BAD NEWS BECOMES GOOD NEWS
 
In the United Church there has been a distinct difference between the way we have read the prophetic writings of the Old Testament and the way we have read the accounts of the worship practices of Israel. In the case of the former we often talk as though we have been on the phone with someone who has a relevant message for our situation; with the latter it is as though we were moving through a museum, looking at the artifacts of an age that is long dead and buried.

I have no regrets that there is no animal sacrifice in our services! Indeed, my concern about this does not relate first of all to the style of our liturgies. I want to suggest that when we walk past Israels worship practices as though they had no organic connection with the New Testament understanding of who Jesus was and what He accomplished on our behalf, we cut ourselves off from a recognition of a side of Christs life and work that was central in the apostolic witness. It is not just the Letter to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation that, in effect, get removed from the canon, but critical parts of most of the rest of the New Testament. This includes Jesus words in the Upper Room which, significantly, are rehearsed in no less than four different New Testament books, something that can be said only of these words. And its no accident that those words are being subtly altered in many eucharistic services these days, since some of our worship leaders wish to avoid, wherever possible, the language of sacrifice as related to Jesus death. Accordingly, the other places where sacrificial imagery is unmistakable are being passed over as having no claim on us. This involves detouring round what is explicit in virtually every New Testament book. Some examples:

"The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt. 20:28; Mk. 10:45);

"See, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29);

"Much more, surely then, now that we have been justified by Christs blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God" (Rom. 5:9);

"I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:2);

"I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures..." (I Cor. 15:3);

"In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.... For our sake he made [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (II Cor. 5:19,21);

"If justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.... Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us" (Gal. 2:21; 3:13);

"Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:13);

"Through [the beloved Son God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Col. 1:20);

"There is one God, and there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all" (I Tim. 2:05);

"You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish" (I Peter 1:18,19);

"In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (I John 4:10).

Corresponding texts from the letter to the Hebrews, and from the Book of Revelation, are so numerous it seems sensible, in a piece of this brevity, to take them as given.

What is the alternative interpretation of Jesus death when the above material from the New Testament is boycotted? Jesus crucifixion has to be seen simply as a martyrdom, i.e., as a great man dying for a great cause. And if we follow that line, where does it take us? When a leader is killed for an important cause, the followers will usually pull themselves together and carry on with it; they will miss their martyred leader, naturally -- sometimes desperately--but they continue with the inspiration of others, since it is the cause ultimately that matters.

So it was with the followers of the 2nd century BCE freedom fighter, Judas Maccabeus; the crusade of fighting for Jewish freedom continued under other leaders after his death, even if they lacked Maccabeus charisma. So it has been with the collaborators of Martin Luther King; they have continued to work toward the same things for which he gave his life. Maccabeus and King are remembered as being in their day leaders of compelling stature, but they did not, and do not, remain indispensable to the things they worked and died for. In the case of Jesus it is very different; it was not a cause that was the focus of the lives of His followers, but He Himself.

The Apostles did not build their lives around the potent memory of a dead martyr, whose story would continue to ignite them to campaign for the cause, but on a Lord and Saviour who was actually alive. And with the light from His resurrection shining back upon His crucifixion, the latter was seen to be, not an interruption to Jesus vital work, but the pivotal part of the great redemptive action of which He was, and is still, the essential reality. Which is why that calamitous day, on which darkness descended upon the earth from the sixth to the ninth hours, came to be seen as Good Friday. Bad news became the good news.

Special reasons have been advanced recently for the avoidance of atonement theology: that theology has been used to justify demeaning behavior and social arrangements in relation to women. I dont think the accusation can be denied, though identifying the cause of certain social effects is enormously difficult. For instance, resurrection theology is often employed to justify an inappropriate personal happiness and success ideology. But can it be demonstrated that believing in Jesus resurrection in itself creates such an ideology, or is it a misinterpretation of the resurrection that allows it to be fostered? In any case, we cannot decide issues of truth on the grounds that people have behaved badly in relation to them.

I hope we wont try to solve the problem of unacceptable behavior on the part of the Church by ignoring or excising the issue of atonement from both Testaments. Whenever we do that the Christian faith becomes a moral/social program supported by the inspiring memory of a great, though dead, teacher and model, which can be taken seriously only when we lay the moral whips on ourselves, or when we identify the really bad people and shoot our moral darts towards them -- not exactly good news to anybody. Lets rather begin again and afresh with the good news about a new creation in the death and resurrection of the living Lord Jesus Christ, about the reconciliation in Him of a dearly beloved humanity to God.

--A.M.W.

FORMATIVE PREACHING: BUILDING UP THE PEOPLE OF GOD
by Douglas Goodwin

Listening to sermons in the United Church leads me to conclude that the widely accepted goals of preaching are (1) to explain -- to individuals how their lives are best understood and lived out by the use of a few, key Christian concepts and images; (2) to explain how certain concepts and images from a variety of "spiritually insightful", but perhaps non-Christian, sources can greatly improve the individuals life; and/or (3) to encourage people to take particular moral stands and actions, usually based on moral injunctions such as "love your neighbour", "liberate the oppressed", or "include everyone". The focus, therefore, seems to be on helping individuals assemble from disparate sources a personal, spiritual life that leads to clear, moral/political/social involvement.
 
At the same time, to some in the Church, preaching itself seems archaic. The questions raised through the 1960s and 70s about the purpose and practice of preaching have not been adequately answered for confidence in preaching to be built. Despite a recent resurgence of interest in preaching in academic circles, the Bible still seems to attract more critics than disciples, current theories of biblical interpretation seem remote and complex, and homiletics seems like the marshaling of clever techniques.
 
In the January, 1996 issue of Touchstone, Edwin Searcy called for a new commitment to "formative preaching". By this phrase he meant preaching which had at its heart the intention of "forming a community who see the world differently". "Those who listen [to preaching] see how the [biblical] text is doing things to the preacher and to themselves in order to make their life together more comprehensible to the unorthodox reasoning of God."2 and a liberal Church does not like to think that the things that are central to its life will be particular, community-based, stories; it prefers to think that they will be universal truths.
 
Thus liberal preaching seeks to find images and solutions that might be acceptable to every thinking person, regardless of religious, racial, or national membership. It focuses on universals like love, peace, and justice, lifted out from their base in the Christian story. Sermons may look for these universals in the biblical stories, then extract them and present them as though they can stand on their own merit. If the universals in their "pure" form are not found in the stories, they are put there through creative interpretation, or else the biblical story is chastised for not containing them.
 

(2) A liberal Church has difficulty recognizing that preaching might lead to a community life with boundaries. Communities that identify themselves over against other communities, which see themselves as somehow different, go against the image the current liberal Church has of itself, that of being borderless and universal. Within that liberal perception, preaching should be in a language accessible to all, with practices transparent to all, and with the goal to unite all into a universal, inclusive family. At all costs, "tribalism", which has clear membership and practices peculiar to itself, is to be avoided.
 
The kind of preaching I am advocating, formative preaching, takes for granted a distinct, peculiar community, which may or may not make sense to the rest of the world. The peculiarities of the Christian story are not to be abandoned as soon as possible and replaced with timeless universals. Indeed the narratives of Scripture are not mined for universal truths, but are allowed to stand in the Church in their wholeness. The language and practices of the Church are honoured, taught and used. Formative preaching does not have as its priority to "translate the Gospel into the world of today", but seeks to form and re-form the Christian people so that they are able to function naturally and effectively in their own tongue, and so that they will be able to understand the world in and through the language of the Gospel.
 

In the Church we cannot avoid talking about truth. But it makes a difference that truth is a person: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Here truth is not found in abstract beliefs or personal opinions, but is a living relationship with a particular historic person we know through the scriptural witness. Truth is not something possessed, but lived. For the Church, a truthful community is not first of all one that gets its theology right, its worship right, its social action programs right, but one which is in constant dialogue with, in communion with, Jesus Christ. In formative preaching it is not so much a matter of what you believe as to whom you talk, in whom you trust.
 
Forming Christian community, therefore, is not primarily a matter of finding beliefs and practices with which all thoughtful people can agree. It is not a matter of harmonizing conflicting beliefs, or of finding a common denominator that holds together competing parties. In this sense, the foundation of Christian community is not love and peace, acceptance or welcome -- although it is to be hoped that all of these will be present. Instead Christian community finds its centre in Jesus Christ, a person, not an idea or ideal. When Paul appealed to the Corinthian congregation to end its fractiousness, he appealed not to the ideals of love or inclusiveness, but to "Jesus Christ and him crucified" (I Cor. 2:2). Truthful Christian community is community which remembers, which worships, which communes with Jesus Christ as its centre.
 
Communion with one who lived and died almost 2,000 years ago takes a different form from communion with one who lives beside you as a spouse or partner, parent or child. But Christian tradition recognizes that Jesus Christ still lives, and that communion can occur in "real time" through prayer, spiritual discipline, the sacraments, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Most important, however, is the communion with Christ by encountering the story of Jesus found in the Scriptures. It is by communing with the narrative of Jesus life, death and resurrection, that the Christian community becomes a truthful community. Truth is not so much uncovered or discovered as it is lived; and as it is lived, the truthful community recognizes the truthfulness of the One it seeks to follow. Formative preaching will not begin in a search for the truth, but from communion with the One who is Truth.
 
As I have said, to claim a person, Jesus Christ, as truth will sit uneasily within a Church that is preoccupied with finding and promoting universal truths for the universal person. Such a claim seems far too parochial, time-bound, and exclusive, to be called truth -- "a truth" perhaps; "our truth" certainly; but not "the truth". As James McClendon Jr. writes,
 
there is a temptation (no weaker word will do) for the church to deny her "counter, original, spare, strange" starting point in Abraham and Jesus and to give instead a self-account or theology that will seem true to the world on the worlds own present terms. Surely, it will be said, the salvation of the world must rest on some better foundation than tales about an ancient nomad and stories of a Jewish healer?4
 
However, as Alasdair MacIntyre has shown,⁵ there is no position, no philosophy, no pragmatic point of vision that is not dependent upon particular narratives for its meaning. There is no neutral place from which someone can stand in judgment over all narrative traditions, all narrative "truths". We are all members of communities which promote, in conscious or unconscious, critical or uncritical, fashion some form of "truth". The question that faces a person is: To which community do you belong? Whom do you trust?
 
