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Text
A Declaration of Inter-dependence
Text: Psalm 33:16-17; Romans 12:21; Matthew 5:44
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Independence Day Weekend, July 5, 1998
Transcription of the spoken sermon
We celebrate 222 years of existence as a nation, born as an experiment in human
freedom, a nation in which the government was of, for and by the people. The
ideal of our founders was a magnificent vision worthy to be celebrated in public
festivals and to be reflected on in Divine worship because, while the early framers
of our founding documents were not evangelical Christians as is loudly claimed in
some quarters today, their vision was grounded in the biblical vision of
humankind created by God, not only the ground of all reality but the source and
enlivening presence of all life, including human life - a Creator Who is the
guarantor of human dignity and freedom.
Our founding vision was a radical experiment, to be understood in the
background of the European origin of the nation, a background of Divine Right of
kings and nobility and human domination. The American experiment was an
attempt to limit government and vastly restrict its arena of operation. The early
documents resonate with lofty idealism and there is too little appreciation of the
greatness of that founding vision.
It was flawed from the beginning; it had its limitation of the radical nature of the
freedom it was espousing and has been in a process of development over the 222
years of our national existence. But we have been blessed to have entered into the
fruit of that vision, for which we give God thanks.
The Declaration of Independence, the claim of national sovereignty, was a bold
and daring act in the 18th century. As the 21st century dawns, an equally bold
and daring act is imperative; it is the declaration of inter-dependence with all
nations and peoples of the earth. Such a claim is not wild-eyed fantasy of a
hopelessly idealistic and impractical dreamer. Rather, it is a practical and
necessary response to the real situation of our world on the threshold of the Third
Millennium.
The most telling image of our situation as humankind on planet earth is the
astronaut’s picture of the earth taken from outer space - the earth, a beautiful
globe of blue and green hanging in the frozen darkness of space - obviously an
© Grand Valley State University
�Declaration of Inter-dependence
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
inter-related, inter-connected whole. The picture gives vivid witness to the
commentary of the astronaut who says there are no real barriers or divisions; the
earth is one; a planetary unity.
What the picture of the earth as a whole points to is being realized in actual
human experience. The amazing accomplishments of technology have put the
world’s people into instant communication. Travel exposes us to the whole rich
diversity of the human community. What happens in one part of the world
impacts every part. We cannot wash our hands of the ongoing tensions in the
Middle East, not turn our backs on the anguish of the Balkan states.
The ecological concern for the well-being of the environment can only be
addressed from a global perspective and nuclear non-proliferation is essential for
the whole global family.
Speaking of the drive toward one world totally intertwined is not fantasizing
about what might be, but simply being responsible before what is; and the best
place to see it is in the actuality of a global economy. Multinational corporations
and international banking are a reality. The move to one currency in the
European community is only a symbol of the interlocked economics of the world.
We bail out Mexico, cajole and press Indonesia and support the Japanese yen not because we are an altruistic nation wanting to help those in distress, but
because we are invested literally around the globe and need a healthy global
economy to keep our own GNP in good shape.
As the Third Millennium approaches and the 21st century breaks upon us, it is
time for a declaration of inter-dependence.
It would be foolhardy to think that we, the USA, the world’s only present
superpower could insulate and isolate ourselves from the rest of the earth in the
ongoing development of the cosmic drama and the human story. These are not
far out ideas.
The Fourth of July in Flint was marked by picketers with American flags. We are
witnessing a serious social situation in our own state that is impacting not only
Michigan, but the nation. What is the underlying reality? It is not a simple
matter. One can fume at General Motors - giving the store away in the past. One
can fume at the UAW - bringing on what they claim they are trying to avoid. But,
General Motors cannot go on as is. And autoworkers in Flint are human beings
being disrupted and dislocated.
I mention this not to take sides or examine all the issues involved - and it is very
complex; rather, to show that this kind of crisis close to home has to do with
globalization.
© Grand Valley State University
�Declaration of Inter-dependence
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Some philosophers and theologians suggest that we must dismantle the global
networks of industry and economics, return to small regional communities of
production and consumption, nurturing local customs and ethnic diversity. They
rail against globalization as the loss of particular cultural identities and want to
stop the whole process toward one world.
I understand, but I don’t think that will happen. There is a tide, broad and
powerful, that is sweeping us toward one world, totally inter-related. It seems to
me what we must do is not throw up barriers against ongoing development, but
rather, seek ways to make the future humane, just and peaceful. We need a vision
of inter-dependence and then the will to make it happen.
What is needed is a transformation of consciousness. We simply must begin to
think differently. We need a prophet to annunciate the new and emerging reality
- the global reality of which we are a part. Rather than the reactionary rhetoric of
the religious Right that is attempting to re-invent yesterday, we need someone to
help us find a new orientation in a new cultural situation. Rather than a fearful,
defensive posture that is marked by a militant mind and hostile spirit, we need to
cultivate a global consciousness that thinks of how to make the future more
humane, more just, marked by planetary peace.
We are not without resources for such a vision. In 1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels published the Communist Manifesto. It was focused on economics, but it
was really a revolutionary social document. On the 150th anniversary of its
publication, a number of works are being published. In an article in The New
York Times, the present debate was set forth, but what seemed to be commonly
agreed on was that Marx did see the relentless power of capital to produce wealth
and he did see what we are currently experiencing globally. He failed to see how
Capitalism could pull the proletariat into the game and thus avoid what he
thought would be inevitable revolution.
Again, here my point is not to argue Marx pro or con, but to suggest that we need
such a powerful prophetic visionary in our day.
Where did Marx get his vision?
Communism has been called a biblical heresy. The founding story of Israel is the
freedom of a people from domination and ruthless exploitation, and the story is
shaped by the Hebrew prophets who envisioned a peaceable kingdom where the
lion and the lamb would lie down together. The vision, the passion for justice and
human well-being that found expression in a Karl Marx was in that biblical
tradition.
We have the biblical story as resource. Psalm 33 celebrates the sovereignty of
God who fills the earth with steadfast love. The image of God as Ruler out there in heaven - controlling the affairs of the nations is not in line with the experience
of cosmic movement and historical development, but I believe the Psalmist had
© Grand Valley State University
�Declaration of Inter-dependence
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
true insight into the human situation - we did not create this world; we are not
sovereign, nor can we secure ourselves by human means. The King - the symbol
of human sovereignty - is not secured by horses and armies. Military might won’t
do it. Economic power won’t do it. No human reality is impregnable.
God is at the heart of things.
Love is at the heart of things.
Grace - modeled out in God, as we see it revealed in Jesus Christ, is the only way
to peace on earth.
Paul, responding to the encounter with the grace of God in Jesus Christ, appealed
to followers of Jesus in Rome - on the basis of the mercies of God, to present
themselves a sacrifice to God - living, holy, acceptable. This, Paul said, is only
logical - it makes sense.
Grace at the core of things, as he had so eloquently written as chapter 11 ends,
calls for a transformation of life, a new way of being, not conformed to the
structures and forms of this world, but transformed by the renewing of the mind.
A shift in consciousness - that is radical, thinking differently!
Paul, of course, was reflecting Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount is filled with
concrete, practical counsel on how to live. Paul said do not meet evil with evil, but
overcome evil with good and, obviously, he was trying to counsel a way of being
that emulated the way of Jesus who said "No!" to the old code of justice - an eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Rather, "If anyone strikes you on the right
cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give
her your cloak, as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the
second mile."
Again, radically, Jesus declares, Love your enemies.
In short, be God-like, the God who causes rain to fall on the righteous and the
unrighteous alike and causes the sun to rise on the good and the evil. That section
ends with "Be perfect as God is perfect," and the connotation of the word
translated perfect is "mature." In effect, we need to grow up.
Hans Küng brings this radical counsel of Jesus into the concrete circumstances of
our day. In his work, Judaism, he addresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Recognizing the delicacy of any non-Jew dealing with the issue, he nonetheless
points to the frequency with which the Likud party, particularly, uses the word
retaliation. One must be sensitive to the Israeli position, given the suffering and
loss that people has suffered over the centuries. Yet, he wonders if the word of the
Jew Jesus is not a better way to the future and peace - not retaliation, but the
voluntary renunciation of power and rights.
© Grand Valley State University
�Declaration of Inter-dependence
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
For many years I did not preach on the Sermon on the Mount. I was not content
to interpret it as a code of personal ethics irrelevant to the world of real politics.
Yet, it seemed so incredible, so impossible in the real world of international
relations. But, the longer I think about these things, the more I am convinced that
Jesus’ way is the only way there can ever be peace on earth, the realization of the
Creator’s intention for Shalom - the peaceable kingdom.
If Jesus’ way won’t work, there is no other way.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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9df576e251d76b5603a5470fc2302ff1
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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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
Sound Recordings
Creator
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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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English
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Sound
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Pentecost V
Series
Independence Day Weekend
Scripture Text
Psalm 33:16-17, Romans 12:21, Matthew 5:44
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19980705
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1998-07-05
Title
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A Declaration of Inter-dependence
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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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/
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 5, 1998 entitled "A Declaration of Inter-dependence", as part of the series "Independence Day Weekend", on the occasion of Pentecost V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 33:16-17, Romans 12:21, Matthew 5:44.
Consciousness
Global Community
Inclusive
Justice
Peace
-
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84d29df8024bce9b08611c8f21cd27a0
PDF Text
Text
The Story Without End
From the series: Christian Faith: Interpretations of Experience
Text: Acts 2:16; Ezekiel 37:14; John 25:12-13
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
June 7, 1998
Transcription of the spoken sermon
This is one week late for a Pentecost message, but Pentecost is too critical to the
life of the church to miss it, and so we celebrate it today in all of its wonder and
all of its joy, and I want to say today that Pentecost is nothing rather than the
experience of the risen Christ whose presence defines for us the eternal God. I
conclude the Eastertide series purposely on Pentecost in order to make the
connection. If you read from Luke in his Gospel, and then the Book of Acts, you
would have a narrative form of these events - Easter, 40 days later Ascension, 10
days later Pentecost. But, two weeks ago as we gathered here, we read from
John’s Gospel that on Easter eve Jesus came into the midst of the disciples,
breathed on them, said "Peace be with you and receive the Holy Spirit." For John,
Pentecost happened on Easter, because, as a matter of fact, Easter and Pentecost
cannot be separated from one another. We have looked at these experiences of
the risen Christ, the crucified one still present and alive in the lives of Peter and
Paul and Mary Magdalene and the disciples.
We noted two weeks ago that with the Gospel of John there is a shift, not even a
subtle shift. It is not as though there is an imminent expectation now of the
inbreaking of that risen, ascended Lord as we have it in Luke. In the fourth
Gospel, we begin to see the recognition of a process. Of course it was some sixty
years later. This was the last Gospel to be written. Jesus had not appeared. The
Messiah had not come from heaven. Now there must have been some reinterpretation, trying to figure out what in the world was going on. And so, I read
those passages from the fourth Gospel. "I have more things to tell you, but you
can’t bear them now. I’ll pray for the Spirit, the advocate. When he comes, he’ll
lead you into all truths,..." And therefore, the sense that there was an ongoing
process.
Ewert Cousins, in a very fine book entitled Christ of the Twentieth-first Century,
says "How are we to approach religion today? Certainly we must approach it in
terms of its process, that dynamic movement through history. It is not a static
moment, but it is rather a fluid, dynamic movement that goes on." And so, this
© Grand Valley State University
�The Story Without End
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
morning on Pentecost, one week late, I want to suggest to you that we have to set
our religious faith in a context, and that context is a context that is 15 billion
years old. I want us to understand our present Christian experience, our present
religious experience in terms of that broad cosmic reality that embraces us, and
that broad cosmic reality is the large context in which we have interpreted our
experience of God. It is a process of billions of years, the emerging out of that
initial chaos, this universe, this cosmos, with its order, with all of the wonder that
simply boggles the mind the more one begins to see its mysteries and its depths.
And then within that billions of years process there developed life, there
developed biological life, there developed animal life, and that animal life over
billions of years eventuated in that which in the evolutionary process has
emerged as the human being, that moment when that whole process became selfconscious, aware of its hands, and aware, indeed, of another. And out of that
awareness, that self-consciousness, which we define as the human, developed
tribes, societies, culture, civilizations, until our present moment in history.
Here we are in the ongoing movement of a process that goes back billions of years
that has within it all of the story of the cosmic reality, the story of life, the story of
human life, and with human life came the religious consciousness, the awareness
of the mystery, the awareness of the frailty and fragility of life and the searching
for that ultimate and that absolute, that place to stand and to be. And all
religions, as we have been saying these weeks, are the human construction, the
human imagination in response to the encounter with that mystery. And within
that human man religious reality is our story, the Christian story, 2000 years old
now and still alive and young and ongoing. That’s my message this Pentecost.
Our story, the Christian story, embedded in the religious story of humankind,
embedded in the totality of humankind’s experience, embedded in the totality of
cosmic experience - our story is a story without end. It is the story of Pentecost,
because the story of Pentecost is nothing other than the experience of the God
defined in Jesus Christ. For us, that’s our story. We see the human face of God in
Jesus who was experienced by those first followers as alive and present and still
powerfully transforming. Rooted in history, but not mired in history.
For John the same fourth Gospel tells the story of Thomas. Thomas was that
doubter, like all of us. He said, "I’d like to poke my finger in the hand, you know?"
And so, Jesus appears without coming through the door. Nonetheless, at the end
of that story, what is the blessing given? "Thomas, you wanted to touch and feel.
Blessed are those who, having not seen, believe." Because if the story was to go
on, it would have to go on by those who could encounter the living Lord without
the living Lord tangibly there. No more word in flesh, but rather the spirit of
Christ or the Spirit of God, or God breathing, encountering us, convincing us of
that ultimate mystery that is so far beyond us, but nonetheless, graciously
embraces us. That’s our context, and at this moment in our history the Pentecost
message is that it’s a story without end. We are still writing it. We are still
engaged in the story, chapters yet to follow, presently writing the story of
Pentecost and of Easter.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Story Without End
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
I had a marvelous insert for you which somehow or other got blown away in the
storm, and it’s actually two pages, but I won’t read it, so relax. Just this statement
which comes from an Orthodox theologian, George Florovsky about the nature of
tradition. What I want you to see is that Christian tradition, like any religious
tradition properly understood, is the presence of the dynamic spirit of God in the
church:
Tradition is the witness of the Spirit; the Spirit’s unceasing revelation and
preaching of good tidings ... To accept and understand Tradition we must
live within the Church, we must be conscious of the grace-giving presence
of the Lord in it; we must feel the breath of the Holy Ghost in it ...
Tradition is not only a protective, conservative principle; it is, primarily,
the principle of growth and regeneration ... Tradition is the constant
abiding of the Spirit and not only the memory of words.
Remember that. Tradition is the constant abiding of the Spirit in the body of
Christ, here and now. You see, the story is a story without end. It is an ongoing
story. We are in process. There is always that arrogant assumption on the part of
every generation that somehow or other God’s purposes have culminated in
them! Every age and every culture would arrogantly assume that they are the
acme of what God is doing in the world, and it just is not true.
What happened in the 19th century particularly, which some have called the
century of history, is that we became aware of other civilizations and other
cultures and other world religions, and what developed in the wake of that is a
historical relativism that said everything in its place and its time is proper and
legitimate. There was an easy tolerance of all of this. It was a great threat to the
exclusive claims of the Christian faith that said this is the last word and the
absolute truth. But, who could deny it? There were world religions. There were
other civilizations. There was a diversity of cultures. Who would say one is better
than another? Who would say one has the truth and the other are all in darkness?
Not many who thought about it seriously could do that. And so, there was a kind
of unraveling of that confidence of the traditional Christian proclamation.
Something is happening in our day which is fascinating. It is the recognition that
we cannot rest easily with diverse cultures and other civilizations and world
religions all in their separate existence, because what we are experiencing in our
day, our moment in history, is a convergence of civilizations, a growing together
of cultures, a tying together of the globe. Ewert Cousins says that the symbol for
our age, an age of global consciousness, is that earth, that planet earth hanging
out in space, the picture taken by the astronauts from deep space. And there, as
he points out, national boundaries, ethnic divisions, religious separations - all of
that is superficial and artificial because we are a whole, interrelated, interfacing
with one another.
If one stops to think about our world today, one finds that we are economically
interdependent. I have often felt that Marx was closer to right than he knew, for
© Grand Valley State University
�The Story Without End
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
he spoke of economic determinism. Finally it is economics that will determine.
And, of course, he was severely criticized. But, it just may be that multinational
corporations and international banking will bind this world together in a real
fashion greater than any religious proclamation. We are buoying up the ruble in
Russia now. We are trying to avoid the chaos of Southeast Asia. We are a world
that cannot live in separate identities anymore, in a kind of isolation,
sovereignties with their own weapons. In a day of nuclear threat, India and
Pakistan testing nuclear weapons - this world is too small! The human race is
one! It is too dangerous to live that way. And on Pentecost 1998 what we in the
Christian church ought to be doing is to say we missed it too, but we are coming
around, because the Spirit is the Spirit who creates new insights, who enables us
in every historical moment to re-interpret our faith in light of the moment and
understand the moment in light of our faith. And so, the world growing together
in the convergence of civilizations and cultures and religions symbolized if not by
Ewert Cousins’ globe out in space, then the golden arches of McDonald’s. It is one
world; you can get a hamburger anyplace today!
In such a world, what the world needs to hear from us, and we could lead the
pack, leading out of strength as Christians – we have to say we can no longer look
at the whole world through our Christian eyes. As Americans we have to say we
cannot simply think "our country, right or wrong," "USA Number One." As
citizens of western civilization, we can no longer hold arrogantly to the
superiority of the west. We must value the treasure we have in our Christian
tradition. We can savor the freedoms and the wonders of this nation. We can
treasure the cultural values of the west, and we should share them, and be ready
to pass them along, but we must recognize that we also will be recipients from the
east. We’ll gain insights from others. In this world which is becoming a one world
global civilization, we can no longer afford to live in the arrogance of our
exclusivities with a superiority over against all others, whether it be political or
religious or cultural. We who have the insight of the Holy Spirit are the ones that
ought to be opening ourselves and modeling out that kind of openness to others
that can create the possibility for humanization and ultimately for shalom, for
peace, for human beings to live fruitfully, creatively, productively, in love. There
is that possibility, because we believe in God. It is the Spirit of God breathing
through all that is, coaxing toward that unity in diversity, creating a community
of communities where there is mutual value, mutual enhancing, common
sharing, living out the ideal of the kingdom of God.
This time of year church assemblies and synods and bodies are meeting and, in
reading the press, one could about despair as much as the captives in Babylon in
the 6th century before Christ. One could well throw up one’s hands at the anguish
of the institutional forms of religion. Institutional forms of religion are altogether
necessary, but they become sealed against the ongoing revealing of the Spirit. The
moment we can get our hands around it, make it manageable and neat, we have
sealed ourselves off against the Spirit’s ongoing, unceasing revelation. But, it is
the Spirit of God that breaks down barriers. It is the Spirit of God that rips open
© Grand Valley State University
�The Story Without End
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
our hearts and opens our minds, that breathes fresh air when we would live in the
safety and security, reinventing yesterday.
Dear God, can these bones live?
I will breathe in them. I will put my Spirit in them."
And by God, they will live, because we’re part of a story without end.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3ddc78eb54a08cda6481b526b1a555cf.mp3
728bbfaba5aa1b6792eced8bbda7cd3f
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 celebration
Series
Christian Faith: Interpreting an Experience
Scripture Text
Acts 2:16, Ezekiel 37:14, John 25:12-13
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
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KII-01_RA-0-19980607
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1998-06-07
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The Story Without End
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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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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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 7, 1998 entitled "The Story Without End", as part of the series "Christian Faith: Interpreting an Experience", on the occasion of Pentecost celebration, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 2:16, Ezekiel 37:14, John 25:12-13.
Emergence
Global Community
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Spirit
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PDF Text
Text
Re-Tell Me the Old, Old Story
Text: Acts 17:17; Mark 2:22
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
May 4, 1997
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Neil Postman, whose article I cite on your liturgy this morning, begins that article
with these lines from the poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay,
Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower of facts ...
they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun, but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric.
What an image. What a characterization of our day. The Information Society
which can distribute the meteoric shower of data that inundates us day after day.
Knowledge, knowledge everywhere. And the poet says it lies "unquestioned,
uncombined," enough of it to leech us of our every ill, spun every day. But there is
no loom upon which to weave a fabric, a fabric that could bring meaning to our
lives and give us a sense of the big picture. And so, Neil Postman suggests that we
live in a special time. Our times are not like every time. He speaks of our times as
a darkening moment when all is in change, and we know not yet how to find our
way. And in such a world, Neil Postman suggests, we need a story, a story that
will provide the loom upon which we can weave a fabric of meaning, creating
understanding, giving us confidence and some word of hope for our world.
We can no longer, says Neil Postman, tell the tales that arose from tribes and
clans and nations in ancient times, but neither do we need to invent a new story.
Rather, we need to re-tell the story, looking at it with new eyes, seeing it from a
new perspective, finding its truth and its treasures and bringing them to fresh
expression so that there might be good news and a word of hope in our world.
This is a fascinating time in which to be alive. Challenging, exciting, and also a bit
threatening, because we do not see clearly the way ahead. But, Postman suggests
looking to our stories, basically two stories, an ancient one, the biblical story, and
a more recent one, the story of science unfolding the awesomeness of the cosmic
that has been in development and evolution for 15 billion years. In fascinating
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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fashion in our day, there is the possibility of weaving those two stories and
retelling them in such a way that we can bring some hope and give some
confidence to our world that is marked by insecurity and moral ambiguity and
spiritual lack. Not a new story, but re-telling the old story, having seen it with
new eyes in new light, and bringing it to fresh and passionate expression.
This is what Jesus was about. In the second chapter of Mark's Gospel, we have
those conflict stories, very typical of Jesus' encounter with the religious
understanding of his day. He was a Jew, a true son of Israel. He never went
outside the riches of that tradition. He stayed within his own scriptures, his own
story. But, he re-told the story in such a way that it was obvious that he was
saying something new, which is characteristically resisted by an established
society in an old tradition – differences about observance, fasting, keeping the
Sabbath - those kinds of matters of religious understanding and traditional
observance and practice.
Jesus was bold in his declarations of what was at the heart of that old tradition. It
does take some courage to say, "It has been written, but I say unto you ..." That is
a challenge. But, sometimes it is necessary to say it that boldly in order to get the
attention of the people, and Jesus again was not inventing something new, but he
was re-telling that story, calling it back to its heart and to its soul. He suggested
in that familiar image that there need to be new wineskins to contain new wine,
the annual harvest that must go through the fermenting process will burst the old
containers, losing the wine and losing the containers. And so, he says, new skins
for new wine. We're so familiar with that, that it hardly strikes us anymore, and
yet, it ought to strike us, for it is the articulation from Jesus of a profound
principle, namely that we in this historical arena, this human experience, have an
ongoing, cumulative kind of experience that cannot always be captured in terms
of the stories that were once told. It cannot be contained in the containers that
once did service to bear it to the world. Jesus was annunciating that principle of
contextuality, where every understanding arises in a concrete context, which will
shape it, which will form it, which will become its container. But, as the context
moves, as the years go by, as the periods of history move, the contents must be
examined anew so that new treasures can be mined from them and brought to
fresh expression, so that the new announcement can have all of the passion and
all of the comfort and all of the challenge with which that initial word issued forth
in the beginning.
