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God Language: The Deeper Issue
Article by
Colette Volkema DeNooyer
Minister of Faith Development
and
Richard A. Rhem
Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Published in
Perspectives
A Journal of Reformed Thought
March 1993, pp. 18-21
A decade ago, in the early 1980s, Richard Rhem preached a sermon entitled “The
Gender of God: The Humanness of Jesus.” The message brought that day pointed
to the wonder of the incarnation being not that God had visited us in male flesh
but that God had “pitched a tent” in human flesh. Then in 1986, in this journal,
Rhem developed that theme further in an article entitled “The Accident of the
Incarnation” using accident in its philosophical sense of not belonging to the
essence of the matter. Never in the decade of the eighties was there a ripple of
consternation from the Christ Community congregation. That the incarnation
transcended human gender differentiation seemed apparent to all. That God was
not choosing maleness over against femaleness in this revelatory act appeared to
stand uncontested.
Then in the Epiphany season of 1992, we determined as a ministry team that the
community’s commonly held biblical-theological understanding should find
bolder and more obvious expression in both our worship experience and our
liturgical forms. We had been sensitive to sexist language—using masculine
pronouns less and less in prayers, sermons, and hymnody, publishing in bulletins
our intention to be an inclusive community. But on a fateful Sunday morning in
January we proposed that the community join us in addressing God as “Our
Mother/Father who art in heaven...” The reaction from a vocal few was
immediate and sharp. We had touched a nerve and discovered that many had not
truly understood the implications of our earlier theological conclusions.
We had been naive. A good friend, learning of the rumble we had caused and our
dismay, chided us gently for failing to see that a little tinkering with language was
© Grand Valley State University
�God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
hardly sufficient to get at the larger issue of male domination in the church,
reinforced perhaps by sexist language but hardly caused by it. He wrote,
True, we need to change our language. But I am not as hopeful as you
seem to be about language changes constructing a new social reality. An
emergent reality (a true novum) will forge its own language (as has always
happened, from the emergence of Christianity to Marxism), but I am not
sure, especially in our age when we play fast and loose with words, that a
reformation in language will bring a reformulation of social reality.
Rescripting the present “paradigm” merely relieves points of potential
rupture and allows the old story to continue.
He was alerting us to the painful reality that little real change happens until there
is a reduction to chaos. He cites Simone Weil who wrote of the necessity of
“decreation.” His final shot was a suggestion that we fully engage the issue, for it
might just be time for us all “to chaoticize, deconstruct, decreate.”
After such a cogent puncturing of our noble project we were forced to plunge
more deeply into the relationship of language and social reality. Our friend is
quite right; we are dealing with a paradigm shift of major proportion. In
Speaking the Christian God, Janet Martin Soskice cites Rosemary Radford
Ruether making the point sharply:
We cannot simply add the “mothering” to the “fathering” God, while
preserving the same hierarchical patterns of male activity and female
passivity. To vindicate the “feminine” in this form is merely to make God
the sanctioner of patriarchy in a new form. (“The Female Nature of God,”
Speaking the Christian God, 66)
Soskice adds,
Similarly, tinkering with the language of the liturgy, changing “he” to “he
and she,” may be a cosmetic change which, from the feminists’ point of
view, conceals a more profound and idolatrous teaching to pray to a male
God. (Speaking the Christian God, 86)
What this foray into language has revealed is the critical challenge that feminist
theology throws out to the classical Trinitarian and Christological creedal
formulations that came to expression in the philosophical language and
conceptuality of the first five centuries of church history. Such an expression was
a proper and necessary translation of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth
and the experience of the apostolic community, but it was a culturally
conditioned translation fully as much as any contemporary theological
formulation in the post-modem paradigm (e.g., liberation, black, or feminist
theology).
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Page 3
Hans Küng contends that, ironically, it was Karl Barth who inaugurated the postmodern paradigm that is so explicitly grounded in human experience (the
experience of suffering and oppression). Barth had turned sharply from
experience as the ground for knowledge of God. His particular target was
Schleiermacher, who grounded faith in God in the “feeling of absolute
dependence.” Barth found the Protestant liberalism of the nineteenth century so
in tune with European culture that there was no word of judgment or grace to
address to the social chaos in the aftermath of the First World War. In his
struggle to find a word for preaching, he wrestled with Paul’s “Letter to the
Romans.” He found there the God who is “Wholly Other.” His conviction about
the deceitfulness of human experience was confirmed when he witnessed his esteemed professors of theology sign on with Hitler’s National Socialism, the
movement that led to the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust.
His whole great theological project was posited on the conviction that only God
reveals God; knowledge of God is the gift of God effected by the miracle of the
Holy Spirit. Against Brunner he denied that there is anything in the human
person that provides a “point of contact” for divine revelation.
Such a radical position drew criticism. Bonhoeffer spoke of Barth’s theology as a
“house without doors.” There was no way to get in if one were not already in.
Bonhoeffer called it “Revelational Positivism.” Paradoxically, from the
perspective of the present it is evident that Barth’s theology did not arise apart
from his own personal, existential experience; it was precisely in reaction to that
experience that his theology took shape!
After Barth turned the tide of European theology in the first half of this century,
the pendulum began to swing back to the pole of experience. In the revision of his
Christian Faith (1985), Hendrikus Berkhof added one entirely new section—
paragraph ten—entitled “Revelation and Experience.” The place of experience
also played a considerable role in his Introduction to the Study of Dogmatics
(1982). He points to some theologians through the centuries who have a special
gift for sensing shifts taking place in a given culture and in human perception—
people like Augustine, Luther, Wesley, Barth, and Küng, who experience
existence very differently from previous generations. In such instances new
experience calls forth a new language of faith. In former times such prophetic
voices have been labeled heretical. But today there is a growing recognition and
acceptance of a plurality of faith formulations. For, as Berkhof writes, “someone
may be so driven by a series of experiences that his personal faith and theology
affect the very nerve of the tradition of faith.” He speaks of “ahead-of-the-pack”
thinking arising in recent decades from unexpected sources:
The unheard-of phenomenon of groups of believers, previously not at all
part of the dogmatic process, who began to intervene in it. Pacesetting
dogmaticians ... giving expression to the faith in a way that was hardly
recognizable to those who had learned to read the Bible from the
perspective of a very different set of experiences… In their best works they
© Grand Valley State University
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give evidence of new discoveries made in Scripture. To the “official” practitioners of dogmatics they pose the question of what unconscious
conditioning factors have had their distorting or inspiring effect on them.
(26)
We have come to recognize that it is not enough to refer to Scripture, the creedal
tradition, and the transconfessional dimensions of ecumenicity “as the funding
sources of dogmatics.” This becomes evident when these are held in common, yet
opposite experiences may make our respective interpretations of the gospel
mutually unintelligible.
This is, of course, the flash point of contemporary controversy. Berkhof raises the
question, “[I]s it our duty radically to exclude the factor of our life experiences?”
But he then further asks, “Who can jump over his own shadow?” Of course we
cannot. The call for contextual theology has simply made us aware of our own
contextuality—the fact that no theology arises out of a cultural vacuum devoid of
experience.
In reference to the claims of Third World theologians and First World feminist
theologians for whom experience is the key to theological understanding, Berkhof
contends,
We cannot cancel out their bewilderment by proclaiming: “Not what we
say is important but what the Scripture says” or the question is, “Who is
Christ himself?” All our central words such as “salvation,” “Christ,”
“Church,” and “Scripture,” have a much more contextual shape and focus
than we are aware of. (71-72)
Rosemary Radford Ruether in her seminal work, Sexism and God-Talk (1983),
asserts:
What have been called the objective sources of theology; scripture and
tradition are themselves codified collective human experience.
