Who is My Neighbor?: The Call to Fight Gun Violence

This post is a participation in “Presbyterian Bloggers Unite: Gun Violence.” To read more posts on gun violence by other Presbyterian bloggers, click here.

As a New Church Development pastor, I’ve been spending the past year or so getting to know my new neighborhood, and searching for needs which the church might meet. Frankly, gun violence is not one of them in Squirrel Hill. In fact, Squirrel Hill has one of the lowest crime rates of all of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods. A critical factor in this is the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition’s “Cizizens’ Patrol” program. Every night, a Squirrel Hill resident or family drive the streets of the neighborhood and report any suspicious activity to police. Since the program was initiated, gun violence and other crimes have been steadily on the decline.

I recently attended the most recent Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition meeting, though, and was somewhat saddened by what I heard. The coordinator of the Citizens’ Patrol appealed for more volunteers and stressing the need to take action in our neighborhood. He also remarked (quote not verbatim), “Someone once criticized the Citizens’ Patrol, saying that what we should really be doing is patrolling neighborhoods like Homewood (a less wealthy neighborhood with a higher crime rate). That person misses the point. People in Homewood should be patrolling Homewood.”

This comment made me cringe. I immediately thought, “Well, yes. Ideally, Homewood residents would patrol their own neighborhood. But does that ideal excuse us from responsibililty?” Afterall, is it reasonable to expect a neighborhood with a higher rate of poverty to have the same financial resources to start a Citizens’ Patrol? Can they afford the vehicle signage, radio equipment, and training programs that are necessary? Does anyone in that neighborhood even have a vision for such a program? Couldn’t we provide some resources, or at least the creative inspiration for them to create such a program in their own neighborhood?

The coordinator of this program then acknowledged that the Citizens’ Patrol has effectively pushed crime out of Squirrel Hill… and into neighborhoods like Homewood. It seems to me that as long as we only take care of our own, the problem of gun violence is only going to shift from one neighborhood to another. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, and he also redefined who our neighbors are. The problem of gun violence is not just a problem for churches in high-crime areas to solve. It’s a problem for the whole Body of Christ to face together.

Are We All Called to Be Fishers of Men?

I’m writing this from Madison, WI, where I”m spending 10 days in orientation for my Graduate and Faculty Ministry work with InterVarsity. We began the orientation talking about calling, and we studied the call of Jesus’ first disciples in Luke 5:1-11. Something that the group immediately noticed is that Jesus approaches and calls Simon Peter, James and John at their place of work: catching fish.

What’s also interesting is that Jesus not only approaches them there, but calls them in such a way that he speaks directly into their job. After the miraculously large catch of fish, Jesus says, “From now on you will be catching men.” This comes to fulfillment in Acts 2 at Pentecost. Peter preaches the gospel and a “catch” of 3,000 repent and are baptized.

Previously, I had always thought of the call from Jesus to be “catching men”  as a universal call to all of Christ’s followers. (I also always felt a bit of guilt for not converting 3,000…) I’m now thinking though, “that catching men” was a call uniquely given to the first disciples. Most of us aren’t fishermen, and consequently, most of us have never seen 3,000 people come to faith at once.

We do, however, all have particular work that Christ speaks into. For instance, my Dad is an auto mechanic. Would Christ come to my Dad and tell him to be a ‘fisher of men,’ or would he rather say, ‘from now on you’ll be a mechanic of men.”? Thinking about my Dad’s service to church, this actually makes a lot of sense. My dad has never preached the gospel to 3,000 and seen them convert, but he has served as a Stephen’s minister, a ministry designed to meet people individually in their brokenness. Granted, my Dad doesn’t “fix” people in this ministry, he merely walks along side them, but a ministry like this fits the mindset of a mechanic much more than a ministry of mass evangelism.

As one who does ministry in the academy, I also wonder: In what manner does Christ’s call speak directly into the work of those in the academy? How does the work of a teaching professor or research professor influence their ministry in the Church and on campus?

Christ doesn’t only call at the lakeside. Christ calls in the classroom, in the lab, and in the office. He calls in the home, in the studio, and in our neigbhorhood. He calls us all with the universal command to follow, but also calls each of us to particularly ministry for which we are uniquely suited. Will we listen and obey?