Paul didn't knew Jesus in the flesh, but Paul felt the impact of Jesus' life and
teaching, and Paul was of that strict, serious, committed group of the Pharisaic
party who were determined to stamp out the way of Jesus, until he was knocked
to his knees by a burst of light from above, from the ascended, living Lord, turned
around in his tracks, and captured, made captive to the mission of Jesus in the
world. Paul became the great apostle to the Gentiles; he became the shaper of the
Christian movement. Paul structured Christian theological understanding. He
was never anything but a Jew. Neither was Peter, James, or John. But, Paul had
© Grand Valley State University
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seen something that took all that was familiar and put it into whole new
understanding. To use the overused word, overused generally, I suppose, and
certainly here, Paul affected a paradigm shift. Paul didn't invent something new;
Paul mined the treasures of his own tradition, but in such a way to bring to new
expression God's intention, that intention that had exploded into the world
through Jesus Christ, and once Paul became a follower of Jesus, he saw
everything with new eyes, in a new light, in a new perspective, and shared that
with the whole world.
He came one day to Athens, the university city, the intellectual center of the
western world, and such was his passion and his conviction that God had done
something of cosmic significance through Jesus Christ, that he went right to the
heart of the intellectual establishment and preached Jesus and the resurrection,
at the Areopagus, in the company of the philosophers who spent their days,
according to Luke, doing nothing but playing with ideas. (You wonder how they
supported themselves; I would enjoy that myself.) But, they were happy to hear
from Paul. "Tell us, what do you have to tell us that's new and strange? What kind
of alien deities are you bringing to our city?" Not that that would have been
offensive to them. As a matter of fact, Paul was offended himself, because he saw
in that grand city of Athens temples and statues and images and shrines, and
with his passionate sense that God's truth had come to full expression in Jesus,
he was distressed in his own soul and eager to bring his message right to Athens
itself. But, being a person of some style and class, he began by relating himself
very well to his audience. He began by affirming them, for he spoke of the very
temples and shrines that distressed him, saying in a positive note, "I see that you
are spiritually hungry. I see that you are, indeed, very religious. I see that you are
on a quest. I even discovered a statue to an unknown god. That God I will
proclaim to you."
Then he went back to his own tradition. Now, he could have gone to Isaiah who
talked about Israel being a light to the nations, explaining why Paul was on this
Gentile mission. He could have gone to Abraham whose call included the fact that
God would make Abraham a blessing to all nations. But, Paul didn't do that,
because nobody in Athens cared about Israel. They didn't care about Abraham or
Moses or David or Isaiah. They didn't know anything about them. But, Paul still
had some stories in his pocket. He went back behind Abraham, back to Adam. He
went back to the beginning, to the Creation. He went back to that to which they
could relate.
It is a great sermon Paul preached. He said,
"From one ancestor, God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and
he allotted the times of their existence and boundaries of the places where
they would live so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for
Him and find Him, though, indeed, He is not far from each one of us, for
in God we live and move and have our being. All of you, all of you since
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Adam - that is that commonality of humanity coming from the breath of
God. He gives breath to all and life to all, for in God we live and move and
have our being and even some of your own poets have said, 'For we, too,
are God's offspring.'"
Marvelous, Paul. I'm impressed. You really got to these philosophers. You were
able to meet them on your own turf. You were able to embrace them in this Godcreation, this God Who is the Source of all life and all reality, of the whole
cosmos. Now you've got them. Now tell them about what this God has been about
recently.
Paul goes on to speak of Jesus and the Easter miracle, and, of course, some
balked, but some believed. It was a great effort, I think. Paul had a wonderful
vision. He had a wonderful dream. Paul, this son of Israel, this Hebrew of the
Hebrews, this one who had these stories down pat, going back and looking at the
stories again could retell the story in such a fashion that he could bring to
expression what he was convinced was God's intention, that there not be a wall
dividing people, Jews on one side, Gentiles on another. As he wrote to the Church
at Ephesus that in Jesus Christ, that wall or partition, was taken down, and that
in Jesus Christ there was the creation of one new humanity. Isn't that a dream?
Isn't that a thrilling kind of insight? According to Paul, that's what God was
about. That's what he began to see in what God had most recently done in Jesus
Christ, removing that particularity in order that there might be a new
universality, in order that the humanity that God created in the beginning could
be united in one community.
Well, it didn't happen. Why didn't it happen? Was it a dream dreamed before its
time? Paul was never able, to his anguish, to get his fellow rabbinical, Pharisaical
partners, compatriots of the past, to see it that way. And,by the end of the first
century, with an ongoing Jewish community under the leadership of the
Rabbinical Pharisaic party finding its own way to a new spirituality, Paul almost
couldn't win the day with a Jesus Jewish Movement. He had his tension with
James. He had his arguments with Peter. But, he did win the day there and,
consequently, the Christian movement became a largely Gentile movement.
Paul had a grand dream. It wasn't realized. Paul was wrong about the timetable
that God was on. Paul thought he was living at the edge. Paul expected the return
of the ascended One very soon for the universal judgment. It didn't happen, of
course. We're here 2000 years later. But, Paul was right about God's intention the creation of one human community.
Two thousand years later, how would Paul retell the story if he were here today?
How will we retell the story so that, in this volatile world of ours, so awesome and
so threatening, God's intention for human community will be realized?
Neil Postman says it will not do simply to chant our tales louder or to silence
those who are singing a different song. It won't do.
© Grand Valley State University
�Re-Tell Me the Old, Old Story
Richard A. Rhem
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I just completed Karen Armstrong's book, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. If
you want to almost give up on religion in general, read the book. One city, three
faiths, and yet the irony is we're not talking about faiths east and west, Judaism
and Buddhism, Christianity or Hinduism. We're talking about Islam, Judaism,
Christianity. One city, three faiths, all professing faith in the same God, and,
because they all claim Jerusalem as a holy city, we can see that as a microcosm of
the world, and if you read the account by Karen Armstrong of Jerusalem, you will
read of a city that for 2000 years has bled and died and been devastated. It is an
incredible story of three religious faiths claiming one God, the same God, the God
of Abraham, in this case, devastating each other. And there may have been a time
in our world, horrible as it was, that it could happen without destroying the
world. But, not in our world, because that earlier image of a global village has
become a reality.
Paul said God assigns certain people certain time periods and certain places and
sets their boundaries. Well, I got to tell you, Paul, there aren't any boundaries
anymore! Ask those who have circled this globe and see it as a unity, interrelated
totally. No boundaries. No longer any island continents. The electronic media
reaches into every home and hovel and village and valley and mountain peak of
planet earth. We need to re-tell the story so that it again brings to expression
God's ultimate concern for the creation of a human community in which the
respective religious traditions bring their gifts to the altar, enriching one another
and enhancing one another and complementing one another, alone, individually
incomplete, but at the altar of God, embracing one another.
Richard Elliot Friedman, in his book, The Hidden Face of God, says this is the
remarkable time, sort of similar to what Postman says. Friedman says that, with
the science story of this awesome cosmos, we are, ironically, on the brink of
discovering the Divine Reality and, at the same time, we are on the threshold of
planetary catastrophe. If we don't destroy ourselves, we might destroy our planet.
It is a time when it is urgent that we move toward community through the retelling of the story that captures the old, old story of God's love and intention for
one humanity. Friedman says we are in a race. We are in a race toward discovery
or destruction.
Christ Community will play to the tune of discovery, for in this time of the
National Hockey League playoffs, with Danny Bylsma returned from the wars, no
longer in pursuit of the Stanley Cup, I get reminded that once he played with the
great Wayne Gretzky, who said, "One ought to skate where the puck is going, not
where it's been." That text from Gretzky summarizes everything I want to say,
with the closing image from the revelation, the story began in the Garden and is
completed in a city where, from the throne of God, flows the River of the Water
of Life, pure as crystal, on whose banks grows the tree of life whose leaves are for
the healing of the nations. There's an image. There's a loom on which to weave a
fabric of meaning, of wonder, and of hope, as we move into the future, not quite
sure how to find our way.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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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
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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
Sound Recordings
Creator
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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>
Publisher
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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>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Eastertide VI
Scripture Text
Acts 17:16-34, Mark 2:18-28
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
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KII-01_RA-0-19970504
Date
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1997-05-04
Title
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Re-Tell Me the Old, Old Story
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University
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<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
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 4, 1997 entitled "Re-Tell Me the Old, Old Story", on the occasion of Eastertide VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 17:16-34, Mark 2:18-28.
Divine Intention
Global Community
Meaning
Re-imagining the Faith
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2867cd20f3a929ab0582891e44326fd1
PDF Text
Text
Good News of Cosmic Dimension
Eastertide I
Text: I Corinthians 15:22; Matthew 28:19
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
April 6, 1997
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Easter is focused on Jesus. That's quite understandable, because Jesus is the one
who was raised from the dead, and so our liturgy, the music, the anthems - all of
it is very much focused on the risen Lord. That's understandable. But, I want to
say to you this morning that Easter is not so much a matter of Christology, that is,
the doctrine of Christ, as it is theology, that which is about God and that which
God has affected. Resurrection was God's mighty act. Resurrection was God's
sign, a sign in the midst of history of cosmic significance and eternal dimension.
Easter is good news. Good news for the cosmos about God's intention, God's
"Yes" to life, God's "No" to death, God's "Yes" to love, God's "No" to hate, God's
"Yes" to light, God's "No" to darkness. It is understandably a story that lifts up
Jesus, but it is more profoundly a story about God.
Jesus died. If you followed or participated in the drama of Holy Week, if you were
here on Maundy Thursday when the sanctuary grew dark and the altar was
stripped and we left in silence, if you were here in the meditative, somber mood
of Good Friday, if you came to the Easter Vigil and saw the sanctuary engulfed in
darkness, then you know that Christian faith acknowledges that Jesus died. Jesus
died a human death. Jesus as a human person entered into the powerlessness of
death. As far as Jesus was concerned, it was over, which is why the brightness of
Easter Sunday is not because of something intrinsic in Jesus, but of something
intrinsic in God, the Creator, the One Who will not allow death to reign. God's
way is life. That is Easter. It is a theological affirmation. It tells us something
about God and it is the good news that in the end, there is life !
Paul understood that. Paul was one who was absolutely gripped by that vision of
the risen One whom he knew had been crucified but now knew to be still living,
and who had called him to tell this good news, particularly to the Gentiles. After
he founded the Church in Corinth, he kept in touch with them via letters, like the
two epistles to the Corinthians. They were raising some questions, and so, in his
letter, the one we call First Corinthians, he deals with this matter of resurrection.
He cannot express its truth, its mystery. He stumbles and stammers around as he
tries to give expression to it, but of this he is quite convinced - that the whole of
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the Christian Gospel, the "Good News" has to do with the fact that God raised
Jesus from the dead. He tries to explain the magnitude of what has happened by
borrowing from the Genesis story, the Creation Story, the story out of Israel's
tradition where, through the disobedience of one man, Adam, death came upon
all. He says, as it were, Jesus is the new Adam, the second Adam, and as death
came to all through one man, so life comes to all through one man. As in Adam all
died, so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Notice that the Hebrew thinking was always corporate, always concerning the
total community. So when he said, "in Adam all die," he meant all humankind
die. There was a commonality of the human story, which was under the sentence
of death. In the light of God's action, raising Jesus from the dead, Paul saw a sign,
a sign that that sentence of death was not ultimate. Rather, the ultimate, final,
last exciting word was life. As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive.
It is as inclusive on the one hand as it is on the other - and here is where we sense
Paul's strain of universalism. For what he is saying is that God's action in Jesus
has implications for the whole human family. This Good News, the raising of
Jesus by the power of God was a sign, a light, an indicator, a marker, something
that could be laid hold on and believed in and hoped in for all of us. Paul had had
a particular revelation, but he understood it to have a universal application. A
transformation of the whole of reality, which he understood to embrace the whole
of humankind.
Now Matthew had a similar understanding of the momentous transforming
power of the resurrection. Matthew's Gospel is the only Gospel that sees Jesus'
ministry, pre-crucifixion, as focused strictly on Israel. Did you know that? The
reason we don't know that is that we don't study these Gospels as units having
their own context and their own message. We throw them all into the blender and
pour out a homogenized Gospel. We pick up a little of Matthew, a little of Mark, a
pinch of Luke and a dash of John, and we get one blended picture. But, Matthew
has Jesus, pre-Easter, interested only in Israel, the Jewish people. He only talks
to two Gentiles in Matthew's Gospel. One is that Syro-Phoenician woman.
I love the way Krister Stendahl talks about that story. He tells it as one of his
students preached it one day. Jesus and his disciples needed a retreat, so they
journeyed into the countryside, beyond the precincts of Israel. A woman
approached them there, pleading with Jesus to heal her daughter. The disciples
said, "Go away. We're on retreat. The master said if we don't do this once in a
while, we'll burn out. Go away." Well, she was not going to take their "no" for an
answer. They said to Jesus, "Do something about this woman." So he says, "Look,
I am sent to none but the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Can you imagine
Jesus, meek and mild, shunning this woman, saying, "Look, it's Israel, not you"?
She said, "But I have a great need." He said, " I can't give the food on the table to
the dogs." This is Jesus, now, referring to the woman and Gentiles as dogs. She
was quick. She responds, "Look, under the family table there are crumbs which
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the dogs may eat." Jesus is taken aback and replies, "Woman, that's some faith. I
have never found such a faith even among my own." And he healed her daughter.
There was one other exception he made, and that was for the servant of a
Centurion who was ill. He healed that servant. That Centurion also demonstrated
great faith. If you read in Matthew's Gospel, you will find the story, but you don't
find the reason that Jesus responded to that Centurion. You have to go to Luke
for that. But, it's obviously the same story. Luke says, when the Centurion came,
the elders of the synagogue came over to Jesus and they whispered in his ear,
"Help him out. He paid off our building debt." True. True story. Luke 7:1, you can
read it yourself!
Two times only he addressed Gentiles in the book according to Matthew. For the
rest, the pre-Easter Jesus was interested solely in Israel. When he sent out the
disciples on their missionary journey, he said, "Go through the cities of Israel. Do
not go any place where there are Gentiles." He said, "You're going to have enough
to do before the end comes. You won't get through all the cities of Israel."
Yet it is this Gospel, Matthew, that concludes with what the Church always calls
The Great Commission: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature, to the nations, to the Gentiles, teaching them, healing, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost." That's the conclusion of
Matthew's Gospel, post-Easter.
Now remember, this book is written six decades down the line. There's already
now a Christian Church, a Christian community. I think we have to admit that the
resurrected Jesus did not gather with those disciples and say to them, "Go to all
the world and teach the Gospel and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit." If that had been done, if it had been that clear a few days after
Easter, there wouldn't have been such a struggle in the early Church to find out
who they were and what they were supposed to do. Obviously, Matthew is taking
the whole story of Jesus and then he's giving a distillation of what now is his
understanding of the resurrection, what the implications were. For Matthew, the
implications of Resurrection were that this one who had been focused strictly on
Israel had now, by the power of God, been raised up to create good news for a
broader community. Now was the time to break out of Israel's particularity and to
create a community universal and inclusive, of all the nations, of all people. This
Good News had universal implications for the building of another community.
Krister Stendahl likes to say that Israel was Laboratory One. God's Laboratory
One. Israel understood itself as a particular community that was, in its life, to be
a light to the nations. And now it was time for Laboratory Two; now it was time to
break out of that narrow community and to have, well, Gentile time. It was a
broadening, a building of a new kind of community that was inclusive, that was
universal, that was for all.
Stendahl also notes that the Jewish people believed itself to have a particular
revelation of the one true God, and the truth that it understood was the truth that
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impinged on all people, but what Israel never expected was that all people would
become Jews. Israel was content to be Israel, to live in the light of its revelation,
to witness to that revelation, and to let the positive effects of its witness wash off
on the world, but not everybody was supposed to be a Jew. There was never a
movement to make the whole world Jewish. They were a particular community
with a particular revelation and a particular understanding of salvation, and they
shared it far and wide, but people could receive that light and remain in their
respective communities.
Stendahl believes that Matthew had the same kind of an idea for the Christian
movement. Once again, it had a message, a particular message, a particular
revelation, and it had universal implications. It was for the broadening of that
community of faith, but it was not as though now suddenly the whole world
would have to become Christian. The whole world should be told the good news
and the Good News was for the whole world – Good News, that is, that God, the
Creator, is a God of life and not death, that God is for us, that God has an
intention for the cosmos. And all of that was and is enough to make you dance
and sing, because the news is so good. That in this world where death and decay
are all about us, the ultimate word is life and light and love and community! So,
go tell the world!
With the Christian movement, that's very likely the way it began. Now, the news
was brighter. Now there was an exuberance, there was an excitement, there was a
joy, there was a confidence, so that, in the wake of the resurrection of Jesus, a
movement developed. Have you ever been part of a movement? Movements are
spontaneous. Movements are powerful. Movements are confident. Movements
are passionate! And in the wake of the resurrection of Jesus, recognizing now that
this good news is about God Who says "No" to death and "Yes" to life, this good
news was to be spread everywhere. It was for everybody. It was for the whole
world. For anybody who would hear it and heed it and become a part of it - it was
an open community now.
But, that movement was so powerful, so full of fire, it gained such ascendency
that within two or three centuries it became a force to be reckoned with. And as it
gained in dominance, it became domineering. Then, contrary to the model of
Israel that shared its witness but didn't force everybody to become a Jew in order
to have access to God, the Christian Church linked its particular revelation with a
universal mandate to make everybody like we are. Eventually it gained great
power in its association with the state, with the Roman Empire. And over the
centuries, for 2000 years, it has grown, it has become powerful, and in its wake
we have a tragic history that I think as a Church we've never fully owned up to the Crusades and its brutal intolerance; the Inquisition with its burning of
heretics and forced baptisms; pogroms, anti-Semitism, creating the soil for the
horror of the Holocaust. Why? Because a movement became dominant, powerful.
It had this wonderful vision of God, the God of life; it had this vision to share with
all, but rather than remaining a witnessing community, it became a domineering
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community, coercively using its power to enforce conformity to its particularity as
though that particularity was to be of universal application rather than simply a
universal witness, an invitation.
And now, after almost 2000 years, the Christian Church, which has been so
dominant, is tired. The Church is sick at soul today. Its shrill rhetoric only betrays
its lack of confidence. In those early centuries, it was a movement of joy, it had
power, it was soulful, it was exuberant, it was strong, it was empowered, it was
open, it was excited, it swept the world! But, it's not a movement anymore, not
really. It's an institution. It still has a lot of resources, it still has a lot of wealth, it
still has a lot of numbers, and it can linger perhaps for a long time. But, it's not a
movement; it's not strong, it's not vibrant, it doesn't have soul, it doesn't have
passion, it doesn't have joy unspeakable, full of glory! It is a skeleton of itself. Its
life is a denial of its message and a betrayal of the one who is its founder, who
reached out in compassionate embrace to all.
But, I think we're on the threshold of something new that's breaking. I think
there's going to be a groundswell in this old world of ours. It's breaking out
because good news cannot, finally, be kept under. And the good news is that the
dream is bigger, that the cosmos is one and that all people belong together. There
is underfoot something that will transform the face of the earth. And God knows
if it doesn't happen, we'll destroy each other. Witness our history of divisiveness,
violence, war and devastation. But, we're learning. Here and there, there's a straw
in the wind.
Last Sunday evening we finally made ABC News. Perhaps you've heard. We were
linked with Mohammed Ali, this noble human being who can no longer articulate
for himself. But there he sat, his wife next to him, who said for him, "Muslim,
Jew, Christian - they're all God's children." And then we came on, 9 ½ seconds!
We, too, articulating that the eternal embrace is inclusive. That it is arrogance to
proclaim otherwise. Then later in the evening I caught the last half of the film,
"Gandhi," and I was deeply moved again as that man of India who was so
impressed with Jesus said, "I am Hindu, I am Muslim, I am Christian." And
single-handedly, through a spiritual power, changing the landscape of that nation
with all of the chaos and all of the death that ensued, nonetheless, affecting a
transformation through a kind of spiritual vision and methodology that he
learned from Jesus, among others. And, of course, Gandhi influenced Martin
Luther King and there was in this nation a significant address of the evil of
racism. And, as the second millennium is coming to its end, after 2000 years, this
dynamic movement of Jesus People which has become a tired institution,
wondering if it can survive, will yield up its arrogant exclusivity and there will be
a joining of heart and hand, of all people of good faith who believe in God the
Creator of all, Whose intention for all is life and not death, love and not hate, light
and not darkness. Now, there's good news! It is news of cosmic dimension and
eternal significance. And when we catch it again, the passion will return, the
© Grand Valley State University
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confidence will return, the joy will return, the power will return, and the world
will be changed! Alleluia!
© Grand Valley State University
�
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a9e6a71dcac5909f8b355f5377d5bf80
Dublin Core
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
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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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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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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
Eastertide II
Scripture Text
I Corinthians 15:22, Matthew 28:19
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19970406
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1997-04-06
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Good News of Cosmic Dimension
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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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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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 6, 1997 entitled "Good News of Cosmic Dimension", on the occasion of Eastertide II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Corinthians 15:22, Matthew 28:19.
Eastertide
Global Community
Inclusive
Universal Grace
-
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58739c9a133b622aeea85a9814951714
PDF Text
Text
To Bring Peace…
From the series: Waiting For Messiah To Come –
Text: Micah 4:3, Luke 1:79
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
December 15, 1996
Transcription of the spoken sermon
It's not easy to understand the prophets. One needs a lot of help. Of course, there
was the old Scottish lady who was asked what she thought about a commentary
and she said, "Well, the Bible throws a lot of light on it." Sometimes the help isn't
very helpful, but the prophets are not easy to understand because you get things
juxtaposed and it seems like you're moving from one world to another and that's
certainly the case in Micah.
The fourth chapter that we're going to read is a marvelous vision of world peace,
international peace, but just prior to that is this statement of the decimation of
Jerusalem. At the end of chapter three, Jerusalem is laid flat and then at the
beginning of chapter four, it's raised up high. Now, there weren't any chapters, of
course, in the original, no chapters or verses, but that juxtaposition is so
interesting, and the reason Jerusalem is to be laid low is because people like me
are most often unfaithful. For example, the heads of Jerusalem, the leadership,
give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for hire; the prophets divine for
money. Yet they lean upon the Lord and say, "Is not the Lord in the midst of us?
No evil shall come upon us." That's the temptation of a preacher, of course. Say,
"Peace, peace," where there is no peace. At least it keeps the salary coming, you
see? Keeps the people happy until disaster really happens. Therefore, because of
you, that is, the leadership of God's people, "Zion shall be ploughed as a field,
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the temple hill a mound overgrown
with thickets." That, set now in contrast to the vision of chapter four:
It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of
the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be
raised up above the hills. And peoples shall flow to it and many nations
shall come and say, 'Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the
house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and we may walk
in his paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the
Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples and shall
decide for strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into
ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up
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sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore. But they shall
sit everyone under his vine and under his fig tree and none shall make
them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the
peoples walk each in the name of its God, but we will walk in the name of
the Lord our God forever and ever.
The word of the Lord.
The question that I'm inviting you to think about with me this Advent season is
whether or not in observing the Advent theme, Waiting for Messiah to Come, we
might be abdicating our responsibility and our engagement with our own time
and our own moment of history. In waiting for Messiah to come we are projecting
to the end of history that Messianic vision that appears so eloquently in the
Hebrew prophets, that vision of Shalom, the Kingdom of God, the rule of God, the
peaceable kingdom, that picture of the situation of lion and lamb lying down
together, of not hurting in all God's holy mountain, and today in Micah's vision,
that total peace enveloping the whole human family and all nations. That vision
or that dream comes to beautiful expression here and there in the Hebrew
prophets. It is a dream that lies deep in the human heart, and it came to
expression particularly in Israel as it believed that God's intention for the world
was that kind of peaceable kingdom where God would be acknowledged and
worshiped, and God's Torah, the way of life, would be observed by all people. And
there would be this marvelous, peaceful harmony between God and humankind,
between humankind and nature. In the totality of things there would be peace.
Now, my question is this Have we taken that picture, that vision, and have we projected it to the end and
thus absolved ourselves of real engagement, passionate engagement with seeking
to bring about the reality of that vision in our own time?