She further declares:
Human experience is the starting point and the ending point of the
hermeneutical circle. Codified tradition both reaches back to roots in
experience and is constantly renewed or discarded through the test of
experience. “Experience” includes experience of the divine, experience of
oneself, and experience of the community and the world, in an interacting
dialectic. Received symbols, formulas, and laws are either authenticated or
not through their ability to illuminate and interpret experience. Systems of
authority try to reverse this relation and make received symbols dictate
what can be experienced as well as the interpretation of that which is
experienced. In reality, the relation is the opposite. If a symbol does not
© Grand Valley State University
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speak authentically to experience, it becomes dead or must be altered to
provide a new meaning. (12-13)
What the feminists have uncovered is the sociology of theological knowledge
putting the lie to the claim that its ground is an objective, divine, and universal
authority apart from human experience.
Here, of course, we arrive at a watershed of understanding. With our present
knowledge of the development of dogma, our knowledge of that process in the
early centuries of creedal formulation with the intervention of emperors and the
political motivation of popes and patriarchs, one can hardly deny an historically
conditioned understanding of all theological formulation. In Theology for the
Third Millennium, Hans Küng reminds us that new prophetic traditions are not
born in a cultural vacuum. New paradigms, while incorporating the truth of the
old paradigm, break through with new revelatory insight. Then at some point in
the process this new insight comes under the control of leaders who
institutionalize the inaugurating vision. A series of criteria are imposed to
determine the correct interpretive line, and soon the new paradigm begins to
ossify.
If, however, present experience is sidelined or denied a place in the continued
development of theological understanding, those for whom the symbols no longer
illumine their experience of being human may well drop out, abandoning the
faith of their foremothers and forefathers. Janet Soskice asks, “Does the ‘father
God’ have a future?” She answers:
If Christianity has a future, then the answer is probably “yes.” But it would
be reasonable for a dispassionate student of religions to wonder whether
Christianity will survive the rapid changes taking place—around the world,
not just in the privileged West—in women’s self-understanding. In my
opinion, Christianity now faces a serious challenge, and one that addresses
core metaphors, narratives, and ideologies. ... It may be that Christianity
will not meet the challenge or will linger on as a pleasing anachronism
distant from the life of the cultures it inhabits. You may well think we are
watching yet another stage in the death throes of a dinosaur. (Speaking
the Christian God, 94)
Christian faith need not die unless we cling to symbols and forms that no longer
mediate the truth in compelling fashion, idolizing the medium and confusing it
for the message itself. In his journal, Morning Light, Jean Sulivan writes,
Your certitudes—are you so blind? What are they generally based on? The
failure to deepen your knowledge. We rush past questions in order to
avoid anxiety....
Some weep for the certitudes of the past. We must preserve, they say, this
or that which was beautiful and good. Perhaps that’s true, but those who
© Grand Valley State University
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complain like that are weeping for themselves. In the last analysis, we
shouldn’t weep but create. Gothic churches were built over Romanesque
structures, which were built over pagan fountains and temples. To create is
the only important thing, to rediscover the fervor that produced the thing
you’re weeping for. (123-24)
The legitimate place of experience in theological formulations given voice by
Küng, Berkhof, Ruether, and Sulivan among others seems to us beyond refute.
But refuted it is. An example is Speaking the Christian God, subtitle: “The Holy
Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism,” eighteen essays addressing the question
of the use of Father as a designation for God. Covering the spectrum from
moderate to strident, the necessity of the Father designation is defended as the
sine qua non of classical, Western, Trinitarian theology, indeed of Christian faith.
This is an excellent collection of essays for identifying that the stakes in the
feminist challenge run deeper than a superficial adjustment of pronouns. What is
maintained almost uniformly throughout from various perspectives—language
theory, worship, as well as creedal formulation—is that feminist claims must be
denied because they undercut cherished creedal paradigms as well as a
traditional orthodox reading of Scripture. Without the slightest apology or
concession for possible human fallibility, the opinions of Church Fathers and
early Christian councils are cited as pronouncements of eternal and divine truth.
Present experience of ecumenical councils, popes, bishops and church leaders
would seem to alert us to the ever-present political and personal agendas that dog
very human leaders. Our contemporary understanding of parliamentary
procedures and authorized committee reports should caution us that as Ernest
Campbell has noted, “There was a lot of good stuff left on the cutting room floor!”
Many of the writers in Speaking the Christian God seem to forget that the
distance of centuries removes us from the passionate conviction of the
opposition’s arguments as well as votes that at times were almost too close to call.
That is precisely the claim of Reuther. And her exegetical work is impressive. It is
remarkable that the appeal for preserving the Father designation in Christian
usage in Speaking the Christian God is replete with references to the writings of
the Church Fathers and the ecumenical councils but wrestles little with biblical
material. The defenders of the classic creedal formulations have not gone back far
enough! In absolutizing the formulations of the post-apostolic period when the
gospel moved out into a Hellenistic world, the writers in Speaking the Christian
God attribute an authority to those formulations that failed to recognize that
these were already translations of the revelatory events. These formulations
pulsated with passionate human experience in a cultural context that supplied
the linguistic and philosophical tools by which to bring that experience to
expression. But the experience of the post-apostolic age is hardly ours, and the
language and philosophical conceptuality are alien to us on the threshold of the
third millennium.
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Page 7
Stephen M. Smith in “Worldview, Language, and Radical Feminism: An
Evangelical Appraisal,” (one of the essays in Speaking the Christian God) writes
that we live in a time of massive cultural conflict. This conflict, he says, “is in
reality a clash of worldviews.” Right! And is it not about time? There was no
significant threat to the philosophical worldview within which the classic creedal
formulation came to expression until the eighteenth century. But consider what
has happened since. Not only have there been revolutionary breakthroughs in our
understanding of the physical universe, but even more significant for our present
focus, the rise of historical thinking has illumined the process of development of
human understanding.
Could it be that the classic paradigms, once the Spirit’s medium for the revealing
of the living God, must be dismantled to make room for a new paradigm that
takes up the truth of the old but makes space for the emergence of the new?
One theologian who is seeking to bring to expression a new understanding of God
in light of contemporary experience is Sallie McFague. She receives sharp
criticism from Smith for holding a monist world view, which she acknowledges,
but in the sense of panentheism, which The Oxford Dictionary of the Christum
Church defines as “the belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the
whole universe, so that every part of it exists in him, but (as against pantheism)
that his Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe.”
The issue must not be whether McFague challenges and undercuts the orthodox
world view, but whether or not her models of God are able to illumine more adequately our present human experience as she wrestles with the biblical story and
the revelation that was en-fleshed in Jesus. In her probings, McFague is engaged
in the very process that is the responsibility of every serious theologian—testing
the received tradition and bringing it to fresh expression. Otherwise dogmatics
becomes fundamentalist, the mere reiteration of formulations that illumined
yesterday’s experiences, and that is idolatry.
A much more sympathetic reading of McFague comes from James Fowler who
writes,
She ... makes clear that we require new metaphors if our faith is to enable
us to make sense of our contemporary experiences.... In our religious
language we are naming ourselves, one another, our world, and our
relatedness to God in terms from bygone times. Such anachronistic names,
helpful in earlier times, are distorting and hurtful now. (Weaving the New
Creation, 61)
Brian Wren, a minister in the Reformed Church of England is well known as a
writer of meaningful contemporary hymnody. In his book What Language Shall I
Borrow? he addresses the concerns and issues that motivated him to write such
hymns as “Bring Many Names,” in which he expands our language horizons by
referring to God as:
© Grand Valley State University
�God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
Strong mother God, working night and day,
Planning all the wonders of creation...
