edge of uh describing and defining what justice looks like in the world. And that you know, one of the things I I appreciate about the uh Roman Catholic Church, uh, even though I don't always agree with uh what is said, but they have this this whole field called Catholic social teaching where they've actually uh it's a big deal, and and uh I mean there's a there's a ton of material there, but they've actually be uh for years now, um not only decades, but actually probably for the last century and a half at least, have formalized uh the church's teaching and uh and and on just about everything in regard to society. And I know we have uh you know our uh you know various committees, our our uh moral reform committees and those sorts of things, but uh I'm talking about a very robust uh effort to give a lot of attention to the issues that face society today. And what what we tend to do uh in in traditions that uh are not as uh intentional on these fronts is we tend to be knee-jerk on a lot of issues, and we tend to kind of fall into trends or or the uh kind of the flash flood of opinion uh wherever that comes from, and we uh often find ourselves just kind of being carried carried on by that without really giving critical thought or careful analysis to how to think about these things Christianly. And and uh by the way, everyone who calls themselves a Christian thinker is not really thinking Christianly. Uh you know, that has to be uh has to be analyzed in light of what the church has said in the past, obviously with what God's word says first, and then how the church has understood that and applied that. And and so uh what I say I appreciate about the Catholic social teaching is that they try to do that, and again, it's not always in ways that would be agreeable uh for for us as Protestants, uh, but uh certainly on this issue with Roe v. Wade, Roman Catholics uh their social teaching has been pretty consistent. And uh we uh you know I am at least thankful for what they have uh done for uh for our society on that front.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we haven't talked since uh Roe v. Wade was overturned. Uh what what were your first thoughts when you heard that that had happened? What was your initial reaction?
SPEAKER_02Uh I was happy. Uh I was uh absolutely yeah, I I had uh someone called me and said, Yeah, hey, this has just happened, and I I can't remember where I was, but uh we were uh somewhere sightseeing, and I was like, awesome, great. You know, of course, you know, with the leaked email or communication that had come out several weeks before, uh, you know, I think we were all kind of anticipating this happening, but it was still like, okay, it's uh you know, when it happens, then we'll you know celebrate. Uh so definitely something to celebrate, something I'm I'm very happy with. Um nonetheless, I think it we have to be very clear on what it means and what it doesn't mean. And uh I'm certainly not a um you know legal or policy specialist, but uh nonetheless, there's reason for us to celebrate. Uh it is a happy day for those who are pro-life. And I think the only thing I would say by way of uh I don't even know if I'd call it a precaution, but an admonition, I guess, would be uh for those of us who are pro-life in regard to the unborn, let's continue to be consistently pro-life across all of the social issues and not just one issue pro-lifer. Uh let's be every issue pro-lifer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I appreciate that. There was a lot of mixed reactions, even from you know, who I people that I would consider fairly conservative Christians. And uh I think it is it is possible to fail to just stop and rejoice in the progress that's made. Um, yes, there are a lot of other things that need to be said and that need to be done, but I'm really grateful. Just this is a victory, and I'm grateful for it. Um I, you know, it's honestly it's it's convicting. I I've felt this way for a while, that um I care about these social issues, and I I certainly uh I want to see the church be involved and have a social witness, but but truth be told, to this point in my life and ministry, I haven't done much, I haven't been very involved. And some of that isn't uh some of that's just not knowing where where to start. Um, some of it's maybe actually a little bit of fear that I see all the other needs in the church. I see uh ways in which I want to see our congregation grow in Christian maturity and in piety, and I do get nervous that too much focus on social issues will distract from um from that spiritual growth. But I know that I know that it's not an either-or, right? I know that Christian love should be concern for for people as wholes. So what, you know, maybe what guidance or direction would you give to pastors, to to just interest, you know, serious, interested Christian lay people as to how they can be uh, they can have a good social witness, they can be, they can care about these issues and be interested in these issues without losing sight of, as some seem to, you know, have done, losing sight of um the most important things, you know, that we know that people have a personal relationship with the Lord, um, that they born they're born again, that they're walking in obedience to Christ, you know, that that that even if the spiritual, even if the so even if society is crumbling around us, that obviously the inner man is the most first and most important thing. But also caring for the needs of all people and having a truly Christian social witness. What would be some some just points of advice, practical and otherwise, that you would give?