Reflections on Praying the Rosary (Kind of…)

When I was ordained back in September, one of my aunts gave me a rosary. She had purchased it in Italy and then had it blessed by a priest at Notre Dame in Paris. I appreciated the thought, but also didn’t know what to do with it at first, since, as a Presbyterian, I’ve never prayed the rosary before in my life. Then a couple weeks ago, the spiritual formation guide I”m working through suggested taking  a week to try a new form of prayer. So, I decided to try using my rosary for one week…. kind of…

As a Protestant, it was hard for me to pray the Hail Mary. Granted most of it is simply verses quoted directly from Scripture, but it still felt out of place for me, so I replaced each Hail Mary with a recitation of the Jesus Prayer – “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

The main purpose of praying the Rosary is to meditate on the mysteries of our salvation – there are 20 in the Roman Catholic tradition. They’re all more or less events in the life of Jesus.

As I meditated on five of the mysteries each day while reciting the Jesus Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and the Gloria Patri, I began to realize pretty quickly how “distanced” my mediation was. For example while meditating on each of the sorrowful mysteries (The Agony in the Garden, Scourging at the Pillar, Crowning with Thorns, Carrying the Cross, and the Crucifixion) I began to feel as if I was simply imagining the events in my head, viewing them in my imagination in the same way I would view a movie; thinking about the events in the same way I would think about the Civil War or any other historical event.

As I continued praying the Jesus Prayer, though, I came to a profound sense that Christ was in the room with me. Suddenly, I became convicted that the purpose of meditating on the mysteries is not thinking, but rather listening. My meditations changed from being a product of my own imagination to being an act of seeking to allow Jesus, the One who experienced these events, to tell me about them.

The result of this experiment has been some of the richest times of prayer I’ve had in a long time. Praying the Rosary (kind of…) has given me a “sacred space” of sorts in my time to be reminded of my union with Christ and all that entails. I think this is a practice that’s going to go longer than one week.

A Quick Example of Good Missiology

Last week on vacation, my friends and I spent about a week in the Berkshire Mountains in eastern Massachusetts. Among the small towns we visited, Stockbridge was of particular interest to me because of its history. Stockbridge is home to a church where Jonathan Edwards served as pastor until moving to Princeton. Edwards took the place of John Sergeant, the first missionary/pastor to serve in that area in the mid-1700s. Sergeant’s primary call and passion was to spread the gospel to the Mahican Indian’s of Stockbridge. During our visit, we took time to visit the “Mission House,” a log cabin that Sergeant lived in with his wife. While the tour guide was somewhat critical of Sergeant’s “Christianization” of the Mohicans despite the “good intentions” he had, the guide did say one thing that I though was a great example of good missiology.

While Sergeant was still studying in Yale, he invited ten young Mahicans to come and live with him. Sergeant wanted to learn Mahican culture and customs before even stepping foot on their territory.

Worship Styles: What Dance is the Church Teaching?

This past weekend while I was in Massachusetts, I got to experience two worship communities different from my own. The first came on Saturday at my friend Susie’s weeding. Susie and her husband are both members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, a more-conservative breed of Presbyterianism. One distinction of this denomination is it’s theology of music in worship. They believe that the New Testament teaches us to worship with all of our heart, and that musical instruments are a barrier to this. So they only sing a capella. They also believe that it’s only appropriate to sing divinely inspired words, so they only sing musical settings of the Psalms. So at Susie’s wedding, there was a string trio that played only before and after the worship. Once the actual wedding liturgy began, the only music to be heard was the congregation singing from the Psalter.

In theory, I disagree with the RPC on their theology of music in worship, but that’s not the point. The point is that even though I don’t share this belief, I’m still really glad that they believe it, because the results were beautiful. During the wedding, the wedding guests (most of whom were members of the RPC) sang two Psalms, and they were singing them in four-part harmony. It was incredible. At one point, I looked over at the string trio that played the prelude. I’m guessing they weren’t from the RPC, because they looked genuinely surprised and impressed that so many wedding guests were capable of singing so well.

This style of worship is anything but “seeker-sensitive.” I’m pretty competent in music, and am fairly good at sight reading (seeing music for the first time and singing it correctly without hearing it first), and I still had trouble at times, especially with the second Psalm, which was not only in harmony but also had some counterpoint. If someone were to join this worshipping community, it would take weeks, perhaps months, to become fully acclamated to this style of singing. At the same time, though, I didn’t feel as if my worship was inhibited. I wanted to learn. At times I just had to stop singing and allow my act of worship to be listening to the song of praise being lifted up around me.

