Old WebWeaver Wisdom

Reflections from your WebWeaver

A truly great theologian reminds us of how we need hope and faith and love.

by Doug King
June 15, 2000

President Bill Clinton came to Minnesota last weekend to speak at the commencement of Carleton College in Northfield. The visit was duly reported on the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. While the visit obviously meant a great deal to the college the graduates, Clinton said nothing really new or surprising.

But Eric Black, a staff writer for the paper, notes in a column today that perhaps the most notable words of the day came not from Bill Clinton, but from "an eloquent, but dead" theologian -- Reinhold Niebuhr. College Chaplain Carolyn Fure-Slocum read these words from Niebuhr's 1952 book, The Irony of American History:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final favor of love, which is forgiveness.

It is hard for all of us to keep perspective as we plunge into the concerns and contests of our General Assembly. These words from a man whom the journalist calls "a formerly famous theologian" may help.

Threads for GA: Grace and Truth

The Editor's Spot
in the Spring 2000 issue of
Network News

by Doug King

Packing for GA is always a problem: What will the weather be like? How well will the air conditioning work? (Sometimes too well!) How can you keep decently clad for a long eight or ten days of sitting?

Your Editor has sought diligently the best advice on GA styles. Being clad in the whole armor of God seems biblical enough, but we would hope our gathering might be a little less warlike than that metaphor suggests. So ... what kind of "threads" might work? Here are some thoughts:

Woven through this special pre-Assembly issue of Network News are the usual signs of the tensions in our church: protests against the continuing attacks on women’s programs; overtures to affirm our church’s stance of welcome toward all people; other overtures to strengthen the barriers against gay and lesbian people, or against any people who fail to fit some standard of orthodoxy or of supposedly "Christian" behavior; differences about whether to face our differences head-on, or to postpone yet again the decisive action called for by many.

Surely all of us are weary of those struggles, yet no one seems to offer any new and hopeful way through the mess. What clothes should we wear to such a gathering?

Into this tangle comes the letter from Barbara Dua, who has served until recently as Associate Director of the Women’s Ministries Program Area. (See page 17 for her letter.) She raises important questions, not just about recent actions of the General Assembly Council’s executive committee, but also about our church’s dealings over the past decade with its women’s programs and those who have staffed them.

Ms. Dua closes her letter with a phrase which, in all its biblical echoes, offers us a way to think about and deal with the many tensions that confront us. Her closing "blessing" is simply this: "Grace and peace, as together we seek the Truth that sets us free." Now there’s a suit of clothes fit for the Assembly!

Grace is the first word of blessing, as it is so often in Paul’s letters. Not Law, not purity, but Grace is the core of our faith and life and hope. The Reformed tradition has always valued the Law, and has found security and strength in rules — but only as guides, never as a means of assuring salvation or divine favor.

And peace ... not some kind of non-hostility achieved by avoiding differences, but the peace which comes as a gift beyond our capacities. Yet the peace which God offers is always a task as well as a gift ... a holy calling to those who would follow Jesus, "who is our peace." This peace is won not when one side gains victory over the other, but when all sides recognize the smallness of their "holy causes," and accept their opponents/antagonists as equally loved by God.

Seeking together is something many of us are reluctant to do, when we all prefer to believe that we have some kind of lock on goodness or truth or beauty — or all of them. Yet our tradition teaches us that we are always seekers, pilgrims on a life-long journey, people of the Way and not of the Right Place.

The truth is what we seek; it’s not our possession. The deepest wisdom of the Reformers is found in their recognition that God alone is True and Holy. That affirmation reminds us over and over again, in spite of all our human tendencies to the contrary, that Truth is not an intellectual battery of doctrines, but a quality of life — righteousness, if you will — lived in harmony with God, with our neighbors, and with all of creation.

And finally, this never-ending seeking for Truth will set us free. This divine truth (call it righteousness, call it harmony!) frees us from fear — fear of people who are different, fear of the uncertainties and ambiguities of life. This truth frees us for love — for a love that welcomes the other, that rejoices in the diversities and the ambiguities of human life, that grows through the confusions and the messiness of our world.

Grace and peace, seeking the truth. Why not slip that into your carry-on bag for GA?

As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:12-15