It's understandable that we would do that because the world is always reeling
from one crisis to another and when one thinks of the global community, when
one thinks of the problems that are rife around the world, one can very easily
throw up one's hands, perhaps just out of weariness or dismay, just simply being
overwhelmed with it all. I hear it all the time. I think I hear myself saying it what can I do? What can one individual do? Or, sometimes one will hear it with a
bite of cynicism which says, in effect, promises, promises. I find that also in the
Church. It's a good thing we all don't know what everyone else believes or doesn't
believe in the pew behind us and before us and to our right and to our left. I'm
amazed sometimes when I say to somebody, "You really believe that?"
"No. Never did."
"Oh, really? It's in the Bible."
"Ah, don't believe that."
This Messianic vision - we've projected it to the end and maybe become rather
cynical about its realization within history. Or, this has also been a trick of
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Richard A. Rhem
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religious people - withdrawal from the world, founding a little religious ghetto
and signing the world off, saying, "Oh well, it's under the Devil's sway anyway.
And so we just try to get our own little soul saved, survive, get through life until
finally we can breathe on the other side. You see, in doing all of that, which is
rather understandable, nonetheless, we are abdicating our responsibility for
passionate engagement with our world in order to affect the realization of the
dream which is not just a passing dream of an incidental Hebrew prophet, but I
do believe is reflective of the intention of God for the world.
I don't think the dream was ever intended to be some far point beyond history. I
believe the prophets. I believe Luke when he told the story of Jesus and prefaced
it with the birth of John the Baptist and the Song of Zachariah, speaking about
the light dawning upon us and leading our feet into the way of peace. I believe
that it was their intention to say to us, these biblical writers, that this peace is
meant for history, it is meant for our history. It is not some heavenly vision; it is
the way things ought to be in the world, here and now. And I think in waiting for
Messiah to come, we too easily absolve ourselves from the kind of active
engagement that the people of God are called to in order to be the agents of
reconciliation and that beacon of light to the world.
So, this Advent, that's the question. Have we copped out? Have we pushed to the
end what ought to be our present obsession? Think about it with me. This vision
as Micah portrays it is a marvelous vision. It is a vision of the exaltation of Mt.
Zion, of the raising of Jerusalem as the center of the world, not in order to give
great glory to Jerusalem, but Jerusalem as that place from which the law of God,
the Torah, the way of life, will go. There is a beautiful image here; it is of all the
nations flowing to the Mount of the Lord, flowing there in order to receive
instructions, saying let us go to the God of Jacob in order that we might learn his
ways and learn to walk in his paths. There the image is of all the people flowing to
Jerusalem for instruction in the ways of God.
And then there is the reverse - from Jerusalem flows out in mighty stream this
instruction that illumines and enlightens the world and the consequence of that
instruction in the Word of God, the Torah, the way of life, is that there is
judgment, justice among the nations. It's almost as though God holds court in
Jerusalem as a kind of divine Supreme Court, so that there is justice and equity
among all. And then the consequence of that justice is a world at peace. "They
shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war
anymore. But they shall sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree and
no one shall make them afraid."
Now, isn't that a dream? There would be no more defense budgets, no more
armaments, all of the human resources could go for human well-being. There'd
have to be no more West Point or Annapolis. The world would be at peace and all
of our efforts could be used for human betterment and the building of human
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community. And a person could sit under his vine and under his fig tree and he
could contemplate his farm; he could have pride of possession; he could take
pride in the accomplishment of his honest toil and no one would make him
afraid. It's a great vision, isn't it? It's a dream. And what is usually done, I think,
in the preaching of the Church with a vision like this is to say, "Well, but you
know we'll never realize it in history because the human heart is so sinful and
human society is so in the grip of human perversity. And so, we just have to live
with wars and rumors of war and conflict and violence and all of the hell on earth
and, in the meantime, we pray, 'Even so, come Lord Jesus. O God, do something.
O Lord, how long? How long?'"
And my question is whether or not God might be saying to us, "O Church, how
long, how long?"
You see, to simply cop out of an active pursuit of the realization of this vision on
the basis of our human perversity is to fail to hear this word of God, which calls
the people of God to be about creating this kind of reality in the midst of their
own history. "For all the people walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk
in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever." There is a vision, not of Israel
or of Jerusalem being the center of an empire that is posited on power. No, not at
all. This is not the consequence of the end of a power struggle. This is the end of
power struggle! That's the vision. It is not as though Israel is now the center of a
world empire, all other nations having been humiliated and put down. It is not
even that Israel will convert all of the nations to Yahweh. All of the people will
walk each in the name of its god - there's no abandonment of national gods, but
there is a kind of loose federation, which is living under the word of God in justice
and in peace, the consequence of which is human well-being. So, I'm just not
satisfied one more Advent to paint this beautiful portrait and then to call you to
pray for the Lord to come and end the drama. I think that's a cop out. Micah was
talking about his own day, addressing his own day, talking about a future
unfolding but not a future 2700 years away and then some. And Zachariah, in the
birth of John, the forerunner of Jesus, was not talking about some far off, distant
future. He was talking about the implications for his own day. And so, I want to
suggest that we have to think about what is incumbent upon us to become the
active agents for the implementation of a dream.
Sounds like fool's talk, doesn't it? But, you see, the human situation will never be
transformed by the powerful intervention of God. All you would get then is what
we had for nearly half a century when the Soviet Union was dominating the
Eastern Bloc. And there was an impasse between East and West. It was an
impasse which was created by our nuclear arsenals and there was a mutual
standoff of terror. Do you remember it? And then it seemed like there were
convolutions within the human family and the Eastern people rose up and the
human spirit revived and prayers were offered and the Berlin Wall fell. I
remember, I think it was in 1989 in Advent, speaking about the falling of the
Berlin Wall as perhaps the Spirit of God moving across the face of the earth,
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Richard A. Rhem
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actually doing something, enlivening the human spirit to rise up for peace. But,
you see what happened when the umbrella, the domination of the Soviet power
was taken away? Yugoslavia falls apart. Ethnic feuds develop. Ethnic cleansing in
its wake. Today is, what, the 27th day in Belgrade where hundreds of thousands
will be gathering protesting Milosevic, the tyrant who has usurped the results of a
free election? Well, that's a positive sign, isn't it? People are no longer just taking
it; they are coming together, they are rising up, they're protesting. There is some
ferment in the air.
Last week South Africa – a constitution was signed in Sharpville. Do you
remember Sharpville? Famous for the Sharpville massacres and the place where
the white dominant government imposed Apartheid in the first place.
Symbolically they signed a new constitution. South Africa, headed by Nelson
Mandela, a black man - we didn't know if we would see it in our day, but we've
seen it. In other words, history is so ambiguous, isn't it? Here there's a sign, there
a sign, and there an "Oh, no." A step forward, two steps backward.
In studying this text, I came across a statement by a commentator in 1932 who
talked about world disarmament and pointed to the League of Nations as a sign
of eventual world disarmament. 1932! Prior to Hitler, which shows the danger of
saying that historical event is that particular text of scripture. Another
commentator in 1942 said the problem with the League of Nations is that
obviously there was not a resolution in the human heart to change an old way for
a new way. And so we had World War II and all of its tragedy. And then the
United Nations was born. Well, the United Nations comes into terrible criticism.
This country is not very happy with the United Nations. Going down the highway
this week, I saw a big sign, "Get us out of the U.N.!" Sure, get us out of the U.N.
Let us be independent; we are strong; let's build Fortress America! At least if we
are powerful, we can perpetuate the peace - and I want to say, "THAT'S NOT
PEACE!" That's not biblical peace. Biblical peace is not the consequence of the
enforcement by power. It is the permeation of human society by quite another
spirit and we simply let ourselves off the hook if we say, "Well, that will come
down the line way over there. God, You do it, and in the meantime, let's keep our
powder dry."
History is so ambiguous and, as David Hartman said in a piece which is printed
in your insert today, a piece I referred to last week, this Messianic dream, this
vision - it's not some fact at the end of history. It is the norm by which every
moment of history is judged. It is that intention of God reflected in that dream
and it is that intention and that dream to which we must be committed as God's
people in order to bring about its realization in the midst of history. You see, I
think what we do is we get drugged and we get complacent and we just take
business as usual as the only thing that could ever be. We grow cynical and we
grow weary; we don't believe anymore! We don't believe what God can do. I said
last week I wish some of the powerful of the earth would own this problem of
justice. And then I was chastised myself as I reflected on the fact that, when God
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made a major move 2000 years ago, it didn't happen in Jerusalem, it didn't
happen in Herod's court. It happened in Bethlehem and in a manger and with a
child. And so, who says God needs high-fliers like us? But, God knows God needs
someone to stand up and to say, "Enough of this war, raging conflict, power
struggle," and to believe that there is another way that is possible.
When I say that, I almost don't believe it. When I say that, I almost say to myself,
"Why do you say that?" Why do I harangue you with that? Well, at least I can
spoil your Christmas. At least let us be disabused of any self-righteousness or any
illusion that we are passionately engaged with the things that engaged the heart
of God. You see, it is such a massive thing and it seems so unreal, even to talk like
this. But, you say to me, "What can we do?"
Well, I admit we cannot do things in a very broad swath, but at least we can do
here what we have begun to do - we can live by our Mission Statement. We can
live before the Presence of the Mystery of God Whose inclusive grace moves us to
embrace all with unconditional love and gracious acceptance, irrespective of race,
gender, of economic status, of age, or sexual orientation. We can love the world as
God loves it, following the way of Jesus. And then we can find our window to God
in the face of Jesus and yet affirm the quest and insight of other faiths, opening
ourselves to dialogue and mutual enrichment in our pluralistic world. We can at
least, here, honestly seek to build a human community that will value each and
shun none, that will create the human oasis where we treat one another with
dignity, having laid down our arms so that our arms are available to embrace one
another.
Power structures are not only government structures, not only political
structures. The Church itself has been into the triumphalistic business seeking
power and glory. I mentioned the falling of the Berlin Wall. Prior to that, Poland
shook off the shackles of Communist domination because of a Polish Pope, and
those were moving episodes when Pope John Paul II went to Warsaw and had a
mass in that Communist country, when the country was ignited with hope, when
because of the power of the Vatican supporting Solidarity, they threw off that
ironclad oppression. But, the Chicago Tribune presently is running a series of
articles on the Roman Catholic Church, the last one on this whole Polish
situation: remembered all of that and the strategic role the Pope played, but then
said the Church has overplayed its hand with its heavy-handed tactics, with its
conservative social agenda, and just recently the Polish people voted against their
bishops, defeated Lech Walesa and put in another man, to vote for whom the
bishops said was a vote for the Devil. And the Polish Parliament just undid the
anti-abortion legislation. Poland! Why? Because the Church, the people of God
are at their best when they are weak and crippled, when they can depend only on
God. When they become powerful they are as mad and hungry as any politician
you want to name.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
The Church does not have to dominate. God never said Israel would be a
majority. God never said the Church would cover the earth. God called Israel and
called the Church simply to be that minority, that salt and that light in order that
there might be some place in the human wilderness where there was the
recognition of the kind of spirit that would bring peace and allow the human
spirit to flower and to blossom. Oh, we can't do everything. We can't do very
much. But, will we pledge one to another that in this place, at least, there will be
unconditional love, there will be the arms of total acceptance, there will be the
shunning of none, there will be no lust for power or domination, but simply by
living in the light and embodying the spirit of Jesus, we might be just a sign of
hope of the possibility of peace, if ever humankind would allow their deepest
longings to find expression.
"They shall learn war no more."
When? When? When will we say, "Enough"? When will we quit waiting for
Messiah to come and somehow or other stand up and say, "Enough! Enough!"
Peace be with you.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/747cd192c8b45e5e645c303ff1d2399a.mp3
eecf4c060858a146f7c538b6c8d3cc99
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
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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>
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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>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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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
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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
Advent III
Series
Waiting for the Messiah to Come
Scripture Text
Micah 4:1-5, Luke 1:67-80
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19961215
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1996-12-15
Title
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To Bring Peace
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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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
Relation
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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
Sound
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 15, 1996 entitled "To Bring Peace", as part of the series "Waiting for the Messiah to Come", on the occasion of Advent III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Micah 4:1-5, Luke 1:67-80.
Advent
Divine Intention
Global Community
Inclusive
Peace
Shalom
-
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bcf170f5ed80ce39571fa7eb8e404350
PDF Text
Text
Founding Vision: Floundering
Independence Day Weekend
Text: Isaiah 58:12; Romans 12:2
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 2, 1995
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Let me simply try to give a word that will wind together the various pieces of this
morning as we've thought about our nation, about our present situation, the
challenge before us. It seems to me that that song elicits from us that which is
deepest in us. It is the poets that draw out that which is noble, and I really believe
there is a great reservoir of good people and of good heart in the American
people, frankly in the people of the world. And I believe that it is poetry in song
that moves us in our depths and allows that which is best about us to come to
expression. It is finally the vision that will beckon us to realize that high goal of
the rule of God, moving toward the Shalom of which the prophets spoke.
Our world is in crisis, and our nation is in crisis. It is not an overstatement to
speak in our day of culture wars. But it is good for us to know that that's really
nothing new. There has always been in this land protest, taking to the streets, the
political process, the lobbying for advantage, the clamor for rights and for human
dignity. And in our particular situation today, maybe the nub of it in this nation,
in a time of transition and a lot of social unrest and turmoil, centers around
whether or not we can realize that founding vision which is floundering. Whether
or not we can realize that grand dream of our founding documents and the
passion that filled the lives of those who came to this land to create an
experiment in freedom. The question of whether or not there is an American
culture, an American dream that is rooted in reality, that is reflective of truth.
One of the great tension points in our society today can be understood under that
catch word "multiculturalism." There are voices from the margins, the minorities,
the outsiders who are saying, "Hey, you tell your history and you have an identity
which is caught up in the myth of the melting pot. But some of us never got
included. Some of us have been left out. You tell the American story, but it's not
reflective of the part that we've played. And you tell the American story and you
gloss over some of the dark shadows that lie across it." And so we have voices,
and they clamor to be heard. And then some of us who have been so steeped in
the tradition and so blessed by it grow defensive, and we grow hostile and, before
© Grand Valley State University
�Founding Vision: Floundering
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
we know it, there is a great gulf separating us. The right and the left. Us and
them. And the nation is torn with tension and strife.
But it seems to me that, on this anniversary of our nation's founding, it's
important to us to hear that word from the Lord and to see whether or not that
founding vision is not rooted deeply in the biblical tradition. I think it is. Giving
all due to the claims of those who have been excluded and have been left out and
have been hurt, nonetheless, there is a magnificent vision there, a vision of
human dignity, of human freedom, in responsible community. I think that Jon is
quite right - the government will not do it for us. And it is for the people of God to
lead the way. There was that day when God's people said, "Look, we're doing all
of our religious thing. We fast and you don't hear." And then the word of the Lord
came saying, "Take care of the poor. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take the
homeless into your homes. Then you'll call and I will hear. Then you will seek me
and I will be found by you. Then the dawn will break upon you. Then you will
raise again the foundations of the generations. Then, then there will be streets in
which you can dwell in safety."
It's almost as though the prophet could have written yesterday rather than way
back in ancient Judah. But the point of the vision was that God is known and
experienced in the doing of justice and in the loving of mercy. And in that
founding vision, although it was not broad enough, although it was not inclusive
enough, it was nonetheless rooted in that prophetic vision that comes to us as a
gift from Israel's faith, that understanding of God as the Creator. Our founding
documents root human dignity and human freedom in the Creator God, and we
cannot in 1995 be Americans first any more than we can be Christians only. Our
world is the size of a grapefruit. We live in a global community with intimate
connection with a multiple diversity of this globe. It is time for the bells to sound,
the bells to sound that celebrate the diversity of life, that can still find its unity
and its coherence in its grounding in the Creator god who calls us to justice laced
with compassion.
When I think of the task I read in the vision, something within me melts. I know
it's true. And I observe the world and I could weep. Ready to throw up my hands
and say, "Why preach? Why strive? Why continue to care? It goes against the
grain of human nature. It's so contrary to every other aspect of our lives. Why
continue to raise one's voice and hold up the vision and call people to dream the
dream?" But then I remember that human transformation is possible. This is
what Paul was writing about. "Be not conformed to this world." Do not give in to
its aggressiveness and to its consumerism, to its competitiveness and to its
destructiveness. Do not give in to its rugged individualism and its selfishness. Do
not give in. Continue to dream. Continue to have rumors of Shalom floating
across the atmosphere through the transformation of your mind.
That's what it really takes, folks. It really takes a transformation; it takes an
altered consciousness. It calls us to a whole new way of being. Be not conformed
© Grand Valley State University
�Founding Vision: Floundering
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind to find the will
of God, what is good and is true and acceptable. And down deep there's
something in me that so yearns for that. And I believe it does for you, as well. If
we could just turn the decibels down, that shouting across the great divide. If the
Church, if the people of God could be at the forefront of reconciliation rather than
the catalyst for division, if we could just listen to our hearts, if we could just
follow the song, if we could just make real the songs we love to sing. Of America
the Beautiful, thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears. Dear God,
is it not worth a commitment of life anew on this Independence Day Weekend?
God grant it.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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8c295f0573846872560174d493fb9adf
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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
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
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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
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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
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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
Independence Day Weekend, Pentecost IV
Scripture Text
Isaiah 58:12, Romans 12:2
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/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19950702
Date
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1995-07-02
Title
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Founding Vision: Floundering
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University
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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
Text
Sound
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 July 2, 1995 entitled "Founding Vision: Floundering", on the occasion of Independence Day Weekend, Pentecost IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 58:12, Romans 12:2.
Global Community
Inclusive
Shalom
Transformation
-
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a7eddff54faf48f1e26febdc07ee419e
PDF Text
Text
Interreligious Dialogue:
What Is Required of Us?
Article by
Richard A. Rhem
Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Published in
Perspectives
A Journal of Reformed Thought
May 1995, pp. 10-15
Pilate’s question, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”
demands an answer as urgently today as two thousand years ago. By travel and
the ubiquitous beams of communications satellites the world has shrunk to a
neighborhood, and the devotees of the great religions of the world no longer live
in isolation. Increasingly they practice their respective faith traditions in close
proximity to each other.
Not only the interweaving of the world’s religions within the fabric of the global
community but the rise of militant fundamentalisms, fueling ethnic conflict and
spawning terrorism, make it imperative that interreligious dialogue take place for
the sake of the peace of the world. Political leaders and parties will always
attempt to Co-opt the respective religious traditions for their own purposes, but
at least the religions in their authentic expression need not condone such misuse,
and, with genuine dialogue, a deeper understanding of other faith traditions
would be a force for the creation of a more secure world—and a movement
toward a reign of peace, surely the intention of the Creator God.
For the Christian religion, interreligious dialogue calls for a serious engagement
with Pilate’s question. Until we come to a new appraisal of the place of Jesus in
the purpose of God and the revelation of that purpose, we will not be able to enter
into real dialogue. Beginning with the absoluteness of Christianity based on the
finality of God’s revelation in Jesus and a salvation constituted exclusively
through his atoning death, we may enter discussion and evidence a civil tolerance
but without the openness to new insight that alone makes for serious and honest
dialogue. Tolerance may be present in people who are convinced that they
possess the final truth but are unwilling to impose it on another. But such an
attitude also precludes that such people will learn something from the other since
they begin with the assumption that theirs is the exclusive truth.
© Grand Valley State University
�Interreligious Dialogue
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Whatever revisioning interreligious dialogue may demand from other faith
traditions, for the Christian tradition, a rethinking of its core creedal
Christological formulations and their salvific implications is of first importance.
The Quest of the Historical Jesus
As I look across my desk at the shelf of books, the name of Jesus is prominent.
Book after book published in the last few years seeks to uncover the mystery and
meaning of this one who “comes to us as One unknown...,” to use Schweitzer’s
familiar designation. Studies emanate from the Jesus Seminar people, as well as
many beyond their ranks, such as the Catholic scholar Raymond Brown and the
highly respected Jewish scholar E. P. Sanders. My eye catches the title of an older
bundle of essays by Marinus de Jonge, Jesus: Inspiring and Disturbing Presence.
Indeed.
I move to the shelf and pull down the classic study by Albert Schweitzer, The
Quest of the Historical Jesus. In his preface to the English translation, F. C.
Burkitt refers to the sharp controversy that had been raging on the continent in
the late nineteenth century over the attempt to discover the historical Jesus
behind the Christ figure that appears in the writings, particularly of Paul. Such
sharp battle, he notes, is somewhat foreign to the more genteel English, but even
those whose lives of Jesus were “written with hate” have performed a great
service in bringing to light an understanding “of the greatest historical problem
in the history of our race.” The new understanding, Burkitt claims, makes clear
that the object of attack was not the historical Jesus after all, but a
temporary idea of Him, inadequate because it did not truly represent him
or the world in which he lived, (vi)
Schweitzer’s work brought the first quest to an end by pointing out the
eschatological center of Jesus’ message in contrast to the portrait that portrayed
Jesus as the ideal person of nineteenth-century, European society. With the rise
of historical thinking, it was being recognized that historical research must seek
to uncover the context of the first and second centuries if it would discover Jesus
of Nazareth.
Burkitt was confident that such an understanding would be taken for granted in
the ongoing research into Christian origins. He cites a contemporary, Father
Tyrrell, who claimed that Christianity was at a crossroads, but Burkitt little
doubts that the church would come to terms with the results of historical
research and bring the significance of Jesus Christ to fresh expression. That the
eschatological prophet of Schweitzer’s description would need to be translated
into another image if he were to be meaningfully appropriated in the twentieth
century went without saying. The dawning historical consciousness was leading
to the recognition, in Burkitt’s words,
© Grand Valley State University
�Interreligious Dialogue
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
that absolute truth cannot be embodied in human thought and that its
expression must always be clothed in symbols. It may be that we have to
translate the hopes and fears of our spiritual ancestors into the language of
our new world. (vii)
That the Absolute can be expressed only in symbol, in metaphor, has been widely
recognized through linguistic studies in the last half of the present century.
Metaphor in its common understanding is a figure of speech in which there is a
transfer of meaning—one term is illuminated by attaching to it some of the
associations of another, so that metaphor is “that trope, or figure of speech, in
which we speak of one thing in terms suggestive of another” (Soskice, 1985, 54).
In this sense, all religious language and speech about God is metaphoric. That
does not take away from the truthfulness of what is communicated; indeed,
picture language often conveys a truth far better than a formula or abstract
definition. It does, however, mean that the truth being conveyed and the
linguistic form, the particular figure of speech, are not necessarily tied to each
other. The same truth may be able to be conveyed by a different figure of speech,
and in another culture or time a figure of speech that communicates the truth at
issue may fail to bring that truth to expression with clarity.
In other words, the symbols used to express the truth of the Absolute must not
themselves be absolutized. The symbolic form of expression points beyond itself;
one must “see through” the symbol to the reality symbolized. The form of
expression, the specific figure of speech chosen to disclose the reality may be
adequate or inadequate; it may disclose or it may mislead. Only those metaphoric
forms that prove themselves in usage will last. But even those that prove valuable
over the ages and generations must not be understood as identical with the truth
or reality signified. There may arise in evolving cultural experience reason to
cease using a metaphor or to modify its use if it becomes evident that it has
conveyed not only aspects of truth but also misunderstanding that has proven
detrimental – for example, the metaphor of God as Father in current feminist
critique of patriarchy.
When a metaphor for the Absolute is challenged, it must be recognized that it is
not the Absolute that is challenged, but only the symbolic form used to disclose
the truth of the Absolute.
The Rise of Historical Thinking
As he wrote the preface to Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus in 1910,
Burkitt pointed to the growing recognition of the symbolic character of religious
language in the wake of the rise of historical thinking in the nineteenth century.