SPEAKER_02Love people by first listening to them and uh not shutting them down. Uh what I have uh what I've learned here in this kind of wave of renewed conversation, particularly about this issue of of uh the life of the pre-born and abortion, is that uh there are a lot of pro-choice uh conversation partners uh that I have who are defining terms very, very differently than than why I do. And so I what I've recognized is that there is I would call it a general ignorance, but there's a pretty widespread misunderstanding of what the pro-life position is. And uh and so as we listen to people lovingly, uh we need to be discerning as to how they are using terms. And uh inevitably there will be terms that are used that are not agreeable, that I I cannot agree with that definition or that use of that term. Um, at least if I used it in the same way, I would be equivocating because I use the same term very differently. And and so uh, and this is across social issues because this is true in in race, this is true in conversations about uh homosexuality, this is true about issues regarding you know the pre-born, this is true in just a lot of uh uh immigration, uh in uh healthcare. I mean, just across the board, all of these areas have language that can be uh become quite um uh ambiguous when we're using the words in one way and someone else is using it another. But we need to be charitable, at least in the sense to which we are listening for understanding of how what they mean by the term. And then if we cannot have a conversation based on their definitions, we you know we need to be able to say that and and communicate that.
SPEAKER_01But um So do I hear you kind of circling back around this this primary concern of uh a lot of Christian social engagement is just this kind of knee-jerk reaction, just kind of like living in outrage mode. And you're saying if we're gonna have uh if we're gonna have any meaningful impact or input on the social issues of our day, we're gonna have to get past that. We're gonna have to listen, be patient, and seek understanding before offering a Christian word. That's the idea.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I think so, because uh I've often that knee-jerk reaction is uh there's some legitimacy here, is based on um, I I disagree with how you're using the term. And so since we disagree on how we talk, we can't have a conversation. And and I want to say, although you disagree, and you know you disagree, on many points, uh a person will not listen to you unless they believe you give them an ear as well. And uh we do not have to be the first to be heard in order for them to feel our love. That that's that's the thing. We we need people ought to know that we love them. And if they know that we love them, then we may have an opportunity, and we will have an opportunity at some point to be able to explain our understanding and a Christian understanding of the issues. But if they don't think we love them, we think we they think we are already close to them, uh, there's just nothing but hostility there.
SPEAKER_01What would you say are some of the most pressing social issues? I I've been thinking about this again, this 1908 social creed of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and wondering if uh if this was rewritten for today, what would be the things that we are for? Uh it's one of the things I like about this statement is it's a list of things that they stand for. So that it begins, the Methodist Episcopal Church stands for equal rights and complete justice, for the principle of and so forth. And sometimes I think uh one of the problems with our social engagement today is that uh we people know what we're against, but they don't know what we're for. Uh, I know pro-life says that we are for life, but again, even that, right? It's not always clear what people mean. Um, and it's not always consistently applied, the principle of life. So, you know, if you were writing a uh social creed of 2022 for conservative Wesleans, uh what would that, what would what might that include? What might that talk about?