The liberal tradition answers by saying that we belong to no community except the one we choose. We have no story except the one we have adopted after careful, thoughtful, independent consideration and judgment. The resistance of many religious, racial, and tribal groups to this perception of individual choice, as well as the common experience of being in an inherited community rather than in an intentional and chosen one, does not seem to deter its persistence in liberal circles.
 
The Christian community has traditionally affirmed that it has not chosen the truth but that truth has chosen it. It is not the individual or even the community that judges the story and decides for or against it, to belong or not to belong, but the story calls, chooses and judges the community.

Many fear that such a view of "truth" necessarily leads to division and violence among peoples, especially in a multi-cultural society. We must acknowledge that differences between peoples, races, communities, faiths and religions have often led to violence.
 
I would suggest, however, that emphasizing the common denominator among peoples and minimizing their differences is no guarantee that people will stop fighting with one another, and it will lead to complete poverty of mind and spirit. Moreover, Christian faith does not have to amputate its passion or lobotomize its truth in order for it to live peacefully with others. The problem for the Church has not been that it has been too extreme in its practice of the Gospel (that it has been "too religious"), but that it has not been extreme enough in obeying Jesus when He says, "love [even] your enemies". Overcoming Christian violence is not accomplished through transcending the community, and thus adopting a "higher, more enlightened" point of view, but by a more intensive discipline of faith, reshaping Church life and practice through its encounter with the scriptural narratives of the Prince of Peace.
 
Our preaching should focus on the formation of a people who seek to live truthfully with Jesus Christ. Such a people can live peacefully with others in the world not because they supersede their particular and history-bound proclamation with "higher"ideals of peace, pluralism, or tolerance, but because they work to obey their Lord, the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.
 

III. Formative Preaching is Biblical Preaching.
 
Formative preaching takes for granted that the Bible is the Churchs Scripture. As Scripture, it is by definition authoritative. The Church -- and particularly preaching -- cannot ignore or minimize the central role of Scripture in its life. It is in the Scriptures that the Church finds its life, for it is there that the Church primarily encounters and communes with Jesus Christ.
 
The Bible is not God, and formative preaching does not worship or idolize it, but it is the place where the Church comes to know God, is addressed by God, is shaped by God. The Church honours the Bible and recognizes its authority, not because it has found through experience that it is a good book, but because the Scriptures are a gift given to it. As the recipients of this gift of grace, the Church finds itself as both the child and the custodian of the gift. Scripture shapes and forms the Church while the Church honours, protects, proclaims, lives by, and hands on that treasure to future generations.
 
The authority of Scripture is not the type of authority known through law or hierarchy. These assume that a social world is in place which simply needs clear methods of answering questions and making decisions. In contrast, Scripture functions not primarily to aid in decision-making, but in creating a new world. Scripture is authoritative for the Church because it creates and re-creates the Church. It is the language base, the mythological foundation, the "storied universe", without which the Church is not the Church. The world in which the Church is at home is the biblical world, where the stories of Israel and Jesus Christ are told and re-told, examined and re-examined, interpreted and re-interpreted. It is the air the Church breathes.
 
Recent United Church discussions about the authority of Scripture have tended to miss the mark as they seek to find the fine balance between the authority of Scripture and the authority of experience, tradition, and reason. If Scripture is to be evaluated for its usefulness (even if it is judged to be of high value), then it is obvious that there is some other criterion, some other "judge", which stands over and above it.
 
The Bible is not one authority among others, each being judged for the particular insights they might bring on an issue. Instead, it is the setting/context/atmosphere in which questions are asked. Scripture is not the answer (or worse, a "resource" for answering questions) but is the language, the home, which shapes the discussion. Naturally experience, reason and tradition are all part of Christian discussion, but these are brought into dialogue with Scripture and shaped by it.
 
The goal of formative preaching, therefore, is not to use Scripture to answer modern questions, or to illustrate high moral values or appropriate moral and political ideals. It is certainly the case that Scripture has been used as a story book from which exemplary tales are borrowed to make moral, social, or political ideals more concrete. And it is often assumed that Scripture is to be used to help make tough, moral decisions, even though experience shows that it rarely helps much at all. But our preaching should primarily seek to allow the Scriptures to form the Church, teaching the peculiar language the Church uses, grounding the Church in the myths and stories which give meaning and content to the words it uses. In this sense, formative preaching is evangelical rather than apologetic, proclaiming good news rather than translating it.
 
Viewing Scripture in this way suggests new family ties for the United Church. Isnt it the case that most United Church members-- or at least most United Church ministers -- experience closer family identity with non-Christian liberal or Marxist movements than with evangelical Christians who share the same Scripture and confess the same Lord? Evangelical and fundamentalist churches should no longer be seen as the opponents of the United Church, but as siblings in Christ. Agreement is not always necessary, but family identity and responsibility is. The Church also has a unique relationship with Judaism, not just because we share, at least in part, the same Bible, but because the sustenance that feeds the Christian branch comes through the root of Judaism (Rom. 11:17-36). To our shame, we must acknowledge that this uniqueness has historically expressed itself as opposition and hatred, but a closer reading of Scripture suggests a more respectful, family relationship would be appropriate.
 
I am suggesting an approach to critical biblical studies that might lead out of the present quagmire in which the Church finds itself. Generations of preachers, who were provided a model of approaching the Bible (the buzz-word today for the model is a "hermeneutic of suspicion"), found they could not at the same time criticize the Bible and proclaim it as authoritative. The Bible became an embarrassment which had to be interpreted, explained, apologized for, and sometimes left behind in order that more "enlightened" truths could be enunciated. Divisions between evangelical and liberal Christians also became pronounced, with evangelicals defending the reliability of the historicity of the Bible and liberals denying it. For both, the highest authority became "history", with the Scriptures being the object to be dissected to see whether they passed the test or not. Modern culture takes as self-evident the truthfulness of two things: history and science. It does not question that these determine what is really real; it demands that everything else measure up to these empirical standards.
 
For the Church, though, the Bible is not so much an ancient text to be subject to critical study and judgment as it is the source of the Churchs life. History and science do not authenticate or controvert the Scriptures. The Bible is first of all a gift to be honoured rather than an object of critical investigation. In formative preaching, it is not important to defend the historicity of the Bible (as evangelicals feel they need to do), or to be embarrassed by the lack of historicity (as liberals feel they need to be). The Scriptures must be mainly read and proclaimed as they are without preoccupation with their historicity, either favourable or unfavourable. Historical and literary criticism (the latter in particular) nevertheless will be regularly used by the preacher to sharpen insights, highlight tensions, and provide background and context to the text.
 
Formative preaching will be canonical preaching. Being a canon means that Scripture is a unity -- a very diverse unity, but nevertheless a unity. Scripture is read in the context of other Scripture, not in a context suggested by the headlines of the day, or even within the paradigms presented by contemporary philosophy, or social sciences. Historical and literary criticism will often sharpen the context, and point out tensions in the text which might otherwise be missed, but preaching takes as its starting point the literary context in which the text is found.
 
Preaching biblically does not mean merely repeating the stories and language of the Bible, although there should certainly be room for doing that. Instead, the Church needs to engage in a dialogue, a dance, with Scripture. The Church with its issues, joys, problems and questions approaches the Scriptures and attempts as faithfully as possible to enter into their world. There the issues and questions are transformed and recoloured. Rarely do we receive "answers", because the modern world and the biblical world ask different questions; rarely do we receive clear guidance because the two worlds are normally concerned with different issues. But as the Church and the Bible meet and interact, the Church finds itself looking, seeing, questioning and speaking in ways and language not given by the modern world. The Scriptures have not answered questions, but have reshaped life; they have not proved "effective" and "meaningful" to the modern world, but have called the modern world with its projects and meanings into question.
 
Formative preaching recognizes an interpretative circle between Gods story of salvation found in Israel and Jesus Christ, and the called community of the Church. In this circle it is not so much a matter of getting the "meaning" of the scriptural text and somehow interpreting or judging it for a congregation; the text is the "story" in which the community finds and shapes its life, and which is always both home and prod, both answer and question, for the Church. The centre of the circle is not in translating the text for a modern age, but in a community engaged in a living relationship with the Scriptures.
 
In the interpretative circle of formative preaching, the biblical story is normative. Whether familiar or strange, comfortable or challenging, affirming or judging, it is this pole of the circle which receives priority and preference. While community and individual experience, wisdom and traditions, are honoured, they are honoured by entering into dialogue with the scriptural story, not by standing alongside or even independently, and certainly not as judge and jury.
 
The Churchs dialogue with Scripture is not a dialogue between equals. Some contemporary discussions suggest that all parties in dialogue must have equal power, and the willingness to change. The dialogue we are speaking about here is like that of an apprentice with the master craftsperson.6 Dialogue can be real, but there is no doubt who has priority. The Church is involved in the craft of discipleship and as it converses, it does so at the feet of Scripture.

Our contemporary dialogue with Scripture needs to be shaped by the history of the Churchs dialogue with the Bible. The Church today must not approach the Bible as though for the first time, but come to it aware of a long, rich history of dialogue. The Church is already shaped by Scripture, a child of Scripture, reflected in its tradition. It is as a Scripture-shaped body -- not as a representative of the modern world -- that the Church turns again to the Bible to draw from the source of its life.
 
As well, the interpretative circle of formative preaching emphasizes not the individual, but the called community which confronts Scripture. Scripture is not an answer book, therapeutic guide, or spiritual handbook, but a "world" in which a community finds its life. It does not function well in helping individuals cope better with "this" world -- since it seems so resolutely in conflict with "this" world -- but is indispensable in forming a people called to another world: "in the world but not of the world" (John 17).
 

IV. Formative Preaching is Narrative Preaching
 
When the Church turns to the Bible, it finds a wide variety of writings and witnesses. Not only is the voice of the Bible different from book to book and passage to passage, but the form the voice takes varies as well. There is myth, law, proverbs, history-like stories, letters, hymns, and much more. By declaring the Scriptures a canon, however, the early Church bequeathed us a unity, a single story. Although not always self-evident, the Scriptures form an extended, united narrative. Formative preaching, therefore, will be narrative preaching.
 
Narrative theology and narrative preaching have been influential in the Church for at least the past twenty-five years. The emphasis in the United Church during the past decade or more on story and story-telling in preaching is a reflection of this movement. Still very fluid and varied in its expressions, narrative theology is presently identified with no one theologian or preacher. Formative preaching, too, is not tied to any one expression or method. It shares, however, the general recognition of narrative theology that the Christian life (and perhaps anthropologically all of life) is intelligible only when fundamentally shaped in narrative form. At the heart of Christian life is a story, a complex and at times convoluted one to be sure, but nevertheless a story.
 