It was in that cultural context that the first quest of the historical Jesus took
place, which Schweitzer showed to be naive. Further historical-critical research
revealed the inadequacy of the historical methods employed and of the
understanding of the nature of the biblical documents examined. Nevertheless,
© Grand Valley State University
�Interreligious Dialogue
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
thinking historically is the mark of modernity and remains so in post-modernism
which, in general, denies the possibility of formulating principles or doctrines
identical with foundational reality, along with rejecting the Enlightenment claim
that there are universal truths of reason.
We can see the implications of this new way of thinking—thinking with historical
consciousness—if we examine the work of Ernst Troeltsch. He is best identified as
an exponent of historicism, a term used here to define the interpretation of the
totality of cultural development (including the Christian tradition) as phenomena
of the historical process. Troeltsch recognized that the advent of the historicalcritical method signified more than just a new means by which to gain knowledge
of the past. Far more, it symbolized a revolution in the consciousness of the
person of the West. He was convinced that the employment of this method was
incompatible with the traditional Christian faith based on a supernaturalistic
metaphysics. This clash was most evident, as we have noted above, in the area of
biblical criticism.
Troeltsch did not point to particular results of scholarly research that was
troubling to believers; rather, he pointed to the method that yielded the
disturbing data. The assumptions of the method, he claimed, were irreconcilable
with the traditional dogmatic method. Traditional dogmatic formulation
regarded the Scriptures as supernaturally inspired; the historian assumed they
must be understood in terms of the historical context in which they arose, subject
to the same principles of interpretation and criticism applied to any ancient
literature. The historian, following this method, according to Troeltsch, could not
assume events recorded in Scripture were supernatural interventions by God;
rather, the historian must treat them in the causal nexus of their times. And
rather than granting uniqueness to the central redemptive events to which the
Bible pointed, the historian must treat them as analogous to all other historical
events past and present. Further, the historian’s research can yield only probable
results, an inadequate ground for faith.
Troeltsch’s ability to recognize the revolutionary nature of the employment of the
historical-critical method revealed to him what remained hidden for many
theological thinkers, namely, that one has to make a choice to accept the method
and its consequences or to reject the method as inappropriate. What could not be
done was to use the method as long as the consequences were compatible with
one’s theological presuppositions and reject it when they went counter to one’s
prior belief.
The church must choose, Troeltsch was certain, to employ the method and accept
the consequences, letting burn what must burn and then building again a truer, if
more humble, foundation. It was his conviction that historical thinking had
penetrated the mind of the Western person so deeply that it was no longer
possible to think in any other vein. Either the Christian tradition would
© Grand Valley State University
�Interreligious Dialogue
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
accommodate itself to the spirit of the times or it would become a relic of the
past.
In his discussion of the significance of the historicity of Jesus for Christian faith,
Troeltsch included Schleiermacher, Ritschl, and Herrmann in his criticism, for
while the liberal Protestant tradition recognized the validity of the historicalcritical method for the investigation of Christian origins, it failed to recognize the
relativity of all historical phenomena including Jesus of Nazareth. Consequently
Troeltsch could but condemn their view that Jesus is the absolute Savior for all
people of all times and places (cf. Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für
den Glauben p. 51).
In Troeltsch’s view the very historical-critical approach to Christian origins,
especially to Jesus himself, undercut any attempt to salvage from the uniformity
of history a final and absolute revelation of God. Thus Troeltsch was convinced
that the theology of the future would have to purge away the last vestiges of the
old dogmatic approach and carry through more rigorously the requirements of
the historical-critical method that draws all historical phenomena, Jesus of
Nazareth not excepted, into the movement of historical process, allowing for no
absolute uniqueness in the midst of the relative.
Paradoxical as it may appear, Karl Barth quite agreed with Troeltsch—agreed,
that is, that to subject Jesus to historical-critical research behind the witness of
the New Testament is to level him down to one historical person among others, in
whom there cannot possibly be found the final and definitive revelation of God.
Of course, agreement with Troeltsch that having followed the path it did, there
was no stopping halfway, does not imply that Barth advocates with Troeltsch that
their successors should draw the logical conclusion as Troeltsch advocated. On
the contrary, Barth discovers their fatal error in the course they chose to follow in
the first place. It was not their decision to grant recognition to the use of the
historical-critical method and then fail to draw the conclusions to which it led.
Rather, it was their understanding of religion as an innate potential of the human
spirit and their failure to see that, defined in such terms, the Christian faith was
not being spoken of at all. If Christianity were a phenomenon of the religious
capacity of the human person, then it would be one religion among others and
could be understood only, as Troeltsch maintained, by a comparative historical
study. In such an instance there could be no talk of an absolute and definitive
revelatory significance or meaning in history. If one started where Troeltsch
started, Barth maintained, one would end where Troeltsch ended. But then,
according to Barth, we have to do not with the religion of revelation but with the
revelation of religion (Church Dogmatics I, 2, 284), and the application of the
historical-critical method will discover in Jesus no more than a man among other
men and in Christianity no more than a religion among other religions. The
History of Religions school is only the logical outcome of a theology that speaks
of the believing person rather than of the revealing God. Theology that takes itself
© Grand Valley State University
�Interreligious Dialogue
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
seriously can speak only from the revelation of God that has grasped it, paying
homage to no worldview, be it ancient or modern, to no philosophical system,
and to no anthropological analysis of the human religious capacity. Theology
must speak from out of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
Thus Barth completely repudiated the method of Troeltsch, and, to the dismay of
the academic world, pursued the traditional dogmatic method, reducing
historical-critical research to a secondary, helping role in the explication of the
biblical witness to Jesus Christ.
Barth’s repudiation of Troeltsch and the whole project of nineteenth-century
liberalism prevailed. A whole generation of theologians was shaped by the
theology of the Word that, while not a uniform movement, was at one in removing the truth of Christian faith from the results of historical investigation.
But as the twentieth century nears its end, Troeltsch is being studied anew.
Garrett E. Paul in a 1993 Christian Century article asks and answers in his title,
“Why Troeltsch? Why Today? Theology for the 21st Century.” Dietrich
Bonhoeffer had exposed the Achilles’ heel of Barth’s dogmatic method with his
recognition of Barth’s “positivism of revelation.” Writing from prison to his friend
Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer pointed out that Barth was the first theologian to
begin the criticism of religion but that he replaced it with a positivist doctrine of
revelation that says in effect, “Take it or leave it.” In a later letter he affirmed
Barth’s ethical observations as well as his dogmatic views, but went on to write:
it was that he gave no concrete guidance, either in dogmatics or in ethics,
on the non-religious interpretation of theological concepts. There lies his
limitation, and because of it his theology of revelation becomes positivist, a
“positivism of revelation,” as I put it.
Bultmann, who joined Barth in the removal of Christian origins from historical
investigation, claiming the necessity only of the “dass” of the historical Jesus for
faith, also saw his disciples move away from this view as they engaged in “the new
quest of the historical Jesus.”
Presently the flood of studies being published, including the work of the Jesus
Seminar scholars, indicates that the implications of historical thinking recognized
and applied by Troeltsch will not go away. Karl Barth, arguably the greatest
theological thinker of the century and among the greats of all time, was able by
the power of his thought and the circumstances of his historical moment to stem
the tide of historical thinking applied to theological formulation for a generation,
but the kerygma sheltered in a safe haven denying investigation of historical
foundations cannot finally be maintained no matter how brilliantly and powerfully proclaimed.
Hans Küng in Great Christian Thinkers (1994) identifies Barth as one of a line of
theologians—Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Schleiermacher—
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who effected a paradigm shift in theological understanding. But in his analysis of
Barth, Küng claims that he initiated the paradigm shift to postmodernity but did
not complete it. With great regard for Barth’s accomplishments, Küng nevertheless confirms Bonhoeffer’s claim made a half century ago.
Recognizing that the later Barth was reevaluating the knowledge of God available
from the world of creation, natural theology, and world religions, Kung maintains
that in the end this dogmatic edifice conceived on such a large scale,
stringently constructed and carefully built, had at least in principle
(though most Barthians hardly noticed) been blown up!
It is Küng’s contention that if Barth could start over, “he would attempt to work
out a Christian theology in the context of the world religions and the world
regions.” How would Barth go about this, according to Küng?
He would have attempted to work out a responsible historical-critical
dogmatics in the light of an exegesis with a historical-critical foundation,
in order in this way co translate the original Christian message... for the
future that had dawned in such a way that it was again understood as a
liberating address from God. (120)
And, Küng contends, the “historical Jesus,” apart from whom the “Christ of
dogma” becomes a myth to be manipulated at will, might “again become of the
utmost importance and urgency.”
We have come, it would appear, full circle during the course of this century. The
current reconsideration of Ernst Troeltsch stems from his early grasp of the
implications of historical thinking for theological formulation. He was an
interdisciplinary thinker at home in various realms of inquiry. He faced up to the
demise of Eurocentricism and the relativity of all historical events and human
knowledge – religious, philosophical, and scientific. Thus he acknowledged that
Christian faith was relative to its largely Western orientation and environment.
At the beginning of this century Troeltsch foresaw the global pluralism with
which we are finally beginning to come to terms. In 1910, Burkitt was expressing
the implication of a new way of thinking, thinking historically, thinking in terms
of development, the evolving conception of truth. Such a way of thinking is widely
accepted in our world, but it has been resisted in the conservative sectors of the
church because it can lead to the morass of relativism and the denial of the
Absolute and of absolute truth.
But such a result is not the necessary consequence of historical thinking. Rather,
it can simply lead to the recognition expressed by Burkitt—that every human
attempt to express absolute truth is only a relative expression—relative to one’s
cultural context—a partial grasp of the absolute that will always transcend any
historically conditional expression. Further, that expression is possible only in
symbolic form, by use of metaphor.
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My purpose in introducing the limits and possibilities of historical thinking is in
order to point the way to authentic and fruitful interreligious dialogue. Such
dialogue is imperative for our world. The frightening prospect of a world in the
throes of religious conflict makes it incumbent upon us to find a way to effect
communication and mutual respect among the world religions. That will not be
possible unless we are willing to apply the insights of historical thinking to the
core credal development of Christology, including the various theories of the
atonement that have been formulated throughout the centuries.
The Development of Doctrine
Burkitt was too confident in 1910. The twentieth century has not seen a fresh
expression of the meaning of Jesus Christ in the church. Rather there has been
strenuous resistance to any revisioning of core Christological formulations.
This resistance to revisioning has been pointed out by the Anglican priest John
Bowden in Jesus: The Unanswered Questions (1988). He is troubled by the
church’s refusal to engage in serious discussion of the unavoidable questions
surrounding Jesus that have arisen as our knowledge of the cultural context of his
life and the checkered history of credal development have become apparent.
Bowden writes from the perspective of faith, from within the tradition of the
Christian church, and for love of the faith and the church. But he raises the
unanswered and disturbing questions that must be addressed if the church is to
engage the spiritual quest of those for whom responsible, intelligent inquiry must
accompany the commitment of faith. Thus, his purpose in writing is pastoral and
positive. From a broad spectrum of research he has distilled the critical questions
that demand a hearing.
Reflecting on his own theological training, he finds it remarkable that, after a
thorough immersion in the historical-critical study of Scripture, he found quite a
different approach to the history of Christian doctrine up to the year 451, the year
of the Council of Chalcedon and the formulation of the classical statement about
the natures of Jesus Christ. The theological reasoning and philosophical argument of those early centuries used the Bible in quite another fashion than he had
learned to use it in his biblical studies. While the different cultural patterns of the
early centuries of Christian dogmatic formulation were recognized, the
conclusions of the church fathers were not to be questioned after Chalcedon; they
were a given.
But, Bowden contends, the conclusions of those early centuries need to be
questioned as seriously as the gospel record has been. Biblical criticism must be
joined by doctrinal criticism that will examine the historical development in those
early centuries that culminated in the classic credal definitions of Incarnation
and Trinity, an historical development about which we have data enough to trace
the interplay of cultural forces involving not only concern for the truth but
political power plays and ecclesiastical intrigue. We really know the story. We
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have simply refused to draw out the implications for this core credal affirmation.
But until we do, we will not be able to engage in honest interreligious discussion.
Doctrinal formulation is a human enterprise. Human thought forms and human
language are the tools of such formulation. To acknowledge that as fundamental
for historical thinking is not a denial of absolute truth, as previously stated. It is
only to recognize that any particular articulation of the truth cannot be
absolutized and be raised to a status beyond further reflection and possible
reformulation. It is simply to acknowledge that it is a given of our human
historical condition that we are limited to relative apprehensions, partial
understandings that need always to be adjusted in light of new information
gathered from research and ongoing historical experience.
John Hick is a Christian thinker who has utilized the distinction between the
Absolute and the respective relative apprehensions of the Absolute in the great
world religions. Being a Christian, he has applied that insight to the development
of the Christological formulations of the early centuries in the interest of
developing a Christology in a pluralistic age.
Christology Revisited
John Hick has a ready grasp of the development of the Christian theological
tradition as well as a deep knowledge of other religious traditions. For him, the
window to the Real, to God, is Jesus and the Christian tradition. But he believes
that the Real is apprehended through other traditions as well. Thus he believes
there is a pluralism of ways of salvation. He argues his case in The Metaphor of
God Incarnate (1993), in which he contends that the necessary revision of
Christological understanding that alone can make way for genuine interreligious
dialogue will involve “liberation from the network of theories—about Incarnation,
Trinity and Atonement….”
Hick contends that
divine incarnation in its standard Christian form, in which both genuine
humanity and genuine deity are insisted upon, has never been given a
satisfactory literal sense; but that on the other hand it makes excellent
metaphorical sense….We see in Jesus a human being extraordinarily open
to God’s influence and thus living to an extraordinary extent as God’s
agent on earth, “incarnating” the divine purpose for human life. He thus
embodied within the circumstances of his time and place the ideal of
humanity living in openness and response to God, and in doing so he
“incarnated” a love that reflects the divine love. (12)
Hick, in a sense, is attempting to fulfill the task that in 1910 Burkitt foresaw as
necessary if the church were going to face the consequences of the historical
study of Christian origins and translate the figure of Jesus into an understanding
meaningful to the twentieth century.
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Richard A. Rhem
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Yet, the work of translation does not proceed without resistance, as Bowden
points out. In his opening chapter, Hick himself reviews the explosion that
erupted following the publication in 1977 of The Myth of God Incarnate, a
volume of essays by leading New Testament scholars and theologians, of which
he was one. “Thundering sermons and clerical pronouncements,” along with
articles in the British press called for the Anglicans among the authors to resign
their orders, and publication of a flurry of conservative retorts erected a wall of
opposition to the insights and implications as they were articulated in The Myth
of God Incarnate. From the tenor of the responses, one would have thought
nothing in the church’s understanding had been affected in spite of two hundred
years of intensive research and discussion. While the results of the historicalcritical study of the Bible had gained some acceptance, there obviously remained
a formidable barrier to the same kind of investigation of the historical process
that transformed Jesus of Nazareth into the ontological Son of God, second
person of the Trinity, in the credal development of the fourth and fifth centuries.
Hick addresses the third element of the doctrinal triad he contends needs
revisioning, the understanding of the death of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice. He
traces the history of the development of the doctrine, pointing out the cultural
contexts that influenced the respective theories over the centuries. Then he asks,
as in the case with other doctrines, what was the original experience out of which
atonement theory arose, for it is that same gracious, liberating experience that we
seek in our day.
Rejecting the idea of an objective justice requiring punishment for wrongdoing, a
moral law that God can and must satisfy by punishing the innocent in place of the
guilty, Hick searches for a way to express the idea of atonement in the broad
sense, in the etymological meaning of at-one-ment becoming one with God—not
ontologically but, rather, being in right relationship with God, being in a state of
salvation. He points to Eastern Orthodoxy as a valuable source for understanding
with its idea of restoration to the divine image, salvation as a process of
transformation.
In such a view, “Jesus’ death was a piece with his life, expressing a total integrity
in his self-giving to God; and his cross continues to inspire and challenge on a
level that does not involve the atonement theories developed by the Churches.”
With such an understanding of the death of Jesus, Hick is able to find similar
meanings of salvation in other religious faiths. Thus he contends,
these different conceptions of salvation are specifications of what, in a
generic formula, is the transformation of human existence from selfcenteredness to a new orientation centered in the divine Reality....
The great world religions, then, are ways of salvation. Each claims to
constitute an effective context within which the transformation of human
existence can and does take place from self-centeredness to Realitycenteredness. (136)
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Richard A. Rhem
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With such a perspective, genuine interreligious dialogue can begin. It will become
an empirical process of seeking to discover the fruits of the respective religions in
human life. The alternative to such a stance is to bring to the discussion an
understanding of atonement that necessitates a Christian absolutism of the
exclusivist variety—that outside of the knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ, his
death and resurrection, salvation is not possible, or, an inclusivist view that
salvation is only through Christ but explicit knowledge and trust are not
necessary to receive the benefits of his death and resurrection.
The ranks of the exclusivists are thinning. Evangelicals are increasingly trying to
find a broader arena for God’s saving embrace. Clark Pinnock’s A Wideness in
God’s Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions and John
Sanders’s No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the
Unevangelized attempt this, although they thread a tortuous way because they
have not yet shed an earlier view of biblical authority nor questioned the core
Christological formulation.
Schubert Ogden suggests an alternative to Hick. In a 1993 address at the Divinity
School in Chicago, he argued against the pluralists’ claim as well as rejecting the
claims of exclusivists and inclusivists alike. But in his approach there is also a revisioning of the classical Christological formulations in which salvation is
constituted through Jesus Christ alone. Rather than a constitutive Christology,
Ogden argues for a representative Christology. In this view, the Christ event
represents the claim that “salvation has always already been constituted by what
Christians are wont to think and speak of as the primordial and everlasting love
of God.” Whether and where that love of God might elsewhere be represented is
to be determined in the discussion without prior commitment to exclusivism,
inclusivism, or pluralism. One simply enters the dialogue open to the truth claim
of the other.
My intention is not to advocate Hick or Ogden or any other thinker who is
addressing the matter of interreligious dialogue. Rather, I wish to point to the
necessity of honestly drawing out the consequences of the recognition that human grasp of the truth develops, evolves, and needs ongoing assessment and
adjustment—and sometimes conceptions need to be rejected. By use of historical
imagination the originating experience that gave rise to a theological formulation
needs to be recovered in order to express the same reality differently, in order to
make the experience available in a totally different cultural context.
Rather than seeing this as a burden, a cause for fear and defensiveness, it should
be seen as an exciting challenge. Is not such a pursuit of the truth to love God
with mind as well as heart? And is not the recognition that every biblical and
theological expression is marked by the human and historical limitations that
adhere to all human thought the reason there is need for continual reformation?
To be Reformed is not to be in possession of a set of timeless and eternal truths
but, rather, to refuse to absolutize any human arrangement or formulation. It is
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Richard A. Rhem
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not to be saddled with a set of truths that were once new, innovative, and
destabilizing of the established order of the sixteenth century, or the first century.
It is an approach, a spirit, a posture that is open to new knowledge, fresh insight,
and cumulative human experience within historical development.
The church has managed to spend the century in a state of schizophrenia,
pursuing research in the academy and sharing the results in the lecture hall,
while the liturgy, prayers, hymns, and sermons have given little evidence of the
honest engagement with insights of the modern period.
My mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof, claimed the only heresy was to make the gospel
boring. I would add another—the heresy of orthodoxy, the evidence of a failure of
nerve and lack of trust in the living God. It is the heresy of an inordinate lust for
certitude that seeks premature closure, the shutting down of the quest for truth
and growth of knowledge in the magnificent and mysterious cosmos by the creatures whom the Creator calls to consciousness and embraces in a grace that
pervades the unfolding cosmic process.
References:
John Stephen Bowden. Jesus: The Unanswered Questions. Abingdon Press,
1989.
F.C. Burkitt, Preface to The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer.
Dover Publications, Dover Ed edition, 2005.
John Hick. The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age
(Second edition). Westminster John Knox Press, 2nd edition, 2006.
Ernst Troeltsch. Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu für den Glauben.
© 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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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Interfaith worship
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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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References
John S. Bowden, Jesus: The Unanswered Questions, 1989, John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate, 2006, Albert Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, 2005, Ernst Troeltsch, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu fur den Glauben.
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RA-4-19950501
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1995-05-01
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Interreligious Dialogue: What is Required of Us?
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Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought
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Richard A. Rhem
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eng
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Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 1, 1995 entitled "Interreligious Dialogue: What is Required of Us?", it appeared in Perspectives, pp. 10-15. Tags: Global Community, Pluralism, Interfaith, Historical Jesus, Metaphor, Grace, Mystery,
Incarnation. Scripture references: John S. Bowden, Jesus: The Unanswered Questions, 1989, John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate, 2006, Albert Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus, 2005, Ernst Troeltsch, Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu fur den Glauben..
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application/pdf
Global Community
Grace
Historical Jesus
Incarnation
Interfaith
Metaphor
Mystery
Pluralism
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bc50d5f76951f91e4caf5bd404ccf465.pdf
e145e9517fd457752535311d84ca521b
PDF Text
Text
The Church in Conflict – Can Non-Believers Be Saved?
Richard A. Rhem
Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Prepared Text for the Address to
The Synod of the Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America
To be delivered at Ramapo, New Jersey
October 4, 1996
Editor’s Note: See “Regarding the Conflict About Christian Exclusivity” for the
edited transcript of the spoken address followed by questions & answers.
Let me begin by saying that we are focused on the wrong question; the issue is
not whether non-believers can be saved, but rather, whether those who yearn for
God and seek God can experience God's gracious embrace outside the revelation
of that grace as it has appeared in Jesus Christ and been mediated through the
Christian tradition. I suspect the question means to raise that issue - can nonbelievers in Jesus Christ as the sole mediator between God and humankind
be saved? But, we ought to be careful that we not give the impression that those
who believe in Jesus Christ are the world's only believers. If pressed, I doubt any
of us would claim that, but our language can be thus construed and create such
an impression.
As for the first phrase in the day's theme, “The Church in Conflict,” there is no
doubt. The Church is in conflict and I have been at the center of that conflict. I
was given the ultimatum by the Classis of Muskegon to recant my views on the
extent of God's grace, on the possibility of knowing God savingly beyond the
limits of the Christian tradition or leave the ranks of ordained clergy in the
Reformed Church. Refusing to deny my conviction that the grace of God is
broader than that grace operative within the Christian tradition, I resigned my
ordination.
How did we come to such a point? A brief review is important in order to
understand the conflict situation because the salvation question was not the issue
that fomented the conflict. The catalyst for the Classis of Muskegon to investigate
my ministry was a feature article in The Muskegon Chronicle on the Muskegon
Metropolitan Community Church. For nearly two years that small community
had been conducting Sunday evening worship in our chapel. We had hosted
a pastoral care seminar on ministry to persons suffering from AIDS. At that
seminar we learned from the pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church that
they were meeting in the basement of a Muskegon bar because they could not
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Richard A. Rhem
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find a church facility open to them. We brought the matter to our Consistory
which unanimously invited the group to use our facility without charge. The
Consistory saw the invitation simply as an act of hospitality.
The newspaper feature appeared on the Friday before the Spring session of the
Classis in March of 1995. The article mentioned that the group met in our chapel
and accompanying pictures were taken in our chapel. At the close of the Classis
session, someone brought up "Christ Community's ministry to homosexuals."
There followed an emotional discussion of our ministry, which can only be
explained as an outburst of pent-up hostility to our ministry in general.
That was the beginning. A task force was appointed to investigate our ministry
to homosexuals. Our Consistory gathered at the request of the task force and
answered their questions - the real question being, "Do you call these people to
repentance?" Our Elders answered yes, that we are all called to repentance every
time we gather in worship. Obviously, that was not the answer being sought. The
interrogators wanted to know if the Metropolitan Community people were
challenged to turn away from their homosexuality. Not being satisfied with the
task force findings, the Classis Executive Committee requested I present myself
for questioning from the floor of Classis at its Fall meeting.