Warm father God, hugging every child,
feeling all the strains of human living...
Old aching God, grey with endless care,
calmly piercing evil’s new disguises...
Young, growing God, eager, on the move,
seeing all, and fretting at our blindness ...
Great, living God, never fully known,
joyful darkness far beyond our seeing ...
The poem that opens What Language Shall I Borrow? a poem written by Wren,
sums up his understanding that language can be one step in the process of freeing
ourselves from idolatrous attachment to earlier faith expressions.
The Main Question
If
every naming of God
is a borrowing from human experience,
And if
language slants and angles
our thinking and behavior;
And if
our society
makes qualities labeled “feminine”
inferior to qualities labeled “masculine,”
forming women and men
with identities steeped in those labelings,
in structures where men are still dominant
though shaken
and women still subordinate
though seeking emancipation...
Then it follows that
using only male language
(“he,” “king,” “father”)
to name and praise God
powerfully affects our encounter with God
and our thinking and behavior;
So that we must then ask
© Grand Valley State University
�God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
whether male dominance and female subordination
and seeking God only in male terms
are God’s intention
or human distortion and sin;
For if
these things are indeed
a deep distortion and sin,
So that
women and men are called to repent together
from domination and subordination,
Then how
can we name and praise God
in ways less idolatrous,
more freeing,
and more true
to the Triune God
and the direction of love
in the Anointed One, Jesus?
His prolific production of hymns for worship is his answer to “The Main
Question.” And that brings us back to where we began. The letter from our friend
is full of profound insight—a little cosmetic tinkering with the language of
worship is not enough. We have to do with a far more profound issue, indeed,
with the necessity of a whole new paradigm for our speaking of God. And that will
probably come about only through chaos and decreation. But in the meantime it
is not unimportant to watch our language as a sign that the Christian community
is honestly listening for the ways in which God may be coming to us through the
voices of experience.
References:
Henrikus Berkhof. Introduction to the Study of Dogmatics. Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1985.
Rosemary Radford Ruether. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist
Theology. Beacon Press, 0010 Anniversary edition, 1993.
Janet Martin Soskice, “The Female Nature of God” in Speaking the Christian
God: Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism. (Editor Alvin F. Kimel).
William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., first edition, 1992.
Brian Wren. What Language Shall I Borrow?: God-Talk in Worship: A Male
Response to Feminist Theology. First published 1989; Wipf & Stock Pub., 2009.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Hendrikus Berkhof, Introduction to the Study of Dogmatics, 1989, Rosemary R. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 1993, Janet M. Soskice in Speaking the Christian God, 1992, Brian Wren, What Language Shall I Borrow?, 2009
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God Language: The Deeper Issue
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Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought
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Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem
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Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 1, 1993 entitled "God Language: The Deeper Issue", it appeared in Perspectives, pp. 18-21. Tags: Nature of God, Creeds, Historical Thinking, Metaphors for God, Nature of Religious Development, Theological Paradigms. Scripture references: Hendrikus Berkhof, Introduction to the Study of Dogmatics, 1989, Rosemary R. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 1993, Janet M. Soskice in Speaking the Christian God, 1992, Brian Wren, What Language Shall I Borrow?, 2009.
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Creeds
Historical Thinking
Metaphors for God
Nature of God
Nature of Religious
Development
Theological Paradigms
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Christian Hope: Life Now and Forever
From the Eastertide series on the Apostles’ Creed: Credo
Text: Romans 8:34, 35, 39; John 14:18-19
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Eastertide, May 15, 1994
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"... Christ Jesus...at the right hand of God who indeed intercedes for us." Romans 8:34
"What will separate us from the love of Christ?" Romans 8:35
"[Nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God." Romans 8:39
"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you... because I live, you too shall live." John
14:18-19
Well, this is the last Sunday of Eastertide. Eastertide, beginning with the
celebration of Easter itself and extending really to the fiftieth day, which is
Pentecost, which is next Sunday.
Our focus this morning is on the consequence of the resurrection and the
development of a faith and the hope with which we live that, because he lives, we
too shall live. We see Jesus’ resurrection as a model. We believe that this is not all
there is, that the best is yet to be, on the basis of our faith that Jesus who died
was raised by the power of God. So today at the conclusion of the Eastertide
series, which has gone under the Latin word, Credo, the verb that takes its own
subject and is translated "I believe,” we consider the final section of the Apostles’
Creed: "I believe the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting".
I always find that one of the great times to affirm that line from the Apostles’
Creed is at the edge of an open grave. It gives me goose bumps when I stand at
the cemetery with those loved and lost a while. Together we unite our voices in
that strong affirmation which concludes with those words: " I believe in the
resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." Before the yawning, grasping
jaws of death, symbolized by that open grave, it is the right time for a Christian,
and a Christian community to make the grand affirmation -"nevertheless." We
bury our dead because our loved ones and we ourselves will die, really die. But to
© Grand Valley State University
�Christian Hope: Life Now and Forever
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
die in the wake of Easter is to be able to affirm over the grave, "I believe." "Credo,
I believe."
The Apostles’ Creed concludes there because when you have said that, you have
said it all. That is the conviction with which we live. That is Christian hope, that
we have life now and forever.
What kind of word can we use? How can we describe this reality that is beyond
our grasp, this final great mystery? We simply stammer and we say resurrection
of the body, life everlasting, eternal life, life here and now and forever, that is the
bottom line of our faith. It is the hope that inspires us, enabling us to live with
some measure of equanimity and serenity and to die with some measure of peace.
In the Apostles’ Creed that's where it concludes. But it concludes that way
because of what we had confessed earlier in that middle section of the creed
dealing with Jesus Christ, where we confessed that he was crucified, dead, buried,
descended into hell or into the realm of the dead, and on the third day, rose
again, ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the power of God,
from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. We confessed that
about Jesus Christ. And what we confess about our own destiny is posited on our
conviction of the experience of Jesus.
Now it may seem that the creed is almost trite in its statement when it says
crucified, dead, buried. It's like hammer blows. It's like, you know, saying it over
and over again. And I think in the Heidelberg Catechism, there is a question
about this statement. It asks, "Why does it say that he was buried?" And the
answer is that it might be demonstrated thereby that he was really dead. The fact
is that they found it necessary to confess that Jesus died.
There were those at the time the creed was formulated, and even before, who
were denying that very fact. There were those who didn't believe that Jesus came
into the full reality of our humanity, that Jesus was genuinely bone of our bone
and flesh of our flesh, that somehow or another, at some moment, the spirit must
have left, or the divine nature evacuated the body, or whatever. There were all
kinds of theories and speculation. But in the final statement of the Christian
creed, the most familiar affirmation of our creedal tradition, the Apostles’ Creed,
that just gets hammer blows.
Crucified, dead, buried, descended into the realm of the dead was the original
significance of that phrase. And then on the third day he arose so that the
resurrection of the dead is not somehow or another a soft peddling of death or it
is not some kind of an accommodation of death. It is a transformation beyond
death.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ did not happen in our space and time world. And
the creed was trying to say this life came to an end. This was really death. Jesus
died. Jesus was buried. The body of Jesus was placed in a tomb. Period.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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And Easter is a celebration. On the other side it is the affirmation of faith that
that which had ended in a very human way, the cessation of life had been
overcome by the power of God. To believe in the resurrection of Jesus is in no
way to short circuit the reality of the death of Jesus. That, I think, was what was
behind that creedal formulation that seems to bring the emphasis so strongly on
the death of Jesus. In our experience we too believe we live with hope on the basis
of our conviction about the destiny of Jesus Christ: that Jesus who really died is
alive.