My second worship experience was going to Roman Catholic mass on Sunday morning with my friend, Matt. I’ve been to mass a couple of times in the past, but there are still intricacies to the worship experience that I forget or altogether miss. I nearly forgot to cross myself with holy water when I entered the sanctuary. I definitely forgot to kneel before taking my seat. At one point I put the kneeler back up too soon. And there were a number of prayers that I had to half-mumble as everyone else recited them by memory. Again, though, I didn’t feel as if my worship was inhibited. I found the intricacies of the worship intrigueing, and wanted to learn them.

Thinking about these two experiences reminded me of an analogy that I’ve heard and read from a number of different sources comparing corporate worship and liturgy to dance. The point of the analogy is that you have to take time to learn the steps and rhythms of whatever dance you’re doing. Think of the Reformed Psalm singing or the Catholic Mass, or any other complicated style of worship as ballroom dancing. Whether you’re learning an elegant foxtrot or an intense, lively swing, the dances take time to learn. The steps are intricate and rarely come naturally. The first time you try it may feel awkward and will probably require a lot of thought. As you practice and learn, though, the steps and rhythm comes more naturally and the dance feels less forced and more free, and ultimately more beautiful and memorable.

As a mainline evangelical, I find it frustrating that in most churches of this color, the worship tends to focus on the least-common denominator and being “seeker-sensitive.” The music should sound familiar and be easy for anyone to sing and learn quickly. Practices that might not make sense to a first-time visitor, whether something as minute as the sign of the cross or as substantial as the Eucharist, are either dropped altogether or explained away so that any element of mystery is removed. To use the dance analogy, most evangelical churches aren’t teaching their congregations the foxtrot, or swing, or any other difficult dance. They’re teaching the hokey pokey… over and over and over again. A dance that’s easy to learn, and maybe even fun, but also a dance that lacks beauty and intrigue and ultimately gets old if you do it too often.

Perhaps evangelical communities needn’t fear about whether every element of their worship is easily understood or explained. Perhaps it’s better to focus on doing worship well, on making worship beautiful and intrigueing. Maybe that’s what draws people in. Maybe that’s what it’s really all about.

Eucharist and the Missional Church

I’ve  been thinking about the Eucharist a lot lately. Part of the vision of the Upper Room is that we’ll be a sacramental community, and so we celebrate the Eucharist weekly. This is the first time I’ve ever been in a community that does this every Sunday. It’s taken awhile, but after several months of breaking bread and sharing the cup each week, God’s given me the eyes of faith to see Christ’s presence in the supper more clearly. I’ve found that celebrating the Lord’s Supper every week has become integral to my spiritual formation. I remember a few weeks back, it was a Wednesday or Thursday night and I found myself thinking, “I really want to be at the Lord’s table right now.” I wanted to be breaking bread and sharing the cup with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I was desiring Christ’s presence. Yet, it was still only Wednesday or Thursday, so (I thought) I had to wait.What brought me some sense of closure in this was a week or two later in the Lesslie Newbigin class I’m taking at PTS. In one article (or possibly a speech), Newbigin lists seven paradoxes about Christ and his relationship with the Church and world. The seventh paradox is that Christ is the final judge of the world who will come again, and yet also Christ remains hidden in the world, to the point that even the Church often doesn’t see him. And so, Newbigin explains, we need to seek Christ out in the world. Jesus said in the gospels that whatever you do to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do also to me.

I heard this, and I immediately thought to myself, “And that is why the Lord’s Supper is so important.” Celebrating the Eucharist trains us in knowing what it feels like to be in the presence of Christ. So, when we leave the church building after we’ve been in Christ’s presence at the Lord’s table, we can go out seeking Christ’s presence elsewhere. The same Christ who is present in the Eucharist is the same Christ who is present in the hungry beggar asking for food, or the thirsty person asking for a drink, or the lonely prisoner waiting for a visitor, or the lonely elderly person “imprisoned” in a nursing home, or in the homeless person looking for shelter. When I found myself desiring to be at the Lord’s Table midweek, God was calling me to seek Christ’s presence in those places.

