What is salvation?
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wesley said that there are three grand doctrines in Scripture: Original Sin, Justification by Faith, and the Holiness consequent upon that justification.
When was the last time you really heard salvation preached in your church? When was the last time you preached it?
A few weeks ago the lectionary gospel reading was from John 3, and I was the guest-preacher in a little Presbyterian church here in Durham. Preparing the sermon, I found myself gravitating to John 3:3 and Jesus' command that all must be born again. This is not typical Methodist or Presbyterian fare, although once upon a time Methodists were very concerned with the new birth. So I preached on it, and I ended up realizing that my very uncomfortability with the doctrine of the new birth probably says a lot about both the church in which I minister and the theological formation I recevid as a child and later as a divinity student.
I've actually been thinking a lot about salvation and why it doesn't seem to be the focus of mainline preaching these days. Is it because at heart we are all soft universalists? That's my guess. But Scripture suggests that universalism is wishful thinking. Is it because we only equate salvation with "going to heaven after you die"? Probably so, but that's only because we have allowed a certain kind of shallow, antinomian Calvinism to become the standard account of savlation in the church and abandoned our own tradition's understanding of it.
My new column in the United Methodist Reporter wrestles with this very issue. The church's primary mission should be to proclaim and embody the gospel in such a way that souls are being saved. I don't know why we need a church that is primarily (or only) a social/civic organization dressed up in spiritual language. And I am afraid that that is largely what we have become.
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 12:25 PM
11 Comments:
Yes Andrew. And it seems to me that the discomfort that many candidates (like myself) for probationary membership have when going in front of Boards of Ordained Ministry on these essential questions of New Birth, Justification, and Original Sin just serve to further illustrate your point.
What is salvation and why is it so rarely preached on explicitly in UM churches? Why speak of it so objectively when teaching confirmation, when those of us who are called into ordained ministry have experienced this salvation radically and it continues to serve as part of our witness to who we are and who we are called to be.
On advice by William Abraham, I've been outlining Wesley's sermons, finding the main themes, and re-writing them in my own voice with my own illustrations. Whenever the lectionary and the primary text of a Wesley Sermon intersect, I do a re-write. I did that with Sermon 45 "The New Birth" and it challenged both me and the congregation. I'm working on Sermon 3 by Charles Wesley,"Awake, Thou That Sleepest" for tomorrow. I think there's a hunger in many congregations for doctrinal preaching and a need for doctrinal study and focus on the part of the clergy.
Tdi, I think you are asking exactly the right questions. I wonder what effect it would have if we preachers all began preaching - unapologetically - the gospel of salvation? I hope this is something that our generation in ministry can begin to do together.
Stresspenguin, what a marvelous idea. When I am back in a church full-time, I think I will do the same thing. You are (or were) a student at Perkins I take it? I have had some good friends there in recent years.
I'm a current Perkins student; second year. I'm student pastoring in east Texas as well.
That's great. I was at Perkins in December for the John Wesley Fellows' Christmas Conference. It was very un-Dallas-like weather, but cold and rainy in Texas was nice for a change. And it is always nice to spend time in Perkins Chapel and the Bridwell Library.
My friends at Perkins are Jeff McCormick, Sarah (Luttrell) McCormick, and Jeanne (Larson) Williams. Sarah has graduated, and I believe Jeff and Jeanne will do so this May.
I know Jeanne. She and I were in the same interfaith dialog group in our world religions class last semester. I play racquetball with her husband Heath. I know that the Methodist connection makes for a small world, but it is particularly cool when these connections are made.
I almost made it out to your part of the world for seminary, but North Texas offered me an appointment where the NC conferences told me that I most likely wouldn't get one because I was from (and going back to) a different conference.
I do however, prefer the rolling hills of NC to flat ol' east Texas.
I've always attributed this lack of salvation preaching to our emphasis on Total Sanctification. When I look out on Sunday morning and see a congregation that has been sitting in the same pews for years, all but a few who have made a public commitment to Jesus Christ, I see people saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. What I don't see are a lot of people actively growing in their spiritual lives, finding ways to develop their relationship with God.
I read on a blog, can't remember where. Salvation is a free gift from God (maybe soft universalism) the way of the cross is difficult.
We were required to outline Wesley's sermons when I was in seminary (Asbury). I still find those outlines incredibly helpful.
It brings me great joy to know there are other younger UM pastors struggling with the same thing. I preached my last sermon at my current church yesterday and at one point said, "If you haven't heard me clearly and explicitly preach the whole gospel, let me do it now..."
Wesley often said, "I preach as never sure to preach again and as a dying man to dying men." I hope we'll never lose sight of the gracious beauty of the gospel in our preaching.
I received an e-mail from a reader of the Reporter column associated with this post. He comments on the danger of preaching self-help as a way to try and make the gospel 'relevant' to those who are lost.
With his permission, this reader wrote in part:
"The lost have such hardened consciences that they may not realize their need for salvation. In fact, they won't without the prevenient grace of God. However, they do know that they have marriage problems, money problems, etc. So preaching self-help from the scripture is a way of being relevant to 'seekers.' The problem is, of course, that we make them seekers of solutions instead of being agents of the Holy Spirit and His prevenient grace, that they may become seekers of the living God. In its worst form, this desire for relevance creates a 'things to better with Jesus' gospel. This is seductive because it is true that life is incredibly better when we know Jesus. However, if people seek Jesus to make their lives better instead of for the forgiveness and spirit filled, obedient life that makes it possible to know the living God, then they will have a very difficult time finding the narrow gate - and in preaching the use of Jesus for self-help we do very little to point the way."
I thought that was very well-put.
Matthew, Rebekah Miles is having us outline a few sermons of our own choice for our UM Doctrine class. That Wesley quote is golden; thanks for sharing it.
Andrew, in regard to the email, it reminds me of Wesley's emphasis in his sermons on true or real happiness that is attainable through the new birth and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
A few thoughts...
1) Salvation is the "bottom line" in most of Wesley's sermons.
2) We tend to assume that everyone in the pews have already heard the message of salvation.
3) We might explain the importance of personal salvation, but you seldom hear how salvation might be worked out in a community or family system.
4) Maybe we refrain from using terms like "saved" because they seem to "Baptist"
Grace,
Rick
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