Wasn't it about a year ago when I sent some of you out of here in fear and
trembling because I said that Jesus' bones, that were interred didn't all come
together like the bones in Ezekiel's vision, with the flesh and blood Jesus walking
out of the tomb. I wrongly assumed that we understood that the resurrection of
Jesus was not the resuscitation of a corpse. Remember that? I wrongly assumed
that we commonly understood that. Let me go back to that once again.
The flesh and blood of Jesus was as real as yours and mine, and that flesh and
blood that died, was buried. And it was not that flesh and blood that was called
forth by the power of God. The resurrection of Jesus was not like the raising of
Lazarus. The raising of Lazarus, in John's story of Jesus, is the supreme miracle,
the supreme sign. The raising of Lazarus is the sign that Jesus, present in the
midst of that community, was the Lord and giver of life. But when Lazarus was
called forth wrapped in his bandages, Lazarus had to die again. That was the
resuscitation of a corpse. Not so Jesus.
When Jesus was raised by the power of God, Jesus encountered people and they
were sure he was alive. But as the apostle Paul said, writing the earliest on this of
anyone, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Paul thought it was
all going to end very soon and so he also wrote, "We shall not all die but we shall
all be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye." When we talk about the
resurrection of the body we are talking about a transformation of this physical
reality that we know as body. When the creed said of us" I believe in the
resurrection of the body" it was trying to say something about a reality. It's not a
fantasy. It's not an illusion. The authentic person is called to life.
Now how do you say that? Well, the body seems so important to the definition of
our person, yet we know that we are more than the body. One of the beautiful old
men of this congregation– many years ago I went to see him and asked, "Fred,
how are you?" He said, "Well I'm fine, but this old house I'm living in isn't so
good any more." We can make that distinction and yet in the Christian and the
Hebrew tradition there was never a denigration of the body. The body was good.
It was part of the creation of God. The God who created all things had looked and
said it is "very good." So when the Christian community wanted to affirm the
reality of that which lies beyond death, it said resurrection of the body. We know
that the body we plant is not the body that will be that resurrection reality,
whatever that is.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Paul says it will be a spiritual body. What in the world is that? Paul didn't know,
and we don't know. But we believe it will be a reality that reflects the authentic
personality that is now living. At the end it is not death, in darkness, in
nothingness, but it is life and light in the presence of God. That's what the creed
means to say – resurrection of the body and life everlasting or life in the world to
come without end, however you want to say it. The bottom line of Christian hope
is that what is now, will be transcended by what will follow, that there is more,
that this is not all there is, and, what is more, it is the best that is yet to be. That is
the Christian conviction on the basis of the experience of Jesus. Easter faith was
the confirmation of the followers of Jesus that the end is not the grave. Dead,
buried, to be sure, but then, then, resurrection, life eternal, the Mystery of God,
whatever that is. We hadn't ought to try to be too clear in our definition of that.
I went back to check on what I had mentioned to you on Easter. I looked at last
Sunday's New York Times Book Review, the best seller list. Embraced By The
Light was the title of the Easter message, the story of Betty Eadie and her near
death experience. And I am not surprised to find that six weeks later Embraced
By The Light is still number one on the nonfiction list. It would be number one if
only this congregation was responsible for going out and buying that book. I see it
popping up all over. Embraced By The Light is a good title, but for my taste
Betty Eadie learns too much. She knows too much. She becomes too defining and
too definite about these things. So be it. It doesn't matter. That mystery is full of
light and life and that is the point.
It is that existential need of us all, I believe, that cries out for some basis in which
to place our feet and to set our hope. We long deep down to know that this is not
all there is. Oh, I've read some sophisticated statements and philosophical
treatises and some artful, creative treatments in novels and literature. There are
those in the modern age who speak about this as an illusion. Hans Küng in his
lectures, "Eternal Life," admits that there are those who say it is wishful thinking.
And we have really no defense against that charge. That's why it is "Credo,"
resurrection, everlasting life, "I believe." It is an affirmation of faith. We are
dealing with that which is beyond our ken and our knowledge. It is that which we
cling to, that which we affirm, that in which we set our hope because of our
conviction that Jesus who died and was buried was raised by the power of God,
and that beyond that impenetrable veil, which becomes but a moment of
transition and transformation, there is light and life in the presence of God.
That deep existential need in the human heart is witnessed to by the fact that in
our contemporary society these books are being bought up by the hundreds of
thousands. The question is there. Medical technology has put it in the news, Jack
Kevorkian and the whole euthanasia business, the possibilities presented by
medical technology. But beyond that, deep down in the human heart there is that
question. It faces me when I face that reality personally, or when I face it with one
whom I love. Then all the cool, sophisticated argumentation evaporates in a
moment. We are created for life and we need to know our labor is not in vain.
© Grand Valley State University
�Christian Hope: Life Now and Forever
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
And we need to know our love is not finally empty in the end. The Christian
community is a community that stands to say, I believe the resurrection of the
body, the life everlasting.
Two marvelous experiences have been in mind recently. Leon, if I had seen you
ahead of time I would have warned you. Lee Stille's mother died the week after
Easter. I was able to hold her hand, to see her smile, to give her the benediction,
and to promise her the best was yet to be in the week following Easter.
Unbeknownst to me it was within a day of her death, but that's not the point.
The point is that when we finally got out to the cemetery, I thought that the
cemetery crew had gotten it wrong. I thought we caught them with their
equipment down. There was the front end loader with a scoop of sand. Across the
street was that little putt putt machine that carries the top of the vault. There
wasn't any of that nice green carpet, you know, that's supposed to be grass that
masks the cold outlines of the grave. There was the cemetery assistant in his blue
jeans, his work clothes, and it looked as though the funeral procession had come
upon them before they were ready. But I proceeded with the committal service,
only to find out that this was all planned. Three shovels were nearby. Lee, his
sisters Sharon, and Donna took the shovels, bit into the sand in the front end
loader, and began to throw it on the vault after the casket had been lowered and
the vault sealed, all of that happening as we stood there. I can still see the vault
being covered with sand. I can still hear the earth falling on the vault. And then
the children were invited, the grandchildren were invited, the little great
grandchildren, Zinni's beautiful old parents taking not the shovel but just their
hands with the earthy handful of dirt and throwing it on the grave. As Christian
people there is no need to cover the grave with some kind of masking, some green
carpet that cuts away the cruel emptiness of the earth. There is no need to turn
from that to mask it, to make it cosmetically acceptable, aesthetically pleasing.
We can look into the grave. We can throw the dirt down there. It's over. It's
death. It's painful. It's loss.
Oh, it is so healing, so liberating to be able to stare death in the eye and not flinch
because all of that has been overcome and transformed by the power of God as
witnessed to in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We can deal
honestly, authentically with the reality of death and loss and pain in the sure and
certain hope of the resurrection. Dying is transformed in the face of this kind of
faith.
And now I come to bear witness to my dear Menno Klouw, who died a couple
weeks ago. Menno, who is so well loved in this community of faith, who cared
with such tenderness, gentleness for this facility for so many years. On the night
of his death I was privileged to be in his home. Menno had come home to die
without tubes and wires, in his own home, surrounded by his own loved ones.
Coming home to die, day by day, the end in sight. Friday night, his own dear
grandchildren were gathered round. Dear God, how better can you die than with
© Grand Valley State University
�Christian Hope: Life Now and Forever
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
your grandchildren there? The family gathered, death imminent. I took his hand.