As “missional” continues to become more and more of a buzzword in the church, and as (hopefully) more and more churches begin to think about what it means to be a community that exists for the redemption of the whole world, I’m convinced that the Eucharist needs to be a central theme of the missional church’s worship. Being missional isn’t merely about doing charitable acts or making converts. It’s about recognizing that Christ is out in the world, hidden among the lost, the downtrodden, the oppressed, and the outcast. It ought to be the church’s desire, and joy, to seek out Christ’s presence in those places, and the Eucharist prepares us for just that.

Charlie Hall – Mystery

This Sunday at Upper Room, we’re going to be singing Charlie Hall’s song “Mystery” to prepare our hearts for coming to the Lord’s Table. SeungJin shared AWESOME video with me of Charlie Hall and band playing the song in a big semi-empty house. Really cool stuff…

How Presbyterian Should Presbyterian Campus Ministry Be?

Our moderator, Bruce Reyes Chow, has encouraged us Presbyterian bloggers to participate in a monthly “Presbyterian Bloggers Unite.” This month, the focus is campus ministry.

I’ve been involved with campus ministry in some form or another for 7 of the past 8 years. After four years at a Presbyterian college where I was involved in a few different campus ministries. Then I went to Pittsburgh Seminary for three years and in two of those three years I worked part-time for a Korean immigrant church, heading up their campus ministry at Carnegie Mellon University. Now, I work half time as a Presbyterian church planter and three quarter time as a campus minister to grad students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon and Pitt through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

As I reflect on these experiences in campus ministry for Presbyterian Blogger day, what I find most interesting is that my experiences in campus ministry have been the “least Presbyterian” of all my experiences in ministry. Grove City is a Presbyterian college, yet my time there actually did more to expose me to alternative Christian traditions than it did reaffirm my “Presbyterianism.” My experiences at Grove City included my first exposures to charismatic worship, to parachurch organizations, and to people who didn’t think my baptism as an infant was an actual baptism. When I worked for the Korean church, which was Presbyterian, very few of the students were actually Presbyterian; many came from backgrounds in the Assembly of God or “non-denominational” churches. And the ones who were Presbyterian usually didn’t care to identify themselves that way. And now I’m working for InterVarsity, a national parachurch ministry whose staffworkers include Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists and a multitude of other Christian backgrounds.

The significance of this is that most college students could care less about their denominational identity. College students don’t care about growing as a Presbyterian (or whatever denomination they come from). They want to grow in the core of the Christian faith: a life of walking with Jesus as his follower and disciple and in maintaining community with his body, the Church universal.

The problem is most Presbyterian congregations that I’ve seen are more concerned with keeping their college students Presbyterian, or worse, keeping their youth as members of their congregation when they leave for college. I’ve heard members of many Presbyterian churches complain that when their young people leave for college, they rarely come back. So, these churches will respond by doing what they can to keep college students connected to their congregation. One of their students will travel across the country to go to college, and the church will get their new address to send them church newsletters. Really ambitious churches will send care packages and cards. These are all fine ministries, but these things don’t provide students with what they really need and want: opportunities to grow and walk with Jesus in their new context on campus.

It’s in light of all this that I’ve realized the importance of parachurch campus ministries like InterVarsity.

I’ve only been working for InterVarsity for a short time, so a big chunk of my work at this point is raising my support. I’ve talked with a lot of leaders, pastors, and mission committees from a lot of congregations. I expected the churches near the university campuses to be the most interested in partnering with me. Ironically, they’ve been the least interested; they already have their own campus ministers working out of their church building. The churches who have shown the most enthusiastic support in partnership with me have been congregations further from campuses. These churches can’t hire their own ministers for college students; it’s not financially feasible and they simply aren’t located near any campus. But, supporting me, even in small amounts, gives them an investment in campus ministry. My ministry is now their ministry too.

On top of that, they’re not only partnered with me, I’m also partnered with them. I join them in wanting to see their students stay connected as they go into college. But, I want to see them do it by growing in their own context. As a staff worker for InterVarsity, I’m connected to campus ministers all across the country. As my partner churches send off their high school graduates to universities all across the country each fall, I’ll be contacting the campus ministers at each of those campuses with the names of those incoming freshmen. These campus ministers may or may not be Presbyterian, and the students may or may not be Presbyterian by the time they graduate from college, but they’re considerably more likely to still be a follower of Jesus when they leave.