At the October, 1995, meeting, I was asked to give my view of homosexual
relationships. I answered that I believed sexual orientation was for the most part
a given at birth and that homosexuality was not a moral issue. That viewpoint
shocked the Classis. From there it led to the charge that I obviously did not
believe in the authority of the Bible. And further, I was questioned about
salvation through Jesus Christ alone. I am not even certain how that question
came up. The meeting got out of control. There were calls for my immediate
dismissal. Finally, it was moved that the Executive Committee engage me in
theological discussion. On Reformation Day, 1995, the Executive Committee
came to Christ Community for the discussion on the three issues that surfaced at
the Classis meeting:
1. What do you believe and teach about the scriptures as the only rule of
faith and life?
2. What do you believe and teach about the way of salvation apart from
Jesus Christ?
3. What do you believe and teach about the need to repent of
homosexual behavior?
For about two hours I gave account of myself. Although two tape recorders were
used, neither one produced a usable recording. Therefore, one of the Executive
Committee members summarized what they had heard from me and he and
another committee member came to me with the summary. Scanning the
summary, I said I felt my views had been heard and were quite well represented.
I offered to take the summary and put it in my own words, keeping to the same
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Richard A. Rhem
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format and length. I also promised to be as clear as possible so that the issue in
each case would stand out clearly. I then suggested the Classis meet to discuss my
response to their questions at a session in which no vote would be taken.
This was done. On February 1, 1996, the Classis met in special session, breaking
up into small groups to discuss my paper, hoping to come to a consensus on
whether or not my views were within what was judged to be acceptable
parameters of Reformed faith. Of the eight groups, five held I was beyond the
limits, two that I was within and one group couldn't come to a consensus.
With that indication from the body, the Executive Committee called a special
session for February 29. They had decided to drop the issue that had been the
catalyst for the whole discussion - the issue of homosexuality. I suspect they
realized the Classis was getting bad press on that issue and it was the issue the
press grabbed on to. I think, too, they came to recognize that Christ Community
was living out the General Synod's directives concerning pastoral ministry to
persons of homosexual orientation more than any other congregation in the
Classis.
The charge that I have an inadequate view of biblical authority has never been
discussed. Again, I suspect the Classis was not overly confident they could make a
case there and I resolutely rejected their charge.
Thus, the centerpiece of the case against me was that I denied that salvation was
available through Jesus Christ alone. That issue was clear and simple and it
generated emotional response. Because the conflict took on this sharp focus, we
are here in conversation around the question of salvation, not whether nonbelievers can be saved, but whether only those who believe in Jesus Christ can be
saved.
To the question put to me by the Muskegon Classis regarding salvation apart
from Jesus Christ, I responded:
SALVATION
I am a Christian. I trust in, worship and serve God as God has been revealed to
me by God's Spirit in the face of Jesus Christ. For me, Paul has expressed it well:
...the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"... has shone in our
hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ. II Corinthians 4:6
That is the God I have preached for thirty-five years, twenty-nine of them in
Spring Lake. The Good News that appeared in Jesus is the Gospel preached at
Christ Community, the Gospel that has built this Christian community.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Is this God, Creator of all - God alone, known by any others through any other
manifestations? Is God's Spirit operative savingly through any other revelation?
My study, reflection and experience would say, "Yes."
There are three answers given to the question of salvation in the Christian
tradition. Although there are shades of difference within each position, for
simplicity's sake, let me define the three positions thus: The exclusivist position
says salvation is available only through Jesus Christ consciously embraced by the
believer. The inclusivist position holds that salvation was accomplished
only through Jesus Christ but some will be included even though they make no
personal appropriation through faith in Jesus Christ.
My position is the pluralist view: Jesus Christ mediates to the Christian
community salvation, but the God of whom Jesus is a true revelation is known by
others in their respective traditions.
I use the example of a cathedral resplendent with stained glass windows. The
windows tell stories, biblical stories, but think for our purposes, for example, of
Jewish folk gathered in the nave, the Christians in the choir, Muslims in the
transepts. Each group is reading the story of faith in their respective areas
through their specific windows, the windows of their tradition. But that is
possible only because there is a common source of light that filters through all the
windows.
I see the respective religions as historical concretizations of founding revelatory
experience, but the common source of all true revelation is the one God - the God
who, for me, is the God whose heart is revealed in the face of Jesus.
It is to that God that I witness; it is to the grace of God that I point. But I can
enter authentically into dialogue with other faith traditions, bearing my witness
but also listening, open to learn new nuances of truth.
All religions are not equally true (or equally false). That is where dialogue and
mutual understanding come in. There is clarification, growth and transformation
possible where such dialogue is entered into without fear and defensiveness, but
with deep trust in the God whose Spirit leads into truth.
Salvation became the single focus of the inquiry into my theology and, in spite of
my affirmation of God's saving grace through Jesus Christ as the center of my
faith and my preaching and teaching ministry, I have been judged as outside
acceptable parameters of Reformed faith because I will not go on to say that only
those who come to God through Jesus Christ can be saved.
I have made this point concisely before the Classis. I was very clear that, if they
would scratch the word "alone," I would gladly assent to the statement they called
upon me to affirm. In "A Pastoral Letter to Muskegon Classis Churches
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Regarding our Relationship with the Rev. Richard Rhem," the Executive
Committee wrote:
•
We affirm theological search, questioning, and struggle. Clearly these
are values of the Reformed tradition. At the same time, we affirm the
integrity and the appropriateness of communal belief.
•
We affirm Dick Rhem's love for Christ.
•
We recognize Dick Rhem's respect for and struggle with Scripture.
•
We know that many have been very blessed by the work and ministry
of Dick Rhem as it has been carried out for 25 years at Christ
Community Church.
However, setting aside the issue of personal faith and based on our serious
and sincere consideration, we believe that what is being taught and preached
by Dick Rhem at Christ community Church in regards to the authority of
Scripture and salvation by Jesus Christ must be considered unacceptable.
This conviction comes from out of a time of honest wrestling, and causes us
much pain and sorrow. To the extent that this stance will hurt and bruise
fellow children of God, we do grieve that result.
Having said this, we hereby recommend that, unless Dick Rhem publicly
recant his views, as clearly espoused, which are not fully supportive of the
definitive authority of Scripture and salvation by Jesus Christ alone, Rev.
Rhem and the Muskegon Classis purposefully move toward a peaceful
separation, with humility and a gentle spirit.
Muskegon Classis Executive Committee February 22,1996
It was the "alone" I could not in good conscience declare. I stated in the special
session of February 29, 1996, that I did believe the revelation of God was possible
beyond the Christian tradition and that the grace of God could be mediated other
than through Jesus Christ. I also affirmed that I felt it arrogant to deny that, as
well as presumptuous to declare that God must save universally. But the "alone"
was the part at issue and on February 29,1996, Classis Muskegon voted 2 to 1
against me, thus leading to my being set outside the Reformed Church of
America.
At its June, 1996, session, the General Synod of the Reformed Church seemed to
confirm the decision of Muskegon Classis relative to the exclusivity of salvation
through Jesus Christ. A news release stated:
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
RCA General Synod Reaffirmed Doctrines of Christ and the
Scriptures
The General Synod of the Reformed Church in America, meeting June 814 at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, strongly reaffirmed two
tenets of the church - that salvation is only through faith in Christ and that
the Bible is the Word of God, the only rule of faith and practice. It also
approved (subject to approval by two-thirds of the RCA's 46 classes) a
Book of Church Order change which would require ministers to annually
affirm these beliefs.
The news release did not go on to relate the further action of the Synod which was
reported in the July/August, 1996, issue of The Church Herald.
THE UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST
The General Synod adopted the following resolution upon the unanimous advice
of the advisory committee on theology:
The 1996 General Synod of the Reformed Church in America joyfully and
gladly reaffirms its confession that God's unique, unrepeatable, and
decisive activity in Jesus Christ is the only sure hope for this world. God's
work in Jesus Christ alone saves all who believe. Indeed, there is salvation
in no one else, as the Old and New Testaments themselves teach.
Further, this position marks not the end, but the beginning of the church's
attempts faithfully to witness to the gospel. In our culture, there is an
increasing tendency to view religious issues merely as matters of personal
preference. Such an attitude renders the church's confession more difficult
for many to understand and to embrace. Increasing contact with adherents
of other religious traditions and those outside the Christian faith also
stretches the boundaries of Christian understanding, as Christians
recognize truth and value in religions and perspectives other than their
own, even while challenging them with Christ's unique claims about
himself. Therefore, in light of these changes in our world, the Reformed
Church in America seeks fresh guidance on how to interpret and to live out
its faith in the uniqueness of Christ in the midst of a pluralistic world with
diverse religious perspectives; and further,
The General Synod directs the Commission on Theology, in consultation
with Evangelism and Church Development Services, to engage in a study
on "Christian Witness to the Uniqueness of Christ among People of Other
Faiths" which will both interpret the nature and character of Christian
claims regarding the uniqueness of Christ and also guide Christians in
understanding and assessing the religious experience and claims of those
outside the Christian faith.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Thus, the conversation in which we are engaged today is part of the RCA agenda
at the present time.
Let me move on now to give the background of my claim that God's gracious
embrace is broader than the Christian Church.
As I do that, I want to be clear that my movement from an Exclusivist position that salvation is possible only through the atoning death of Jesus Christ
consciously embraced by faith - to a Pluralist position - that God's revelation
"happens" not only within the biblical tradition (Israel and Jesus), but also
beyond that tradition in other religious traditions, and, further, that God's
saving grace is mediated also through other traditions beyond the biblical
tradition - is the result of long wrestling with the biblical tradition and the
theological tradition of the Church in the light of my own human experience.
Those three, the biblical witness, the theological reflection of 2000 years,
and present human experience, must be understood as the mix out of which my
present position is arrived at. They are the matrix upon which thoughtful
reflection - the exercise of one's rationality - is focused as one carries on
the interpretive function of the theological task. If I were to identify the catalyst
for my in-depth probing, I suspect it would be my experience of a world marked
by global consciousness in which the great religious traditions, Judaism,
Christianity, Islam and the Eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism in their
respective expressions are being practiced in close proximity to each other. I
have for some time questioned the idea that the whole world would be brought to
embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It simply does not appear a likely possibility,
given the long traditions of those great traditions that arose in the First Axial
period, 800-200 B.C., and their present vitality.
Questioning the possibility of world evangelization, I found my concrete
experience calling into question the propriety of the effort to turn the respective
traditions from their path to Christian faith. That experience was a close
encounter with Jewish faith in its concrete observance. In a day-long dialogue
between Rabbi David Hartman and Bishop Krister Stendahl in 1991, sponsored
by the West Shore Committee for Jewish-Christian Dialogue in Muskegon,
Michigan, David Hartman raised the question,
Do I have to deny your truth to affirm my truth?
Do I have to deny your joy to celebrate my joy?
From the depths of my soul, I answered, "No, of course not." It was not only the
actual content of this all-day discussion that deeply impacted me; it was the
manner in which two totally committed religious scholars and leaders in their
respective traditions engaged each other. It was a moving experience to watch
these two persons wrestle with the issue of faithful interpretation.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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That experience led me to accept an invitation to join the West Shore Committee
and that experience has led to many concrete encounters with Jewish people and
Jewish observance - a briss in which I recognized precisely the same yearning for
God's grace to embrace the child, the same commitment of parents and
grandparents and community that I experience at the baptism of an infant in the
Christian community; a Bat Mitzvah at which I experienced the same passage
into spiritual adult faith that we experience at the confirmation of our youth;
Sabbath worship in which the Word is heard and prayers are offered before the
mystery of the God of Israel. Beyond these formal moments of ritual and worship,
it has been my privilege to come to know in meaningful friendship persons in the
Jewish community and sense with them our solidarity in the human family.
Such experience is powerful; it is transforming. It calls in question one's
traditional posture that would disallow the validity of the religious tradition of
the other. One finds the sharp divide created by religious exclusivism eroding.
What does one do with that experience?
If one would be serious and responsible to one's calling to be a minister of the
word and sacrament, one will necessarily be sent back to one's own tradition: to
the biblical story and the theological formulation of the faith. For me, this was
not a new endeavor; I had been wrestling with the biblical word and Reformed
confessional formulations for a quarter century since my return from study in
The Netherlands with Hendrikus Berkhof.
While with Berkhof I recognized that the inability of my own conservative
Reformed tradition to deal with ongoing human experience stemmed from its
understanding of the nature of scripture.
My theological education had taught me that Scripture is God’s inspired word,
infallible in all that it intends to teach. Further, I was taught that Scripture is to
be interpreted by Scripture– an individual passage in light of the whole testimony
of Scripture; there could be no contradictory material within the Bible. The
presupposition was that there was finally one unified biblical witness. To
determine the content of that witness, one had to apply a confessional
hermeneutics – that is, one approached the biblical material with a pre-formed
doctrinal system. To be sure the biblical theological scholars and the systematic
theologians carried on their debates, the biblical people pointing out the gaps and
flaws of the system by reference to biblical texts that did not “fit.” However, in the
Reformed Church and in conservative evangelical theology generally, the system
prevailed – Scripture interpreted by Scripture subsumed and explained away the
contradictions.
In this hermeneutical approach the rich diversity of the biblical witness was
smothered and the diverse voices that came to expression within the canon of
Scripture were silenced.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
My awareness of this failure to listen to the whole diverse biblical testimony
dawned as I read Berkhof’s Well-Founded Hope, a study of the biblical teaching
of themes of heaven and hell, judgment and salvation. From his study I learned
that the scheme of things I had always believed – that faith in Jesus Christ brings
salvation from eternal damnation and failure thus to believe destines one for
eternal punishment – was not the whole story. From Berkhof I learned there are
also passages that point to a universal salvation through the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Further, I learned that this was not something that lessened Berkhof’s passion for
witness to God’s grace in Jesus Christ but, rather, gave him the hope that
ultimately God’s “Yes” to humankind would prove stronger than the human “No.”
Cautious, not presumptive, nevertheless a positive hope that the gracious God
would overcome all human alienation.
Yet it was obvious that, not only the followers of other religious traditions lived
and died without knowledge or experience of Jesus Christ, but in the secular
society of the West many lived and died without any apparent Christian faith or
practice. How would all those who “died without Christ” be reconciled to God
through Christ? If it were the case that God’s grace was universal in its embrace,
how would that grace be mediated to those who never heard or heard but never
heeded? I was moving away from exclusivism toward an inclusivist
understanding of salvation but had no sense of what was involved in such a move.
After twelve strenuous years of building Christ Community, it was time for a
sabbatical. Without this as my goal, my sabbatical experience set me on a course
of investigation that gave foundation to my nascent inclusivism and paved the
way for my eventual movement to a pluralist position.
In the fall term of 1983, Hans Küng, the noted Roman Catholic theologian, gave a
series of lectures at the University of Michigan entitled, “Eternal Life?” It was an
investigation of life after death as a medical, philosophical, and theological
problem. He faced squarely and straightforwardly all the difficult questions
surrounding the subject, dealing with ancient and contemporary issues, the
question in the history of religions, the modern denial of anything beyond death,
and the near-death experiences recorded in recent years. He dealt with biblical
material, the question of resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus, and the church’s
teaching on judgment, heaven, and hell. The lectures were subsequently
published under the title Eternal Life. By virtue of my sabbatical, I attended the
lectures and was a participant in a cross-discipline seminar with Küng for the
term.
I came away with two striking realizations: first, that there was intense interest in
these questions of death and dying, of life after death, of heaven and hell on the
campus of a large secular university. The lectures had to be moved from the
largest lecture hall available to the Rackham Auditorium. Secondly, I realized
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how little these vital questions were probed in the church, how little reflection I
had personally given to them in my ministry, and how comfortably and
uncritically we in the church have accepted traditional answers.
Once awakened to the questions that are not nearly so simply answered as once I
had thought, and also to the deeply existential interest of today’s people, both
secular and religious, I began to open again questions on which I had come to
premature closure. For me, the greatest surprise came in a new appreciation for
the teaching of purgatory, which was resolutely rejected at the time of the
Reformation and which has received little serious reflection in the Protestant
tradition.
For the first time ever I sought to understand what the ancient tradition of the
Roman Church taught. To my surprise my own mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof, also
recognized a place for some process of purgation following death. He wrote,
God is serious about the responsibility of our decision, but he is even more
serious about the responsibility of his love. The darkness of rejection and
God-forsakenness cannot and may not be argued away, but no more can
and may it be eternalized. For God’s sake we hope that hell will be a form
of purification. (Christian Faith, Revised, p. 536)
I found C. S. Lewis’ treatment of the subject in The Great Divorce profound and
helpful. And in his Letters to Malcolm the imagery is moving.
Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if
God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags
drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will
upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the
joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no
objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know.” – “Even so,
sir.”
I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering.
Partly from tradition, partly because most real good that has been done me
in this life has involved it. But I don’t think suffering is the purpose of the
purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much
better than I will suffer less than I or more. “No nonsense about merit.”
The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or
much.
My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I hope
that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am “coming round,” a voice will
say, “Rinse your mouth out with this.” This will be Purgatory.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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I was convinced. Whatever the nature of the encounter with God at our death, the
redeeming intention of the God of all merely seemed to me consistent with the
whole movement of God in the historical outworking of the covenant of grace. I
returned to the biblical story, reading with new eyes, with new questions, and I
discovered a rich vein of material that pointed to a wideness in God’s mercy I had
never discovered in the Scriptures before. Along with the witness of Scripture, I
found a long line of theologians from the early Church Fathers who affirmed the
universal triumph of God’s redeeming grace.
I summarized my research in an article I wrote for the journal Perspectives
(September, 1988)”
Throughout Christian history some have understood God’s redemptive
action in Jesus Christ to be universal in its scope. The early church was far
more universalistic in its understanding of the radical renewal of reality,
the radical alteration of the human situation through God’s action in Jesus
Christ, than was the church of subsequent centuries. Among the fathers of
the early church we find statements pointing to the final conquest of evil
and rebellion, if not within history, then beyond, through some kind of
purgation process. Clement of Alexandria wrote,
Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard
heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the
swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a
sound and healthful state (Pedagog,1.8).
Clement’s more famous pupil, Origin, wrote,
…God is a consuming fire, what is it that is to be consumed by him?
We say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as is
figuratively called “wood, hay, and stubble” (I Cor. 1:ii), which
denote the evil works of man. Our God is a consuming fire in this
sense; and he shall come as a refiner’s fire to purify rational nature
from the alloy of wickedness… (Contra Celsum, Lib. IV, 13).
Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, declared,
All evil, however, must at length be entirely removed from
everything, so that it shall no more exist. For such being the nature
of sin, that it cannot exist without a corrupt motive, it must, of
course, be perfectly dissolved and wholly destroyed, so that nothing
can remain a receptacle of it, when all motive and influence shall
spring from God alone (De Anima et Resurrectione).
Theodore of Mopsuestia held
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That sin is an unavoidable part of the development and education of
man; that some carry it to a greater extent than others, but that God
will finally overrule it for their final establishment in good.
Among these early Christian thinkers there is no denial of evil and sin, but
they seem to entertain no doubt that God will finally conquer the last
vestige of evil and restore all things through remedial punishment.
It was not until 544 A.D. at a local council called by Justinian that the
teaching of universal salvation was condemned.
In the Perspectives piece I brought the discussion closer to our time, referencing
Karl Barth.
In our century the question of universalism has surfaced in Reformed
theology in the work of Karl Barth. Berkouwer’s early study of Barth was
entitled, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. Barth’s
detractors labeled him a Universalist and wrote him off as dangerous. Yet
the matter is not that simple. Barth resisted systematizing; he defied neat
pigeonholing. In a lecture delivered to a Swiss Reformed minister’s
association in 1956, he reflected on those early, heady days and the
theological ferment he fomented. He entitled his remarks, “The Humanity
of God.” One consequence of the humanity of God, Barth maintains, is that
the sense and sound of our word must be fundamentally positive. He
writes:
To open up again the abyss closed in Jesus Christ cannot be our
task. Man is not good: that is indeed true and must once more be
asserted. God does not turn towards him without uttering in
inexorable sharpness a “No” to his transgression. Thus theology has
no choice but to put this “No” into words within the framework of
its theme. However, it must be the “No” which Jesus Christ has
taken upon Himself for us men, in order that it may no longer affect
us and that we may no longer place ourselves under it. What takes
place in God’s humanity is, since it includes that “No” in itself, the
affirmation of man (The Humanity of God, p. 58).
After developing that notion, Barth raises the question, “Does this mean
universalism?” He then makes three observations “in which one is to
detect no position for or against that which passes among us under this
term” (p. 59).
Barth suggests one ought not surrender to the panic that that term seems
to spread before informing oneself exactly concerning its sense or nonsense. One should, he contends, at least be stimulated by Colossians 1:19
and parallel passages to determine whether the concept could not perhaps
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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have a good meaning. And he suggests finally that the ‘danger’ with which
universalism seems to be attended should be balanced by concern for an
even greater danger: a theology that fosters suspicious questioning
because of its own legalistic perspective and morose spirit.
Of this Barth is certain: we have no right to set limits to the lovingkindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Rather, he argues, it
is our duty to see and to understand it as still greater than we have seen
before.
And, of course, my mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof, was an important guide for me as
I wrestled with issues of ultimate concern. I wrote,
Hendrikus Berkhof gives a full discussion to the question before us in
Well-Founded Hope, the chapter entitled “The Double Image of the
Future.” He deals seriously with the biblical witness but concludes, as was
stated above, that Scripture leaves us with a double track. Countless
attempts have been made to subsume one track of texts under the other by
ingenious “exegetical tricks” but, Berkhof concludes, “we cannot smooth
out this contradiction in the New Testament.” All that we read about the
future, texts offering consolation and texts of warning, do not “fit together
like a jigsaw puzzle.” In the case of the passages giving warning, these
present the gospel in its nature as a call to decision; the passages offering
consolation give hope and the promise of eventual salvation of all.
We must hear both witnesses; we must not reduce one to the other. But we
cannot simply allow them to stand with no link between them. Berkhof
suggests we pronounce them “one after the other,” for “only the person
who has learned to tremble at the possibility of rejection may speak about
universal salvation.”
It is the believing church, declares Berkhof, that can confess the last secret.
In the end it is the power of God’s “yes” that triumphs over the
recalcitrance of the human “no.” This is our last word but a last word that
must be spoken if we believe God is ultimately not powerless or cruel or
arbitrary, but rather infinite in mercy through Jesus Christ.
Summarizing his conclusion on the issue in Christian Faith, Berkhof
writes:
We know that the covenant means that God’s faithfulness ever and
again does battle with man’s unfaithfulness. What ultimately will be
forced to yield: divine faithfulness or human unfaithfulness? Paul
raised that question with respect to Israel, as the trial grounds of
God’s relationship to man; and he ends with the confession: “God
has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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upon all” (Romans 11:32). These considerations compel us, not to
detract from the gravity of the human “No” against God and its
consequences, but to think just a little more of the divine “Yes” to
recalcitrant humans. God is serious about the responsibility of our
decision, but he is even more serious about the responsibility of his
love. The darkness of rejection and God-forsakenness cannot and
may not be argued away, but no more can and may it be eternalized.
For God’s sake we hope that hell will be a form of purification.
(Revised edition, p. 536).
Is this universalism? Karl Barth was unwilling to be so labeled and rightly so. In
my own wrestling with the question I have come to realize that it is not for us to
dictate to the Eternal God what is or what must be. It would be arrogant to deny
that God’s gracious embrace did not include all; it would be presumptuous to
insist that it must. But for me, the serious revisiting of the biblical story and
reflection on the Christian theological tradition convinced me that the extent of
God’s grace is far wider than I had ever thought. As I concluded the piece I wrote
for Perspectives:
In light of God’s gracious election in Jesus Christ, of God’s steadfast love
and covenant faithfulness, of God’s infinite power and patience, we have
good reason to trust and confidently hope that the habit of God’s heart will
finally heal every wound, overcome all opposition, and gather all God’s
children safely home.