I began to speak to him. He turned his head. I said, "Menno, squeeze my hand if
you hear me." And he squeezed my hand. I said, "Menno, it's all right. You're just
fine. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you
and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you
peace." And I kissed him and I left so deeply moved that there is beauty even in
the face of death, even in the midst of loss when it is surrounded by love,
saturated with compassion and experienced in the sure and certain hope of the
light that will dawn. Dear God.
Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. God
knows I believe.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6f595abe4353170f8100778dd4529224.mp3
338d27c54b1e90b26a0c4eccf87aad33
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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KII-01
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Event
Eastertide VII
Series
Credo: A Series For Eastertide
Scripture Text
Romans 8: 34, 35, 39, John 14: 18-19
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19940515
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1994-05-15
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Christian Hope: Life Now and Forever
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Text
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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 15, 1994 entitled "Christian Hope: Life Now and Forever", as part of the series "Credo: A Series For Eastertide", on the occasion of Eastertide VII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Romans 8: 34, 35, 39, John 14: 18-19.
Creeds
Eastertide
Hope
Life
Resurrection
-
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PDF Text
Text
My God…Why?
From the series: The Seven Words From the Cross
Text: Mark 15:34
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Lent IV, March 13, 1994
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"My
God,
my
God,
why
have
you
forsaken
me?
Mark
15:34
My God why? The fundamental central question of our human existence. And it is
the fourth word from the cross. Actually, for Mark and Matthew where it is
recorded, it is the only word from the cross. But when we combine the four
gospels, as we are doing during the Lenten season, then tradition has ordered
them in such fashion that it becomes the fourth word. Luke and John decided not
to use this word, although they had the tradition from which it was taken. Were
they somewhat frightened by the cry? Was it too strong? Was the darkness too
great? Would they soften the sharp reality of that cry which pierced the night
noontime? Whatever their reasons, at least from Mark and from Matthew these
words are recorded, "My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken me?"
During this Lenten journey we're taking a special angle on the traditional words
from the cross. We've noted that it's not as though there was a court reporter
down at the base of the cross recording words that came from the lips of Jesus,
but rather that the evangelists selected these particular words and placed them
on Jesus’ lips, in order to give us insight into their own particular understanding
of the meaning of Jesus' death.
These words are simply windows. From the respective evangelists these words
are the windows through which we can see how they understood what was
happening when Jesus died. And so what was Mark telling us by recording this
awful cry, "My God, why?" It is the primal scream that arises involuntarily from
the human heart in the midst of the cauldron of human suffering from time
immemorial. But the cry itself, the phrase, Jesus didn't invent, nor did Mark, for
it's a citation from Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is an anguished cry. It begins with those
words, "My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken me?" There are some who say
that what Mark is doing is reflecting the idea that Jesus was attempting to route
this Psalm. If you would read Psalm 22 to its conclusion, you would find that,
while it begins in deepest darkness and is a cry of human anguish, nonetheless, if
you follow through to the end, the light breaks through. At its conclusion there is
vindication and deliverance and praise to God.
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Richard A. Rhem
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There are interpreters who say that that's what Mark is telling us; but I can't
really accept that because, if that's what Mark is telling us, then those to whom he
wrote would have had to know that he was citing a Psalm, and there is no
indication that that would have been true. Most of Mark's listeners would not
have been well educated in the scripture readings. And his listeners would have
had to know how the Psalm ended, would have to really know the whole Psalm. If
you stop to think about it for a moment, if Mark's telling us that Jesus was
reciting a Psalm that ended in trust and vindication, then what he would be
conveying would be precisely the opposite of what he actually conveys with the
actual words he uses: "My God, My God, why?" That is a cry of dereliction, of
desolation, a shriek of horror, a wail in the darkness. That's what comes through.
That's the picture. No, I don't think it was simply the beginning of a long
recitation, I think it was borrowing the Psalm's opening cry of deepest anguish.
There is another very common, classic, traditional theological interpretation of
the cry as well. Some of you may remember the old communion liturgy that
speaks about Jesus on the cross bearing the wrath of God for us. That on the
cross, when he cried, "My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken me?" he was
forsaken of God that we might never be forsaken. Well, wherever you might go in
scripture in support of that idea, you will have to grant me that it's not in Mark.
That is a theological interpretation laid on the passage. It's not in the passage
itself. No, No, I think what we have here is one crying out a fundamental central
question of our human existence. In the extremity of human suffering, which
knows no explanation, the cry is, "My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken me?"
Mark is picturing for us Jesus in the most profound suffering, crying out at the
silence of heaven as his whole life in ministry is being contradicted. For it was not
simply death against which Jesus was railing but the fact that in his death,
everything for which he had lived seemed to be over. His strong proclamation of
the nearness of God in grace, of the open accessibility of God to all, excluding
none, of the presence of God in his presence at table fellowship, in his touch of
compassion for those who were sick, in his incarnation of that gracious Presence
of God whom he addressed in the intimacy of "Abba," the address that a child
would use for a loving and trusted parent. Such intimacy had characterized his
whole life. Even in the garden, even when three times over he prays, if it be thy
will let this cup pass from me, even there it's "Abba." But not now, not here. Here
it's "Eloi." Here it's God. The intimate communion is broken you see. He is
abandoned. Heaven is silent. He is in utter despair.
And he raises the question. Thank God he raises the question. A primal scream
from the depths. It is an involuntary exclamation. Thank God Mark tells us that
Jesus said, "My God, Why?" because that legitimizes the question you see. That
means that there is human experience for which there is nothing to say but
"Why?" Not an intellectual question looking for an answer, but the cry of a
breaking heart looking for succor: "My God, Why?" That is a valid human
experience. The bible tells us so. Jesus tells us so.
© Grand Valley State University
�My God…Why?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
That cry has become more poignant to me this Lent than ever before because my
friend Arie Brouwer died in October. You know Arie Brouwer. He's been in this
congregation. As Executive Secretary of the Reformed Church, he dedicated this
sanctuary in 1978. He preached for us a couple of years ago. He was a classmate
of mine, a colleague in ministry over many years. Moving from The Reformed
Church to The World Council of Churches in Geneva to the National Council of
Churches of Christ in this country, he was a born leader, a significant churchman,
a believing Christian servant of Christ.
In December of 1992, cancer was discovered. In October of 1993 he died. And a
year ago during Lent he preached on the seven words from the cross. He tells a
story in one of his sermons about coming from New York and a hospital
examination after surgery where his son Steven asked, "Dad, you mentioned
living by faith, what does that mean?" And he said, "Well Steve, I've had a love
affair with God all my life, and I'm not going to let cancer come between God and
me." And Steve said, "You and Mom have given your whole lives to the ministry
of the church and to the kingdom of God. This seems like a strange way to repay
you." And then Arie heard himself saying to his son, "Steve, I don't think that God
wants me to have cancer. But I don't think God can do anything about it." And he
said, "I know that that challenges something I've always believed about the
almightiness of God, but I've been so busy with survival issues that I haven't been
able to think about it. But I am going to think about it, and I can hardly wait until
I preach on the fourth word from the cross."
And when he preached that sermon in Glenrock Community Church in New
Jersey just a year ago you could tell that he could hardly wait to get to the sermon
because it had become his own existential quest, his wrestling in the dark in the
midst of cancer, struggling with his question, "My God, My God, why?" He tells
how he picked up the book by Rabbi Kushner. If you were here twelve years ago
during Passion week, holy week, I treated When Bad Things Happen To Good
People. Rabbi Kushner had lost a child and had gone through deep personal
tragedy. Arie found himself coming to the same conclusion that Rabbi Kushner
had come to: God is good. God is full of love but God cannot change this
situation. The almightiness of God. Because Kushner had said, in classic logic, "If
God is almighty, and will not change it, God cannot be good. If God is good and
would change it but cannot, then I have to rethink who God is."
