London Calling

The "pilgrimage" portion of my sabbatical took me to Paris, Geneva, and Edinburgh. I am capping that with a week in London with my wife Liz, who joined me in Edinburgh. Technically, this is vacation, not pilgrimage, and London was principally my wife's interest, not mine. Nevertheless, it is enlightening to follow eleven days in Scotland with a trip to "jolly" old England.

First, it is apparent that the Scots are far more concerned with the English than the English are with the Scots. Perhaps it is that London is such an international city that its sense of "Englishness" has been lost, or at least muted. It could also be that it is like many rivalries I have known, in that it is lopsided in intensity (the WSU - UW rivalry is one such I have known).

Nevetheless, we have enjoyed some amazing days, some just "thrown together" serendipitously. Worship on Sunday in St. Paul's Cathedral was amazing. It is one of the most elegant pieces of architecture I have ever seen, and undoubtedly the finest architectural work in London, if not all of Europe. The worship was a sung Eucharist using the work of Michael Haydn, younger brother to Franz Joseph, with orchestra and guest choir. The music was wonderful, although the finest voice was that of the presiding priest who sang the liturgy. An excellent sermon was offered contrasting the feeding of the 5000 with Herod's banquet, although amid all the splendor and majesty of the cathedral, it was a little hard to hear the priest remind us that Jesus refused the people's attempt to make him king because he was humble. Seems there was a disconnect between gospel and setting.

The highlight so far for me has been the British museum -- in particular the Assyrian bas-reliefs of Sargon II, and the cuneiform tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh and other ancient Near Eastern texts I had to study in OT 01. I had a bit of guilt over cultural imperialism and the British arrogance of removing cultural artifacts of such significance from their places of origin. But they probably would never have survived in Baghdad or Tehran, so I can get over it.

Today we visited Bath (former residence of Jane Austen, my wife's idol), and got a taste of VERY old England. The abbey has been a site of worship since 614, and the Romans settled there at least five centuries before that, and a Celtic shrine before THAT. The visit reminded me of another pilgrimage:

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

I never thought I would find Chaucer relevant!

Thanks for reading... I may have one or two more posts before retuning August 1.

Catching Up

With the arrival on Friday in Edinburgh of my wife Liz, the "pilgrimage" part of my sabbatical has become less about "reflection" and more about "renewal." The rain has continued, with little interruption. Even with umbrellas and rain jackets, we have gotten soaked at least three times. Now I know why the Scots have such a reputation for dour and gloom.

Sunday, we worshiped at the Cathedral of St. Giles here in Edinburgh, where Knox was pastor after the Scottish revolution, and where a full-size statue of him is to be found. It was a rather un-Knoxian service. The preacher followed the lectionary (rather than preaching through books of the Bible as Calvin modeled), and even then, since the lectionary "had nothing in it" (!), deviated to discuss the feast of Mary Magdalene in a sermon that was virtually pointless. We then partook of Holy Communion, gathering around the table in shifts to receive the loaf and

common cup. As I have worshiped in gothic and romanesque cathedrals, I understand why Protestants (especially Reformed Protestants) have gravitated to simpler, auditorium-like worship spaces. While the cathedrals are beautiful visually and provide beautiful acoustics for acapella singing or acoustic instruments, it is virtually impossible to hear the spoken (or preached) word in them.

On Monday, the best weather day, we enjoyed a side trip to Perth, an ancient capital of Scotland, where in 1559 at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, John Knox preached his famous sermon "On Idolatry." The result was that the people became so taken up that they ended up stoning the priest and stripping the sanctuary, nearly destroying it. As time went on, the church was divided into three sections, with a different sect utilizing each portion. The cathedral has since been restored to its earlier design, although, as in most Scottish churches, attendance is abysmally low. The pastor serves a yoked parish with a church in Dundee, and only a portion of the sanctuary is used for worship.

Our host and guide on Monday was Ian Scott, a local artist and the father-in-law of my cousin David Saperstein. He provided local color and insight. We also went to Dunkeld, on the river Tay, where the cathedral is located in one of the most picturesque settings in all of Scotland. As in Perth, the preaching of the Protestant message led

to an uprising of disastrous proportions, and the cathedral has not fully recovered. The incitement to violence that was caused by the preaching of the Reformers causes me to wonder how much of the preaching was truly motivated by theology and how much by politics.

Tuesday included a pilgrimage of a more traditional sort: a hike up Arthur's seat, the mount which overlooks Edinburgh. Arthur's seat is a "high place" of ancient significance, going back to pre-Christian days. We took the "long way" to the top, passing the Salisbury crags and ascending a rather steep stairway before the final ascent. There were many others on the route, despite the weather. On the way down, we stopped at the ruins of an ancient abbey overlooking the palace of Holyrood. It was good to engage in some more strenuous "pilgrimage" activity.

Today is a quiet day; tomorrow a tour of lochs and castles. The pilgrimage portion of my sabbatical is nearing an end. I will need to take some time to reflect on how this experience has changed me, and how it has enhanced my understanding of the cultural, theological, and historical background to our Presbyterian system of government. We leave Edinburgh on Friday and spend some time in London before heading back to the States. Thanks for reading!

A Pilgrimage to St. Andrews

Today I embarked on the first of my Scotland side-trips, a pilgrimage to one of the centers of Christianity and Presbyterianism in Scotland: St. Andrews. Named for the patron saint of Scotland, the city is perhaps best known as the birthplace of golf. It is coincidental that I made my journey while the British Open was being played (at Turnberry, on the other side of the island), and I did make time to visit the Old Course at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (just visit, not play).