The future of Presbyterian campus ministry has to include a lessening of distinct denominational identity. At the congregational level, it needs to include a desire to see students continue in walks with Jesus regardless of whether they continue in membership. Successful campus ministry has to be approached in light of the work of the larger Body of Christ on earth.

The Fear and Love of Life With God

About a week ago, I started working my way through the first in the Renovare Spiritual Formation Guides, called “Connecting With God.” The first section began with these quotes from Frank Laubach’s Letters of a Modern Mystic:

  This morning I started out fresh, by finding  a rich experience of God in the sunrise. Then I tried to let Him control my hands while I was shaving and dressing and eating breakfast. Now I am trying to let God control my hands as I pound the typewriter keys… There is nothing that we can do excepting to throw ourselves open to God. There is, there must be, so much more in Him than He can give us… It ought to be tremendously helpful to be able to acquire the habit of reaching out strongly after God’s thoughts, and to ask, “God, what have you to put into my mind now if only I can be large enough?” That waiting, eager attitude ought to give God the chance he needs.

 

Then, about a month later, he writes:

Oh, this thing of keeping in constant touch with God, of making him the object of my thought and the companion of my conversations, is the most amazing thing I ever ran across. It is working. I cannot do it even half a day – not yet, but I believe I shall be doing it some day for the entire day. It is a matter of acquiring a new habit of thought. Now I like God’s presence so much that when for a half hour or so he slips out of mind – as he does many times a day – I feel as though I had deserted him, and as though I had lost something very precious in my life.

 

The thought of this practice inspired me. I wanted this life of living in constant touch with God. I wanted to be constantly aware of God’s presence, to yield constantly to God’s will. I went to bed asking God to remind me first thing in the morning that He was present with me. He did.

For the first time in months, I awoke the next morning before my alarm went off. Usually, I wake up to my alarm, and often times so groggy that it takes me a second to remember where I am. Not on this morning, though. God did as I had asked, and I was reminded immediately of God’s presence with me. Wanting (or at least thinking I wanted) to surrender to His will, I asked/prayed, “God what should I do?”

I ‘heard’ a voice respond, “Get up and pray.”

I politely asked for a new assignment, perhaps going back to sleep. But the voice was persistent, “Get up and pray.”

 Finally, I got up and looked at my cell phone. It was still turned off; it’s set to turn off automatically at midnight and turn back on at 6am. I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew it was before 6. “Why would God want me to be up so early?” I asked myself.

Almost immediately I heard the voice again, “I want you to pray.”

The call to pray was so vivid that I fully expected to come out of my bedroom, turn the corner into my living room and see Jesus sitting on the love-seat… and this thought terrified me. Fully awake and out of bed, I still actually hesitated to leave my bedroom for fear of what Who might be out there. I finally mustered the courage to go into my living room, and was both relieved and disappointed to find that there wasn’t a first century Jew waiting for me. (At least not that I could see.)

I went on with my prayer time, which was better than usual, though frankly not as profound as what I was anticipating. I remember little of the Scripture I read that morning or the prayers that I prayed. What I do remember is the fear. I had a profound sense of God being presence, and I was seized more with fear than anything else. Why? This bothered me for much of the rest of the week.

I continued the week trying to practice this consciousness of  and submissiveness to God’s presence and will. Thursday night finally brought resolution to my sense of fear. I had just returned from the Upper Room’s Bible study and sat down in my living room for some personal devotion and close-of-day prayer. I began with the evening psalm appointed for the day by the lectionary I follow. It was the second half of Psalm 18 (the first half was appointed for that morning). As I was praying this Psalm, I slipped out of awareness of God’s presence and was simply reading the words of the Psalm rather unconsciously, to the point of having no comprehension of what I was actually reading. I caught myself towards the end, and entered back into an awareness of God’s presence. I heard the same voice I heard at the beginning of the week. Only this time, the voice said, “Read it again.”

I responded, “But God, I’m tired.”

Again, the voice said, “Read it again. And this time start at verse 1.”

Somewhat begrudgingly, I turned to Psalm 18:1 and read, “I love you, O Lord, my strength.”