An earlier generation of theology expressed a similar understanding when it spoke about the Christian Church being grounded in salvation-history. Hi-story is, after all, first and foremost a story. Salvation-history is the story of Gods salvation in time and space. The use of the word history, though, can be misleading, since the Church lives in a milieu where "history" is seen as an authenticating authority, discovered by empirical research and accessible to all neutral investigators. The present use of the language of narrative may avoid this positivist trap, while still maintaining a sense of movement through time. Let us keep in mind that narratives are told by particular communities. Narratives are community-conditioned, not objective, empirical facts waiting to be uncovered.
 
The use of narrative preaching has become fairly commonplace in the United Church. Unfortunately, in a predominately liberal ethos, the preached story usually becomes an illustration of a general truth gleaned from Scripture. Moreover, individuals are seen as being imbued with a personal story which seems to take precedence over any other story, including the biblical ones. A culture of individualism gives the stories of individuals a normative stature over community-based stories. Is it not significant, however, that the personal stories of individuals sound so remarkably alike? They are actually the stories given and appropriated uncritically from an individualistic culture. The comedy troupe, Monty Python, perhaps recognizes this best in a scene from their movie "The Life of Brian". Brian, the reluctant Messiah, has just finished telling a huge crowd that they are "all individuals". In one voice they shout, "We are all individuals!" except for one, lonely voice crying out, "Im not an individual"!
 
Story-telling in formative preaching, then, should reflect the biblical story as closely and faithfully as possible, so that Scripture does the forming, not the ideals or experiences of the preacher. The biblical story is neither reformed in order to make it more palatable for the modern Church, nor retold in order to get rid of currently unacceptable language, ideas, or relationships. Tensions with the biblical story can be handled better in other ways, not in storytelling. Instead, a retelling of the biblical story is intended to highlight more clearly the relationships, plot, tensions, humour, ironies, and other elements already in the story. Faithfulness to the intention and dynamics of the biblical story guide formative story-telling.
 
Narrative preaching, however, need not always be story-telling, especially for preachers who may not have story-telling skills. Instead, it means taking seriously the narrative quality of the Scripture. Scripture is not a collection of static laws or commands, codes or insights, proverbs or "rules of the universe" which can be taken in isolation. The fact that the Scriptures are a canon means, at least, that there is movement, life, history, and plot. Each passage to be preached comes with its obvious or hidden history. It is part of a larger plot. To preach the passage faithfully means to take seriously where it fits into the total narrative.
 
Narrative preaching, therefore, must also be theological preaching since it requires theology to identify, name, and use various parts of biblical narrative. Theology allows the preacher to see how a particular passage might fit into the whole scriptural story. Narrative preaching, and an emphasis on the scriptural story, are not, as some assume, anti-theological. Its true that a theology which tries to systematize the scriptural story, or to translate it into contemporary philosophical categories, will not aid narrative preaching. Im thinking of those who try to distill a "public" theology from the story and then leave the story behind. Narrative preaching needs a narrative theology, one which recognizes that Christian existence depends not upon getting ideas and philosophies correct, but in being incorporated into the ongoing story of Gods dealings with the world through Israel and Jesus Christ.
 
The main goal of formative preaching as narrative preaching is not to help individuals cope with or understand their lives better, but to re-form a community which sees and lives its life in communion with the biblical history of God. It works for conversion, recognizing that the Christian account is a different story from the one told by the rest of the world. It works for sanctification, recognizing that the Church is not static but has a direction, a movement, drawn forward by the promise of Gods kingdom. Formative preaching seeks the re-formation of a people who can see and hear Gods story, and who seek to be obedient to it.
 

V. Formative Preaching Models Christian Life
 
Formative preaching is not a unique or isolated activity, but part of the total life of the Church. In preaching, the Church comes to the Scriptures to listen, to learn, to be shaped, to obey. It comes with its past history, and with its present questions, issues, prejudices and tensions. It comes in its various geographical, social, racial, national, and gender configurations. When it comes once more to engage with the Scriptures, to commune with them, to dance and debate and dialogue with them, it is involved again in a conversation, never brand new, yet always partially new, seeking conversion, transformation, sanctification, new life. In this engagement the Church finds itself being reformed. Its actions change; its words change; Christian virtues are practiced; the world it inhabits takes on new dimensions. And then, even as it seeks to act faithfully, the Church returns to the Scriptures to listen anew.
 
If preaching emphasizes the listening and proclamation aspects of this Christian interpretative circle, the celebration of the Eucharist and of Baptism emphasize the active, discipleship aspects. The regular observance of the sacraments reflect the centrality of action and discipleship in the Christian life. Preaching and engagement with the Bible are meant to shape and form Christian life, but it still has to be lived; hearing is not enough; learning something new is not enough; getting another opinion so wise choices can be made is not enough. The life of faith is a life of work. But if formative preaching is what we are intending to embark upon, then it is not enough simply to chastise individuals for not doing enough or to encourage them to work harder. A community of Christian disciples must provide the grounding in which Christian faithfulness can find root and sustenance. Engagement with Scripture will take place, not only through preaching, but also in the setting of group studies and personal piety. Bible study groups are important where Scripture is studied in ways that respect its authority while also allowing critical study to open up new questions and new insights. Group study also allows participants to be accountable to one another for their study and response. Thus individual reading of Scripture and the use of it in shaping prayer is important in the discipline of personal piety; it is difficult to dialogue with Scripture as a group or a church if it is not also happening on the personal, individual level.
 

Conclusion
 
Preaching will not transform the Church. Only Gods Spirit working in the total life of the Church, calling and finding a willing response, will bring transformation. Preaching as part of this whole movement of the Spirit, however, will play a role, I think a significant role. Formative preaching will not satisfy all the questions, yearnings, hopes and desires of modernity. Not everyone will want to be part of this distinct, peculiar, disciplined people. But at the very least, such a community should be able to pass on the traditions and a rich practice of engagement with Scripture to a new generation, to bequeath this life-giving gift to them to make of what they will. And at the most, who knows what God might be able to do with a Church formed by the Scriptures and open to the amazing life-giving Word of God?
 
 
1. "Delivering the Goods: Formative Preaching", Touchstone, January 1996, p. 22.

2. Ibid.
 
3. Paul Ricoeur stresses that interpretation is not complete until the original text is not only interpreted but is shared.  See Nancy Lammers Gross, A Re-examination of Recent Theories in Light of the Hermeneutical Theory of Paul Ricour. UMI Dissertation Services, 1994, p. 202.

4. Ethics: Systematic Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986) pp. 17f.

5. "The Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life, and the Concept of Tradition", in Why
Narrative, ed by Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 19

6. Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991) pp.93-112.
 

We are surrounded by example after example of how our perceptions are dictated by the culture into which we were born and which we accept as normal without thinking the implications through. We assume that our way is the right way, the only way, the Christian way.
 
At the Council of Jerusalem, the apostles almost foundered in their task to establish the church (Acts 15) over the issue of whether it was necessary to become a Jew before becoming a Christian. Some of the apostles took their Jewishness so much for granted that it never occurred to them that a Gentile could accept Christ and be baptized outside the claims of the Torah. Paul and Barnabas persuaded them otherwise, and the great missionary enterprise to the non-Jewish world was undertaken.
 
Yet this assumption that our culture is the only one in which the Gospel can be transmitted is remarkably hard to eradicate. When the Europeans came to America, they pronounced the cultures they found here as pagan and forced converts to reject their cultural heritage for that of renaissance Europe. Here in Canada, in living memory, the churches were complicit with the government in what has been rightly called "cultural genocide", taking aboriginal children from their parents into residential schools to be taught to be good European Canadian Christians. This policy came from the nineteenth century imperialist notion that some cultures were better than others -- in particular that the culture of Christian Europe was superior to all others.
 
The cultural expression of European Christianity was the Church. Someone who came through the residential school system and has lived to reflect on that experience and the larger experience of the encounter of his people with Christianity remarked tellingly, "We accepted Jesus and got the Church". We in the Church need to think through carefully how much of what we do is based on the Gospel and how much has grown up because of the culture in which, for us, the Gospel has become imbedded.
 

Mediterranean Societies Become the Norm
 
A very clear example of how the two questions get mixed up in peoples perception comes in the issue of the place of women in the Church. Christ included women among his disciples and women were very important in the early Church. But when the Church was planted in Greek and Roman culture, the cultural norms of those societies took hold and women were set outside the priestly hierarchy. The Church fathers found justification for this through appealing to the Old Testament attitudes toward women. Christs revolutionary attitude was ignored and the cultural dominance of men in Mediterranean societies became the norm in the Church -- so much so that the Roman Church and all the Orthodox communions to this day resist the Gospel call to the equality of all believers in everything to do with the Church.
 
The issue of the ordination of women is, in a way, an easy one for those of us who belong to that part of Christendom that does ordain women. We take pride in the fact that our forefathers (and it had to be men!) were able to accept the equality of women. But are women really equal in our churches? How many congregations still dont really want a woman in their pulpit? How often have we heard the excuse that "some people" wont accept a woman in charge? And how often does it turn out that "some people" are women? Why does this happen? Because our culture is descended from the patriarchal European one. Here we should turn to our aboriginal brothers and sisters and discover how a matriarchal culture can more easily assimilate the idea of a strong woman leader.
 
More difficult are issues that involve situations in which we are working together in a congregation where there are members from different ethnic backgrounds. In my own Presbyterian congregation, the Worship Committee proposed that the caretaker precede the choir in the processional carrying the Bible. This was a familiar part of my predominantly Scottish home church. The senior elder of my present congregation, who happens to be Dutch, objected strenuously. As we discussed the question it became clear that although the processing of the Bible is an ancient custom, having it carried by the caretaker (the Beadle) is a strictly Scottish custom -- some say dating from the days when it was necessary for someone to check to make sure there were no English soldiers in the congregation before the service began! If we could have such a debate between two predominantly northern European cultural groups -- both Reformed since the sixteenth century -- how much more difficult does it become when our pews reflect the multi-cultural reality of Canada?
 