References:
Hendrikus Berkhof. Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith.
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979, Revised edition, 1986.
C. S. Lewis. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Harcourt, Inc., 1964.
Richard A. Rhem, “The Habit of God’s Heart,” Perspectives, September 1988, pp.
8-11.
© 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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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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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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Address to The Synod of Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America
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Reformed Church Synod of Mid-Atlantics, Ramapo, New Jersey
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The Church in Conflict - Can Non-Believers Be Saved?
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Richard A. Rhem
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Talk created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 3, 1996 entitled "The Church in Conflict - Can Non-Believers Be Saved?", as part of the series "Address to The Synod of Mid-Atlantic, Reformed Church in America", at Reformed Church Synod of Mid-Atlantics, Ramapo, New Jersey. Tags: Inclusive Grace, Nature of God, Pluralism, Global Community.
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Global Community
Inclusive Grace
Nature of God
Pluralism
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9fdb9833f36189fe96eb39dc8ec59522.pdf
94d3025b83b946b010d82d3b02d5ee05
PDF Text
Text
Introduction to Progoff
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
January 30, 1989
Transcription of the spoken lecture
I am giving you the first of three introductory looks at the proposed fall seminar
with Ira Progoff. I wanted to begin now because I want to give you a bit of my
rather slight understanding of Progoff and also to let you know why I was
interested in Progoff in the beginning and why I believe that to bring the Journal
Workshop to this community is the kind of thing that I would like Christ
Community Church to do as a service to the broader community. I am going to
try to stick somewhat to my area and not get into an area which is not at all my
own, namely, the whole field of psychology and specifically depth psychology,
because I know very little about it. But I see in the work of Progoff, in the
knowledge I’ve had of it and of the persons with whom I’ve spoken, the kind of
resource that would be valuable for persons, for many kinds of persons, a broad
spectrum of persons, and therefore I have been rather excited about the
possibility of getting him here.
Getting him here is no small feat, and I guess he does only 4 or 5 Journal
Workshops a year across the country. But, wonder of wonders, the man himself
has agreed to come here this fall. I think to have the presence of someone like Ira
Progoff in itself is significant and very meaningful.
I have divided up what I want to say to you tonight into a few sections. The first
thing I want to say is just a word about who I am, because some of you are from
Christ Community, and some of you are from parts beyond. I want to say that I
understand myself and I understand Christ Community as a kind of purveyor of
this experience. Probably after tonight these kinds of things won't need to be said,
but I want to say them at the outset. I want you to know that I am, first of all, a
Christian person. My faith is in Jesus Christ, and I have found God through
Christ and the grace of God experienced in Jesus Christ. I'm just a simple
believer.
Beyond that, my vocation, my profession, is that of a theologian and a pastor. I
didn't know whether to put pastor first or theologian first, but I learned a little
about my self-understanding because I put theologian first. And that means that I
am a Christian who, in his vocational and professional life, is constantly trying to
understand Christian faith and tradition and Christian existence in the larger
context of the human experience. I'm always trying to do that. I am a pastor; I
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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have pastoral responsibilities for this community of faith, but I think this
community of faith, as we have postured ourselves, is concerned about the larger
community, the total community beyond our bounds. And so, that's who I am.
You have to know that I am a bridge person, or a boundary person. I always live
"on the edge." I live on the edge of the Church. I almost can't stand to live in the
Church. It's restricting; I get disappointed with it; I get frustrated with it. What
little hair I have left I could tear out at the behavior of the Church, which, I think,
in its institutional form has become rather rigid, has become very defensive, and
has lost the sense of movement with which, of course, it began in the aftermath of
Jesus Christ. It has become an institution with a lot of vested interest and a lot of
structure and harness and all that kind of “stuff” to preserve. I think most of its
posture is characterized by defensiveness and conserving and preserving, rather
than stretching and probing and pushing. So I always live with uneasy
relationship with the Church. I am a boundary person or a bridge person, and, as
I understand myself, I feel it my calling to try to understand the whole spectrum
of human knowledge in the light of the Gospel, and the larger Christian tradition,
but then to attempt to translate that Gospel in the light of that context. So, it's
always a two-way back and forth with me.
I believe that in the scriptures I have a history of Israel and the event of Jesus
Christ which is a given for me. But then the other pole is the present horizon, the
world in which we live. It seems to me that the task of the theologian is to
constantly be living between those two poles: trying to understand that which is
given in the revelation in Israel and in Jesus; and to understand as much as
possible the larger cultural context with its various human disciplines; and then
seeking from that understanding of the larger culture to have questions
addressed to the Gospel, which I believe bring new insights out of the Gospel; but
also bringing the Gospel to bear on our culture so that culture is not absolute but
is always under judgment of the Gospel. So, one must live in that kind of tension.
I think the systematic theologian has the largest task of any thinker, frankly. We
live in a world of great specialization. More and more people know more and
more about less and less. And we know that the academic world is characterized
by a lack of communication, a breakdown of communication and deep
specialization where there is no longer the ability to communicate across
disciplines. But the theologian is the one who claims to speak of God and, if God
is the source and the ground of truth, then to speak of God is to speak of that
whole spectrum, and therefore to be responsible to provide that umbrella that
can bring some kind of unity and coherence to the respective human disciplines.
Now, that's how I understand what I'm about and I love it and am fascinated by
it, and I think that it is important to me as a rooted and committed Christian to
be in that kind of dialogue and conversation with the broader spectrum of human
learning. And then, let me say a word about this particular community of faith.
One of the models by which we have shaped ourselves over the past couple of
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decades – one which I enunciated back in 1971, which had come to me in my own
studies and kind of existential quest – was that this community should always
seek to combine intellectual integrity with evangelical passion. The uniting of
head and heart. Intellectual integrity, searching honestly for truth, wherever that
may lead, in the confidence that the source of truth is in God and that God's
revelation in Jesus Christ is an expression of that ultimate truth, and that
therefore any genuine quest for truth cannot be something that will lead away
from but, rather, to God, to the extent that it is an authentic quest. But also with
evangelical passion, for we are not finally on a head trip, but we are engaged in
seeking to bring good news to persons. And we are about human transformation
here. We are about the transformation of the human person, which is more than
communicating a system of doctrines or structure of belief. That is a means;
that's all part of the mix. But, what we really are concerned to do is to see a
human person transformed, moving toward wholeness.
The best model that I can give you for that which we have had some experience
with here, is the AA model, where various steps are set forth which are simply a
borrowing of the Gospel without the names attached, but which lead to the
transformation of persons. And I believe that what we see in the movement of AA
is really what should be happening and happens all too little in the Christian
Church. Through that genuine encounter, that community of support, that total
acceptance and openness, which allows genuine confession and self-exposure in a
healing environment, there does occur the transformation and the healing of the
person. And the healing of the person is to say about the individual what we hope
for the larger picture, and that is the humanization of society. Now, that may
sound very humanistic. But, I happen to think that God is about a very
humanistic thing. I think that God is about gracing persons in order to release
their full potential and to recreate them into the image of Jesus Christ who, I
believe, is the human person par excellence, and that the Kingdom of God is the
rule of God or the reign of God and, where the reign of God is recognized, there
will be a very human society. So, I could speak about the Kingdom of God, but
just to keep it kind of down to earth, let me say once again, the transformation of
the person and the humanization of society - that, I think, is what we must be
about.
And of course, our resources are dynamic; our power, our vision comes out of our
understanding of the God revealed in Jesus Christ, and we do believe, as Scott
Peck says in The Road Less Traveled, that this is a graced universe, and that
there is a grace operative in the world at large which is a healing and positive
movement of God toward this world and toward persons.
So, that's kind of in a nutshell the way we operate here. That's what this
community of faith, this particular congregation, is all about. To the extent that
people have come and the church has prospered, to that extent, anybody that has
come in has kind of bought that vision, and I suppose that I'm guilty of shaping it
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in large measure, but that always happens when you get to stand up front once a
week, front and center.
So, we are a Christian congregation, and yet we see, I believe, a broader world out
there. We are not content to live a kind of parochial life of a Christian
congregation, within a Christian tradition, but would seek to understand
ourselves and to relate in a positive way to the broader cultural spectrum, and to
the world of spirit in whatever form that manifests itself.
I happen to believe that we are on the threshold of a new inter-dialogue among
the religions, and I think it is inevitable. The earth has shrunk to the size of a
grapefruit, and we really are members of a global community. It is no longer such
that we have a largely Protestant religion in America, and that you go East to find
Buddhism, and you go to the Middle East to find Islam or whatever. It's all over.
The crosscurrents of religious expression are everywhere, whether you go to Ann
Arbor or Chicago or New York, Los Angeles, you can find it all. Not only can you
find it all, but also you can find all kinds of offbeat brands more and more. The
religious resurgence in our day is one of the remarkable phenomena of this last
quarter of the 20th century. It seems to be incumbent upon us to be in dialogue
with that larger religious scene.
I brought along this little study of Martin Buber, the great Jewish thinker. Martin
Buber is very deeply knowledgeable of Christian faith, thinks very highly of Jesus,
does not understand Jesus as I understand him, but nonetheless really sees a
kind of movement of Messianism as he, as a Jew, understands it coming to
expression in Jesus. But he says, speaking to Christians,
It behooves both you and us to hold inviably fast to our own true faith, that
is, to our own deepest relationship to truth. It behooves both of us to show
a religious respect for the true faith of the other. That is not what is called
tolerance. Our task is not to tolerate each other's waywardness, but to
acknowledge the real relationship in which both stand to the truth.
Whenever we both, Christian and Jew, care more for God Himself than for
images of God, we are united in the feeling that our Father's house is
differently constructed than our human models take it to be.
Now that is a much broader understanding than has been true of Orthodox
Christianity, which would see other religions as expressions of error. It is the
understanding of my mentor, Hendrikus Berkhof, who says that, since the split of
the Jewish and the Christian religions, God has had two peoples, and Berkhof
bases that on his own biblical understanding of the irrevocable covenant that God
has entered into with the Jewish people. That question is debated among
Christian theologians and there is difference of opinion on it.
The point is I think we need to be deeply rooted. Let me say, personally (I don't
want to take you in on this), I need to be deeply rooted in my tradition. I need to
be deeply rooted, deeply committed, and I must bring to the discussion my
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deepest and best understanding of Christian faith, and not try to just jot that
down and remove the sharp contours of that in order to make it fit, but only as I
do that as genuinely as I can can I engage in genuine dialogue with someone like
a Martin Buber who will be genuinely Jewish.
Harvey Cox is a theologian who has written a number of books, one of which is
Many Mansions. He's been involved in much of this dialogue among the religions
and it's his feeling that what we need in this inter-religious dialogue is not so
much seeking to find the lowest common denominator, as bringing into the
discussion the sharpest focus of each understanding, so that there can be genuine
meeting and encounter.
Well, let me say that that kind of dialogue I affirm. I'm not afraid of it. I don't
think that our faith is so fragile that we will be tainted. I don't think that. I used to
think that I had to protect my people. I used to think that one of my tasks as a
pastor was to protect my people from error. Now I find that my people are well
able to handle themselves in such areas, and that more often I don't generally
really have to protect them. More often, I have to push them. I don't know if it's
true in most congregations, but it's true in this congregation that I'm always
pushing. I'm always trying to push people into risking and into scary places,
because I believe that is faith-building. I don't think that you need to be
sheltered. And, as a matter of fact, I wonder how long in the world in which we
live anybody can be sheltered anymore. I think it could be less and less possible.
All right. That's a little bit about the posture with which we approach this thing.
Let me say a word about what I see in the horizon of our world. You maybe
didn't ask for all of this, but give me an inch and I'll take an hour. I think we're in
a very interesting period in the world's history. I think that the period in which
we find ourselves is toward the end of a period of tremendous revolution and
transformation in human understanding. And I think that we have moved out of
the settled past of maybe eighteen centuries of unquestioned tradition. And we
are at the end of a couple of centuries of thrashing about, experimentation, of
overthrowing old forms and shaking foundations, but we are not yet at a time in
which new contours are clearly set.
Just, for example, the social-political context. If you would read Hans Küng's
Does God Exist?, you would find him tracing the roots of modern atheism. He
would take you back to the Socialist Revolution in Russia, for example. But,
behind that, you would go to the philosophical writings of the German
philosopher, a Protestant pastor's son, Ludwig Feuerbach, who was the first to
speak of religion as a human product, that religion arises out of the human
person, and that God is the projection of our needs. We have these needs; we
create God; we project God onto the screen of reality; we bow down and worship.
The God we worship is the God we need. We created God. Religion is a human
business.
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It was on the heels of Feuerbach that you have Karl Marx in the social-economic
realm. You have Sigmund Freud in the psychoanalytical field, and you have
finally Nietzsche with his nihilism, where he came to the conviction that nothing
is nothing and that there is ultimately nothingness, the abyss. I do think that
nihilism is really the logical conclusion of atheism. If God is not, then finally
nothing is. And you can turn everything upside down and there's no reason
for saying that good is evil or evil is good. You have no norms. It's over.
But, if you see that development, you will also see that those people were dealing
with very real issues in history and society which were manifesting themselves,
and the reaction of the Church was, again, one of fear and defensiveness and
refusal to engage in genuine dialogue with the realities of history that were right
there.
The Marxist theory was constructed on the background of a class society in
Europe and the church leadership was very insensitive and not at all in genuine
dialogue. If you take the actual political-social revolution, the Russian Revolution
particularly, you see that it took on this atheistic form because the Church and
the State were joined together; throne and altar were one. To throw over the
government, to throw over the political and economic system was also to throw
over the Church, because the two were joined where the Church ought never to be
joined. Then the whole social revolution that took place took an atheistic bent,
not because the economic theory demanded it, but because the social situation
meant that those two were wedded and when one went, the other went. And if
you come down to our present day and you see how that revolution has kind of
spent itself, it has not brought in Utopia. In fact, Gorbachev would tell us that the
whole thing is a failure and we can well pray that Gorbachev is successful in what
he is about because he has by economic necessity been forced to see that it is
either change and transform that old giant, or it's not viable.
I think that you put all those things together and it is not just business as usual,
but there are some very long-term movements and forces and tides within history
which have created a kind of openness and possibility today, which just haven't
been here in a long time. I think that this is a rather interesting time and it has
peril and it has opportunity. And it's not just some result of an immediate
situation, but I think the gathering of long-term things that have been going on
for a couple of hundred years. The Enlightenment on the European continent, the
Age of Reason which was the continuation of the Renaissance (the Reformation
period was kind of an interruption of that flow), but the whole coming to the
devotion of the human person, of the human mind, of reason, and of throwing off
of authorities of all sorts: Church, Bible, whatever. The authoritarian day is past.
We haven't learned that much in the Church yet. But Authoritarianism is over. In
the world at large I really believe Authoritarianism is over. So that is the socialpolitical context.
Take the scientific world. If you read Steven Hawking, this brilliant English
Quantum physicist, in A Brief History of Time and Space, you find that we live
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on what is the threshold of that discovery of what they call the Theory of
Everything, the theory for which Einstein was questing – that little formula that
would reveal the ultimate core of reality and develop it. In the Christian Science
Monitor of some time ago there was a series, Making the Quantum Leap: A FivePart Series, a fantastic series written in newspaper format, Christian Science
newspaper format, so it's still a little hefty. But even I can almost understand
some of it and it is amazing. I, in my next incarnation, hope to be either a
conductor of a symphony or a physicist. I've always been fascinated by the close
tie between physics and theology. Now, I regret to say that generally the
breakthroughs in physics have been registered in theology rather than the other
way. I'd like to get that reversed some day, but that probably won't ever happen.
But Newton was a Christian thinker, a physicist. And he did his best to maintain
his Christian faith alongside his understanding of the physical universe. But his
system, his understanding of the cosmos actually left no room for God. No, Sir
Isaac never gave up on God, and I'm sure that God never gave up on Sir Isaac.
But, as a matter of fact, the ordered universe of Newtonian physics had no room
for God; it had no room for prayer; it had no room for miracle or any of that.
Now, the amazing thing is that Newtonian physics has been blown sky high.
And Quantum Physics, the understanding of the structure of reality, whether in
its cosmological expanse or in the understanding of the tiniest little molecule and
atom, neuron and electron, speaks of eruption, of the eruption of the new, the
possibility of randomness. It's an open ball game. Einstein hated it. Einstein
hated it! He fought the Quantum Physicist Neils Bohr. Einstein said, "God doesn't
play dice with the universe." He didn't want any randomness. But, nonetheless,
that's where we are today, and it's impressive when you do see a person on the
moon or when a satellite brings a picture from around the world, or your
computer chip does everything you ever wanted done.
The world of religion, the resurgence of fundamentalism in various forms. I read
a statement by Charles Colson the other day. In his new book, Kingdoms in
Conflict, he says, "Not since the Crusades have religious passions and prejudices
posed such a worldwide threat." That's the world we live in today. I think he's
right. Not since the Crusades. If not through a religious zealot or confused idealist
whose finger is on the nuclear trigger, then certainly by destroying the tolerance
and trust essential for maintaining peace and concord among people.
Martin Marty, in a discussion of the aggressiveness and the orneriness of religion
in the world in its manifestation, raised the question, "Is it not possible to be both
civil and committed?" Is it not possible to be both civil and committed? Now, you
see, that is kind of a trick, to be both civil and committed. But too often
commitment has resulted in fanaticism and has wrought all kinds of havoc in the
history of the world. And too often civility has been the result of lack of any real
commitment or passion. To hold those two together is so important.
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Well, that's the world we live in and it is a wonderful fascinating world in which
to be alive. I think that it is a world that has openings for those of us who are
concerned about spiritual reality and human transformation like never before.
Now, let me get more specific with Progoff. Why? What has all this to do with Ira
Progoff? Well, I don't know a great deal about Ira Progoff. But I have heard him
on tape, I've read some of his works and I was first put on to him by a couple of
very respected friends in ministry some years ago, and I know that he has had
wide acceptance in the Catholic church, more so than in the Protestant Church.
But a couple of my friends in the Reformed Church have been part of some of his
activity and have spoken very highly of him.
Ira Progoff is of Jewish origin. He is perhaps best characterized as a JudeoChristian-Buddho spiritual sage. He has milked all of these traditions for
insights, which he has put together with his understanding of depth psychology.
Now, I really am not going to say very much about depth psychology because,
well, I'm going to say everything I know, but that's not very much. I know that
Progoff – having been a student of Carl Jung, Jung having been a student of
Freud but breaking away from Freud – is one who created in his understanding
room again for God, but not a God "out there," which incidentally isn't even in
vogue in the best theology today, but a God in the depths of the unconscious
where there is a kind of meeting of all kinds of consciousness down in some deep
reservoir in the depth of reality.
A depth psychologist believes that the consciousness of the person is the tip of the
iceberg. And I think that that has been rather well documented in terms of the
tremendous structure of the unconscious. And I think images do evolve out of an
unconscious depth. But I don't know much about that. Anyway, that is Progoff's
orientation. He is a spiritual person. He's a deeply spiritual person. He's a
mystical person, in the line of the mystics, I would say. If you want to label him in
terms of Protestant or Jewish theology, he's probably closest to Paul Tillich, a
Christian theologian now dead, and to Martin Buber, whose famous I and Thou
book has made such a great impact in our century.
How Progoff speaks of religion – as I utilize Progoff's understanding of religion –
it is a functional understanding of religion. He is dealing with the function that
religion performs in human life and human society. It is more a question of
functionality than it is a question of truth. Progoff would not want to referee
between the truth claims of Eastern religions or Judaism or Islam or Christianity.
But, he would see in them all a kind of commonality of function, and I believe
that it is perfectly legitimate to look at it that way. Now, that's not all I'm
concerned about, because finally I think that the truth question will obtrude
itself. It certainly will for me. And I am always struggling with the truth question
in Christian faith, in religious expression. But, nonetheless, there can be a very
positive and helpful understanding of the place of religion in the function it
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performs in the person and in society as a whole. And when Progoff speaks about
religion and the religions, he is speaking functionally.
He would see its function as enabling persons to position themselves in
relationship to the transpersonal reality in order that they may experience
guidance and structuring for their outer life. Religion ought to help me to
position myself over against reality that is beyond myself in order that in my
everyday life and living I may have guidance, orientation, to be at home with
myself and at home with the world. Now, if religion does that for a person, it has
done a great, great deal. Progoff would see the various religions as particular
forms and structures, all of which are performing that kind of common function:
to enable me to live as a human being, with other human beings, to enable me to
live as a person over against transpersonal reality.
Sometimes when he speaks, I think of the AA program where you have a Higher
Power. I have encountered, from time to time, a few Christian people who have
been uneasy with that, as though to speak of the Higher Power is to deny either
the uniqueness of Jesus Christ or the God we see in Jesus Christ. Now, it doesn't
bother me at all. I had an old gentleman in here one day coming off the AA
program and, so help me, a man in his 60s who had absolutely no conception of
God. I had a yellow pad like this and I had a pen, you know, and I'm generally
nervous and I was making signs and I was trying to kind of speak about God and
him down here and I put a big cross between as kind of a bridge and I made this
silly diagram and we talked together and he said, "Somebody said, well, the
Higher Power: just visualize a telephone pole." Well, I made this little thing and
we talked some more and when it was all over I was quite moved as he said to me,
rather moved himself, "May I take that with me?" And I thought to myself, what
hunger. You can call that God or you can put whatever face you want to on it and
I don't think Progoff will argue with you. He will say, "Is it helping you to live
well?"
Now, I do think it is valid for us to take whatever resources we have to help
people to live well. So, Progoff is kind of a mystic who believes that there is a huge
cosmic process that has been about, which is evolving. He reminds me somewhat
of the French Catholic thinker, Teilhard de Chardin, whose works, of course, the
Vatican banned, but then the best things that come from Catholics get banned for
a while. But, de Chardin is an original thinker who sees kind of the Omega point
off there and he sees this whole cosmic process evolving toward that point. And
Progoff believes that it is in the likes of us, in our individual spirits, that Spirit
comes to expression, and that Reality enters the world – it emerges, as it were,
out of the depths – through the individual spirit of a person. His concern is that
we enable persons to become, to be the bearers of Spirit and the expression of
Spirit, and that, as Spirit is able to flow through our spirit and come to some
kind of tangible form, Reality actually enlarges itself and the whole process
continues to go on.
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He sees a crisis in the present time because he believes that traditional patterns,
beliefs, doctrines and rituals have lost their grip on people, or people have lost
their grip on traditional symbols and forms. Symbols and forms, be they doctrinal
formulation, sacramental acts, or whatever, can function to put us in touch with
the transpersonal as long as we believe in them. When we don’t believe in them,
they can't do it for us anymore. Now, when you stand in Western Michigan with
all of our churches and with a large Christian community and in a rather
conservative part of the world, it may sound a bit apocalyptic to speak about
secular culture and about people uprooted, cut off from their roots. But, we have
to keep reminding ourselves that this is not all there is, and when he speaks
perhaps with more of a world purview and he speaks out of the context of New
York City and Los Angeles, he probably feels that and senses that more than we
do. Nonetheless, we have to recognize that the world as a whole is not becoming
– now speaking as a Christian and an advocate of the Christian Gospel – the
world as a whole is not becoming more, but is becoming less Christian. We are
becoming a minority. And it is a fact that those traditional patterns and beliefs
and rituals have for large portions of the world population lost their power. But,
the need still remains for that which will put the individual and the larger society
in touch with the transperson, or with God, if you will. And so, the need in our
day is to find the way in which that can happen.
Now, being a depth psychologist, Progoff believes that we will find that truth by
going into the depth dimension, and that God (I'll say God), is perceived, the
knowledge of God is accessible, not through rational formulation, but through
intuitive perception, that it comes not by rational instruction which has been the
hallmark of Reformed tradition, but that it comes through apprehension,
through images, and symbols, that it erupts, that it is not mastered rationally
and discovered.