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's a huge question. Uh but obviously, you know, I've already mentioned some of the big issues that that we face, and and some of these have, of course, have been around for centuries now, uh, but they take on different nuance because of maybe the particular events of our own day. And so, for instance, race, uh issues pertaining to race, uh, today have taken on a new significance because of uh the criminal justice system, um uh inequalities in regard to uh uh in regard to the criminal justice system and then obviously uh the various events where you know unarmed black men have been uh shot and killed by uh police officers so uh again regardless of of uh what my personal opinion is about all of those uh those events raise critical issues and uh as Christians we need to uh think through again the principles of our Christian faith as it relates to someone's experience that is very different from ours and uh I it's very very easy for us to expect that everyone else's experience is pretty much like ours and that's that's just simply not true uh and if we're not open to that that reality then we're not going to be able to stand for a quote complete justice for all people in all stations of life uh as Methodists have have stated uh we do so uh it's a challenge and uh it is obviously something that is contentious uh it's exasperated by um by all the wisdom of social media and uh uh that sort of interaction uh people simply don't have ears uh to hear like we used to uh you know they are you know you think of uh someone like Abraham Lincoln who who uh although he spoke very briefly at Gettysburg uh you know his most famous speech uh that would his his speeches were not normally uh you know all of of you know just a few minutes you know three minutes they were you know two hours he would talk for two hours you know uh and uh you know the uh sermons from uh bygone eras you think of Augustine who talks about uh in in the fourth century uh he refers to his sermons uh being you know nearly two hours long and people were getting tired because they were standing on their feet you know while he was sitting so uh those sorts of things we we simply don't have the um attention span or the mental bandwidth to keep up with that level of dialogue and but someone needs to uh you know someone needs to be able to have that kind of conversation uh and if you don't if you never have those kinds of conversations and all of your conversations are a essentially social media style uh then probably you're not gonna progress very very well in your understanding of of the complexities.
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah I I've been criticized um for not sometimes not saying enough on some of these social issues uh one way or the other and it's probably probably fair you know there's probably times when I I should say more than I do but I think part of part of the struggle that I have is um in the past when I have spoken I look back on things that I've said and I realize like man that was just too simplistic um these things are just so complicated and you know that they can't make us silent that we don't say anything but at the same time um it should make us humble and it should make us cautious and it should uh make us want to seek out as many different perspectives as we can as many different counselors from as many different walks of life as we can um and also to to defer to more mature and informed uh members of the church there's people who are speaking on these issues and I love David French I love Russell Moore I love some of the the the work that they're doing and many others you know and just sometimes it's okay to defer. We don't have to have an opinion on everything. We don't have to speak on every issue. But I just it these things are really, really complicated and um and I think humility, we've got to be humble when we're engaging our culture because it just does no good to constantly be shouting into our echo chamber. You know I think we all know people who um they just say the same things over and over and over again. It's the same talking points. And I think I just got so burnt out on that just the simplistic talking points the uh as somebody I saw somebody say recently that the partisan mudsling, the reflexive partisan mud I think that was Alex actually the reflexive partisan mudslinging you know where no matter what the issue is, it's just automatically demonizing and blaming the other side. There's never any real mature engagement. And um I think quick Christians should be marked in this very loud forceful combative hostile ecosystem in which we we live and you know we inhabit we should be calm and reasonable open to reason pure gentle peaceful open to reason uh we should be the ones that are marked by listening and patience and and um you know hopefully those are the those are the virtues that we'll be known for as Christians.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and sometimes I think we have really lost the distinction between wisdom and knowledge people assume that if you have information if you have you you know information then you are automatically wise and you need to share that that wisdom and it it takes me back to um you know Plato shares this uh story about uh Socrates uh Socrates as a young man uh had a a best friend and his best friend was going to go visit this Greek oracle who uh lived on a faraway island and uh legend had it that this oracle had never uh been mistaken on a a prediction and so his friend made his way to this oracle came back and Socrates asked him what'd the oracle tell you and his friend said the oracle told me that you are the wisest man in the world and Socrates uh just kind of disregarded that and went on and as he uh as he uh became more of a philosopher uh he uh approached uh someone who was known to be a very wise and smart man a a teacher and uh asked him