But today was a day of providence. First, I managed to find the bus to St. Andrews just in time to board it - the Edinburgh bus station is not easily located! Second, as I was leaving the parish church where Knox served at pastor, I noticed on the signboard that their "Associate" was Dr. Ian Bradley. Turns out he is the author of the book on Pilgrimage that I have been trying to track down since February. Although I missed meeting him, I was directed to a local bookstore where I was able (finally!) to obtain a copy of the book (signed by the author, no less). Third, while I was taking pictures of the old St. Andrews cathedral (now in ruins) in blowing rain by the North Sea shore, something blew onto my camera lens. Don't know what it was, but it looked like mud. Not having any cleaning materials with me, I stopped in the city museum as to where to find a camera store. A passerby overhearing my conversation informed me of the only store in town with a camera specialist. I managed to find him and my lens was cleaned at no charge and with no damage. Anyway, I will remember St. Andrews for two things: providence and rain.

People have been coming to St. Andrews on pilgrimage since the tenth century. The cathedral ruins are impressive - at one time it was the largest building in Scotland. It lies at the site of the first Christian worship in the region, and where a monastery was established in the eighth century. The cathedral was begun in 1158 and dedicated in 1318. It was over 350 feet in length. In St. Andrews, young John Knox, a student at the university, was mentored by George Wishart, a proponent of Calvinism, in the 1540s. Wishart was burned at the stake in St. Andrews (which has an abundance of martyrs in its history), and Knox preached at Holy Trinity Parish Church in the center of town briefly before being taken as a French galley slave. He vowed to preach there again, and did, in 1559 upon his return to Scotland.

The rain, the wind, and the cold prevented me from making more of my time in St. Andrews. It is a place to which I should like to return, in better weather, for a more extended time of devotion and exploration.

Edinburgh, Where the Fires of Hell Almost Sound Comforting

I have now transitioned from Calvin to his disciple John Knox in my "polity pilgrimage." Edinburgh is the birthplace of the Reformation in Scotland: the ancient and present capital, a sacred site for Presbyterians the world over. It is also miserably wet and cold. Maybe it's just the abnormal weather we are experiencing, but in the first two days of my visit, it has rained no fewer than ten times. Not just sprinkles, real rain. I suppose it's actually a good thing. A heat wave would make the city unbearable as it is in the midst of a sanitation strike (technically a slow-down). That's Calvinist Providence for you! Edinburgh lacks the excitement of Paris or the gentility of Geneva. It has the capacity to evoke a gothic perspective; not surprisingly, it is the location in which J.K. Rowling conjured up a world of wizards and magic.

Yesterday, I visited the two main centers of Presbyterian history here in Edinburgh: the John Knox house, on the Royal Mile next to the old city gate; and St. Giles' Cathedral, where Knox was the first Protestant minister. As was the case in Geneva, Edinburgh seems almost apologetic for their Reformer. The John Knox house carefully balances Knox's history with that of John Mosman, a goldsmith who later owned the house and was loyal to the crown during the Scottish revolution. Granted, Knox lacked the intellectual rigor of Calvin, and was considerably less restrained than his mentor. But a local bookstore boasts a series on famous Scots and there isn't a single volume on Knox. Perhaps it reflects the pervasive secularism of the city.

Knox, it seems to me, is a classic "second generation" follower of a charismatic leader. Like the Apostle Paul, the Caliph Ali, or even Brigham Young, Knox brought the passion of a "true believer" to his defense of the cause. His fire-breathing sermons seem perfectly suited to a city where heat may be a greater necessity than light.

John and Vincent

Basel, Switzerland sits on the Rhine where France, Switzerland, and Germany meet. It was an early refuge for Reformed Protestants, and continued to have significance to our day, largely due to the work of twentieth-century reformed theologian Karl Barth, who was born in Basel, and lived and taught there most of his life.

John Calvin and his colleague Guillaume Farel took refuge here after having been expelled from Geneva in 1538 over a fight with the city council. (The presenting issue was the use of unleavened bread in the Lord's Supper, although there were longstanding larger issues such as the power of excommunication.) Calvin soon received an invitation from Martin Bucer to pastor a church in Strasbourg, so Calvin's stay in Basel was brief.

Basel was part of my itinerary from the start, but all the more so once I discovered that the Kunstmuseum in Basel was hosting a major exhibition of landscapes by Vincent Van Gogh. I have had a great attachment for Van Gogh's work, since having read Lust for Life in tenth grade. In 2000, I even took my kids out of school to drive 1200 miles so as to attend the Van Gogh exhibit in Los Angeles. The Basel exhibit was strong - over 70 Van Goghs - although it lacked most of the iconic Van Gogh landscapes. Even so, his work was faithfully presented, and the passion and intensity of his art was evident.

Van Gogh is a fitting companion on my pilgrimage. He was the son of a Dutch Reformed pastor, and even tried to launch a career in ministry himself. He was too much of a non-conformist to fit into the strict Dutch church culture. During a missionary stint in a poor coal mining town, he insisted on sharing the lifestyle of his parishioners, which meant abandoning the privilege of the manse to live in squalid conditions.

Nevertheless, Vincent's faith permeates his work, even during his decline into mental illness and ultimately, suicide. His final painting - now believed to be "Daubigny's Garden" - is a theological treatise on his looming death.