Now, you know, I have to say, just coming as I have through the season of
Epiphany, I have found myself wrestling with that question week after week.
When you really get some insight, when you really have a "high" experience,
when you really capture something, when there's been a breakthrough for you,
how do you express it? Isn't it, "Suddenly it dawned upon me?" Isn’t it often after
a churning and wrestling and in a moment of insight, and doesn't it often come to
us whole? As I was wrestling with this whole matter of how God reveals God's
self, I was so aware of the fact that it is one thing to say that the light's on; it's
another thing to say, "I see the light." So that we can talk all we want to in
theological and doctrinal terms about the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, about
the light shining and all that, but when Progoff speaks about going into the depth
dimension, I have to say that there is something to the fact that God's unveiling of
God's self will happen within us. It must finally be a subjective apprehension, no
matter how much we may clamor for the fact that it is objective and real. You
know, we often equate objectivity with the real. Oh yes, it's certainly real. But
until I believe it, until it grasps me and I say, "Wow," it has not really come full
cycle.
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And so, Progoff’s point for a community such as ours – this is what he would
think:
In a crisis of a culture that has lost its moorings, whose symbols have
largely become empty symbols, he would say, first of all, the church should
give social support to the person, enabling that person to work on his or
her own inner life. If in our day our young people are being told, "Just say
no," Progoff says to the Church, "Just say yes." When there's someone,
some funny person in the congregation, a little odd, a little strange, doesn't
fit the stereotype, talks about the inner journey, why he says, "Just say
yes." Encourage them. Be a place that encourages people to get on with
that work on the inner life.
He says, secondly, let the Church be the social institution and the culture
where work on the inner life can take place. And I like the word he uses
here: "Let the church be a sanctuary where that can happen." You know,
we really ought to be about that, and we really ought to get on with it. I
think about that every Sunday when I see the large assemblage of people,
and then I realize how superficial is my little touch. When they leave for
the rest of the week, what's happening? Are we as a community creating a
sanctuary where people can do more than come in on Sunday morning and
at worst complete the Sunday obligation, at best get a little Sunday
morning high, and hopefully in it all, worship God?
Thirdly, he says, let the Church provide the means and the program
whereby this can be encouraged. And I guess that bringing a seminar like
this here would be a tangible, concrete means by which to expose and offer
to people ways in which to do that.
He remarks about the fact that youth, many of the younger generation, have
taken over Eastern religions lock, stock and barrel. You know, it's faddish, it's
trendy, and those waves happen. It does indicate, however, a real spiritual hunger
and a search and a quest. And he also says, "Look, our generation cannot really
successfully just go back lock, stock and barrel and pick this thing up. I mean, the
new and the different is fascinating, and we understand all that dynamic, but he
says it's not for them to go back and get ancient Buddhist meditation techniques,
but the challenge to us is to find the ways in which they can be put in touch with
God, with the transpersonal reality, in the garments of the 20th century. Find
the methodology. Find the modes, the means by which this can happen, which I
think is the same kind of thing which I said earlier tonight when I said I felt it was
incumbent upon me to translate the Gospel into today's idiom, because that
needs constant translation so that it always comes to expression in the
conceptuality and the language of the particular context in which it is being
proclaimed. Otherwise, it is simply the reiteration of formulas out of the past and
that's fundamentalism – just the literal reiteration of formulas out of the past is
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fundamentalism. You don't think about that. You just give obeisance to formulas,
slogans, models, and then you're not really in touch.
So, in his book The Dynamics of Hope, Progoff deals at quite some length with
the experience of Tolstoy who went through a period of tremendous anguish in
his life after being very successful. He was on top of the world socially, culturally,
a great literary success, and he came to a time of a sense of the meaninglessness
of it all. And he tells in some detail Tolstoy's experience and he speaks in The
Dynamics of Hope, of the Utopian person, and that is the person who has this
kind of prophetic sense, who is willing to anguish and struggle, but always in
hope, and out of the anguish and the struggle eventuates the new realm of
experience and insight, which is the prelude to another struggle and anguish,
which eventuates in a new breakthrough, because he sees our human experience
as being an ongoing pilgrimage and process and, for creativity to be released,
there is a need for this constant movement between the struggle and anxiety and
always, however, with the hope undergirding it and breaking through to a new
plateau and a new discovery. Let me just read a couple of paragraphs.
"I began to understand,” Tolstoy reports, “that in the answers given by
faith was to be found the deepest source of human wisdom. That I had no
reasonable right to reject them on the ground of reason, and that these
principle answers alone solve the problems of life. I understood them, but
that did not make it any easier for me.” The fact, in other words, that his
reason was now giving assent to an act of faith of some sort, did not bring
such an act of faith any closer. It did not even make it any more possible.
All that this new intellectual realization achieved, in fact, was to intensify
the internal pressure and to build up an even greater tension around the
vacuum of meaning which he felt in himself. How could he find a faith that
he would not merely be in favor of believing? But one that he would
actually be able to feel as a reality? It would be good if he could accept
some structured body of doctrine that had been worked out in generations
past by an established church. That would not be a fact for him. He would
not feel the reality of such a faith. And so, no matter how much he might
try to convince himself rationally that he ought to place his faith there, the
persistent question about the validity of life would not be silenced.
But, he goes on and he struggles and then he tells about the dream that Tolstoy
had and the peace and the resolution that he came to. I'm not going to do more
with that, but this is a very fine introduction to Progoff’s understanding of the
journey of the individual, and it is his conviction that it is necessary for an
individual to feel his life story and to be able to have a sense of continuity
through the various stages and that in the creative unfoldment of a life there
will be those periods of dark and light.
I was thinking about his understanding of the human experience in contrast to,
for example, someone within the Reformed Church. I shouldn't even say that
© Grand Valley State University
�Introduction to Progoff
Richard A. Rhem
Page13
because it's not Reformed, but there is this friend of mine who I know rather well
and who probably most of you would know, as well, Bob Schuller and the Hour of
Power. Bob Schuller with his possibility thinking, which was built on Norman
Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, has done a tremendous amount
for many, many people. He has recognized the importance of self-esteem and he
has brought a positive and hopeful accent, and many people who didn't believe
that they had it in them have found that, after all, they had it in them. My
problem with Schuller is that I feel that sometimes he almost becomes shrill and I
want to say to him sometimes that success isn't always the consequence of
faithfulness or responsibility or effort, and so I always felt that there was
something lacking. There was a depth dimension in the Gospel, if you will, that I
felt never came to expression with Bob Schuller's formulations. I thought to
myself, interestingly, how much closer Progoff is to an understanding of human
personality and the experience of darkness and light, of guilt and forgiveness, of
bondage and freedom. And then, really, not just a once for all thing, although we
believe in a great once for all transformation, but as the ongoing unfoldment of
life, this constant swinging between the poles.
I can understand that in terms of my understanding – my biblical orientation.
Walter Brueggemann in an excellent study of the Psalms speaks about how you
can categorize the Psalms as Psalms of Orientation where creation is good, God's
in his heaven, all's right with the world, everything's ducky; Psalms of
Disorientation, where nothing is right and everything's unraveling; and then
there are Psalms of New Orientation. Brueggemann's point is that life is not
often lived in only orientation or disorientation. Life is generally lived moving
from orientation, disorientation and new orientation, and out of the study of the
Psalms you have that same kind of expression. Our life is a dynamic movement,
and we do move through periods of openness, joy and light; we do move through
valleys and through arid periods and dry periods; and it seems to me that is more
true to human experience as I understand it than in some of the pop psychology
and what I think is kind of a vulgarized psychology taken over by some of the
religious stuff that is on the market.
Finally, in his book The Symbolic and the Real, Progoff has, toward the end of the
book, that which really spoke to me and what turned me on in the first place to
his thinking and his whole approach to things. Let me just read you a couple of
paragraphs here. His point, again – I said this earlier and I'm going to say this
once again – his point is that to be in touch with reality or to be in touch with God
is not the consequence of coming to the end of a well-constructed syllogism. It is
the intuition that comes with the apprehension of symbol and image; it is a
moment of illumination; it's revelation. So he says:
As the symbol unfolds, reality enters the world and becomes present. A
new atmosphere is established, and this is much more than a new climate
of thought. It is reality increasing its presence among humankind by
means of symbolic events that are enacted upon the depth dimension of
© Grand Valley State University
�Introduction to Progoff
Richard A. Rhem
Page14
the psyche. In another style of language, this type of event is often
described as a breakthrough of spirit, into human experience. It has,
indeed, all of the traditional attributes of spirit, for it possesses power and
meaning and the healing quality of inward peace. It expresses itself,
however, not in the fixed forms of dogma, but in the living fluidity of
symbolic acts. (p. 214)
And then he speaks about revelation in the Old Testament:
One context in which this new perspective is especially important is our
attitude toward the Bible. In the biblical tradition there has been the view
that when the Old Testament was finished and was certified in its standard
version, that was the end of God's appearance to man. After that, man was
not to expect a breakthrough of spirit in the world. At least not until the
coming of the Messiah. All that was required of people then was that they
keep the formulas and the stories so that they would keep alive the
remembrance of the great moments of contact with the Divine which had
taken place in history and were now restricted to the past. The traditional
understanding was that since the voice of God stopped speaking when the
Old Testament was closed, it would be best if people stopped listening for
the voice of God in the world and concentrated on fulfilling the
commandments.
When the experiences recorded in the New Testament transpired, this
view was reconsidered and was opened anew. Then it was felt that God
had indeed made a new entry into the world. Necessarily so, since He had
needed to make a new covenant between Himself and man. With the
ending of the experiences in the New Testament, however, the same
tendency to restrain the human spirit and enclose it in fixed molds
recurred. Again, it was believed that the spirit of God would no longer
enter the world in a prophetic breakthrough. It would not because it was
no longer felt to be necessary. The Truth had been given. After that it
would be sufficient if people would imitate Christ and concentrate on
entering the dimension of the sacred by repeating the festive formulas
accrued by ecclesiastical authorities. (pp. 222-223)
And then he says,
One of the very greatest and most basic difficulties of Western history is
expressed in this fact that we have drawn from our traditions of belief that
major openings of the Spirit are not possible any longer because they
stopped when the Bible was officially sealed. We need to become capable
of reopening the Bible as a living contact side by side with other styles of
experience and sources of the spirit in the modern psyche. The two
testaments which comprise the Bible are openings. They surely were not
intended to be closings in man’s relation to the infinite. (p. 224)
© Grand Valley State University
�Introduction to Progoff
Richard A. Rhem
Page15
I think he's right. I think a great problem with the Church is the fact that, in order
to manage the revelation given, it was historically necessary to close the canon. It
was a historical necessity. But then, to refuse to understand that the Spirit of God
continues to speak was to allow the Church to become rigid and to allow a
conception of orthodoxy. And I must say to you, this is my confession, one that I
close with, that to me the idea of orthodoxy is an arrogant presumption. That's
probably why I'm a heretic.
Now, I think from my perspective, my understanding of things, there's richness
here and that it is a great resource. I will be participating with my own labels,
with the God reflected in the face of Jesus. I will understand this in terms of my
own theological understanding. But I see the possibility of a very fruitful
instrument here which again I think holds great promise for the healing of
persons and, through the healing of persons, the humanization of society, which I
think is what we're all about.
Now, I think I've talked sufficiently long so that you should be sufficiently tired,
so you probably wouldn't even want to raise a question. But, if you would, I would
be happy to take it.
Frank: I agree you're a heretic. I think you're making heretics out of all of us, but
I think I'm beginning to enjoy it. When you sent that first letter about Ira Progoff
I immediately rose up in my traditional background and sent you a letter back
saying you probably were off base, and that we couldn't tolerate this new kind of
thinking. But, I guess it just exemplifies the fact that most of us are completely
uneducated. For forty years I have been studying anatomy and physiology and
biochemistry and medicine, pharmacology, thinking that all of medical science
depended on how much I — I suddenly realize how much an uneducated
nincompoop I am and I sure appreciate your bringing these things into the open
so that we could all learn from them and get carried along with your enthusiasm.
RAR: Well, thank you, Frank. I want to say that the questions, the concerns you
raised were very legitimate concerns. Frank. I was really comforted to find
explicitly Progoff recognizing the dangers of that kind of trendy movement, of the
sensitivity movements and groups, and those things of the 60s or 70s where
people were undressed and then left defenseless, and he definitely set himself
over against that kind of thing. And the legitimacy of his Journal Workshop has
been tested. He's kind of a quiet person; he shuns the idea of guru. Doesn't even
want to be called a sage. He's a very humble pilgrim who is sort of feeling his way
along. But, your concerns were very, very well taken, and I was almost positive
immediately that that's not where he was, but I was happy to find it confirmed,
that he also distanced himself from that kind of thing. So, I appreciate the
concerns you raised.
I read today the Seminary Times of last fall, a book by James Ashbrook, whom I
do not know. He's a seminary professor. He was at Colgate Rochester; he's moved
since then. Making Sense of God. And it is a book entitled Brain and Belief where
© Grand Valley State University
�Introduction to Progoff
Richard A. Rhem
Page16
for a couple decades he has done serious research on the brain, as a theologian,
trying to find the relationship of the function of the brain to spiritual perception.
It is an absolutely fascinating article. And there is a rather serious critique of it, as
well, in which, you know, it's such a pioneering kind of thing that the guy says, "I
don't know how to critique it." But it's just fascinating. In fact, I'm going to give it
to you to take home with you and you can tell me about it when I get back from
vacation. But you know there are such interesting things happening today and
there is an openness today. I think across the board: to structure of reality, to
what we mean when we say God, and I do think that it is an exciting time in
which to be alive. It's a perilous time, too, because people are also falling for all
kinds of... someone accused me of being New Age. Now, I've never read anything
New Age. I don't know what New Age is. But, I know this - that anytime that
there is a genuine breakthrough and movement, there are going to be all kinds of
counterfeits and all kinds of peripheral things going on and there will be faddy,
trendy things. That's true. But, nonetheless, that shouldn't scare us.
Ira Progoff. The Dynamics of Hope: Perspectives of Process in Anxiety and
Creativity, Imagery and Dreams. Dialogue House Library, 1985.
Ira Progoff. The Symbolic and the Real: A New Psychological Approach To The
Fuller Experience of Personal Existence. Peter Smith Publisher, Inc., 1983.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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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
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
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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.
Contributor
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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>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Event
Midweek Lecture
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Ira Progoff, The Dynamics of Hope: Perspective of Process in Anxiety & Creativity, Imagery and Dreams, 1985, Ira Progoff, The Symbolic and the Real: A New Psychological Approach to the Fuller Experience of Personal Existence, 1983
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RA-3-19890130
Date
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1989-01-30
Type
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Text
Title
A name given to the resource
Introduction to Dr. Ira Progoff
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
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
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
Talk created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 30, 1989 entitled "Introduction to Dr. Ira Progoff", on the occasion of Midweek Lecture, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Tags: Progoff, Transformation, Hope, Spiritual Journey, Symbol, Emergence, Insight, Spirit, Interfaith, Consciousness, Nature of Religion, Community of Faith, Global Community,Revelation, Nature of Religion, Psychology . Scripture references: Ira Progoff, The Dynamics of Hope: Perspective of Process in Anxiety & Creativity, Imagery and Dreams, 1985, Ira Progoff, The Symbolic and the Real: A New Psychological Approach to the Fuller Experience of Personal Existence, 1983.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Community of Faith
Consciousness
Emergence
Global Community
Hope
Insight
Interfaith
Nature of Religion
Progoff
Psychology
Revelation
Spirit
Spiritual Journey
Symbol
Transformation
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3fd5e9c187ca04d03cd880dd3dea5bee.pdf
7e9eb7601c441e6c39767e4ebb7947a9
PDF Text
Text
Morning Prayer in June
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
June 22, 2003
Transcription of the written prayer
For these moments, let us quiet our minds,
letting go of concerns that burden us, regrets that cripple us,
fears that paralyze us, whatever is troubling us.
Let us image that which causes gratitude to rise in us
-the gift and grace of life; the sources of our joy;
those persons who make life rich.
Let us call to mind those images which have shaped us:
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Since God is for us, who can be against us?
Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation will be able
to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
All will be well, all will be well.
All manner of things will be well.
Oh, God.
Those words rise from our depths so naturally –
Oh, God...
It seems that, in moments like these
when we purposefully, intentionally turn to you,
when we turn to whomever or whatever you are, we do so almost with a sigh,
- Oh, God –
for we know we are now in the zone of Mystery.
There was something about Jesus when he prayed
© Grand Valley State University
�Morning Prayer in June
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
that caused the disciples to plead,
Lord, teach us to pray.
We plead, as well,
Oh, God, teach us to pray.
Once, perhaps, we came as suppliants to the Royal Throne of the universe
with requests we must admit on reflection were very self-centered,
reflecting a very small universe in which our hopes and fears loomed very large.
And still there are moments when we flee into your Presence,
totally occupied with our own concerns –
something that threatens us,
or some experience that crushes us,
or some potential happening that involves us
in a loss we fear would undo us.
Saturate our faith and devotion with worldliness,
that we may love the world –
with sensitivity, with awareness, with openness and candor,
with care borne of insight into the world's agony,
with hope borne of the realization of the world's wonder and potential.
Before the world's chaos, pain and anguish,
give us the wisdom to be silent before we speak;
to identify with and immerse ourselves before we offer remedies
too easy, too facile, too self-serving.
Give us insight and sensitivity
to discern that ominous thunder of the shaking of the foundations,
to recognize the recurrent corruptions of power that we see all around us.
Enable us to see beneath the skin of the world its heaving passion,
its loveliness and its horror;
a world that is a ridiculous mixture of good and evil,
of beautiful tenderness and unspeakable brutality.
A world where flowers bloom on manure heaps,
and deadly cancer grows on a beautiful, young body;
a world under the dominion of death,
natural, yet often so unexpected, so violent, so absurd!
Ah, dear God, this is the real world,
the only world we have
with its dreams of Eden and its portents of Armageddon.
O God, as you love the world, we would love it too.
Teach us how to live in it, how to speak to it, how to love it.
Let us sense the truth of Jesus' word:
That it is in losing our lives that we will find life,
In serving that we will be fulfilled.
© Grand Valley State University
�Morning Prayer in June
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Creator Spirit, brood over this community of faith,
this Christ Community.
Keep us steady; keep us strong, keep our spirits open, our hearts tender,
our whole being full of grace.
Sometimes we wonder, sometimes we waver,
sometimes we want to run, to be done with it all.
But, where would that leave us? Where would we run? To whom would we turn?
So, good and gracious God,
gather us in, hold us close, steel our purpose.
Give us joy in the journey and undying trust in your purpose for us.
And sometimes it is sheer joy, ecstasy, exhilaration
that bursts forth in a torrent of praise,
shutting out everything else for the moment.
But, more and more, we look not out there,
but somehow within, into our own depths,
sensing we are connected deep down, rooted in Being itself,
You being the inexhaustible Source and Ground of all that exists the good earth,
the starry heavens,
the ocean's tides
and ourselves, conscious, aware,
groping for some clue by which to know you, to rest in you,
no longer strangers, but at home in the universe, at one with all that is.
Oh, God.
In that address is a deep fundamental trust
in the face of so much in our world that is not well.
We wonder, we imagine an alternative world,
where human frustration, hopelessness and despair
that breed violence and destruction
are recognized
and their causes dealt with.
Spirit of God,
save us from the illusion that a new world order will be born
out of a wealth of resources and sheer military might.
Save us from the pitfall of believing we can simply overpower
and cover our vulnerability
without an honest facing of the world's festering soul.
Before your face, Eternal Spirit,
give us some balance, some perspective
as we wrestle with this complex and dangerous world.
© Grand Valley State University
�Morning Prayer in June
Richard A. Rhem
Oh God,
this is the real world, the only world we have.
We celebrate it; we anguish over it.
Holy Presence, we are present here that vision may be renewed,
hope restored,
and courage found to be agents of reconciliation,
bringing peace, justice and compassion,
walking in the steps of that Exemplar
of what He called the Kingdom of God.
Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
Page 4
�
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
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Event
Pentecost II
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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Identifier
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RA-1-20030622
Type
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Text
Title
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Morning Prayer
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 22, 2003 entitled "Morning Prayer", on the occasion of Pentecost II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Tags: Prayer, Community, Presence, Mystery, Faith, Awareness, Trust, Global Community.
Format
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application/pdf
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-06-22
Awareness
Community
Faith
Global Community
Mystery
Prayer
Presence
Trust
-
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PDF Text
Text
Of Dreams and Visions
Baccalaureate Sunday and Pentecost
Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:14-17, Luke 4:16-30
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Memorial Day Weekend, May 30, 2004
Transcription of the spoken sermon
This is one of those full Sundays. We live by three calendars - there is the church
calendar, and on that calendar, this is the day of Pentecost. But, we also live by a
national calendar, and on the national calendar, this is the weekend of Memorial
Day. And we have a community calendar, and for Spring Lake it is graduation
day, last week it was Grand Haven’s. I don’t know about Fruitport or West
Michigan Christian, but it is the time, at least, of commencement, and so at Christ
Community, it is the celebration of Baccalaureate. As we thought about that, we
realized that it was just too much to handle on any one Sunday and so our new
pastor, Ian Lawton, was moved by the Holy Spirit to proclaim next Sunday
Pentecost. We will have a grand Pentecost festival and I trust you will all wear
red.
Because it is Baccalaureate, and I happen to have two granddaughters
graduating, as well as a grandson from another university, that is Michigan State,
Ian very graciously offered the pulpit to me today so that I could get in a last
word, as it were.
As a matter of fact, as I thought about it, the themes of Memorial Day and
Baccalaureate for me came together very easily, and I even found a biblical text
with a Pentecost flavor. When you’ve been preaching as long as I have, you can
twist almost anything to say almost anything, and so with great skill, I have
woven Pentecost passages into a Baccalaureate challenge as we remember
Memorial Day.
Some of us here viewed recently in this place a documentary film entitled “The
Fog of War.” The title itself speaks volumes - The Fog of War. The ambiguity of
the human situation, the confusion and turbulence, and the fact that we often
make tragic judgments that lead to horrific consequences. I’m not going to speak
about that film this morning, but it is that documentary of the years of Robert
McNamara who was Secretary of Defense during the Cuban missile crisis and the
Vietnam conflict. I mention it because he is now 85, and as he looks into the
camera, he says, “I’m 85, I’ve lived a long time and I’ve learned some things.” And
© Grand Valley State University
�Of Dreams and Visions
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
I thought that’s really a good excuse for my Baccalaureate sermon. I’m an old
man and I found a text about old men. “Old men will dream dreams,” the prophet
Joel said and the Apostle Peter repeated. Old men will dream dreams and young
men and women will see visions, and so very simply, as the rest of you listen in,
although I trust there’s a word for us all, this morning is about an old man’s
dream to inspire young men and women to become all that they can become in
this critical moment in our world’s history.
I did take the text from Joel, the Hebrew prophet. The prophets had a
magnificent dream. We call it a Messianic Kingdom that they imaged, and
Messiah is the Hebrew word for anointing, the anointing of the Spirit of God. The
Hebrew prophets had this magnificent dream. It comes to expression in so many
different ways in the writings of the prophets. It is a dream of nature in harmony,
when the lion and the lamb lie down together. (I think it was Woody Allen who
said, “When the lion and the lamb lie down together, the lion will sleep more
soundly than the lamb.”)
Nonetheless, you get the picture - the lion and the lamb bespeaking a
peacefulness in the kingdom of creation where there is no longer violence or fear.