uh asked him this question what is justice and the wise man uh so-called wise man uh responded back and said well you know that's that's an easy one and you know everyone knows what justice is and and Socrates says well I don't know what justice is can you tell me what justice is and um the man responds back and says well you know justice is is fairness it's it's equality it's it's uh treating all people equally and as the story goes on Socrates uh thought of circumstances in which it would would not seem to be wise to uh treat one person uh precisely the same as you would treat someone else and so he kind of threw some of those up and and uh in the end he Socrates testifies that he walked away and he realized that this wise man was not as wise as what he thought and in fact he concluded that he must be wiser than this uh professor because uh he at least knew that he didn't know and and so I I share that little story just because uh it's okay number one to be hesitant to speak out when you're not exactly sure uh what the right thing to say is and when uh you are compelled to speak out it's okay to say I don't know exactly how to navigate through this issue right now um and I think it's wise to uh to not uh to to not say something or take a position on something that uh that you're really not sure about at the same time we all uh you have have made statements you know I've preached sermons I would go back and I would say okay I think I would nuance that a little bit differently or I may just scrap that altogether and and the you know preach this passage differently than what I did um you know and that's okay but it seems like in this day um it's there's a sort of self-commitment to what we have said and then we have to double down double down and if you change uh your mind or you there it's it's almost as if there is um there is a a lack of ability to uh to to back away from something and and actually take in uh the wisdom even the information that others may share with us so uh sometimes wisdom is manifested by just knowing that we don't know yeah it cracks me up there's these little quizzes that go around where you know you answer like 30 questions about 30 different social and economic and political issues and you know you have A and B, you have, or maybe you have A, B, C, and D, you have four choices what's your position on all of these things.
SPEAKER_01And at the end of the quiz, you know it tells you what where you stand politically or whatever. And you know I've seen those quizzes and I think like oh my word every single one of these issues is incredibly difficult. And somebody told me um I know which one I'm supposed to pick to be a good you know Christian white Protestant Christian Republican woman you know but I don't actually know why. And and that's the thing is is we are just pigeonholed into uh this like clearly defined set of issues what we where we stand on all these issues. And we are not uh in our culture and unfortunately not often in the church world free to think and let think right as John Wesley said. There's not freedom to just say I don't know and that's complicated and I'm trying to do a better job of that myself. I I think it can be a pride thing it can be um an insecurity thing which sometimes those two are hard to disentangle but uh just the other our last board meeting actually I had um somebody uh from the board ask me what do you think about this issue? And in that moment I felt myself wanting to just give the answer that I know I'm supposed to give uh and here I am I'm the I'm the senior pastor. I'm the one who's supposed to provide direction leadership. But I just stopped myself and I said you know if I'm being really honest I really don't know what I where I'm at on that issue. I just need some time to think about more time to think and to study that issue. And I just wonder um you know how the the dialogue would change on some of these issues in the church if we would all just work on that posture of learning and listening and not just nailing down our position on everything and then trying to force other people to conform um I think we could really raise the level of dialogue in the church and in our country.
SPEAKER_02Well there's a general anxiety within our culture right now and when people are anxious they tend to become impulsive and they tend to be be knee-jerk and um and and and so anything you know I've said so far, I don't want to discard uh an awareness of the need sometimes to be clear on what is clear but we don't have to sacrifice the the need for clarity for the need to um to to dive off into areas that uh we probably shouldn't be quite as confident as what we appear to be. Because a lot of times a person who says well we just need to speak up we need to be clear about these things and you know say this, this and this what happens is they miss the complex nuances of the issue and actually end up missing the issue almost entirely. You know social positions and practices that the church has taken that are clear. So this is not you know anything I'm saying is not saying well we just need to be ought to be passive about everything. And this is not about being passive this is about being thoughtful and and being loving in our interactions with people who are either Christians themselves or they're unbelievers and uh you know remember Paul says especially be gentle and and careful in your speech when outsiders are present uh so I have a had a conversation a very very brief conversation uh with someone who came up to me and was um uh complaining about some material that uh I had recommended to him and uh this this particular preacher uh engaged with the conversation about homosexuality and uh this man who is an unbeliever uh was very very upset and came to me and and uh had a concern about uh someone in his family and he's like man he just really lamblasted my my daughter who is who is gay and um you know he was very