A voice on the Voice, lego Bibles, and a census story

An Obadiah Slope column

There IS a middle path: Sydney Anglican minister and author Michael Jensen has a strong case for The Voice published on the Gospel Coalition website. Obadiah commends it to you for your consideration.

Obadiah agrees with him in supporting the voice but has another reason for welcoming its publication.

The Gospel Coalition website is a major organ for Evangelical opinion in this country, mirroring the importance of the US parent website.

By publishing it, Jensen and The Gospel Coalition demonstrate that Christians do not have to choose what Mere Orthodoxy’s Jake Meador labelled “Niebuhrian Mainline Protestantism and McIntirean fundamentalism”.

Meador was talking of two extremes that evangelicals could reject and adopt a position between.

Jensen’s writing shows there’s still room.

So who were Niebuhr and McIntire?

Niebuhr is still remembered as a major theologian. Jensen may have taught students about him at 

Moore Theological College because they study the major theologians. And Reinhold Niebuhr was a major one, the leading light of Union Seminary in New York, a prophet supporting the Allies in WWII and a liberal anti-communist in the cold war. But theologically, he was a social gospel, Christian, seeing progressive revelation in history. 

Carl Mcintire was a fundamentalist, a Christian who readily opposed others. He’s almost been forgotten. Obadiah has not seen his name in years. As a young uni student, I met a bunch of Bible Presbyterians who were fundamentalists, believing almost all Christians were tainted by association with people who had things wrong. And even if you were doctrinally correct, you had to be totally separate from anyone who were not quite right. Most of their energy seemed to go into opposing other Christians.

In the course of it, Obadiah met Bob Jones III, who led a famous fundamentalist University, named after his grandfather.

As my twin observed, when Obadiah became a Sydney Anglican, it was a leap to the left.

So I appreciate Jensen for deftly speaking up for social justice and for doing it as a Bible-based Christian. Discovering evangelicalism as a middle way between what today is called deconstructed Christianity and fundamentalism changed Obadiah’s life.

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Serene: But it seems Niebuhr really did write the serenity prayer “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”

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Lego of me: Obadiah as a  scripture teacher (volunteer in a scripture class in an NSW public school), is always looking for a way to get the kids’ attention. His latest is Lego Bible videos – short and sharp and only a few minutes long. Search Lego Bible on YouTube. Sometimes they only give part of the Bible Story – then it’s Obadiah’s job to make sure it’s all there. 

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Wisdom of Ben: Chaplain Ben Boland, who has written a great series on caring for the older generation for The Other Cheek, keeps his life in line with his writing.

The other day he posted: “I have just returned from visiting my Dad, who is living with multiple dementias. He can no longer find my name. So why do I visit?

“Because he is and always will be my Dad. 

“Too often the challenge of dementia is not forgetting, but being forgotten!”

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Peaky: Serendipitously, an article in The Australian by their demography columnist Bernard Salt reinforces Chaplain’s Ben concerns that Churches need to take the elderly seriously. Salt lays out three peaks representing population shifts in the Australian population. One of the is the “frail boomers”, Obadiah’s mob.

“An ageing community might trigger intergenerational tensions as the frail elderly require ever greater health care services and funding.

“Census data shows that religious affiliation is greatest among those aged 80-and-over. The third peak, the frail Boomer mountain, suggests that there might be a shift towards traditional belief systems.

“And if this is correct, then Australia might need to import not just chefs and data scientists but also more spiritual advisers (religious ministers) by the early 2030s.”

Or, as Ben (and Obadiah) think, churches need to work out how to care for the elderly.