Making a multi-ethnic congregation work is not just a question of learning to appreciate another cuisine. We Europeans, especially those of us in what might be called "conciliar churches" -- churches ruled by courts and committees rather than by bishops -- are trained to discuss, debate, strike committees, receive reports, and vote on almost every issue. This way of behaving is part of our culture. Other cultures find this behaviour most peculiar. For them, a proper decision is not made when there are "winners" and "losers" as is inevitable in a vote; rather a proper decision is reached through consensus with every voice heard and action not taken until everyone is comfortable with the outcome. How often do we hear the comments in predominantly European congregations that "they" -- meaning non-Europeans -- are difficult to assimilate into the life of a congregation. "They dont take part!" is the great cry. We need to recognize that part of the reason that they dont take part is that we expect them to play by our rules; do things the way we do them. It is hard for us to accept that our cultural expression of the Gospel is not necessarily the only one. But if we are called to be one in the body of Christ, we must examine prayerfully whether, in managing our congregations, we are inadvertently setting up cultural barriers that are hard for others to cross. There is no Gospel imperative to strike a committee or write a report or to have a set of rules for the use of the kitchen. We are told to be reconciled one to the other. Reconciliation means that at least two sides come together, and to come together we must all recognize who we are, why we do things the way we do, and be willing to learn about other people and from other people so that a congregation can come together as a people of God.
 

Culturally Coded Liturgies and Hymns
 
An Indian friend of mine, who has spent much of his life exploring the many dimensions of the relationship between the Gospel and the cultures of the world, tells a story from his childhood in Madras. He remembers sweltering through a hot and humid Christmas Eve, while all around him the congregation sang the carol "In the bleak midwinter" with no sense of incongruity. Our liturgies and particularly our hymns are deeply culturally coded. Again, it is perhaps easier for us to recognize the problem by recalling the "inclusive language" issue. When only men could be clergy, and only men were grammarians, it was easy for the rule that the masculine subsumes the feminine to go unchallenged. In this way, the use of "man" for "man and woman , mankind , he" etc., were all part of the world of letters and learning. Only when women began to ask pointed questions the need to be inclusive of both sexes became recognized. The process of making the language of hymns, liturgies, and even the Bible itself reflect the new reality has been a painful one for many because it has changed many familiar and well beloved passages.
 
But what about making changes in the order of service, and the hymns we sing, to reflect the heritage of those from other traditions worshiping with us? For some, the only hymns that should be sung are the familiar ones with the plodding simple metres and simple tunes. My experience in the World Council of Churches has taught me the great joy that can be gained by exposing yourself to the rhythms of Africa and Latin America -- to open up to a tradition of praising God that makes northern European hymns and most anthems sound and feel like dirges. I love the music of Bach and of the great Renaissance masters, but it does not make me want to laugh and dance in praise of the Lord the way the African and Latin American music does. David danced before the altar of the Lord. Our Protestant culture stands in a long line of opposition to singing and dancing in Gods praise. We need to acknowledge that fact as part of our cultural heritage and be open to different ways of praising God. One of my greatest ecumenical moments came during a particularly exuberant African anthem when I noticed that the feet of an Orthodox priest in front of me were moving under his robes to the insistent beat of the drums!
 
I have chosen to open this discussion by referring to the things that impede our lives within the small communities we call congregations because, if we dont recognize that we must be alert to the things we do instinctively in our spiritual "home", it is hard for us to realize that what is done locally is a reflection of some of the greatest human tragedies of the end of the twentieth century.

My cultural heritage is Ulster Presbyterian. As I write, the peace process has been challenged by the bombing in Canary Wharf, London. Recently I saw on television the crowd -- both Catholic and Protestant -- who stood in the centre of Belfast and held paper symbols of the dove of peace, the Holy Spirit, and prayed for peace in their troubled province.
 
One of my cousins is a judge in Belfast; he is also an elder in the congregation of which his grandfather was minister. It is his job to judge fairly those of both sides brought before him accused of terrorist acts. He lives with a body guard and is driven to and from the courts in an armoured car because he and all other judges who seek to be impartial are under constant threat from extremists. Daily, the committed Christians in Northern Ireland on both sides of the religious divide are struggling to seize the essence of the Gospel and liberate it from the cultural imperatives that have held the communities apart for generations. Those who use religion as a political tool in that and other similar struggles around the world are denying the Gospel in their blind adherence to the culture in which they grew up.
 
Last December, Elijah Harper, Liberal MP from Manitoba and a Cree, called a Sacred Assembly in Ottawa bringing together the spiritual leadership of the aboriginal people and the major Christian churches in Canada. It was fascinating to watch all the non-natives come to terms with the manifestations of aboriginal Christian and non-Christian spirituality that was being expressed. Many of us struggled to understand how the aboriginal perceptions of the Creator and our understanding of God were, indeed, two cultural manifestations of the same reality. Many of us struggled to walk with our aboriginal brothers and sisters in their pain as they sought to reinterpret the Gospel in terms of their own cultural heritage. But for some people there, we were all wrong. For some, aboriginal expressions of Christianity were pseudo-Christian, as were the teachings of the Roman Catholic church or the Anglicans or the United Church or the Presbyterians or whoever had evangelized the aboriginal people in the first place. For them, only the most evangelical expression of salvation in terms of an absolute interpretation of the Scriptures as infallible was the truth. For them there is no "Gospel and Cultures" question. The Bible interpreted literally is the Gospel and everything else is pagan or of the devil.
 

Bridging the Cultural Gulf
 
This attitude is causing enormous pain around the world. Many evangelical Christians, many of them American, but many also from other countries such as Korea, are flooding into the former communist countries to, in their understanding, bring the Gospel to a pagan world. But the Orthodox church has been present in those countries for over a thousand years. And what is the Orthodox church? many of the eager evangelists ask. For them, the Orthodox clergy wear strange vestments and sing a liturgy that they cannot understand. The ancient Christian culture of Orthodoxy is alien to many evangelicals and therefore to them it is wrong or even of the devil. And to the Orthodox these missionaries are "sects", anathema, wrong or of the devil. The cultural gulf must be bridged and both sides must recognize how each is, to a greater or lesser extent, confusing the Gospel for the culture in which it is embedded.
 
The good news of Jesus Christ is embedded in a highly culturally charged document that we call Scripture. It is our task to study the Scriptures and seek to discern what in them is essential and what springs from the culture of the Middle East two thousand years ago. This is commonplace in most mainline churches today and our seminarians spend much of their studies in just such acts of discernment. The tricky task for us all is to discern how our understanding of the Scriptures is dictated by our culture.
 
Some years ago I was involved in a Task Force to reconsider the decision made by the 1966 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada to ordain women as ruling or teaching elders. Some within the Church had declared that the ordination of women was against their conscience and they were seeking either to repeal the ruling that allowed ordination or to be granted dispensation to "opt out" and individually not recognize the validity of a womans call and ordination. After some months of meeting together with the "proof text" of I Timothy 2:12 "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silence" constantly before us, I went back to that passage and came on verse 15, "Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty." It so happened that three of the six women on the task force were single and a fourth, though married, was childless. I asked those for whom verse 12 was the infallible word of God if, in their opinion, in light of verse 15, the four childless women were damned. The response was instant -- "no, no!", verse 15 must be taken in its cultural context! But not verse 12? No, they were unshaken on that one because their patriarchal culture was threatened by women in charge.
 
Again, I have used the more familiar struggle for sexual equality as my example. In the mainline liberal tradition we have accepted the equality of women but the same kinds of cultural attitudes that as late as the last generation denied sexual equality are hindering our coming together as one Christian community. The Gospel unites us; cultures often divide us. We must struggle together to understand how the two are interrelated as we seek to do Gods will in the next millennium.

The World Council of Churches has launched a worldwide study of these issues partly as a preparation for the upcoming Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Salvador, Brazil at the end of 1996. The Canadian Council of Churches will be using the theme of Gospel and Cultures as a preparation for its next triennial assembly in Ottawa in 1997. It is our hope, in the words of the prayer for the World Conference, that God will "inspire in the Church a rich sharing across cultures so that the heritages of all peoples may be offered to ... the Triune God, who alone is worthy of glory and honour, at all times and in all places...."
 
I invite readers of Touchstone to be part of that study. For further information please write to Dr. Eileen Scully, Associate Secretary for Faith and Witness, The Canadian Council of Churches, 40 St. Clair Avenue East, Toronto, Ont. M4T IM9.
 
 

"CURSE GOD AND DIE": WAS JOBS WIFE COMPLETELY WRONG?
 by Donald Schweitzer
 

The book of Job is a classic for understanding suffering. In this book, however, there is one whose marginalized voice has seldom been heard: Jobs wife. I will not undertake a reconstruction of her point of view, as advocated by Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, but if ever there was a candidate for this, Jobs wife is it. Her name is never mentioned; her laments are never heard; yet the sons and daughters who died were hers, too. The loss of Jobs wealth, the affliction of his body, would also have affected her. The book allows her a mere eleven words: "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die" (Job 2:9 NRSV). But in this brief space she expresses a fundamental truth that must be found in any authentic Christian response to suffering.
 

Curse God and Die
 
To understand the validity of her protest, we must first see its basis in the Old Testament understanding of God, the fundamental characteristics of which are expressed in the call of Moses. Here God is portrayed as hearing the cries of the oppressed, as being moved and able to deliver them, and as calling Moses to participate in their deliverance. Over time there developed in Israel an understanding of their God as Creator and Redeemer. Thus Yahweh has the power to overcome every evil and affliction. But the question arises: if Yahweh is good and able to save, why is there evil? An early answer, persisting today among some, is that suffering is Gods punishment for sin; conversely, blessing, good health, and prosperity are signs of Gods favour. It is this quid pro quo understanding of faith that underlies the advice of Jobs wife. As Job has been faithful, God should bless him. If God rewards Jobs faithfulness with suffering, then Job should curse God and die. It is important to note that this advice affirms Jobs innocence, and protests his treatment by God.
 
Jobs friends think in the same way his wife does, except they are certain that Job has hidden sins to confess. The reader already knows from the dialogue between God and Satan that this is not so (2:1-6). The whole point of the book is a forceful presentation of the reality of innocent and unjust suffering, which Jobs friends, out of their conventional wisdom, cannot comprehend. Jobs sufferings simply happen, and his wife and he rightly assert his innocence. Later, in the speech out of the whirlwind, God sides with them, and condemns Jobs would-be comforters as having sinned by their words (42:7W. Jobs wife thus expresses an important truth when she suggests to Job that he should curse God and die.
 