unsettled by it and so I said well let me go listen to to what it was that was said so I listened to it and I went back to to the man I said well you know actually you know I I um you know that preacher and I you know don't disagree in our in our understanding of you know homosexuality and and uh what God's word says about that uh but I said I I would have said some things a little bit differently than what he did uh because he was wasn't was a bit harsh at one point in his sermon and so I would have uh said it a little bit differently but you know I just want to be sure you understand that you know that as your pastor um you know that is that is what I believe too and his demeanor though towards me was totally different and he was like okay all right and and he was okay with that um because my approach obviously I had the advantage of of hearing his you know initial irate response uh but I was able to say you know hey I believe this too but you know I wouldn't use this kind of language to uh you know to uh you know say what what he said yeah and that that's that's what he needed to hear uh he needed to hear truth but he needed to hear it lovingly and in a way that was not rejecting uh him or his family as persons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah I think that's excellent uh I think I'm I'm glad that you brought that into the conversation because I tell people often um you know I affirm Orthodox Christian teaching and I affirm historic Christian ethics including on matters of gender and sexuality and affirming those uh those points of consensus in the tradition under knowing Christian history and knowing what all Christians have always everywhere believed is liberating it's freeing because um once you've established those boundary markers, like these are the these are the lines that we don't cross these are the things that we don't uh overstep. And once we have that common ground there's actually a lot of room within that those boundaries to think. And once we've established those boundaries we aren't so anxious as you said we're not so because we don't always feel like you know having these discussions is gonna the slippery slope fallacy, right? Every time you try to have any discussion, it's immediately, you know, well we see where this is heading but if we're very clear and we don't have to be unkind about it, but if we're very clear on where we stand on these issues, you know, this is this is something, you know, it is sinful for men to have sex with men. It is sinful for women to have sex with women. God's word says that because God has given sexuality as a good gift to be enjoyed between one man and one woman, you know, within the context of the covenant of marriage, if people hear what we're for and why we're against certain things and we we draw those lines, then within those boundaries there's a lot of freedom to move. But you're right um we we do need to be clear on those things. We don't want to lack clarity on the essentials. What I think the problem is is though that so often we are moving a lot of non-essentials into the essentials or we're trying to make things essential that just that just aren't. They're just not as as important as we sometimes make them out to be. And I think it's that kind of fundamentalist instinct that just shuts down discussion out of fear and anxiety because we're we're not really clear on on what are the matters of consensus, where exactly are those boundary markers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah so yeah I'm glad that you brought up uh earlier the 1908 uh social uh creed and it's not very long and you can find it online um let's just take a minute can let's just read it uh you want to do that uh this is uh you know it brings brings up some issues that continue to be you know live issues today and then some that uh you know are more uh at least the language may not be recognizable for today but it says this uh the Methodist Episcopal Church stands for equal rights and complete justice for all people in all stations of life for the principle of conciliation and arbitration and industrial dissensions for the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery occupational diseases injuries and mortality for the abolition of child labor for such regulation of the conditions of labor for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community for the suppression of the sweating system that was a system in place where basically there were extremely low wages uh because you had a third party person taking a cut uh for the gradual and reasonable reduction of hours of labor to the lowest practical point with work for all and for that degree of leisure for all which is the condition of the highest human life for release from employment one day in seven for a living wage in every industry for the highest wage that each industry can afford and for the most equitable division of the products of industry that can be ultimately be devised and for the recognition of the golden rule and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy for all social ills so a lot there obviously in the era 1908 you know the right in the middle of industrialization so a lot of that has to do with labor uh but one of the biggest issues in society today is labor right especially with uh inflation and and those sorts of things uh you know continued debates about what is a living wage uh minimum wage and all those sorts of things uh so very interesting they were not afraid to uh you know take it take a position and now here's what's interesting so you have um you know any one of these you know for instance for a living wage in every industry what obviously there has to be a conversation about what that means and what that means uh you know in one location may look a little differently in another location but uh you know there are there are some some principles set out here that I think are meaningful.