In the midst of his cancer struggle this was the process through which my friend
Arie was also struggling. He went to the Bible. He found out that almightiness is
spoken of God ten times in the New Testament but nine of them appear in the
book of Revelation. And the book of Revelation, as you know, is a book about the
end time, the end of history. It confirmed Arie's conviction, as he wrestled with
his question in a very personal way, that God's love and light will ultimately
triumph, but that in the meantime there is no tinkering with the process of
history. Whether it be God's self-limitations or however you want to explain it.
And as he saw Jesus saying, "Why?" in the darkness, with the heavens sealed, his
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�My God…Why?
Richard A. Rhem
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own experience was illuminated. And he was convinced that he must change his
understanding of God in order to have God, that Loving Presence, with him in the
darkness.
I almost hesitated to preach on this word having heard my friend speak out of the
anguish of his own dark night. It made me realize how facile is so much pulpit
work. So much prattle. It is one thing to talk about the will of God and about the
mystery of human suffering when one is healthy and all is well. It is another thing
to speak out of the fiery furnace. As I reflected on the experience of my friend, I
recognized the value of a Christian formation and the danger of it, and the
inadequacy of it. Oh, a Christian formation is valuable. When cancer struck and
Arie faced his mortality, he had a tradition to which to turn. He was steeped in it.
He had been taught from a child. He had lived in the faith, in the church, in the
community of God's people. He had a tradition of faith to which to turn, to test, to
plumb. Obviously, we need to tell our children. Obviously we need to nurture our
adolescents, giving them a place to stand, a compass for their lives. Obviously we
all need a reason for the hope that is within us. We need to be able to speak of the
things we believe and the things by which we live and for which we live. There is
value in that.
What a precious gift to be deeply steeped in a strong tradition of faith. But there
is a danger too. The danger is that my understanding of the faith will be, in my
mind, identical with the God to whom it points. The danger of a strong
traditioning in the faith is that I will see my faith understanding as the absolute
truth, rather than a relative grasp of something that is far beyond my grasp. The
danger of a strong Christian tradition is that I will come to a moment, as Arie
came, when I am face to face with an idea, a conception that no longer works.
Then if I have identified my idea of God with God, as though the two were
absolutely identical, then if my idea crashes, my God crashes. If I have failed to
recognize that all of my catechisms and creeds and confessions are stammering,
stumbling, human attempts to express what is beyond expression, to apprehend
what is incomprehensible, if I don't know that my best wisdom and insight is a
partial piece of a larger puzzle, then, when I come into the crunch and it doesn't
work, I will be afraid not simply that my formulation needs reworking, but that
my God is gone.
Arie went through that experience. He told how, throughout all of his ministry
he'd thought about these things, as we all do. And he had tried to rationalize the
problem by making a distinction between the prescriptive will of God and the
permissive will of God. Now it's a neat scheme. The prescriptive will of God says
these are the things God wills, and the permissive will of God is about the things
that God does not will but allows. That can work in some situations. He tells,
however, that shortly before preaching that sermon a year ago he saw Billy
Graham interviewed by David Frost. Arie knew Billy Graham and respected him.
He had crossed paths with him many times. David Frost was pressing Billy
Graham. He said to him, "What do you say to a parent whose child has born
© Grand Valley State University
�My God…Why?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
severely handicapped, or what do you say about your own Parkinson's disease?"
And Arie heard Billy Graham give this distinction between the things that God
wills and the things that God allows, adding, "When I see God, I'll have a lot of
questions." With great passion Arie reacted, "Billy it just won't do! If you tell me
you've got good news from God about all kinds of lesser things but when it comes
right down to the center of my existence you have no news, it just won't do. It
won't do for me anymore because it won't do anymore for those who love me."
Fortunately, Arie was one who was open and growing and who could look his
faith formulations in the face and say, "that won't work anymore. I've got to break
through that and move beyond that." Fortunately, he was one who had learned
the truth of the poet who penned these words: "Our little systems have their day,
they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of thee, and thou,
Oh Lord, are more than they." But unless one is open and growing, strong faith
formation can be dangerous when you get in the crunch. The finest gift I could
give you would be if you hear me, if you could learn from me, if you could receive
from me, that you ought to trust God with all your heart, and hold all of your
convictions lightly. But an inherited faith, valuable though it is and dangerous
though it can become, is finally inadequate. If I have only that which has been
given to me, if I have a system of faith, a creedal confessional background,
assumptions untested, simply absorbed, they'll not do it for me in the darkness.
Finally, one must own one's own faith convictions, and that will not come apart
from concrete human experience. If I have a set of truths that I have to impress
upon my experience in order that I may understand my experience, I'm in deep
trouble. It is rather out of an honest living of my experience that I come to reflect
on the tradition that has been given to me and then make it my own through
reformulation and new insight. Secondhand faith will not do it for you in a crisis.
Somebody else's convictions and conclusions will not allow you to float in the
storm.
Finally, I must believe what I really believe. I like Mark's gospel. I'm grateful that
Mark brought Jesus to his last breath with no shout of triumph, no light breaking
through, just simply the awful question, "My God, why?" because that's honest.
That's the way it is all too often, for all too many. But if that's Jesus last word in
Mark's portrayal, it's not God's last word. For following Good Friday dawned
Easter Sunday.
I mentioned Arie’s funeral in December during Advent. He had become
fascinated with Greek Orthodox liturgy and the music of worship of the Eastern
Rite. And the funeral service began with a long prelude of entrance music and
then the service ensued. The point at which we would come to the committal
service, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, there was once again the entrance music. I
thought perhaps it was a mistake until I realized that the first entrance music was
the entrance into the presence of God in worship, and the second entrance music
pointed to the entrance of my brother into light eternal. As the congregation was
© Grand Valley State University
�My God…Why?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
acknowledging dust to dust, God was saying, "Good and faithful servant, enter
into the joy of your Lord.” No easy solution this side of the final breath. But there
is light beyond, thank God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fa6fd6b910172cc5eba98f79eb69613e.mp3
4ab11f0a86c446faf4c7651bd03d01d2
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Lent IV
Series
The Seven Last Words of Christ
Scripture Text
Mark 15:34
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19940313
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1994-03-13
Title
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My God, ...Why?
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Text
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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 13, 1994 entitled "My God, ...Why?", as part of the series "The Seven Last Words of Christ", on the occasion of Lent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Mark 15:34.
Creeds
Lent
Nature of God
Reimagining the Faith
Trust
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1223610e5d2c58061a324a8c59259dfa.mp3
8bd64f4ab7f8f434d4eb309f8a6c5ae2
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/12ab3716818658641056afca62ceee92.pdf
788283e70bfb9f4a773724c65de742ef
PDF Text
Text
The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Text: Acts 6: 5, 8
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
June 30, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
The Church lives in a tension. It is always caught in the dilemma of having to find
the forms and structures that will enable it to execute its mission to the world and
having to remain open and flexible so that those very forms and structures do not
bind the Spirit and paralyze the mission. The Church will inevitably develop
tradition and must continually struggle free from that tradition in order to get on
with the mission.
Perhaps I should use traditionalism rather than tradition, for actually tradition is
a positive factor in the life of the Church. There is a living tradition - the ongoing
moving of the Faith embodied in the community of faith. Someone has said
tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the
living. Tradition rightly understood is a living, growing movement always being
expanded, modified, enlarged in the light of experience, the experience of being
in mission.