The oval planting at the center of focus is framed by three objects: the woman, the cat, and the gate. The woman in black (Daubigny's widow?), possibly signifying death, is approaching. The cat in the foreground, roughly sketched in black, almost with the appearance of afterthought, is an odd insertion, and is a symbol of impending doom. It is headed toward the white gate. The red roses at the gate connect visually with the church - a symbol of faith - which stands in the distance beyond the walls confining the artist. It suggests that the gate is leading to the church. It's not wise to read too much into the interpretation, but the implication here is that even as he contemplated death, Van Gogh found himself both separated from and drawn to the source of his faith. I'm sure his catechesis in the five points of Calvinism, including unconditional election and the perseverance of the saints, were not far from his thoughts.

I don't know the full extent to which Calvin (or more likely, Calvinism) influenced Van Gogh. I do know that both have deeply influenced me: Calvin by his rigorous intellect, realism about the human condition, and emphasis on divine grace; Van Gogh's by his intense sense of longing and dislocation, and his almost desperate attempt to hold the world and his faith together.

Sunday, I rest (the idea of six hours round trip on trains to the Alps is more than I can bear). Monday, I follow Calvin's student John Knox to Edinburgh and the Scottish Reformation.

A Memorable Birthday

Today (July 10) is the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. The big event today was the highlight of the city of Geneva's Calvin 09 yearlong celebration: the service commemorating Calvin's birth, held at St. Pierre's Cathedral. Political and ecclesiastical dignitaries spoke; three international choirs sang; a dialog sermon was issued between a local Reformed woman pastor (a welcome change) and Setri Nyomi, General Secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (based in Geneva).

The service, while obviously conflating civic and religious perspectives, was a welcome change from the Calvin 500 conference worship services of the past week. The Korean choir sang a moving version of "O Happy Day," a djembe punctuated the rhythm of various African songs by the Madagascar choir, and an English-language hymn written especially for the occasion was introduced. Throughout the service, a giant, inflated representation of the earth floated in the midst of the giant cathedral, reminding us of the worldwide communion of the church and the worldwide impact of John Calvin.

Now it is clear that the Genevans (among others) have mixed feelings about their most famous

local icon. Much of what was said (about 3/4 in French, the rest in English) seemed to apologize for Calvin as much as to celebrate him. While I thought they overdid the apologies and seemed to bypass Calvin's doctrine of election in favor of a broadly ethical application of "the sovereignty of God" I did not mind it so much having heard a chorus of voices lauding Calvin's doctrine the previous five days.

On a personal note, when I arrived, I inquired if there was a delegation from the PCUSA in attendance. As there was none, I offered myself as the official representative of our denomination. (I checked this out by phone with Gradye Parsons, who said, "Represent away!") This had two specific benefits: I was seated with the "invitees" closer to the action where I could see what was going on (and photograph it discreetly); and I was able to enjoy a reception dinner in the nearby city park (where the wall of the Reformers is located).

While participating in this service was not on my original itinerary, I am glad I did. It seems a fitting celebration on my pilgrimage, which continues on Monday as my pursuit of Calvin yields to the pursuit of Knox in Edinburgh, Scotland. Tomorrow, I take a train to Basel, where Calvin and Farel took refuge before Calvin went to Strasbourg. There is a bonus there: the local museum is hosting a major Van Gogh exhibition. On Sunday, I will try to go to Interlaken and enjoy a sabbath (in my sabbatical) in the Alps.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Attending any conference is a mixed bag: some presentations that look enticing in the schedule turn out to be duds; others that had no apparent appeal are gems. The Calvin 500 conference is no exception, although on the whole it has been a disappointment.

The best part of the conference (apart from Geneva itself) has been the keynote addresses each day. They have uniformly been the best presentations, from John Witte's "Calvin and the Law" -- which managed to outshine the preceding paper on Ecclesiastical Discipline by several magnitudes while covering the same territory and much more -- to Bruce McCormack's rebuttal to a revisionist trend in Calvin's soteriology that did not only rebut, it "kicked butt." The other papers (for a total of five each morning) have ranged from tedious to mildly interesting. However, ramming 150 people into a poorly vented auditorium with bad acoustics to listen to someone READ a paper in what is obviously a foreign language to them is an effective remedy to insomnia. The forty minute length of each presentation, without any opportunity for discussion or engagement is both bad planning and bad pedagogy.

The worst part of the conference, in my opinion, has been the evening worship, in particular, the preaching. Not only are all the preachers male (there was one female paper presenter), they all come from the same narrow branch of evangelical Calvinism. They claim to be "biblical preachers" but their sermons show almost no evidence of exegesis. They are so similar, in fact, that two sermon texts are even repeated among the fifteen preachers (three a night x 5 nights!).

And now to the ugly. The sermon Tuesday night by Steven Lawson, "Sr. Pastor, Christ Fellowship Baptist, Mobile, AL," was one of the most egregious abuses of the pulpit I have witnessed. Titled, "Guarding the Gospel," it was an inflammatory call to religious militancy. Change a few words, and you might think it was a fatwah being preached by a leader of the Taliban. A few notes I took when I wasn't stunned into paralysis:

"Anyone who rejects (here followed a long list of "fundamentals" including)... the Virgin Birth... Penal Substitution (atonement theory)... and physical bodily resurrection shall be accursed."

"It is better to consign them to hell now before they lead others astray."

"We should be appalled that this city of Geneva has become so immoral... that America has become so immoral... that so many mainline denominations have deserted the gospel..."

"The hottest place in hell is reserved for false teachers, who preach another gospel and point others to a way that does not lead to heaven..."

"You cannot please God and please Man (sic). Man-pleasers do not call anathemas on teachers of false gospels. If you please God it doesn't matter whom you displease."

"We should have the sword in one hand and the gospel of truth in the other."

I can smell Servetus burning.