Beverly Harrison claims that anger is often a feeling-signal, arising out of love, expressing moral outrage over sin or evil.2 The advice of Jobs wife expresses this kind of anger; it signals that something is wrong with the understanding of suffering as a deserved punishment. In light of Gods capacity to save, Jobs suffering is a failure on Gods part. Job should affirm his innocence and protest Gods injustice. If God is to heal this ruptured relationship, God must deliver Job from his plight. Previous to his wifes outburst, Job received the news of his sons and daughters deaths without question. It is only after her angry words that he expresses his own anger, and asserts the injustice of his suffering. The anger of Jobs wife seems to empower him in his search for a truer understanding of God.
 
There has to be room for such anger in any response to suffering and evil, for it is in reality an acknowledgment of the goodness of creation, and that suffering and evil are ultimately not Gods will. If these affirmations are not maintained we have ceased to speak of the God of the Exodus and of Jesus Christ. The anger of Jobs wife is a signal that, in the face of Gods will for life, of Gods love of creation, and Gods saving power, such suffering is wrong. It expresses a broken connection to the God of love, a continued connection to Gods good creation, and acknowledges the reality of evil. It depicts evil, suffering and death as a rip in the fabric of creation. Not to be angry in the face of this would be, somehow, to see it as normal and acceptable. An adequate response must protest the cause of such suffering as an assault on life, and a contradiction of Gods will, but it need not lead to renouncing a connection to God. Liberation theologians affirm such anger over suffering and injustice as "a gift of the Holy Spirit."3 As we shall see, it also has a christological grounding.
 

I Know That My Redeemer Lives
 
If protest is a necessary element in the Christian response to suffering, so too is continued trust in God. Jobs wife rightly protests the sufferings she and Job share; yet her advice threatens to rob them of the one hope they have left, and to prevent Job from struggling to a new vision of Gods nearness and mercy. To curse God and die would be to grant the forces that assault them a further victory. Job refuses to accept his suffering as deserved punishment for sin, but clings to faith that God is still his friend. After accusing God of all that he has suffered, Job cries out, "I know that my Redeemer lives", and declares that when all is concluded God will prove to be on his side (19:25-26).
 
It is the nature of biblical faith to find God amidst unbelief, suffering, and sin, to trust God despite experiences of Gods absence. Faith knows both the reality of Gods love, and the reality of suffering that is against Gods will. Jobs wife is not completely wrong, but there is even deeper wisdom in Jobs continuing to trust God, though it requires a new understanding of God's relationship with the world.
 
Throughout the biblical tradition, God is never a static presence, but is always experienced as dynamic and active: approaching, intervening, withdrawing; present now in fire and smoke, now in the still small voice, now in the miracles of healing and casting out of demons, now in the suffering of Jesus on the cross. Intrinsic to faith in this active God is a particular sense of history. Gods actions move towards a definite horizon, where God will one day turn the conditions in the world upside down, bringing about an entirely new order of things.
 
The doctrine that suffering is a penalty for sin has lost this sense of history. It ceases to see God as creatively initiating history, and instead reduces God to reacting mechanically to peoples actions. In Exodus 3, however, God speaks of having heard the cries of the oppressed and declares that they will be delivered. This is the paradigm of divine justice in the biblical traditions. Gods justice is creative and salvific, setting free the oppressed, justifying the ungodly, fashioning a new relationship between Godself and creation. A response to suffering is in one sense a matter of plotting it within the topology of the biblical narrative, so that it can express both protest and hope. For faith in God cannot be simplistically squared with the world as we know it. This in my mind is the fatal flaw in so many of the theories that seek to reconcile Gods goodness and power with the reality of evil, where one or the other is denied. Faith in God must remain true to the earth and true to Gods love, recognizing the reality of evil while looking to Gods promised future.
 
Continued trust in God in the face of suffering also has a public dimension -- that of bearing witness. By continuing to trust in God in the face of affliction, Job plays a part in Gods salvific work: he becomes a witness to hope. Harold Kushner emphasizes this in his widely read book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People.4
 
Following Dorothee Soelle, Kushner suggests that it is our choosing to affirm life and faith in God in the face of evil that is crucial. And Soelle points out that no one is neutral in the face of evil and suffering.5 A response to suffering always involves an element of moral choice, speaking for or against God in the trial of history, which can be empowering and convicting for others. It is important though, as the protest of Jobs wifes forces us to see, that the concept of God be carefully clarified, so that one does not side with a god who is an enemy of life. This kind of clarification happens in Jobs move away from a certain theological development within Israel, towards the original understanding of God in the Exodus traditions. When people continue to trust in this God, even in the face of suffering and unanswered prayer, they become a witness to hope.
 
The question then arises, where do we find resources for this kind of response? While the book of Job challenges the thinking that suffering is always deserved and a sign of sin, it remains ambiguous in its portrayal of God. Jobs innocence is affirmed, and yet his protest is put before the transcendence of God who remains a distant mystery. Whitehead suggests that Jobs question "Where is God?" does not really find an answer here. Whitehead saw an answer in the person and teaching of Jesus, as interpreted in the Johannine phrase, "God is love."6 God is "the poet of the world, with tending patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness," as "the great companion -- the fellow-sufferer who understands,"7 whose power is limited to luring and guiding the world in the exercise of its freedom. It seems as though many contemporary Christians would agree with Whitehead in asserting that the answer to Jobs question lies in understanding that God is love, but I suggest that Whiteheads limited God is not the redeemer for whom Job looks. Whiteheads God "can only inspire and not save".

The anger of Jobs wife signals that what has been understood in parts of our tradition about the sovereignty of God must be reformulated; God cannot be understood both as love and as directly responsible for all that happens in history. The loss and pain that Job and his wife suffered was no work of a loving God, as the book of Job makes clear. But the sense of Gods power finally to overcome evil is what sustained Job during his sufferings. We need to retain it as well, if people are to have hope and be empowered to struggle for life in the face of radical and recurring evil.
 

The Lord is for the Body
 
Job needed an understanding of God that would be meaningful and bring hope even in the face of senseless evil. We find such an understanding of God in the letters of Paul, particularly in his notion in I Cor. 6:13 that "the Lord (is) for the body". Here Paul is bringing out the ethical implications of the cross specifically with regard to sexuality, but his underlying theological vision has another side to it. If God is for the body, then we realize that God is also for a lot of other things, like clean air, good food, adequate housing and health care. If God is for the body, then God must be an environmentalist, because these bodies of ours cant live without their environment. If God is for the body, then God is also against violence to the body: violence against women, children and men. If God is for the body, then the suffering that Job and his wife endured can never be directly Gods will. When we read Pauls interpretation of the cross, that the Lord is for the body, we know that the anger of Jobs wife is justified, and that we have a right to cry out when peoples bodies are broken or eaten away by suffering and disease. The righteous anger that cries out to God when confronted by the suffering of the world is itself an expression of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life.9 As Sally Purvis points out, there is also an unexpected congruence between Pauls vision and the concerns of contemporary feminist theologians,0 who generally find Pauls theology of the cross repugnant. As we unpack some of its theological and ethical implications, we find substantial agreements with feminists in terms of the vision of God, of creation and human life that they seek to develop.
 
Through the revelation of God in the resurrection of the crucified Christ there also emerges a hope that can embrace the darkest night. Precisely because there is a God to cry out to, a God whose will is that we live, and who is able to bring to life that which was naught, there is an inextinguishable hope that can be present even in the deepest sorrow and distress. In the suffering of Jesus, Christians see that God is indeed "the fellow-sufferer who understands", while also remaining the source of a transcendent hope. Seeing in the resurrection that God is for the body enables people to trust that their cry of pain is heard, and that in Gods faithfulness, the suffering and injustice that we cry out against will be overcome. In that knowledge, faith opens people, after they have been wounded by life, to live and love again. Questions remain, and with them the protest against suffering and death. But in place of rage there comes love that is able, through faith in Christ, to take upon itself the pain of the world, and still give thanks to God for life.
 

1 Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), p.26-28, 48.
 
2 Beverly Wildung Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics ed. by Carol Robb (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), p.14-15.
 
3 Gregory Baum, "Conflicts in the Church and the Commandment of Love: Fragmentary Reflections on an Important Topic," The Ecumenist Vol. 2, No. I  (January-March, 1995), p.16.
 
4 Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen To Good People (New York: Avon Books, 1981), p.136-143.
 
5 Dorothee Soelle, Suffering (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), p.33-141.
 
6 Alfred North Whitehead, Religion in the Making (New York: the Macmillan Company, 1926).
 
7 Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality ed. by D.R. Griffin and D.W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1978), p.346, p.351.
 
8 Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought (New York: Schocken Books, 1982), p.326-327.
 
9 Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992).
 
10 Sally Purvis, The Power of the Cross: Foundations for a Christian Feminist Ethic of Community (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), p.95.
 

by Judith Brocklehurst
 
O God our Creator, we are sometimes less than scrupulous about the important issues in our lives. Too often, preoccupied by the business of living, we allow ourselves to be involved in social structures that perpetuate injustice; too often
 
Conscientiously, I peer at the bulletin in my hand, trying to read these long, complex sentences aloud with the rest of the congregation. But is this praying? I dont think I really know what Im saying. What, precisely, am I accusing myself of? But this is supposed to be one of the most important activities in my life: praying as a member of the Christian community.
 
I feel there is a basic confusion here. Is the prayer of confession intended for the awakening of the conscience, or is its task the loosening of the load of guilt that must be shed -- not before I approach God, but as in my fear and self-condemnation I approach God. This prayer doesnt enable me to place my sins before God; it simply increases my guilt. Its really just an extra sermon.
 
Liturgical prayer is always difficult, keeping a dangerous balance between being stale and over-familiar on the one hand, and being used as an overflow pipe for the sermon on the other. But its an important part of our worship, since it is the part that involves others; to pray for the world is a vital part of our work as Christians. For that work to be done, the liturgical prayers we have placed before us must be usable tools.
 
I am convinced that the first rule for the minister preparing the Sunday prayers, especially the corporate prayers, is KEEP IT SIMPLE. I cant read and think and pray at the same time! Nobody can. While you prepared the service, you spent time on these ideas; but we are seeing them for the first time. Complex ideas need breaking down. Imagine you are trying to make it understandable to an eight-year-old child. Sentences must be short: if a sentence has more than one idea, re-write it.
 