But tradition can so easily become traditionalism. Then movement ceases and the
mission is paralyzed. Thus the Church must be always vigilant, self-critical,
humble before her Lord, ready to learn new truths, gain new insight and design
new structures that will enable her in every age to be God's agent of reconciliation
in the world.
We cannot learn all we need to know about the form of the Church or the
translation of the Gospel from the New Testament. We do have, however, in Acts
and the Epistles some principles and models that can help us to find our way in
our day. Let me use the early experience of the Church - the experience clustered
around Stephen - out of which to make these very significant statements about
the Church. These principles have been lived out in our past; they must remain
our charter of freedom for the future as we seek to be God’s people – the
instrument of His purpose and grace in our day.
I want to say a word about Church structure, about Church growth, and about
theological understanding.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
My points are simple:
The form of the Church must flow from the function of the Church.
The growth of the Church must result from the care of the Church.
The theology of the Church must be shaped by the experience of the
Church.
Form follows function. Growth rises from care. Knowledge is shaped by
experience.
First of all, from the story of Stephen we can see that structure flows out of
mission; form follows function.
You know the story. That beautiful community that took shape in the wake of
Pentecost was a community of spontaneous sharing where no one considered his
possessions his own but all shared their possessions so that none were in need. It
was the true community of the Spirit and it was a beautiful sign of the presence of
the Kingdom, but it did not last long. Soon the harmony was shattered. The
Hellenist group - those who spoke Greek - complained that their widows were
discriminated against in the distribution of food. The Apostles, deeply involved in
the proclamation of the Gospel, saw the need of others to take responsibility for
the physical needs of the community and they appointed seven whose names are
listed in the sixth chapter of Acts, one of whom was Stephen. Although the name
Deacon is not used we have generally seen that appointment as initiating the
office of Deacon. However these seven were viewed, Stephen at least did not serve
at table very long because soon we find him a powerful, persuasive preacher of
the Gospel.
But let me underscore the point I am trying to make - the Apostles met a specific
crisis, a concrete historical situation with an improvisation of structure. Now, to
be sure, there was as yet no set structure. In fact, from the New Testament it is
impossible to derive a structure for the Church. Whatever form of Church
structure may be followed - Episcopal as in the Roman Church, or
Congregational, or Presbyterian as in Reformed Churches, all can find data in the
New Testament but no one system of polity arises as we have developed them in
our structure.
Indeed Edward Schillebeeckx, the Dutch Catholic New Testament scholar, has
published a book entitled, Ministry, in which he demonstrates beyond question
that the Early Church in the first centuries after Christ had a fluid form of
structure and government - a book by which he has not endeared himself with the
Vatican.
This should put us on notice that the forms and structures of the Church are
negotiable and that a constantly changing historical milieu in which we minister
will call for changing structures. Structures are negotiable. Jesus Christ remains
the same. Form must follow function.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
This may seem obvious enough. Yet how often do we not get bogged down in
structural questions? We tend to absolutize forms that arose in a given situation
to meet a specific need, freezing that form forever as though to change the
structure would compromise the Gospel.
Paul says, "Where the Spirit is there is freedom." The Spirit directed the mission
of that Early Christian community, improvising forms into order to enable the
community to function. We must live in that same freedom, determining how
best to structure our life in order most effectively to get the Gospel out.
The structure of the Church must flow out of the mission of the Church. My
mentor, Professor Hendrikus Berkhof of the Netherlands, writes in his book
Christian Faith in the chapter on the Church that the Book of Church Order must
be done in loose-leaf today. The implications of that are far-reaching. If only we
would remember that when classes and Synods convene we would save ourselves
so much energy. We would avoid painful debate and endless discussion and we
would be able to get on with the task. Otherwise we are simply playing Church
and we are no good to God or the world.
II. There is a second learning from this story that can aid us in getting the right
perspective on our calling as the People of God. It is this: Growth is the
consequence of community, a caring community.
Certainly there was strong proclamation of the Gospel in those Apostolic days
and my claim here in no way is meant to detract from that powerful proclamation
of the Lordship of Christ. But from the window Luke gives us on the life of that
early community we can see that it was indeed a community that the Spirit
created. The description of the life of the community in the second chapter is a
marvelous picture of a caring community, where no one was left out, no one's
needs neglected and where the wellbeing of the whole community was the
deepest concern of all its members.
Barnabas’ action is a case in point. He sold his estate and brought the money to
the Apostles. In that paragraph in the fourth chapter, we read,
There was not a needy person among them....
Again we read,
... The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no
one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they
had everything in common.
Stephen and six others were appointed to see that the physical needs of the
members of the community were met. The early Church was characterized by
caring and that community life was so attractive that it drew thousands in those
exciting days following Pentecost.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
There is a great deal of talk about Church Growth in our day. At Pasadena,
California, there is an Institute on Church Growth and from that center other
leaders of the Church Growth movement have spun off. And, of course, who could
or would desire to argue against Church Growth. The great Commission still
stands and we are called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ bringing the message of
His grace to the whole world including our own neighborhoods. Yet I sense
sometimes that we get interested in Church Growth out of desperation. We see
the statistics. We know if we do not turn things around many congregations will
continue to wither and die. And so we decide to grow.
Now it is true that a church must decide to grow and without that intentionality it
is not likely that much will happen. Yet to aim at growth for growth’s sake is to
commit a fatal error. Let me suggest that we must commit ourselves to be the
People of God, a caring community reaching out in Jesus’ name to share the
compassion of God, ministering His grace with no question asked. We are called
to give our life away – literally to die that new life may spring forth.
Church growth as I find it practiced today smacks too much of institutionalism,
the preservation and perpetuation of our institutions. We get trapped into
thinking that it is the institution - be it the denomination or our local
congregation - that we must preserve when what God is asking is for a people
willing to die to pride of tradition and denomination and congregational security
and invest our lives in caring for the world.
We get so turned in on ourselves and begin to feel that in our church we are ends
in ourselves, forgetting that we are blessed of God to be a blessing to the world.
Let me suggest that the Christian Church would do well to forget its heavy focus
on evangelism and learn to love the world. We must concentrate on making our
congregational life reflect the quality of the Spirit of Jesus. When we become a
caring community the bruised and bleeding will come in seeking refuge, healing
and grace.
Harvie Conn, a professor of Mission at Westminster Theological Seminary, was
the Pre-Synod Festival speaker at Kalamazoo this year. He had spent some years
in Korea as a missionary before becoming a teacher. He told of the first year of
language study which was so frustrating because he wanted to get on with the
work but first he must master the language. After nearly a year when he was still
very insecure in the language, he could not stand it any longer. He packed a bag
and took a train to a Korean city where there was an army base. As he arrived he
walked by the base entrance where the prostitutes were lined up. A Korean came
up to him and asked if he were a Christian. He said yes and the Korean invited
him to his home. He was a Christian pastor and opened his home to him. He was
served a plate of uncooked, beaten rice for supper and then when it came time to
retire, he learned he was to sleep with the pastor’s father, an old man who had
asked him many questions. The family lived in very small quarters and he found
that Grampa’s bedroom was really a small space between two buildings with
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
walls improvised to keep out the wind. Grampa had one blanket and Harvie
simply got under the blanket with Grampa, sleeping on the ground.
Two years later he received a letter from the pastor asking him to come to the
village to baptize his father. He explained that his father had not been a believer.
When Harvie ate the simple meal with the family and spent the night in those
primitive circumstances without complaint, Grampa was impressed. He came to
believe and now wanted to be baptized by Harvie. It was not the answers he gave
in broken Korean, but the genuineness of his life, his love that penetrated the
heart of that old man.
It was the same thing with two prostitutes with whom he shared a meal. He
learned a few years later that they had become Christians because for the first
time in their lives a Christian had treated them like human beings.