One more observation: the organ in St. Pierre is a magnificent instrument, and the organist (I don't know the name) is a brilliant musician. Shame on Calvin for having demolished the original organ and on his followers for waiting 201 years after his death to restore it!

Culture Shock

One of the challenges of travel is adjusting to a different culture. In the process, one becomes more aware of the nature of one's own culture as things that had been transparent -- taken for granted -- become opaque.

The greatest "culture shock" of my pilgrimage so far has occurred Sunday morning as the Calvin 500 conference began. The conference is a key event in my sabbatical plan, taking place over the five days leading up to the quincentenary celebration of Calvin's birth on July 10. To add to the significance of the conference, it takes place at St. Pierre Cathedral, where Calvin preached, and the adjoining Auditoire where he taught during his Geneva ministry.

The first shock was when I arrived for worship way underdressed. I was wearing dress pants and a clean, unwrinkled shirt, but I found myself in a sanctuary filled with suits and dresses, all sporting "Calvin 500" badges. These were nearly all American Presbyterians coming to worship while on vacation. Unlike me, they have been part of the "official tour" for the preceding five days or so. I skipped the tour and signed up only for the conference. It was clear that while we shared a native land, we didn't share the same cultural expectations of worship (or travel).

Then, as worship began, a second wave of culture shock hit me. All of the leadership of the service, including all of the ushers receiving the "collection" were male. The preacher of the day, also a male, was dressed in a business suit more suitable to the Fortune 500 than the Calvin 500. I would not have been surprised to see a Geneva gown and preaching tabs, but a power suit? It seemed out of place. Then there were other things: instructions to stand (but not just to "those who are able"), lots of Father God language with no effort at inclusive language, and above all, a kind of preaching style that is expository without being exegetical, that confines itself to the theological issues of 19th century (yes, 19th, not 16th) Protestant evangelicalism with a tone of deep moral concern. (How many preachers have to decry the secularism and "immorality" on the streets of Geneva? Where do these people live?)

History tells us that Calvin was buried in an unmarked grave so that his tomb would not become a shrine of devotion, like those of Catholic saints. What I have encountered in my first two days of the Calvin 500 conference is less the spirit of the Calvin who didn't want to canonize the past than that of the church Calvin confronted, mired in a theology and a way of being the church that no longer fit either the times or our best understanding of scripture. Sometimes I feel like shouting down the preacher or walking up to the pulpit (it's about 6 feet off the ground) and taking over the sermon.

Case in point: one of tonights three (yes, three) sermons was on "Calvin's most cherished text": John 17:3, from Christ's "high priestly prayer": "Now this is eternal life; that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." It is a provocative text, that invokes John's mystical understanding of "eternal life" (as in John 3:16) and "union in Christ." But did the sermon (by a seminary president, no less) make any effort to place the text in Johannine theology? Did he even try to place its meaning in Calvin's theology? No. Eternal life means the life in heaven after we die. Our purpose is to help people find heaven when they die, according to the preacher. No effort at all to understand what this pre-modern vision of salvation communicates in the 21st century. No effort to correlate Calvin and our day. It wasn't a sermon. It was an exercise in a meaningless language game.

There are times I want to say to them, "Haven't you even read Barth? He's only been published for 90 years, and is the most significant interpreter of Calvin in history." Oh well. there have been a few bright spots, at least. But for the most part, I feel like a tourist in a land where I don't speak the language or know the customs. Culture shock.

Paris to Strasbourg to Geneva, Part II

The second item I wanted to discuss under this heading deals with my itinerations during my last few days in Paris. The first of these was to Versailles, the magnificent "summer estate" of the Louis XIV, the self-proclaimed "Sun King" of France in the 17th century. Granted, that misses Calvin's time by a few generations, but it does point to the incredible inequalities and injustices of French society in Calvin's time as well.

Versailles is one of humankind's greatest indulgences to the human ego. The king fashioned himself after the Greek sun-god Apollo, placing his

own image in the sculpture of Apollo's chariot emerging from the great fountain in the midst of his extensive gardens. Even the gold-leaf chapel

is less a shrine to Christ than it is a testament to the wealth and ego of the King.

Louis XIV benefitted from the period of relative peace in the religious wars against Protestants following the Edict of Nantes (1598) granting limited tolerance. But a King who fancies himself a god is not going to put up with a religion that is steadfastly opposed to tyranny and idolatry, and he revoked the Edict midway

through his lengthy reign in 1685. There was no massacre as there had been in 1572, but it resulted in the Huguenots leaving France for established Protestant communities in England, the Netherlands, Prussia, and Switzerland, and to North America (including my childhood home town of New Rochelle, New York) and South Africa.

Strasbourg is a noticeable contrast to Versailles. Located in the Alsace region of France, adjoining Germany along the Rhine, Strasbourg experienced extended periods of relative independence

during the formative period of the Reformation. Martin Bucer (author of the French Confession) was a leader of the Reformed churches in Strasbourg when Calvin left Paris intending to settle there. Calvin was sidetracked to Geneva first, but spent three years in Strasbourg between 1538 and 1541 before returning to

Geneva for good.

Strasbourg has a strong Protestant presence. It is a relatively unpretentious but quaint and lovely city that is the home to the new EU Parliament. It boasted the highest church spire in Europe (489 feet) until the 19th century, and the cathedral is impressive without being ostentatious. More impressive to me, however, are the humble churches (Le Bouclier and St. Nicolas) with which Calvin was associated. Both still house congregations, although I don't know if the balcony pulpit at St. Nicolas (rebuilt in the 18th century) is still used.