SPEAKER_01I think that last one uh I find the most interesting for the recognition of the golden rule and the mind of Christ as the supreme law of society and the sure remedy for all social ills and makes me think about when Christians engage uh on social issues, how do how do we Establish the um how do we establish the positions that we take? Because if we just make appeals to scripture um to an authority that the rest of society doesn't recognize, um, that's not sufficient, right? So I'm wondering if uh they understand the mind of Christ to be something that is revealed through natural revelation and not just through special revelation, or what exactly that looks like in practice to impose the mind, not impose, but to promote the mind of Christ for uh, you know, for a society which doesn't acknowledge Christ or his authority. What does that look like? I'm curious about that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so there's there's actually an excellent book by Harry Blumyers. I think I've mentioned it before. It's called The Christian Mind. And uh he uh Harry Blemeyers is a mid-20th century, uh kind of a C.S. Lewis era um British teacher and author. And uh he laments in that book, the first chapter, laments how Christians have stopped thinking Christianly about social issues and about uh really just any issue. And then he proceeds then through that book to to describe what it means to think Christianly, and then he'll he'll take on a few a few issues and and kind of work that out. Uh that whole idea, it's a great book, by the way, but the the whole idea of what does it mean to think like Christ or to think Christianly about our laws, about our societal ills, about remedies uh for culture, uh, what's that mean? Well, I I know one thing, and that is uh if our first approach toward anything, whether it's uh you know pandemic or immigration or something else, if our first approach is to recite a political party line, all right, that may or may not be Christian thinking, but that's a sign of how you are ordering your thoughts for sure. We need to be thinking, first of all, uh scripturally, we need to be thinking, how do the principles of scripture help me to approach this issue and to do so uh as a believer in the revelation of God? Uh and then secondly, how have believers addressed this issue in the past? How how has this been handled through the centuries by the church and by Christians in in my culture and in other cultures? Uh, because you will see some some differences there. Uh, and that begins to give you kind of the scope of options. And so, as we uh you mentioned earlier, you know, these uh these things you can do online or wherever, and and it'll give you like four options. You know, where are you? Well, how did you you know four options? Well, um you know sometimes we just box ourselves in, right? Right in those, or we get boxed in uh because there those may not be all of the options, but then sometimes it's very clear that if you're thinking Christianly, it's very clear, okay, two of those options are not options for a follower of Christ. Um so there so so we talked about pro-life, all right. So so whatever a Christian thinks about any given issue, it should in a very clear sense be pro-life, right? Pro-life for the persons involved, uh, because that's who Christ is. He is life, he is the life. And uh, we have life in Christ. And yes, while you know the life that we're living now is not the ultimate, uh, the life that we're living now matters to God, and our care for life matters. And so uh whatever the issue is, whether it's immigration or or the life of the pre-born or um or um uh you know uh health, health uh insurance or other issues, uh we have to ask ourselves, okay, what's the pro-life position on this? And um and I I think going coming back around to where we started with Roe v. Wade, uh I think we have to say ask that question of of every issue. And so, yes, I do believe that in a uh in a broad sense that Christians must be pro-life. Uh that if you are are not and now I know there are narrow senses of that that phrase as well, but to think Christianly is to think pro-life. And uh and so uh we we celebrate. We celebrate the protection of life. Uh we do not celebrate um all of the ills that uh occur, uh, all of the poor choices that uh that people make that lead to these complicated uh circumstances. You know, we we lament that, and yet the truth is as Christians we live in a world uh where where sin uh sin happens and people's lives are are uh drastically changed and shaped by their sin. And when we encounter them as the church, they are in a a mess and their sin is complicated and their lives are complicated. And we have to we we have to know what the uh the truth is, but we have to find a way to convey that truth in a meaningful way for where they are for where that person is right now. Uh because otherwise the the road to to freedom, the road to recovery uh may seem insurmountable uh if we say, well, you just need to stop that, you know, or you're just wrong about that. Uh it just seems impossible. So we have to give people a way uh to uh to a life that God has called us to. And uh it's it it requires some some thought and some patience.