It is when God’s love becomes concrete in the love with which we touch another
that one becomes open to grace. If only we could genuinely love the world, God
would handle the rest and the result would be a growing Church. Growth flows
out of care.
III. The third learning I would share from this passage is that knowledge of God
flows from experience of God. This is a word about our theology - the articulation
of what we believe about God and His revelation of Himself to us in the New
Testament.
God revealed Himself in Jesus:
... if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.
That revelation in Jesus finds expression in the New Testament.
The New Testament along with God’s revelation in Israel’s history is our
Scripture and is the authoritative record in which we hear the Word of God, the
witness inspired by the Spirit and the instrument the Spirit uses to reveal God to
us today. From the Scripture the Church draws its knowledge of the Faith and, as
that Scriptural knowledge mixes with our present experience, we seek to translate
the Gospel for our day.
The point I am seeking to make here is that there must be an ongoing encounter
with the witness of the Scripture and the contemporary culture in order that the
Gospel of God’s grace may come to expression in every age and generation in
meaningful fashion.
The Church historically has erred on two counts:
The failure of orthodoxy has been to take the biblical record and absolutize it in
every aspect - not only its witness to God’s grace and that salvation that appeared
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
in Jesus, but also the shape and form of that revelation - that is, the historical
accoutrements of that revelation. The result has been the freezing of the Word of
God in the thought forms and world and life view of the first century.
The failure of classical Liberalism has been to fail to take seriously the biblical
record as an authoritative norm by which every new expression of the Gospel
must be judged, and to determine the "truth" only through analysis of the
contemporary world with its "modern" understanding.
There are two poles of knowledge by which our expression of the Gospel must be
shaped - the biblical record and the contemporary scene. Both are important. It is
meaningless to convey biblical knowledge with no attempt to translate that
knowledge in terms of what we have learned in the explosion of knowledge in the
modern world. It is equally meaningless to master the latest of scientific
knowledge and cultural wisdom and fail to bring it into confrontation with the
biblical word.
The proclamation of the Gospel in every age must be a translation of the event of
Jesus in the idiom of the day, which is the result of hearing the Gospel and
possessing the best wisdom of the age. We must read the Bible and read the
world. We must hear the witness of Scripture and be sensitive to the questions
and insights of our age.
Let me illustrate this from the experience of the Apostolic Church. Think for a
moment of what radical revolution the understanding of the Apostles had to
undergo to realize that God was in Jesus reconciling the world to Himself.
It took a vision on the Damascus Road to break through to Paul. His fierce
persecution of the followers of Jesus was his effort to stamp out a dangerous
heresy. It was carried out in the name of the God of Israel.
Peter did not understand that God’s grace was for all people, Jews and Gentiles,
until the housetop vision and the experience at Cornelius’ house, where he
experienced the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit just as had the Disciples on
Pentecost.
Look at the Scripture lesson – Stephen’s great witness that brought him to
martyrdom.
But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, and gazing intently up to heaven,
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand. "Look, he
said, there is a rift in the sky; I can see the Son of Man standing at God's
right hand!” Acts 7:i>5-56
What a moving spectacle that must have been. Stephen, about to be the first
martyr for Jesus because he had been the first to see and understand deeply all
that had been accomplished in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection – because,
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
therefore, he was the first eloquent witness - and witness and martyr are the
same word in Greek - Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at God’s right hand and he cried to all present, oblivious to
the hostility and violence breeding in their breasts –
There is a rift in the sky! I can see…!
And there you have it; all the ingredients that eventuated in the historic Church’s
confession that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are One
God, blessed forever.
The Risen Lord has promised He would not leave His own alone but would come
to them and He did. On the day of Pentecost those gathered in the Upper Room
knew a power and a Presence that overwhelmed them with the conviction that
God was in their midst, that the Spirit of Jesus was with them, that the Spirit of
Jesus or the Spirit of God was one Spirit and suddenly it all became clear; they
began to comprehend what God had been doing in and through His Servant
Jesus.
It took a long time for the Church to be able to articulate that experience –
centuries, in fact. The need to give expression to experience was obvious, for they
were called to be witnesses to the world, but that was not so simple, for how does
one express the inexpressible?
The Christian mission advanced through the Hellenistic world shaped by Greek
language and Greek thought forms. Greek philosophy was the highest expression
of human reflection on life’s ultimate issues. Christian apologists borrowed the
language and the philosophical concepts and did their best to say,
God has visited this world.
God revealed Himself in Jesus.
The Spirit of God is with us, dwelling in us.
After centuries of struggle to articulate the experience of the Apostolic
community and the ongoing experience of the Church, creedal formulations were
advanced - the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian formula - with which the
Church has lived all these centuries. My point is that creeds derive from
experience and those first Apostles had to do some radical revising of their
theological understanding in the light of what confronted them in Jesus, his cross
and resurrection and the baptism of the Spirit.
To be sure, God’s dramatic intervention in our history was in Jesus. What
happened in Jesus became normative for every subsequent age. But history is
dynamic, history is movement and we continue to gain knowledge and
understanding of our world, of history, of ourselves. All of that must be
understood in the light of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ must be proclaimed in
the light of that knowledge .
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
Jesus Christ is the answer. That is true for every age. But what is the question?
The question that moves the human heart will be variously formulated in every
age and it is the task of the Church to listen for the questions and then speak to
the questions the Gospel in ever-new translation. Therefore, theological
understanding will be dynamic, just as history is dynamic. Theology is derived
from two poles - one rooted in a concrete history, the history of Israel and Jesus,
one moving with each new age and generation.
Theology must be the expression of God’s grace and salvation in Jesus in terms of
contemporary culture in order that the timeless Gospel may come to timely
expression.
Knowledge of God and experience of God are reciprocal. The knowledge in which
we are nurtured prepares us for the experience of God in our life situation and
out of the experience of God in concrete living our knowledge is reshaped and
translated anew.
Thus we do not have the knowledge of God expressed in creeds once for all with
the last word spoken. We have the knowledge of God revealed in Jesus coming to
ever-new expression in every new historical context. It is thus that Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday, today and forever.
Stephen’s death was an eloquent witness to the insight of faith he had received.
He died as Jesus died. He was filled with the Holy Spirit; he saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.
Stephen saw a "rift in the sky;" he was given a vision of God. The reality of his
faith and knowledge was demonstrated in the manner of his death. In the midst
of a violent crowd with murderous intent he gazed into heaven. They stoned him
but he, falling to his knees, prayed,
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
With that, he "fell asleep." Is that not a remarkable description of the manner of
death of one being stoned by an angry crowd? And is not the truest test of one’s
knowledge and faith the way one lives and dies?
What a dynamic movement the Church was in those days. A handful of convinced
and committed disciples turned the world upside down. The Cross conquered the
mighty Empire of Rome.
It could happen again if we stopped arguing about structure and got on with the
mission; stopped worrying about bringing everyone into line with our faith
formulas and simply loved the world; stopped debating doctrinal points that
divide and allowed the Gospel to come to ever-new expression.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
If, in a word, we could move from tradition to mission, we might become again a
fruitful instrument in the Master’s hand for the salvation of the world and the
triumph of the Kingdom of God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost V
Scripture Text
Acts 6: 5, 8
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-19850630
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1985-06-30
Title
A name given to the resource
The Church: From Tradition to Mission
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 30, 1985 entitled "The Church: From Tradition to Mission", on the occasion of Pentecost V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 6: 5, 8.
Community of Faith
Creeds
Followers of Jesus
Grace
Mission
Nature of Theology
Non-exclusive
Pluralism
Stephen
Traditionalsim