The contrast between imperial Versailles and modest Strasbourg point out that the origins of Protestantism were as influenced by the socio-economic realities of the era as by the doctrinal disputes. Calvin drafted the "Ecclesiastical Ordinances" while in Strasbourg, which is the foundational document for his writings on church polity. His emphasis on church order which counters the excesses of hierarchy by pairing authority with accountability, and his theme of discipline as an exercise of pastoral care are legacies that have greater resonance today than the imperial cult of the Sun King.

The Calvin 500 conference got underway today. I will share some reflections on that in my next post.

Paris to Strasbourg to Geneva, Part I

Note: Photos have been added to the previous blog post.

It's July 3 and I am now in Geneva. The past week has been overwhelming time-wise, and I have ended each day too tired to blog. Paris has been in a heat-wave, with temps in the upper 80s and high humidity. This has left me with heat rash and mosquito bites. Much of this week has been spent with my daughter Bethany and her boyfriend Kyle Leichter doing more "touristy" activities (Versailles, the Louvre, etc.) However, I am pleased to report on two events more in keeping with the theme of my sabbatical.

The first involves my service at the American Church in Paris. I wrote about this church in a previous post. I was pleased to participate in worship on Sunday June 28 with a full sanctuary of worshipers at one of three worship services that day. During the week I have had extended conversations with Senior Pastor Scott Herr about the church and its ministry, and I led a discussion on "Spirit, Power, and Community: Church Order in the New Testament from a Reformed Perspective" to about 15 church leaders.

The ACP is in many ways what the North American church will be like: increasingly multinational (over 50 nationalities are in the congregation) and struggling to bear a faithful witness in an increasingly secular culture. Like many American churches, however, its leadership has yet to adapt its way of thinking to 21st century realities. 1970s solutions don't fit 2010 problems. We are in need of a new Reformation like the one 500 years ago. That movement addressed the realities of a world turned on its head by a new means of communication: movable type and the mass distribution of the printed word. Our new Reformation must deal with an even more dramatic communication revolution: the instantaneous global communication made possible by the internet, and the resulting deluge of information overload. Combined with the shift from word-based to image-based media, this creates what I call "communication inflation" -- the cheapening of communication by its overproduction and the debasing of words by more emotionally powerful (and easily manipulated) images. The overproduction of communication cheapens all communication, and makes it more difficult to sort out the wheat of meaning from the chaff of trivia and propaganda. These are sea changes in the global culture that will not be undone. It remains to be seen how Christian faith will adapt to these new realities. However, we can anticipate a change on the magnitude of that which happened in the 16th and 17th centuries.

However, there is still much we can learn from the previous reformation. The contributions of Calvin and Knox still ring true. My presentation on church order borrows from the Reformed ecclesiology of Calvin (through Knox). A powerpoint outline can be found here: http://www.plainsandpeaks.org/Default.aspx?tabid=512&DMXModule=1288&Download=inline&mid=1288&EntryId=550.

In my next post I will talk about my visits to Versailles and Strasbourg as part of my pilgrimage.

The Practice of Pilgrimage

Noyon, the birthplace of John Calvin, lies some 50 miles northeast of Paris. It is a city with a long history, situated on the ancient Roman Via Agrippa. Its name comes from the Latin novus magus, roughly translated as "new market" in recognition of its prime location on the Oise River in the breadbasket region of Picardy.

The fertile fields of Picardy have seen more than their share of battles: After the Romans conquered it came the Normans, then Charlemagne. It was a center of activity during the Hundred Years' War, and more recently suffered heavy damage in both World Wars. The first World War saw the town Cathedral (established in the seventh century) suffer catastrophic damage. The home reputed to be Calvin's birthplace also suffered irreparable harm. Both buildings (and much of the rest of the ancient city) were reconstructed to restore the traditional Neo-Gothic style to this quaint village.

Which is all preface to saying that Noyon is a small place with a big past. And I mean small. You can walk every street in town (many of them are historically preserved or restored) in about an hour. There are no public restrooms to be found -- a common problem in Paris as well. I did happen to witness a guy in a park wander over to what I thought were restrooms only to see him urinate on the side of a building. Another aspect of small town life in France is that the entire city, with the exception of restaurants and the cathedral, shuts down between Noon and 2 p.m. Which isn't good when you have left the restaurant and a thunderstorm hits.

But the big past, not the small town, is the reason for the pilgrimage. The cathedral is an impressive religious site in its own right. It hosts a placard listing the name of every presiding priest since St. Medard in the early sixth century. Charlemagne and Hugh Capet are said to have been coronated on that site (in a predecessor building). It hosts (to this day) the baptismal font in which the infant John Calvin was received into the visible church.

But I didn't go there for the cathedral, although it was a pleasant surprise. I didn't even go because of the Musee John Calvin located there (a good thing, since the museum is, to put it mildly, a dud). I went because Noyon is the place where John Calvin was born and raised. His experiences there laid the groundwork for his eventual desire to reform Catholicism.

And I learned something about pilgrimages: you don't make them in order to "get something" out of the experience. You make them to bear a witness to the past in order to be a witness for the future. And I bore witness to the miraculous grace of God that can make a John Calvin rise from such a town as this. As it turns out, the Protestant movement in Noyon didn't last past the St. Bartholomew's day massacre less than a decade after Calvin's death. In my tour of the city, I could not find a single Protestant church today.

Noyon has many things of which to be proud in its historic past, the birth of John Calvin among them. But to judge by the town today, I think they wouldn't put Calvin's birth at the top of the list. I would. And I went. And I witnessed. And that's what it's all about.