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that reminds me of something from the new discipline of the global Methodist Church. So I I've been curious about the trajectory of the you know the United Methodist Church for a while. Obviously, I'm not United Methodist and and have no intention of becoming United Methodist. Um couldn't pay me enough to get embroiled in that mess. But it's uh it's sad because we are Wesleyan, and that is those are the most immediate um direct heirs of the first Methodist denomination, right? Methodist Episcopal Church um today take takes that form. And so I'd just been curious about the direction that it's taken. And finally, uh there has been a large split with churches breaking off to form a new conservative Methodist denomination, the Global Methodist Church. So uh probably pretty soon, if you're Methodist, if you say that you're Methodist, people are going to be asking you, uh, are you United Methodist or are you global Methodist? And so I've been reading through their transitional discipline just to see where they where they fall down on certain issues and how they articulate them. And I found it, I think, very, very helpful. I think very well done, very impressed with what I'm seeing and optimistic, uh, hopefully birthing some new wineskins here uh for the future of Methodism. But they have a whole part of their manual, actually. Uh so the first part is their doctrinal standards, but then part two is social witness. And so it has two sections. It has a summary of our social heritage as Methodists, and then it has a statement, our witness to the world. And the uh anyway, so the statement on our social heritage says this following both the example and teachings of Jesus, we believe that God calls us to love and serve others around the world in his name. Since God first stirred the hearts of John and Charles Wesley to feed the hungry, visit those in prison, oppose slavery, and care for those less fortunate, Methodists have believed in meeting people at their point of need and offering them Jesus. And that's the line that uh reminded me, uh that what you were saying there reminded me of that line. We meet them at their point of need and offer them Jesus. And so if we're loving people where they are and we want them to be faithful disciples of Jesus in all of life, then we're gonna have to care about the social issues that they uh that our communities and our cities are inevitably navigating so that when we meet them, we can not only offer them Jesus, but then shepherd them towards a faithful life, a faithful life as Christ followers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that yeah, that's excellent. Because we often meet people where we want them to be instead of where they are. And uh that that aspiration that we have, they just simply can't envision uh because of where they are. You know, the the the darkness of their sin, the uh the hopelessness in which they're in, uh Jesus met people exactly where they were and offered them hope. And the church has to do the same. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Uh before we close here, one more thing I wanted to mention is that uh in the call to the CHM that was published back in 2005 by the faculty, president and faculty of ministerial education at GBS, uh, it was then revised in 2007. And there was a section added uh call to Christian social witness. And I just wanted to mention that. Kudos to GBS for uh including that. I think that's that's excellent. And I think it's actually very good, very good summaries. Uh, and it has this statement here, which is quite forceful. Uh, unfortunately, we have sometimes withdrawn from society into cloister walls, cloistered walls of a narrow and narcissistic piety. Wow, that's that's that's forceful, uh, but very true. And a reminder of the uh the stated mission of the Methodists, early Methodists, to reform the continent and spread scriptural holiness over these lands. And uh so not just uh interested in trying to uh preserve a small remnant, uh, but but to actually have an influence on the culture and the society around them, and uh certainly a challenge for me and for our church and for uh Wesleans today. Oh, that's great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we will link uh that call there. Uh you can find it on the Holy Joy's website, but we'll link that in the show notes here as well as uh the 1908 uh uh uh statement from the Methodist Church. And uh for those who are interested in seeing the uh transitional discipline uh from the global Methodist Church, there is some interesting things there as well that I think are worthy of our attention. Uh that part two, I think, starts on page 20. Yes. So we'll we'll link all of that. So yeah, I've enjoyed the conversation today. And uh when you get into these sort of social cultural discussions, you you you never really know exactly where they're gonna go, but we always want to uh bring people back to Christ and try to start with uh where uh our dialogue partner is and uh work out from there. So I've enjoyed our conversation today.
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