Obviously, people need to join in; listening to the minister praying isnt enough; saying "amen" isnt enough. Repetition and refrains are easier than reading a long prayer aloud, and many of us will do this more readily than well say "amen". It also makes it easier to get some sort of rhythm, and good prayer, because it rises from and reaches for deep feelings, is closer to poetry than prose.

We do have a need to pray about things that are happening in the world, especially where human suffering is involved. This is the point where the TV news and the worship service come together in a meaningful way. But corporate sin is a difficult problem, involving complex issues, and prayer about it may sometimes have to follow an explanatory sermon, and afterwards we may be invited to be involved in some kinds of reparation, even if it is only a petition to sign, or a letter to write, or a contribution to make to a collection for an agency thats dealing with the problem. Perhaps we need a second rule for ministers preparing the Sunday prayers: DONT USE THEM SIMPLY TO SEND US ON A GUILT TRIP!
 
Personal sin is a different matter: you do not know, and will never know, what is on my conscience, nor how much it hurts. You can only ask me to confess, privately, to the things I have done and the things I have not done, and assure me of Gods love and forgiveness. In the end I have to write my own ticket here. For that reason, there is great advantage in having the corporate prayer of general confession be truly a general confession, which will cover everybody no matter how old or how young, no matter what their health or circumstance or personal history, and not one that tries to be too specific, which might cover only healthy, literate, well-to-do adults.
 
Do feel free to use the same prayers again and again. People dont mind; in fact they find it helpful. We seem to be terribly afraid of sameness and repetition. But why? Children love repetition, and one of the best ways of having "inclusive" services (i.e. ones that include the children) is to have things they have come to recognize, or better still, know by heart. In our congregation, we have several retarded adults who come from a neighbouring group home. We like them and want them to feel welcome. But what do they make of the prayers in our bulletin, new ones every week, often using complex terms and abstract ideas, relentlessly demanding a quite developed literacy? I wish we had the habit of using a few familiar prayers, repeated by all of us, which our friends could learn, and which might help them to feel they belong.
 
Then there is serious life crisis, when people are hurt, dazed, scared, and they reach out for the familiar. This is the moment when they need prayers that have been committed to memory. But because we are so concerned about avoiding repetition in our Church many United Church folk may have only the Lords Prayer and the 23rd Psalm that they know by heart. Perhaps the excellent prayers included in Voices United will come to meet this need: I hope so. In any case, do borrow; prayers are public property. Make a collection of prayers you like and use them.

A good prayer should sum up to start with. Identify one phrase or sentence that seems to say it all. Make this your refrain. Think, for example of the refrains found in the tradition: "Lord have mercy "Lord, hear our prayer", or "We thank you, Lord God." It is not hard to build a series of short petitions or thanksgivings around the refrain.
 
A simple but meaningful method is to take the congregational sick list, and instead of announcing it and asking for prayers, go through it, name by name, and ask the people to join you:

Let us pray for all those who are sick, our response being,
"Lord, hear our prayer".
We pray for Ivy Smith [perhaps providing a very brief context],
saying
Lord, hear our prayer.
We pray for John Samuel, saying
Lord, hear our prayer.
etc., etc.
We pray for all those known to us who are sick, whom we now name
in the silence of our hearts.... [a time of silence] saying
Lord, hear our prayer.

 A PRAYER OF APPROACH

 Our help is in the name of the Lord
The Maker of heaven and earth.
Our help is not in wealth or influence.
Our help is in the name of the Lord.
Our help is not in our intellect or our skills.
Our help is in the name of the Lord.
Our help is not in the good opinion people have of us.
Our help is in the name of the Lord.
Our help is not in our good deeds.
Our help is in the name of the Lord.
Our help is in the name of the Lord.
The Maker of heaven and earth.

A PRAYER FOR FAMINE VICTIMS

Loving God, we stand before you today in prayer for the people of Rwanda.
Our hearts go out to them.
We think of the hungry, the homeless, the wounded.
Our hearts go out to them.
We think of children who have lost their parents, of parents searching for their children.
Our hearts go out to them.
We think of children carrying weapons of war.
Our hearts go out to them.
We remember all those who are trying to help.
Be with them, kind and generous God.
We remember the nurses, doctors, health care workers of all kinds, those trying to provide clean water, those trying to comfort the children.
Be with them, kind and generous God.
Reveal to us what we can do to help.
Our hearts go out to them.

A LITANY OF SUPPLICATION IN PASSIONTIDE

At this time, we think of our Lord, beaten and mocked.
We think of our Lord, beaten and mocked.
We remember our Lord, tormented and spat upon by people with power to hurt, carried away by cruelty, ordinary men and women like us.
We think of our Lord, beaten and mocked.
We remember the times when we have felt angry, and wanted to punish, to relieve our frustration and anger by hurting someone.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
We pray for those in authority over weak and vulnerable people.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
We pray for soldiers, for prison guards, for police, for nurses, doctors and social workers, for teachers, for pastors and parents.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
We pray for those in charge of the old, the mentally ill, the criminally insane.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
We pay for all those who are beaten, baited, tortured, bullied, mocked, humiliated, who are helpless against cruelty.
Deliver us from evil.
We see the bullied child, crying in the playground. We see the tortured prisoner. We see the old woman, slapped and tied into the wheelchair.
We see our Lord, beaten and mocked. Lord, have mercy upon us.

JAMES ROBERTSON: PASTOR FROM THE LAKEHEAD TO THE PACIFIC 1
by Mac Watts
 
On January 4, 1902, James Robertson looked up from a letter he was writing, said to his wife, "Im done out", and died. If ever the cliches about dying "in the harness", or "with his boots on", were appropriate, they were in the case of this remarkable person, the first Superintendent of Western Canadian Missions for the Presbytenan Church.
 
When the people of the recently-founded Knox Church, Winnipeg, called James Robertson in 1873, they naturally had no notion that they were bringing someone to the congregation who would, almost from the moment he hit the city, see the whole Northwest as his responsibility. But the circumstances at Knox itself immediately introduced Robertson to the needs of the western Canadian frontier. Knox was a congregation made up of both Free Church and Auld Kirk people, and the union of 1875, which would bring the two Canadian Presbyterian denominations together, was still two years away. Robertson was a Free Church minister, and through a mix-up in communication, an Auld Kirk minister arrived at almost the same moment to take the Knox pulpit. To give them time to sort it out, Robertson agreed to go for a couple of weeks up to Palestine (later renamed Gladstone). Instead of two weeks, he stayed six, and in that time organized four congregations, and visited "all the families"! That glimpse of the needs and possibilities of the prairies set him on a course he never wavered from until his death twenty-nine years later.

Had Robertson never come west its hard to imagine how different the Presbyterian Church would have looked in 1900, or how different our Church would look now. And as is the case with all of us, there were so many moments in Robertsons life when events, or personal decisions, might have taken him elsewhere. He was born in Scotland in 1839, and its likely that he would have remained there had it not been for a momentous snowstorm in 1854 which buried flocks and herds, and brought ruin to many a small sheep-farmer. Robertsons father, late in life as it was for him, decided to move with the family to Canada. Thus in 1855, when James was sixteen years of age, they came and settled in the township of East Oxford, Ontario. The first step in bringing Robertson to the Canadian West had been taken.
 

Princeton and New York
 
The next step was a decision to enter the ministry. Though he began his adult life as a teacher (beginning at eighteen), he was drawn to a vocation in the Church, and the natural step would have been to enroll at the newly-founded Free Church theological college in Toronto, Knox College. But Robertson, along with a good many others preparing for the ministry, lacked confidence in the quality of education available at the time at Knox. Thus in 1866 he went to Princeton where he spent two years. As satisfying as he found that institution, he decided to spend his final year at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and it was in New York that we almost lost him from this country forever. He began to attend Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, which had a downtown mission, known as Alexander Mission. Robertson offered to do Sunday School work at the Mission. Within a month his gifts had been recognized and he was put in charge. The following letter to Robertson from one of the elders at Fifth Avenue Church, who was on the Board of Managers of the Mission, may in places lack proper syntax, but makes quite clear the dimensions of Robertsons job:

October 9, 1868.

To Mr. James Robertson.

My Dear Sir:

To prevent misunderstanding between us as to the terms of your engagement by the Alexander Mission which commenced October 1st, I now write as to the same.
 
1st. You are engaged to preach every Sabbath evening and to conduct the weekly Tuesday evening lecture or a prayer-meeting as required; and you are to be present at the Tuesday evening meetings when required as well when the meeting may be a lecture as when it may be a prayer-meeting.
 
2nd. You are to be present at the teachers meetings when held and assist in the consideration of the Sabbath-school lessons, and conduct the meetings if required.
 
3rd. You are to hold yourself in readiness to prepare with the school managers a programme for making the Tuesday evening meeting or any of the meetings interesting and profitable.
 

4th. You are to visit twelve hours per week upon the families connected with the mission, and try and build up the evening meetings by including a greater attendance of adults if possible. After you become acquainted with the field, arrangements will be made as to visiting generally.
 
5th. You are occasionally during each month to attend the Sabbath afternoon mission meetings and make pastoral visits, and make the acquaintance of the older scholars connected with the school.
 
6th. When the sewing school shall be in session during the winter, you are to look in upon the children occasionally gathered in said school.
 
7th. You are to make monthly reports of the mission, directed to the treasurer, H.S. Terbell, and hand the reports either to Mr. Thomas S. Adams or to me, and in these reports you are to speak of the work generally, also of any cases of interest, number of visits made, the attendance upon your meetings and of any other matters that may occur as naturally to be reported upon.
 
8th. Any cases of need or cases requiring attention are to be reported immediately.
 
9th. In short, you are to hold yourself in readiness to attend to any special cases and to care for the interests of the mission generally, and to visit with any teacher desiring your aid in visiting upon members of the school.
 
10th. You said you should not continue with us if you found you were not giving satisfaction. The only cause of dissatisfaction, I think, could be your metaphysical turn of mind. The people require plain, earnest, practical, illustrative preaching, and if you can satisfy on this point, I have no doubt of your success.
 
However, as it is in a measure uncertain as yet how far you may succeed in adapting your preaching to the people, we have thought it best to make your engagement to continue as long as both the mission managers and yourself shall be mutually satisfied with each other, provided, however, that in any event (even if we were satisfied with each other) your term of service or engagement by the mission shall terminate with the 18th of May, 1869, unless renewed for a further term by mutual agreement.
 