The Site of the Martyrs

I write this post from the American Church in Paris, my hosts for the next eight days or so. The church is on an important historical site. When the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day massacre occurred in August 1572, thousands of French Huguenots (Reformed Protestants) were slaughtered. The massacre began on the East side of the Louvre, then the palace of Charles IX, whose sister had just married Henri of Navarre, a Protestant. The king's mother was Catherine de Medici, a staunch Roman Catholic whose native land had become embroiled in ongoing battles between Catholics and Protestants. She found the marriage to a Protestant unacceptable, and had been advised that since the Huguenots had all gathered to celebrate the marriage of a royal to a Protestant, it would be easier to pre-empt any potential uprising by massacring them then and there. A signal was issued (a small bell, rung by Catherine, and repeated by the church bells of St. Germain l'Auxerrois) and the killing began. Most of the killings happened by the river, and the bodies began washing ashore downstream, on the site of what is now the American Church. The church is literally built upon the witness of the martyrs.

This morning, my host, the Rev. Dr. Scott Herr, shared with me the stories of the early struggles of the Protestant community in Paris as we traveled to St. Germain des Pres (a different church than St. Germain l'Auxerrois), where the Protestant reformation in Paris began. In the abbey of this, the oldest church building in France -- dating to the sixth century -- Jacques Lefevre translated the Bible from ancient Greek manuscripts. The discrepancies between them and the Latin Vulgate moved him to support the nascent reformation movement. Among his pupils was William Farel, who influenced Calvin to reform the Geneva church, and it is said he was visited by Calvin himself on Calvin's flight from France.

The nearby area became a Protestant neighborhood, and the first

synod was organized to perform Protestant baptisms at No. 4, Rue des Marais, situated over catacombs that were thought to give them protection from a possible raid. The site is now an art gallery, and the owner graciously allowed us to go downstairs to where the baptisms took place. I am amazed it isn't recognized as a historical site here.

I am still processing my thoughts and feelings about this introduction to the history around me. I am reminded about what my friend and colleague Bill Chapman wrote about the Book of Order, that "it has blood on every page." In this case, however, the blood is real, and the witness of the martyrs lives on. The oppression of Protestants in Paris, and France generally, led Calvin to seek a safer place to live -- which, by Providence and William Farel's persuasion, was Geneva. However, the expatriate French Protestants in Geneva never were far from their brothers and sisters in France, and Calvin and the Geneva Council designated as much as one-fourth of the offerings of the Geneva Church to their support.

Tomorrow, I visit the birthplace of Calvin in Noyon. Thunderstorms are forecast.

It's Been a While...

It's been a while since my last post. I have been mixing rest, study, family responsibilities, and trip preparation over the last two weeks. I enjoyed several very productive study days at Highlands Presbyterian Camp and Retreat Center (thank you, Maria!) before and after a trip to Minnesota to witness my daughter Bethany's graduation from Carleton College. I managed to work through significant portions of Book IV of the Institutes, as well as portions of the historical compendium of Reformed polity documents in David and Joseph Hall's Paradigms in Polity. I was both affirmed and chagrined to note that David Hall had anticipated many of my own conclusions about Reformed polity in his introductory article.

There have been a few minor changes to my plans: the presentations I was to give at the American Church in Paris have not panned out due to an overbooked schedule at the church. I may (or may not) preach there on June 28, and/or have an informal conversation with interested church members on Monday, June 29. In any case, they are still hosting me as their "theologian-in-residence" for which I am grateful. In many ways this is the best of both worlds: I benefitted from having a focus and a deadline for my preparatory studies, but do not have to carry the burden of anxiety that comes with developing and delivering formal presentations.

Now to follow up on a few earlier thoughts about ecclesiology and polity. I had described the three dimensions of life in the koinonia that bear on polity as Spirit, power, and community. Here, Spirit refers to the affirmation that the church is a unique kind of organization in that its primary function is spiritual; it is formed and sustained by the Spirit of Christ -- the Holy Spirit. The traditional "notes" of the church -- that it is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic all derive from the work of the Spirit in the church. In scripture, the birth of the church is connected with the gift of the Spirit: in John 20:19-23, Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." At that time he also gives the church its mission: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you...." Likewise, the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost in Acts inaugurates the evangelistic mission of the church "first in Jerusalem, then in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). As a spiritual community, the church seeks to give effect to the will of God, not the will of the church members or officers.

The second dimension is power. People are reluctant to speak about power in the church. We are encouraged to have the mind of Christ who emptied himself of status and power and became a humble servant. By power I don't mean the abuse of power, but the exercise of authority (given by Christ to the church -- John 20 and Acts 1, again) within the organization to accomplish its ends in a manner consistent with its spiritual identity and values. The letters of Paul, for example, are an exercise of apostolic authority to address issues in the various churches he planted. "Power" and "Pastoral" are not antonyms!

The third dimension is community. There is a sense of mutuality and interdependence in the church that Paul described as "the Body of Christ." This community is created and infused by the Spirit -- Ethicist Paul Lehmann described the koinonia as "the fellowship-creating reality of Christ's presence in the world." This community is part of the church's witness to the world -- "They will know you are my disciples by your love for one another."

We see each of these three dimensions at work in the apostolic church:

SPIRIT

-For the discernment of God’s will (Acts 15)

-To promote and facilitate the mission of the church (Acts 8)

-To confirm the call, gifts, and work of the Spirit (Acts 6, 8)

POWER

-To assure the equitable and just treatment of God’s people (Acts 6)

-To correct error (Acts 5)

-To preserve order (Acts 11)

COMMUNITY

-To be “the provisional demonstration of what God intends for all of humanity” (Acts 2)

-To demonstrate the unity of the Body of Christ (connectionally) (Acts 11)

-To facilitate reconciliation (Acts 9)

-To build one another up in love (Acts 20)

Calvin had much to say about all three dimensions of the life in the koinonia. I will reflect on some of his comments in future posts.