And the prophet speaks of that day when they will not hurt or destroy on all God’s
holy mountain. The prophet Isaiah followed by Micah and Joel pick up that
promise of a time when the Spirit of God will judge among the nations and they
will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And
Micah speaks of that time when all of the nations will walk before their own God
and Israel will walk before the Lord God, and every man and woman shall dwell
safely under their own fig tree. Those pictures of a peaceable kingdom, pictures,
images of a world that is in harmony between God and nature, nature and nature,
nations and nations, people and people, is a dream. It’s a magnificent dream.
It is an ancient dream. That dream is between 2500 and almost 3000 years old.
It’s not something that we dreamed up recently because things have unraveled
for us. It’s a dream that has rested intuitively in the human heart throughout the
ages, from the time that the human became human, and probably began to
recognize that the kind of tribalism that put everybody in peril at all times was an
impossible way to live. The time when the human consciousness began to realize
intuitively that there was an alternative way to be other than the way of violence
and war and death and destruction. A marvelous dream of the prophets - no
exploitation. You would plant a garden and eat the produce thereof. You would
build a house and be able to dwell in it, not fearing that some bulldozer would
knock it down.
Throughout those prophetic books, you can read over and over again that sense
of an alternative world, another possibility, of a community at peace. Of course,
the prophets dreamed of a world like that in terms of a God who was in control.
They dreamed of a world in which eventually that God would act powerfully in
the midst of history. They imaged a God who was outside of the whole created
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order, the God who had called it into being, the God who still continued to guide
and direct and control, the God who was the sovereign Lord of history, the God
who would bring about eventually the end of time.
Well, the fullness of time saw the birth of Jesus and the community that gathered
around Jesus saw in him the embodiment of that dream, they saw the
enfleshment of that dream of a different kind of a world. Jesus in the days of his
flesh, called people to love their enemies, to do good to those that persecuted
them. Jesus overcame the conventional wisdom of the day. Jesus broke down
barriers, he spoke to women, he greeted the Samaritan, he refused to be
crammed into that dye cast of prejudice and dogma and ancient feuds. They
looked at Jesus and they said, “This is the one.”
Whether Jesus preached that sermon in Nazareth or not, I don’t know, but when
Luke paints the portrait of Jesus, he paints a portrait of Jesus coming to his
hometown and saying, “Now, look, this is the time. The prophecy of Isaiah of that
day when the Spirit of God will be poured out and captives will be set free, the
blind caused to see and the lame to walk, the favorable year of the Lord, that’s
now. It’s fulfilled in me.” And, of course, such a claim ran into that conventional
wisdom and that age-old prejudice of the day, because Jesus dared to suggest that
the grace of God was broader than the river of Israel. Jesus used examples of the
grace of God that overflowed banks of Israel and embraced all people.
They wanted to kill him for it. There is a latent anger in the human heart when
those prejudices are tapped, when conventional wisdom is challenged.
Nonetheless, in the embodiment of his visions and values, Jesus was one who was
followed and the community gathered around him such that in the wake of his
death and resurrection, on the day of Pentecost, Peter would stand up and say,
“Look, this is what it is. This is that realization of that dream. This is the pouring
out of the Spirit of God that will usher in that New Age.”
The mistake that the Church made was to see that embodiment of the dream in
Jesus as a one-time event. And so, the community following Jesus, instead of
recognizing that now into the creative process the Spirit of God had emerged into
that kind of humanity which was the calling of all, set Jesus apart as one and
only, as unique. But, as a matter of fact, Jesus was the embodiment of that
ancient dream. He dreamed it himself, he lived it out, and while we do not have
that God “out there” to come in and fix things for us, what we have learned is that
God is in us, that God is that creative process that is moving this whole cosmic
journey along, and that that ancient dream in the human heart of a world at
peace and harmony is a dream now that must be realized, not by some returning
judge from beyond the earth, but must be realized by the likes of us, you. That’s
my word to you today, a call from an old man who is a dreamer, for you to dream
the impossible dream, and the impossible dream is a dream of a world without
war.
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This is Memorial Day weekend, and yesterday there was dedicated a grand
memorial to the veterans of World War II. Perhaps you caught it on the television
screen, old, aged veterans now with canes, wheelchairs and oxygen tanks, many
of them weeping as they remembered, as some of you would weep even now as
you think about those days in mid-twentieth century when the whole world was
in crisis and conflict.
en years ago some of us visited Normandy Beach, looked at the bluffs that had to
be scaled, where our troops were sitting pigeons. We watched the calm,
undulating sea that on June 6, 1944 ran red with blood. It is a moving experience,
and in those moments one senses something holy and sacred, and out of the
chaos of that Second World War, there emerged the realization among our
leaders that we could no longer afford war among nations, and there was a vision
and a dream of a United Nations in which the conflict between peoples would be
solved through discussion and conversation and compromise, empathic
understanding and the yielding in order that there might be finally peace on
earth.
Now, some decades later, we find that the dream is still not realized and even the
vision of a United Nations has taken a serious blow, not through any foreign
power, but through the miscalculation and misjudgment, the manipulation and
coercion of our own government and leaders.
I want to say to you young people today the world has reached a point where we
can no longer tolerate war. It was one thing when one tribe took off against
another tribe. It was one thing when the world was younger and a whole village
could be decimated or a whole region. But, planet earth spun on its way and most
people had no knowledge of it. Do you know that half of the people who have ever
lived are living today?
We have come to a point ... Mike Ackerson with your national championship in
the Science Olympiad, you could devise a means by which this planet could be
destroyed. We have it in our hands. We have it in our power. When I say we could
no longer tolerate war, that is not just idle idealism, nor is it fluffy romanticism.
It is the most hard-headed realism with which I can confront you, for if we do not
change course, if we do not recognize the error of the myth of redemptive
violence, that is that violence finally can achieve peace, we will come to a crisis
which will get out of our hand.
What’s happening in Saudi Arabia as we worship this morning? Can you not
imagine the scenario which would throw the whole globe into conflict? You see,
we had an opportunity in 9/11 for a wake-up call. It was a wake-up call which
should have been followed by the kind of police action which would have sought
to bring to justice those who perpetrated the atrocity. But, the wake-up call
should have been to us who are the most powerful, affluent people in the world to
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recognize that we can never be secure until the globe is secure, because we have
become a global family, a global community, a global neighborhood. We should
have awakened to the fact that there are those who are humiliated, hopeless,
having nothing to lose, and we should have recognized that wherever there are
people who have nothing to lose, the world is a dangerous place. We should have
recognized that it was time to sit down with all earth’s children and recognize the
gulf between the haves and the have-nots, those who have everything and those
who have nothing, and it was time to effect the ancient dream where everyone
could plant their own garden and eat the produce, build their own house and
dwell in it, have the dignity of human existence.
With all of the power and all of the resources that we have, if only we had not
dreamed dreams of empire and concocted strategies by which we might maintain
our dominance. But, if only we had learned from the one who stood up in
Nazareth to say “Today the scripture is fulfilled in your presence.” If only we had
learned that it is only in dying that one comes to life, that it is only in giving one’s
life away that life can be possessed, that it is only in being willing to die that one
can live. If only we had learned the lesson of Jesus who said God causes the sun
to shine on the just and the unjust, and the rain to rain on the good and the evil.
If only we had recognized that we are members of one human family, that we are
the human family through whom God, the Spirit, is emerging, that we look not
“out there” somewhere for someone to come in and make it all happen, but
rather, the God who is within us would, through us, who embodied the dream,
realize an alternative world, a world at peace.
I call you young people to dream the impossible dream, to march into hell if need
be for a heavenly cause.
In your insert there are the words of “The Impossible Dream,” and under it a little
statement from William of Orange who was the liberator of the Netherlands back
in the 16th century, who said, in effect, “You don’t need hope to undertake an
enterprise, and you don’t need success to persevere.” There’s something so strong
about that, something so good about that.
Oh, I want you to be kids. I want you to have a ball. I want you to have fun. I want
you to celebrate. But, I want you to have a vision beyond all of that. I want you to
have a vision of an alternative world which may seem like an impossible dream
and, in light of the history that has been written to this moment, you might say
it’s hopeless. But, William of Orange said you don’t need hope to undertake the
enterprise. You undertake the enterprise because it’s right. You undertake the
enterprise because it’s true. You undertake the enterprise because it is imperative
if there is to be a human future, if the creative process is to continue, if the
human story is to move into all that it can possibly be. You don’t need hope. You
simply have to believe it. And you don’t need success. You just need a dogged
perseverance. Never give it up.
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Richard A. Rhem
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I would say to you this morning, think critically.
Back one hundred years ago, when I was where you are, nobody said to me think
critically. They said think traditionally. I want to say to you, think critically. Don’t
believe your President; don’t believe your political leaders; don’t believe your
teachers; don’t believe your parents. (I make an exception for grandparents.)
Don’t believe them without filtering what they say and what they teach through
the filter of your own mind and heart. Believe that God is in you, the Light is in
you, trust that intuitive sense within you that things can be other than they are.
Refuse to live by conventional wisdom. Reject the prejudices that we adults have
placed upon you. Follow Jesus.
We here have achieved something. I think again of how narrow has been my
focus, trying to create an alternative to church as usual, and I think we have, and
I think it’s good. But, I want to say to you - that’s too narrow. We need to think
about an alternative world and a global community which is a neighborhood
filled with every race and every creed and every idiosyncracy with the Spirit of
God.
I hope that it doesn’t take you as long to wake up as it took me. The best I can do
is, as an old man, to dream a dream in the hopes that there’s a vision that will
catch on fire in you.
You are really terrific. You can change the world. God bless you. Go for it!
© Grand Valley State University
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Dublin Core
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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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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
Baccalaureate Sunday, Eastertide VII
Scripture Text
Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:14-17, Luke 4:16-30
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-20040530
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2004-05-30
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Of Dreams and Visions
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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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audio/mp3
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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 30, 2004 entitled "Of Dreams and Visions", on the occasion of Baccalaureate Sunday, Eastertide VII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:14-17, Luke 4:16-30.
Global Community
Global Peace
Pentecost
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1c155aaa8d890d9a6817607e21b41c44.mp3
658ee61c17ebb2c448e3358b4b4e24ff
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f610b1ac70b6cfe782af390c475c6183.pdf
98ce364b301be4768e09d7f365e00dc5
PDF Text
Text
My Country, Right or Wrong…
Independence Day Weekend
I Kings 22:1
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 6, 2003
Transcription of the spoken sermon
The title of my Independence Day sermon is "My Country, Right or Wrong..." and
I suppose there are some of you wondering whether or not I have had a
conversion in the middle of the night that I should suddenly be an advocate of
that statement, "My country, right or wrong," becoming perhaps a chauvinist
overnight. Nicholas Chauvin was a French soldier attached to Napoleon I who in
1815 was so fanatical and unreasonable and irrational about the lost cause of the
Napoleonic Empire that he gained notoriety through his bellicose proclamations
and ever since he has given to us the word chauvinism, which means to be
fanatical and unreasonable about one's nation or the opposite sex or whatever.
Well, I do want to say to you I have not become chauvinist. "My country, right or
wrong," is a phrase which is often quoted and quoted as though it can stand
alone. But the title of this sermon as it is printed has three dots after it, and the
sermon is about those three dots.
Forrest Church, in a very fine book entitled The American Creed, which he wrote
post-9/11, tells about a day when he was rummaging through the attic of his
grandparents and he came across a very attractive wooden plaque that had a
picture of a World War I soldier in his broad-brimmed helmet, and on burnished
brass on the front of the helmet were embossed those words, "My country, right
or wrong." Obviously, coming across that in his grandparents' attic, Forrest
Church must have had his curiosity piqued because he did some research to find
out that "My country, right or wrong," is a phrase lifted from a larger statement
that was made in 1899 by a Senator from Missouri, Charles Schurz, and the
complete statement is "My country, right or wrong. If right, keep it right. If
wrong, set it right."
Now, I cannot imagine how you could take five words out of context and make
them say entirely the opposite of the original intention, how you could do it any
more successfully than was done with that little phrase. It had nothing to do with
the kind of chauvinistic attitude, "My country, right or wrong." Indeed, it was
saying the opposite; it was saying if you are committed to your nation, if you love
it dearly and deeply, then you will do what is necessary to love it when it is strong
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and to confront it when it is wrong. Those who truly love their nation will not
stand idly by while it goes in any number of directions, but will continue to judge
its course in terms of the founding principles that have given it life and liberty
and the marvelous national experience that we have had.
My country, right or wrong? No. My country affirmed in its rightness, critiqued in
its wrongness, judged by its own creed, a creed which is summed up no more
concisely than in that marvelous Preamble to the Declaration of Independence,
that Preamble finding echoes down through the centuries as our commitment to
democracy, to freedom, to liberty, to justice for all. It is the person who truly
loves his or her nation who will be thoughtful, mindful, aware, and engaged in the
affairs of that nation, concerned about its course and its direction, holding it
always to its highest and noblest vision. That has always been the task of a free
press and also of the pulpit. Whether by the pen of the journalist or the word of
the pulpit, there has been a tradition of self-criticism that has marked us at our
best. We have just gone through a period when it has been a very dangerous and
delicate matter to call in question the direction and the policies of this nation.
That is nothing new. It always happens. Those who are in power do not
appreciate the critique of those who would hold them accountable to their noblest
principles and vision. That is what the scripture lesson was about.
Israel was born as a tribal confederacy and they were well aware of the fact that
God was king. In our terminology, Israel was a theocracy, and in those early days
of inhabiting the Promised Land, there would be a crisis on occasion, and a leader
would be lifted up who would lead the nation again through the crisis. One of the
greatest of those charismatic leaders was Samuel, called a judge. During the
ministry of Samuel, there was a call on the part of the people for a king so that
they could be like other nations. Samuel resisted and reminded Israel that God
was their king. Still they persisted. They wanted to be like other nations round
about them. Samuel said, "You will pay taxes, you will have to give your sons and
daughters to the army, the king will oppress you, dominate you." Nonetheless,
they wanted a king, so eventually they got a king. Samuel anointed Saul, but in
the very anointing of Saul, it was a symbolic action which said to the king, "You
are a king under the aegis of God. You are not autonomous or absolute, for you
are accountable for your reign before the face of God."
With the rise of the monarchy in Israel's history came the office of the prophet,
and the prophet was the one who spoke the word of God to power. The prophet
spoke truth to power. The thing that made Israel unique in the context of its own
history was the fact that, contrary to those nations 'round about where the king
was absolute, in Israel when the prophet spoke, the King trembled. There was
respect for the prophet as the spokesperson for God. And so, we have the story
this morning of King Ahab, infamous king of the Northern Kingdom, who is
visited by Jehoshaphat, the king of the Southern Kingdom. Very likely, the
stronger Ahab had summoned Jehoshaphat who said, "You know, Ramothgilead, over on the Transjordan is in the hands of Aram and it really belongs to us
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and we simply haven't done anything about it. Will you join us in going on a
military venture in order to reclaim Ramoth-gilead?" Jehoshaphat said, "Look,
King, my people are as your people, my horses are as your horses, let's go. But
wait, first of all, let us engage in that which was characteristic of Israel both in the
north and in the south. Let us hear the word of the Lord from the prophet."
So, Ahab set up their thrones, they got their robes on, they had a public place,
they had the whole thing choreographed, probably as marvelous as many of the
Fourth of July celebrations in the past week, and there they sat. Ahab summoned
400 prophets, and 400 prophets came with their ecstatic utterance, and Ahab
raised the question, "Shall we go to war or shall we refrain?" The word from the
400 was like a chorus, "Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph."
Well, Jehoshaphat was really a pretty good king and a rather pious man and he
must have sensed that this whole scenario was staged somehow. He said, "Isn't
there anybody else?"
Ahab said, "Yes, there is one other guy. I hate him. He never says anything
favorable, always speaks about disaster for me."
Jehoshaphat said, "Don't talk that way."
So, Ahab summoned an officer to go and get Micaiah and the officer came to
Micaiah and said, 'The king has summoned you and, incidentally, 400-strong the
prophets are in one accord. They have given the counsel to the king to go up and
triumph, so watch your script."
When Micaiah came, Ahab said, "Shall we go up or shall we refrain?"
Micaiah said, "Go up and triumph," to which Ahab replied, "How many times do I
have to tell you, tell me nothing but the truth of the word of God?"
Micaiah said, "It's going to be disaster."
Ahab looked at Jehoshaphat and said, "See what I told you? He never says
anything but disaster."
Ahab summoned his officer again and said, "Take Micaiah home and tell the
governor to throw him in prison. Give him rations of bread and water, reduced,
until I come in peace."
Micaiah said, "Return in peace? Then the Lord has not spoken through me."
Some of you have chuckled a little bit to hear the story because there is wonderful
humor there. What is a poor prophet to do? He is sternly charged to speak the
word of God as that word has come to him, and when he does, he is thrown in
jail. I could, of course, go almost anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures, Jeremiah,
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for example, having been accused of being a traitor because he saw the imminent
invasion of Babylon, accused of undermining the morale of the people, having
been put in prison, but the king once again scared to death sneaks to Jeremiah at
night and says, "Is there any word from the Lord?" Jeremiah says, "Yeah, it's not
good," and he ended up in the slime pit.
Or, there was Amos, moved by God to address the royal house of Israel. He had
the audacity to suggest that God has a plumb line and that that plumb line was
going to measure the degree to which Israel conformed to that straightness. The
royal priest, the chaplain, once again on the king's payroll, came out and said,
"Amos, don't ever do that again. This is the king's court. Go prophesy and earn
your bread some other place."
As I said, it is all over the Hebrew scriptures. This was the great tradition of
Israel. What Israel gave to the world was this sense of the prophetic voice that
addressed, that spoke truth to power, always a dangerous and delicate and lonely
task, but nonetheless, a task which reflected the greatness of the founding vision
of that people, always calling Israel back to that justice and that righteousness
and that compassion which was in its founding documents in the Mosaic
covenant. All of that legislation in the book of Leviticus and Exodus that you go
over when you are reading through the scriptures, all of that boring legislation, all
of those prescriptions, all of those things concerned with the poor and the widow
and the orphan, about the doing of justice and the loving of mercy - all of that was
the fodder of the prophets as they addressed the respective monarchies in the
history of Israel and Judah. An important task, a task which if any nation loses,
the nation loses.
You know in the 20th century my great spiritual hero was Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
There is a film out on Bonhoeffer now which I am anxious to see, but I have
already seen, as some of you have with me, a video of Bonhoeffer's life, and on
that video where there is actual tape of some of those Nazi rallies where the
bishops of the church were literally co-opted into the Nazi cause, it is chilling
when you see the degree to which the church had been co-opted by the cause of a
demonic regime. In 1939 when Bonhoeffer was given a study grant at Union
Seminary in New York City, arranged by Reinhold Neibuhr and John Bennett and
some of those greats, he came to this country and he found himself restless
because things were heating up in Europe, and in spite of the fact that he had this
marvelous opportunity, that he had safety and security and he could pursue his
studies and he was a brilliant student, a brilliant theologian; nonetheless, he
turned his back on it all and got on the last possible ship for Europe. When others
asked him, "Why?" he said, "Because I cannot be in peace and safety here while
there is turmoil in my nation."
He was so German, German to the core of his being and he loved his nation so
greatly, and he said, "I must go back there and be with my people now if I am
going to have any part in their future." And then he said, "I must will the defeat of
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my own nation in order to preserve western civilization. Should I will the success
of my nation, it would be the ruination of western civilization."
It was a wrenching and painful decision that he had to make. He who was a
pacifist in his own heart, nonetheless, saw the darkness in such stark terms that
he joined a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, joining himself to a violent response,
going against everything that was in him, but recognizing how high the stakes
were. It is that kind of a prophetic witness, Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth coming out
of that state church, forming the confessing church whose creed, the Barman
Confession, begins by saying, "God alone, the word of God alone rules. "No
political entity, no potentate or king, nothing can take allegiance over that loyalty
to God who transcends, of course, every nation and every civilization. The
country that loses that prophetic witness is on a road to disaster. One of the great
things about this nation is that we have an American creed with its principles that
created a structure which allows for, demands, self-criticism, self-critique, and
the interchange of diverse opinions and ideas, and the free exchange that can
only result in a healthy body politic.
We are at a critical point in our nation today when we have to judge the direction
in which we are being taken. It is interesting that the social gospel of which I
spoke last week was made up of those liberal, Protestant leaders who saw a vision
of this whole nation becoming the land of the free, and then looked beyond the
nation to the globe, and they started that World Missionary Movement and were
thinking about world evangelization, and some of the greatest voices envisioned
the whole globe evangelized with the gospel and with this marvelous democratic
spirit that we had discovered and were living.
Then, in the 20th century, all of those grand schemes were dashed on the rocks of
the violence of that last century - World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the
nuclear standoff, and there continued to be those who advocated an
internationalist approach. Coming out of the ashes of the Second World War, the
United Nations was founded, largely at the impetus of our own nation. Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, a leader in that movement, an internationalism that believed
that security could be found only through collective agreements, alliances, and a
willingness of all states not to do anything they could do, but to comply with
international law.
It hasn't worked very well. There were realists in the wake of all of the violence of
last century, and the realist position was to keep the competing powers in a kind
of balance. That was our experience during the Cold War. It was a balance of
terror. It was the possibility of mutual total annihilation. The realist looks at the
human situation and says the only thing that can keep some kind of peace is by
competing powers being more or less level. But, today, there is no level playing
field. Today it is the unipolar world.
A few months ago when I suggested the idea of an American empire, there were
those of you who said, "Well, why haven't we ever heard of it?" Now everybody's
© Grand Valley State University
�My Country Right or Wrong…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
heard of it. Now it is a given. Now it is a cliché, that we are it. The question is how
are we going to respond in this situation? I hope there will always be from pen
and pulpit those voices that will call the nation to its highest and its best. What
we tend to be moving toward now is a kind of nationalism back up by militarism.
There is a fascinating article in the July/August Atlantic Monthly by Robert
Kaplan, where he suggests that we simply ought to take "the stealth approach to
supremacy."
I think of the idealism of our past and I am unwilling to give up that vision that
was present at our founding and has been echoed through the centuries. In an
address to Congress, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his famous Four Freedoms
speech, the freedom of speech or the press, freedom to worship God according to
the dictates of one's own conscience, freedom from want that involved economic
structures, and freedom from fear which involved the reduction of armaments
world-wide. And in the final draft of that speech, he added a phrase after each
one of his freedoms, freedom of speech everywhere in the world, freedom to
worship everywhere in the world, freedom from want everywhere in the world,
and freedom from fear everywhere in the world.
He invited his advisors to take a look at his speech, and one of his principal
advisors, Harry Hopkins, said to him, "Mr. President, “everywhere in the world”that's a lot of territory. I don't know if the American people care that much about
Java," to which FDR replied, "I think, Harry, that the globe is getting so small
that we will have to be concerned about Java, because they are becoming our
neighbors." A prophetic insight into the way the world was going, and we are
there. And we are the lone superpower of the world, and who will rule? The
realists with a smidgen of cynicism, or the mushy-headed, simple- hearted
idealists in which I would still like to believe?
Judge Learned Hand, a rather well-known figure of our recent history, defined
the spirit of liberty this way: The spirit of liberty. I cannot define it. I can only tell
you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is
right. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of
other men and women. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their
interest alongside its own without bias. The spirit of liberty remembers that not
even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded. The spirit of liberty is the spirit of him
who, near 2000 years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but
has never quite forgotten, that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be
heard and considered, side-by-side with the greatest. I believe it is my task to
keep that vision alive, and I would consider this sermon a success, not if you
agreed with me, but if you agreed that I am doing what I ought to be doing.
My country, right or wrong. If right, then keep it right. If wrong, set it right.
© 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
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<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 IV
Scripture Text
I Kings 22:1-28
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-0-20030706
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-07-06
Title
A name given to the resource
My Country, Right or Wrong...
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 July 6, 2003 entitled "My Country, Right or Wrong...", on the occasion of Pentecost IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Kings 22:1-28.
Global Community
Prophetic Voice