11th For your services to be rendered as above you are to receive forty dollars per month, and to make out your account therefor, which, when approved by either Mr. Thos. S. Adams, or myself, will be paid by Mr. H.S. Terbell, treasurer, 39 Walker Street.
 
12th. A committee of the Board of Management will from time to time meet with you to talk over the work and its needs, etc.
 
Hoping your connection with the mission will be greatly blessed and will result in a church organization, I remain,
 
Yours very respectfully,
 

Leonard A. Bradley.
 
P.S. A written reply to the above is requested.
L.A.B.

The stories of Robertsons determination to do what he had committed himself to do, no matter what the obstacles, are legion. We will mention only one from the period he was in Norwich. It was the time of the spring run-off, and he was due, along with several others, to speak at an important meeting. He set off with his wife, traveling by horse and buggy. At one place where the road was blocked with running water, ice, and logs, his usually courageous horse refused to try going through it. Turning into a farmhouse that was close by, Robertson left his wife with the horse and buggy. He took off his boots and socks, rolled up his pants, waded through the stream, and walked the remainder of the distance to the meeting place. When he arrived at his destination he found he was the only speaker that made it. Afterwards, he commented that hed had little problem with getting through the water except that his bare feet occasionally stuck to the ice.
 

A Call From Knox Church, Winnipeg
 
Meanwhile in the Canadian Northwest the Selkirk Settlers had waited almost forty years for a Presbyterian minister. The Rev. John Black arrived in the Red River area in 1851 to be the pastor of Kildonan Church. Black, whose original intention had been to stay only a year or so until a "permanent" minister arrived, regularly sent back to central Canada petitions for assistance.
 
Gradually others came, so that in 1870 the Presbytery of Manitoba was constituted with three ministers and three elders present. Responding to their overture, the General Assembly in 1871 established Manitoba College. George Bryce arrived to be the first professor, with Thomas Hart coming the next year to be the second. With Manitoba having become part of Canada in 1870, and Winnipeg made its capital, some Presbyterians organized a congregation for the new city, Knox Church. George Bryce was to take services until a minister could be called. In the latter part of 1873 they felt they were ready, and a call accordingly went out to a Free Church minister, one James Robertson of Norwich, Ontario.
 
Officially, Robertson became minister of Knox Church, and remained that for eight years. Unofficially, he was the agent fostering the spread of the Presbyterian Church in the West. He wrote back east an endless stream of letters soliciting people and money; he prepared reports for the General Assembly; he visited the embryonic towns of Manitoba and beyond -- even though the railway had not yet gone through -- organizing, encouraging and raising money. Soon it was clear to everybody that he was the person to activate and co-ordinate the work throughout the West, and in 1881 a new post was created by the General Assembly to fit him and the work he was already doing: Superintendent of Missions for the Northwest.
 
At this point a word needs to be said about Mary Ann Robertson. Robertson had initially arrived Winnipeg alone, but about a year after his arrival she and the children came out to settle. When he took on the position of Superintendent, however, they both knew that she would virtually never see him. She and the children. therefore, returned to family and friends in southern Ontario. where they remained. That separation, however difficult it was for both of them, created a windfall for historians. No matter how busy Robertson was, he never neglected to write to her, and his letters were full of detail, not only about what he had been doing, and the conditions of the Church, but also about the world around him. Those letters are a wonderful source of information concerning the Church, and the people in western Canada, throughout the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

Anyone setting out to give a reasonably faithful notion of Robertsons energy and resourcefulness is liable to be accused of exaggeration. To protect myself against such an accusation, I will let Robertson speak for himself through a couple of paragraphs from a letter he wrote to his wife on November 19, 1892. Readers who have at hand a good map would be able to get a sense of the distances involved between the places referred to in the letter. A road map might be best since the scale will be good, and it will have all the towns on it; you will simply have to imagine the scene with all the roads, without exception, absent.

I had a stormy time in the West. Left Winnipeg Saturday, and reached Saltcoats about 10:00 p.m. A man frantically came on board the train and shouted if Dr. Robertson was on board. I assured him he was. He then told me I would have to come off and marry a couple. This I declined to do until I could see the conductor. I told him the situation and got him to stop the train till I could marry these good people, and the conductor went with me to the hotel. But the bride was in the kitchen working, ignorant of what was coming. She was taken away, hurriedly washed and dressed and ushered into my presence. She belonged to the Crofters, and I had to marry partly in Gaelic and partly in English, but finally got them made one. Started for the station, and got to Yorkton in good time. But when I reached there I found the minister absent, and no place where I could stop, and the night wild. I hunted round and got a place about twelve oclock, but when I went to the room I found it was recently plastered, and that it was not safe. I at last had a place pointed out to me where the people had gone to bed. I knocked at the door and a woman appeared. She had no place. I told her I never saw a woman stuck yet in such an emergency, and that I was quite prepared to sleep on the table or on the floor. She invited me to go in, which I did. She went away leaving me in the dark, and came back telling me the best she could do was to let me in beside her husband. I went, and slept soundly, not looking who slept on the other side of him, but there were three in bed, as I found in the morning.
 
Morning stormy, but I hired a horse and drove out eight miles. Found missionary storm-bound, and not going to [preaching] station beyond at all. I told him I would go, and instructed driver to take me there. Found a small congregation, but was glad I went. Preached, and returned to where the missionary was. He had Communion service, and I preached and addressed the people. Missionary remained all night, and I returned to evening service. Waited to have the Crofter missionary come and take me down there. He did not come, and I hired and drove there. Found that the storm was too much for him, too, and that he never left the house [on] Sabbath. Drove to Saltcoats, seventeen miles, and went next morning to Crofters. They are badly off. I do wish you would try to get some of your ladies to get some clothing. There are twenty-three families. No crop, not even potatoes. Held a meeting that night at Saltcoats. Next day came to Neepawa and held Thanksgiving service, and another in evening at Rapid City. Got promise of twenty-five bags of flour for Crofters.
 
Of course most Canadian denominations have had people who in the early days braved our winter weather to a degree that we now consider foolhardy and/or wonderful, the most foolhardy or wonderful being, perhaps, the Anglican bishop to the Arctic, Bompas. But I know of no other who excelled Robertson in the combination of energy, courage, determination, and organizing ability. He traveled day in and day out, not wasting a moment, tucking away in his mind and black book information about people and places and conditions, and then sitting up half the night while others slept to write letters and reports. He seemingly kept in touch with everybody.
 

The Church and Manse Fund
 
He was thus able to harness the human and financial resources of the national Presbyterian Church on behalf of the Northwest. In addition he was one of the best informed interpreters of the needs of the West to the federal government.
 
"The Church and Manse Building Fund" is an illustration of Robertsons vision and drive. He had placed the idea before the Presbytery of Manitoba while he was still minister at Knox, and the Presbytery memorialized General Assembly about it in 1881. Robertson, however, was not at the Assembly, and it received such a stormy reception George Bryce lost his nerve and was going to accept its defeat. It was saved from such a fate by a couple of more courageous members from eastern Canada, but in the end was shunted away for the Home Missions Committee to think about. Robertson, appointed Superintendent for the Northwest by that same Assembly, did not wait. He began to canvass. In sparsely populated Manitoba he raised $36,000. In the east he raised $28,000. Thus when the Assembly met the very next year he was able to report pledges of $64,000 to a Fund that was not yet authorized! With awe and amazement the Assembly passed the motion establishing the Fund.
 
Robertson was a formidable money raiser. On one occasion he was in Ottawa and met a CPR magnate coming out of the Parliament buildings.
 

"Well, Mr. Robertson, I suppose you are on one of your begging tours."
"I am doing your work, sir."
"My work?"
"Yes, sir. You are a Presbyterian, you are a Canadian, and you are interested in the West."

"Well, Ill give you fifty dollars."
"No, sir. I cant take fifty dollars from you."
"Why not?"

"You wont take fifty, then?"
"No, sir, I cant afford to."
"Well, good morning to you."

"Well, Mr. Robertson, you are still on the warpath."
"Still at your work, sir."
"What will you take this year?" "What will you give, sir?"
"I'll give you $250, but dont come back again."
"I'll take this, and thank you, sir, but I make no promises for the future."

"Well, is not that satisfactory?"
"Hardly from you, sir."
"Why, how much do you want?"
"Just another nothing, sir," pointing to the final figure on the cheque.
"What! A thousand dollars?"
"A thousand dollars, sir."

 I pleaded the case with them and finally a number of them promised to lay the matter before the Lord. I told them they need not take the trouble, for I could tell them now what the answer would be, for I had found that whenever a man proposed to ask the Lord about Western work, the Lord as a rule indicated a less labourious sphere.

Indeed, if I were to judge by the experience of these men, I would be forced to believe that the Lord had a kind of grudge against the West.

into a regiment that won the west for the Presbyterian Church in a way that the circuit riders had won Upper Canada for Methodism eighty years earlier. To the slackers he was a fierce man to deal with. But with those who were down when doing their best he was rock solid in his support.
 

Plain, Earnest and Practical
 
It was people like Robertson, energetic and practical to the core, largely non-reflective, who stamped the western Canadian Church with a pragmatic outlook that is impatient with matters that have the smell of the theoretical or the unworldly. Robertson was emphatic that his preachers should be wearing out their shoes visiting the people and not the seats of their pants sitting in their studies. The elder from Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church many years before had written in the terms of Robertsons employment at the Alexander Mission in New York: "The people require plain, earnest, practical, illustrative preaching...." Thats what people always got from Robertson, whether in that Mission, or at Norwich, or in Knox; whether in a home, or a schoolhouse, or a church in fledgling communities throughout western Canada. And thats what he encouraged his recruits to provide.
 
Robertson was perfectly endowed to win the respect of the tough race of people who were opening up the West. He approached a young Scot in Alberta for support of a recently-created mission station. The man said he wouldnt give a nickel, and in addition asserted that he had never known a professing Christian who wasnt a bloody hypocrite.
 

Robertson said, "Well, Im sorry, sir, that you had such a poor mother."
"What do you mean? What do you know of my mother?"
"Was she a professing Christian?"
"She was."
"And was she a good woman?"
"She was that, but ... there are not many like her."
"We want to make Christians like your mother in this country, and that is why we are building this church."