More thoughts on ecclesiology

A busy weekend at home in Greeley... and now back to blogging!

In a previous post I mentioned my upcoming presentations at the American Church in Paris.  I have refined them a bit more:  the theme of the presentations is "Spirit, Power, and Community: on Being the Church."  Today I would like to introduce the Bible study, "Life in the koinonia: Biblical Foundations for Church Order" which looks at the nature of the church in the New Testament.  

Paul Minear has identified more than fifty models and metaphors of the church in the New Testament.  In my presentation, I am focusing on just four:  the two dominant models in the NT, the church as the People of God and as the Body of Christ, plus two which have received modern currency:  the church as the New Humanity and as the Missional (or apostolic) Community.  The New Humanity model is prominent in feminist and liberationist ecclesiologies; the Apostolic Community model has been embraced by the "missional church" movement.

Two of these models, "People of God" and "New Humanity" are essentialist models:  they describe the community primarily in terms of what they are; whereas the other two, "Body of Christ" and "Apostolic Community" describe the church according to how they function.  If one wishes to take it a step further, the "essentialist" models describe the church in terms of the wisdom / reign of God traditions of the gospels, whereas the "instrumental" or "functional" models found their descriptions on the Christ/redeemer traditions of Acts and the Pauline epistles.  

Of course, these are ideal, foundational models.  None of them is perfectly comprehensive, and they are not discrete categories.  Most importantly, however, they are ideals, and function (to borrow a phrase) more as "aspirational goals" than as "pragmatic realities."  The church has a dual divine and human nature to it -- it is a spiritual community consisting of human beings.  In his exhortation on The Necessity of Reforming the Church, Calvin described the dual nature of the church:

[Church] order, including the sacraments, resemble the body; whereas the doctrine, which prescribes the rule for the right worship of God and point out the ground on which the conscience of men must base their confidence in salvation, is the soul which animates the body and renders it lively and active, and in short makes it other than a dead and useless corpse.”   In J.K.S. Reid, ed. Theological Treatises. Library of Christian Classics. (Philadelphia: Westiminster) 1954, p. 20.

The church requires a structure to give shape to its life; it requires Spirit to give life to its shape. 

On earth, at least, it always exists as a concrete personal and organizational reality.  Just as Jesus, as a divine/human being, was subject to the limits and complexities of embodiment, so the church, as a divine/human society, is subject to the limits and complexities of organizational life. 

As an organization, the church exhibits qualities and functions that are inherent in organizations:

• It adopts an identity that is sustained in part by enforcing organizational boundaries.
• It functions according to a self-identified mission and purpose
• It develops core technologies that define how it achieves its mission and purpose
• It defines and enforces relational norms and distributes power in the system
• It relies on decision-making structures

This sphere of incarnate, organizational life, is the arena of polity.  Here, the three essential elements of Spirit, power, and community find their balance and expression.

Initial thoughts on Ecclesiology

First, let me apologize for not posting yesterday -- the internet crashed in the home where I am staying.  

These three weeks before the travel portion of my sabbatical are being spent in study and retreat (except for some family obligations).  I am immersing myself in Calvin and Knox -- Book IV of the Institutes, the Ecclesiastical Disciplines, some biographical and historical materials, plus some modern books on ecclesiology.  During my initial stop in Paris, I am being asked to lead two sessions at the American Church in Paris as "theologian-in-residence":  a bible study on the Nature of the Church and a workshop on Calvin's Legacy for Church Order.  Since I tend to be deadline- and task-driven, this has helped focus my preparations.

Much has been made recently of "the missional church movement."  The moniker "missional church" was coined by Darrell Guder, now Professor of Missiology and Ecumenism at Princeton Theological Seminary.  Put broadly, the movement is a response to the challenges raised by the disestablishment of the church in a post-Constantinian age that redefines the church not in terms of structure, but action.  Instead of saying, "The church of Christ establishes its mission" the missional church inverts the order and says, "The mission of Christ establishes its church."  In other words, the "true church" (to use Reformation language) exists only where the mission of God (missio Dei) is being performed.  Some contrast this "participatory" understanding of mission with the "instrumental" practice of mission by an established church.

This of course, stands in contrast to Calvin's understanding that the true church exists wherever the Word of God is rightly preached and the sacraments are rightly administered (Knox would add, in the spirit of Calvin, "where discipline is rightly exercised").  Missional critics might say that this static, Word-centered, definition of church reflects a cultural captivity to an age in which the church is an established institution; indeed, Knox's addendum would seem to require a power structure intended to maintain order.  

A major flaw in the missional church challenge is that there can be no such thing as a disembodied church.  Even if one accepts, for sake of argument, that the mission of God establishes its church, that church cannot exist without organizational form.  Much of the New Testament was written to address issues pertaining to the correct form and order of this nascent organization.  It took no more than three chapters in the book of Acts from the birth of the church at Pentecost to the first issues of discipline (Ananias and Sapphira) and internal conflict (the dispute over the distribution of bread to widows).  The earliest writings (Galatians, First Corinthians) are efforts to establish order and correct error.  Indeed, there is precious little in these letters about mission (except for Paul's attempts to justify his apostolic authority by appealing to his own mission work).