I was floored. The words, “I love you.” convicted me in a way that they never had before. I knew immediately that I hadn’t prayed them with any sincerity, that behind my declaration of love to God was no sense of heartfelt devotion. I immediately asked God to teach me how to declare my love to him with sincerity. The voice responded, “Keep reading.”

I read on in Psalm 18, and after each verse I added the “chorus” of “I love you.” I began to read of God’s saving work done for the psalmist, knowing that he did them also for me. My “I love you”s became more heartfelt with each verse. I then began to notice not only the things God’s done for me, but also the attributes of God mentioned in the psalm. I remember reading the beginning of verse 8: “Smoke rose from his nostrils,” and I immediately responded, “You breath fire?!?!?! I LOVE YOU!” My chorus of “I love you” then moved from thanksgiving for what God had done for me to words of adoration to someone I deeply admire.

And then it got better. God had something else to tell me. I finished the Psalm and went on to the final Scripture reading in that days lectionary. I saw the reading listed in my calendar: “John 3:16-21.” I immediately knew what God wanted to say to me. As I read the familiar words, “Go so loved the world…” I felt in my heart God speaking back to me “I love you,” with the same passion and devotion as I had offered to God by the end of my reading Psalm 18.

And then finally, I turned to the Prayer at Close of Day Liturgy, which included these words from 1 John: “There is no fear in love…” My experience of walking with and submitting to God had gone full circle. I was immediately reminded of my early-morning experience at the beginning of the week. I had wondered and sought an explanation as to why I was so afraid that morning. God offered no answer to that question. He simply told me that fear is not the proper attitude to take in walking with God. Reverence, yes. But not fear. Walking with God and submitting to God is to be a practice and experience of love. Perfect love that casts out fear.

Could a President Keep These Vows?

Chris and I sat in Arefa’s today and watched the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States. A lot went through my mind. I was deeply moved seeing the faces of older African Americans watching the events of the day and wondering to myself how significant this day is for them. I found myself grateful for the country I live in when Chris reminded me how rare of an event it is in our world to see power change hands so easily and peacefully. I was honored when Marie, the owner of Arefa’s, entrusted me with the TV remote control during the inauguration. (Okay, so this last point pales in comparison with the others…)

 

What caught my attention most, though, was the actual oath President Obama took. My first thought was, “That was… short.” In fact, the Presidential Oath of Office is shorter than the Vice Presidential Oath. (Anyone know why that is?) When I shared this observation with Chris, he commented, “Yeah. Our ordination vows are longer the Presidential Oath of Office.”

 

This sent my Presbyterian mind racing. Being raised Presbyterian, one of the things I was always taught to appreciate about our heritage was the Presbyterian influence on the American political system. The representative democracy of our country derives from the Presbyterian practice of congregations being ruled by a ‘session’ of elders, and the larger denomination by elders and pastors from churches across the country. We have Presbyterian polity to thank for our American political system. What if, though, oaths of office were influenced by Presbyterian ordination vows?

 

When I was ordained back in September, I had to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions:

 

1.)    Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

2.)    Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?

3.)    Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?

4.)    Will you be a minister of the Word and Sacrament in obedience to Jesus Christ, under the authority of Scripture, and continually guided by our confessions?

5.)    Will you be governed by our church’s polity, and will you abide by its discipline? Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?

6.)    Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world?

7.)    Do you promise to further the peace, unity and purity of the church?

8.)    Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love?

9.)    Will you be a faithful minister, proclaiming the good news in Word and Sacrament, teaching faith, and caring for people? Will you be active in government and discipline, serving in the governing bodies of the church; and in your ministry will you try to show the love and justice of Jesus Christ?

 

Could these vows be adapted for a president, or any political ruler? A few references would need to be changed. The church would be changed to the American people, the Scriptures to the constitution, and the confessions perhaps to the rulings, decisions and policies of Supreme Courts past and present, and previous presidents. This does, of course leave one more reference that would need to be changed, but I can’t think of anything comparable to Jesus Christ or the Triune God that could be substituted where reference is made to them. (Perhaps this shows the weakness of government in a religiously plural society. There’s no Higher Power apart from an abstract concept to which the country’s leader can be expected to submit. But we’ll save that for a different blogpost…)

 

What do you all think? Would it be reasonable for a president to take vows comparable to these? What if the presidential oath of office included vows to work for the reconciliation of the world? Or vows to further the peace, unity and purity of America? Or vows to serve the American people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love? Would this matter?