WHAT IS SCRIPTURE? A COMPARATIVE APPROACH
 by Wilfred Cantwell Smith

Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993. $26.00 paperback
 
What is Scripture? What are its origins, its purposes? This book is a synthesis of Wilfred Cantwell Smiths lifelong researches in the sacred writings of world religions. Its intent is to call attention to the issues that must be taken into account in any answer to the question posed by the title. As Smith notes, Scripture has played a major role in human history, too momentous for us not to have a theory of it, nor to construct a concept to go with the term. The West has long tended to derive its concept of Scripture in relation to the Christian Bible. But it is possible that we are now in a position where our identification of any particular writing as scripture may be derived from a more global point of reference.
 
For Smith, fundamental is the recognition that "scriptures are not texts" (p. 223). People -- a given community -- make a text into Scripture, or keep it Scripture, by treating it in a certain way. The true meaning of a Scripture is the reality in the continuum of its actual meanings over the centuries to actual people. This accords with an affirmation that the study of religion is the study of persons. The meaning of Scripture lies not just in the text, but in the hearts and minds of those who regard it as meaningful; "... this is not fancy interpretation, it is a statement of observable fact" (p.91). Smith concludes, "The basic question is not about scripture but about us" (p.242). This is a complex, detailed, richly annotated, and closely argued book. The bulk of it consists of a tour deforce survey of the complex interrelationships between human beings in various world religions (Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism) and their Scriptures. Yet, for all its detail, what we have here is primarily a point of departure, as Smith notes. The task of accounting for the evidence is ultimately left to the reader, though Smith provides some of his own (tentative) conclusions to ponder.
 
Smiths thesis shows certain affinities with thought which seek to derive expressions of religious life from structures in the human psyche. For Smith, the idea of Scripture is a product of the human mind, just as is art or language. By the same token, he commends an

evaluation of Scripture worldwide in terms of a pluralistic theology, evoking the Buddhist concept of "fingers pointing to the moon" to suggest that all Scriptures are signifiers of a common transcendent referent.
 
In my opinion, Smith is not entirely successful in his attempt to describe the phenomenon of Scripture as something other than "text". Evidently he wants to turn the discussion from textual study into an investigation of what is virtually a category of religious psychology. But his remarks still lean heavily in a direction which views Scriptures as literary phenomena. For example, he points to the work of Northrop Frye (like Smith, a United Church of Canada minister) in The Great Code as an approach to the imaginative unity of a scriptural text which could be extended methodologically to other traditions as well. Elsewhere Smith makes bold to suggest that Scripture might be considered a third mode of human language on par with poetry and prose (types of communication it includes).
 
First, it is noteworthy that encounter with Scripture for most of the worlds religious observant people seems to be conditioned by ritual activity. Second, Smith points to the necessity of integrating any theory of scripture with the expressions of oral cultures. The scriptural impulse has analogues in non-writing cultures which use standard stories, incantation. prayers, and rules to constitute a community. Third, another indication that human ritual life might provide a suitable context for accounting for the phenomenon of Scripture can be found in Smiths association of the function of Scripture with sacraments.
 
In addition, Smith notes that it is important to account for the dark sides of scriptural use as well as the benefits. This is also possible within the context of ritual studies. Ritualized life-styles (and texts) can be oppressive as well as redemptive.
 
Even with reservations about Smiths theological pluralism, or his implicit psychology of religion Christians will find much to ponder here. For example, Smith provocatively suggests that the concept of sacrament might represent the reality symbolized by Scripture not only in Christianity but in other faiths also. He states that the idea of Scripture points to a trilateral engagement between people, the transcendent, and a text. So in the New Testament, we read of the pre-existent Word which finds its most authentic expression in a human being, to whom the written texts called Scripture bear witness. The identification of Scripture and sacrament is not new, but it receives support from Smiths approach. How would it affect the interpretation, expression, and integration of Scripture in the life of the Church to hold that Scripture invariably comes as a sacrament, a sign of the convergence of the community of faith, Gods reality, and text?
 
The foregoing remarks simply scratch the surface of a complex and provocative volume. Smith has much to say to a community interested in reforming and reformulating its understanding of scriptural tradition in dialogue with a globalized context. This is a book which students of Scripture of any tradition would do well to read and reflect on carefully.
 
-- William S. Morrow
 

John Knox Press, Louisville, 1995. 145 pp. $24.60.
 
Ruth Duck, author, teacher, and hymn writer has written a useful handbook for leaders of worship. If at times it seems elementary in painstakingly stating the obvious, thats because the author has in mind the less experienced in liturgical writing, who want to improve their skills. But for any practitioner, this book has lots of good advice. The book covers many aspects of the task of preparing worship, including the use of imagery, homiletical technique, forms of prayer, the eucharistic prayer, and even hymn writing. It assumes a "free church" ethos, in which the leaders of public worship are free to compose the verbal substance of the service. Ms. Ducks concern is that it be done well. A paragraph about the peculiar nature of worship speech is worth the price of the book:

Words for worship have special requirements, since they differ both from literary prose and poetry and from informal speech. The language of worship is oral; it is meant to be spoken. Unlike a theological treatise or a poem, words for worship must be accessible on first hearing. This calls for simple and direct sentences. Yet the language of worship is not identical to that of everyday speech. Paying attention to the sound of words can lead to an engaging euphony, and attention to rhythm can help people speak together. Further, words for worship are not simply the expression of an individual person. They must be something the whole congregation can say.

Duck takes a holistic view of congregational worship. She encourages the integration of the rest of the service with the preaching. A commendable concern, but one wonders about the risk of infection by that dreaded United Church disease, "themitis", wherein the liturgy is bent to serve one dominant theme. The author argues that the service should be so devised that "every part of worship has a meaning in terms of the whole, echoing and elaborating the sermon message" (p. 61). Over against this laudable principle I would suggest there needs to be sounded the caution to beware of submitting everything to the support of a single didactic purpose. Liturgy is not Pedagogy. In all fairness, Ms. Duck raises this very concern later in her book, warning against so hammering home the theme as to be "boring and pedantic".
 
The usefulness of the book is greatly enhanced by the chapter on the forms and language of prayer. For example, the author cautions against "phony" question and answer Calls to Worship ("Why are we here?" "We are here to ), that "merely prompt the congregation to ask questions the worship leader wants to answer" (p. 65). Duck suggests that we need to being worship positively with a "vibrant affirmation of faith". She provides information about what a collect is, and advice on how to write one, and on writing prayers for corporate reading, including the Confession of sin, which requires unusually sensitive handling. Then, given the trend toward lay members of the community writing and voicing the Prayers of the People, the section on this matter is, if brief, especially valuable. For those congregations where the Pastoral Prayer is still the custom, there are thoughtful comments about this prayer.
 
I especially welcomed the chapter on Prayers for Holy Communion. Ruth Duck stands firmly in a Protestant place as she assumes that local communities and clergy can and should write their own eucharistic prayers. But she is concerned that such prayers be informed by the broad structure of the historic (and catholic) eucharistic prayer, often called the Great Thanksgiving. She notes that, while theological nuances may vary from one denomination to another, there are components common to virtually all traditional eucharistic prayers. Such attention to those common components may be especially important to us in The United Church of Canada where we seem always to walk the line between Church and sect.
 
Interestingly, Ms. Duck sides with those critics of contemporary service books who complain that the eucharistic prayers are too verbose and didactic in their narratives of salvation history. She wonders whether these narrations dont cross "the thin line between giving thanks to God and telling the stories to the congregation" (p. 98). I think in response it should be said that, following a long-standing Hebrew tradition, such recitations are the congregation re-telling the salvation stories to God, in thankful remembrance of Gods mighty acts.
 
There is more. In the chapter on preaching, the author draws on the current wisdom about the homiletical task and makes it handily accessible. The chapter on hymn writing is a must for all aspiring practitioners of that craft. Finally, the notes are rich in references to worship books, and to books about worship for anyone wanting to pursue the subject further.
 
-- Fred McNally
 
 

1995. 137 pp. $18.95
 
In the Introduction, the main issue discussed in all the essays contained in the book is put by the editors in this way:
 

The image of "reclaiming the Bible" suggests that is has been forsaken or lost. Of course, that is not literally true. There are more Bibles than ever before, and in more languages... and versions.... [But] there is loss of confidence in the ability of the church to read the Bible through the eyes of its own faith and in light of its own exegetical and liturgical traditions.... The historical-critical method was a gift to the church of the Enlightenment.... However, the marriage between scholarly criticism of the Bible as a collection of ancient documents and the churchs belief in its divinely inspired message of salvation has ever since proved to be unstable.... The academy has replaced the church as the home of biblical interpretation (p.x).

Churchs well established faith tradition or it will not be the "Bible" that we are reading (p.98).

Alister McGrath (whose contribution is a model of stylistic clarity) points to the difficulty we have in reading the Bible in relation to the Churchs faith tradition, since the Bible has become so "subservient to the needs and requirements of a fragmented academic community, in which originality and innovation are valued, and 'faithfulness to a tradition is regarded as derivative, tedious, and tantamount to some kind of intellectual fascism" (p.69). When this is put together with a culture that affirms "the right of individuals to construct their own private world as they see fit", there exists an almost total suspicion toward the suggestion that the Bible is an "external norm [that] must be taken into account", and that may have some controlling influence over our thought ( p.68).
 
It is Brevard Childs piece that comes first in the book, and not unexpectedly is very rich. The fragmentation of the various books of the Bible from one another has been, as is still, his chief concern, and he expresses it well again here. He find himself in agreement with the critical tradition of the Enlightenment that affirms that the Old Testament is to be understood in its own right.
 
The Old Testament.., has its own Jewish voice, which was never altered by the coming of Jesus Christ.... [However] it was this very Jewish voice that bore witness to the gospel. The crucial factor in a canonical approach lies in recognizing that the concept of the Old Testaments own right has dramatically been altered because of its new context within the larger Christian Bible. The Old Testaments discrete voice is still to be heard, but in concert with that of the New. The two voices are neither to be fused nor separated, but heard together. The exegetical task thus becomes one of doing justice to the unique sounds of each witness within the context of the entirety of the Christian Scriptures (pp. 14,15).
 
This collection of essays reads as though it had been prepared specifically for us in the United Church of Canada. Since, however, the contributors are made up of one Britisher and eight Americans, people from the Anglican, Lutheran, Orthodox, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches, it is clear that the concerns identified here affect all the "mainline" denominations.
 

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