In his book In Good Company: The Church as Polis Stanley Hauerwas also addresses the question of the nature of the church in a post-Constantinian age.  He has sympathy for the Anabaptist vision of John Howard Yoder and others which defines the church as a unique community set apart to embody the presence of Christ.  He takes this further, however, by developing a Eucharistic model of the church by correcting the separatist tendencies of Yoder with a concept of the church being "the Body of Christ, broken for the world."  In this way, I think Hauerwas (who gives credit also to Karl Barth, 20th century heir of the Calvin legacy), taps into the Christocentric and cruciform shape of the church that is largely missing in the missional church model.

To be sure, the institutional form of the church, whether in Geneva, Rome, or Louisville, is neither infallible nor immutable.  But the church must have a form, a body, to perform its mission.  The mission of God does not just "happen,"  it emerges out of a community that forms people in the disciplines of the church, and sustains them as they perform that mission.  Hauerwas quotes Greek Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky:

Christianity entered history as a new social order, or rather a new social dimension.  From the very beginning Christianity was not primarily a “doctrine,” but exactly a “community.”  There was not only a “Message” to be proclaimed and delivered, and “Good News” to be declared.  There was precisely a New Community, distinct and peculiar in the process of growth and formation, to which members were called and recruited.  Indeed, “fellowship” (koinonia) was the basic category of Christian existence.  (“Empire and Desert: Antinomies of Christian History,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 1957, p. 133 in Hauerwas, p. 28.) 

The disciplines identified by Calvin and Knox -- disciplines of right preaching, eucharistic integrity, and mutual accountability -- define the church that is able to embody Christ's presence in and for the world.  These aren't about the church's relationship to cultural centers of power, but the church's relationship to the spiritual center of power found in the Spirit of Christ and formed by the Word of God.

Why a Polity Pilgrimage?

It is an odd combination, to say the least.  For many people, "polity" is identified with the arcane minutiae of church law, the legalistic rule-based expression of institutional church bureaucracy. It is the arena of policy, politics, and police -- three words which share a common root with "polity." "Pilgrimage" on the other hand, is often regarded as an act of sheer devotion, a piety of the heart, a discipline of the spirit, an act of embodied prayer.  Could there be two more different expressions of Christian faith?

Jim Andrews, the former Stated Clerk of the PCUSA, described polity as "the practical expression of our theology."  For me, polity has been a defining dimension of my Presbyterian and Reformed faith.  When I first considered becoming a Presbyterian nearly 30 years ago, the pastor of the church I was attending (the Rev. Dale Rose of Eagle Rock Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles) handed me a copy of the Book of Order and suggested I read it before deciding.  It was an odd form of evangelism, to be sure, but it worked.  I read it cover to cover in a day, and found in it a way of ordering life in the church that was theologically compelling while being clear-eyed and pragmatic about life in Christian community.

Since that initial exposure, I have developed an even deeper appreciation for and understanding of Presbyterian polity.  I have been a reader of ordination exams; served on Committees on Ministry in two presbyteries and moderated one of them; was a member of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission and moderator of PJCs in two different synods; and I currently serve as an Executive Presbyter and a member of the General Assembly Advisory Committee on the Constitution.   Not a day goes by that I don't see some new connection between our polity and the concrete expression of our life, witness, and mission as Christ's church.

I have also studied organizational leadership at the doctoral level in both secular and ecclesiastical contexts, and hold a D.Min. in Executive Leadership from McCormick Seminary in Chicago.  The stereoscopic perspective offered by these two disciplines has helped me to understand polity as the intersection of three essential elements -- Spirit, Power, and Community -- each of which is essential to the healthy functioning of the church as an organization.  I will have more to say about this in future posts.

Suffice it for now to say that for me the combination of polity and pilgrimage makes perfect sense.  My sabbatical goal is to use the discipline of pilgrimage in this quincentennial anniversary year of John Calvin's birth to enter more fully into the spiritual, theological, and cultural origins of Presbyterian polity.

The Journey Begins...

Welcome to my sabbatical blog!  "A Polity Pilgrimage for Reflection and Renewal" is the title of my blog and the theme of my sabbatical.  Thanks to a grant from the Louisville Institute, I will be traveling in the footsteps of Presbyterian founders John Calvin (left) and John Knox (below, right) as I seek to gain a greater appreciation for the historical, theological, and cultural origins of our polity.

As the centerpiece of my sabbatical, I will travel to Paris, Geneva, and Edinburgh to soak in and reflect on the birthplaces of Presbyterian governance.  Along the way, I will take side trips to Noyon (the birthplace of John Calvin), Strasbourg (where he spent several years in exile and developed his church polity), 

Basel and Bern (both brief residences on Calvin's journey).  In Scotland, Edinburgh (the location of Knox's home and St. Giles' Church) will be the jumping off point for an immersion in the Scottish heritage and culture that infuses American Presbyterianism.  

Along the way, I hope to post daily reflections of my pilgrim journey, as a spiritual discipline to help focus my thoughts and share them with others.  

The Chinese say, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single footstep."  My sabbatical journey begins today with a small "footstep" to Estes Park, Colorado.  I will spend much of my time preparing for my June 23 departure to Europe here and at Highlands Presbyterian Camp and Retreat Center near Allenspark.  Unfortunately, June weather is unreliable and rain is forecast all week in the mountains!  

At least I should get some good study time in as I bone up on Calvin and Knox.  I am staying in Estes at the home of Glen and Marg Manske, gracious and generous hosts.  Above is a picture of the view from their deck when I arrived early this evening.  My hosts are "morning" people, so I will need to adjust to a new schedule!