THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHRISTIAN CHAPLAINS INC.
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THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CHRISTIAN CHAPLAINS INC.
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In the final analysis, every dying person who retains the capacity to hear and to understand the call of death faces important questions about meaning. Whether these questions are addressed or ignored is totally up to the dying individual in his or her own freedom. Regardless of whether or not they are confronted, these questions always present themselves as obvious and important questions for the dying person to address. And regardless of whether or not that dying person subscribes to some particular system of religious belief, these questions are aptly described as spiritual in character. These are the sorts of questions to which I refer: Does my dying now, as an embodied person, have any meaning here and now? Has my life, as I have lived it until now, had any meaning? Has there been any meaning in what I have suffered? Will there be any meaning in my living and dying that perdures beyond the moment of my death? In most discussions of the care of the dying, these sets of questions have been subsumed under a word that has received far too little serious, critical reflection. The word is invoked continually, as if everyone understood clearly what it meant. But the meaning of the word and the questions it evokes in discussions about the dying are rarely clear. Questions of meaning are often subsumed under the word, ‘hope’. This word has served, in some respects, as a metaphorical rug under which all sorts of messy questions about meaning and death have been swept. One is left with the appearance of a technically correct, electronically controlled, antiseptically spiritual death. “At Acme HMO, we provide what consumers want: high quality, cost-effective care at the end of life, giving our patients death with dignity and hope.” Very neat. Even well-meaning persons concerned with improving the care of the dying have moved too quickly to package these concerns under very broad labels such as “spiritual suffering” and have even dared to try to create quantitative scales to measure (and therefore to control) the spiritual experiences of dying persons. But I wonder whether this is even possible. I hear the echoes of questions raised long ago by the Prophet Isaiah. “Who has held in a measure the dust of the earth, weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or has instructed him as his counselor? Whom did he consult to gain knowledge?” (Is. 40). Even the best of health care professionals are sometimes far too uncomfortable with the idea of the unfathomable. And so, outcomes researchers concerned with care at the end of life try to reduce the spiritual to a check box. Even in the desire to serve the spiritual needs of dying patients, medicine is in danger of sterilizing the spirit right out of dying. But in criticizing some recent approaches to improving the spiritual care of the dying, I do not wish to imply that we cannot discuss these issues, grapple with them, and do a better job of facilitating the spiritual work of the dying. It seems obvious to sensitive persons who care for the dying that whenever dying goes awry, as it often does, it is frequently because either the patient or the caregiver has paid insufficient attention to one or another of these questions of meaning and value. We can, and should, do a better job. All I want to suggest is that empirical science will not give us the answers to these questions. Total Quality Management will not redress these deficiencies. The truly spiritual is frightfully unmanageable. Spiritual concerns are not glibly resolved by questionnaires. One cannot measure the unmeasureable. Yet everyone has some intuitive sense of the nature of these spiritual questions, particularly as they relate to death. We seem naturally to shudder and to recoil from the possibility of a death without dignity or hope. We fear that our own end might be undignified. We wonder if there is anything in which we will be able to hope when our own time comes. However, too many health care professionals remain fearful of discussing these issues in any depth with their colleagues or with their patients. Hope The word ‘hope’ has been haplessly muddled in discussions about dying for centuries. The Hippocratic texts, for instance, talk of lying to patients about their diagnoses, so they do not lose hope. So did Thomas Percival. But even today, we often speak in such ways. We whisper in dark corridors about “hopeless cases”. Even with the best of intentions, we write about providing better care for the “hopelessly ill”. Families sometimes hesitate to authorize discontinuation of treatment because it would signal that they had given up hope. But is anyone’s dying necessarily truly hopeless? Do the dying have anything for which to hope? I think they do. And I want to urge health care professionals to clean up their language and not glibly to declare any patient hopeless. This is not “spin control” (a practice that is becoming far too common among our politicians). I am not urging propaganda, but a serious decision to correct the language and thinking of health care professionals by a careful re-examination of the concept of hope. What is hope, after all? Aquinas writes that hope is a specialized type of desire. Hope is a desire characterized by a special type of object. The object of hope must be 1) clearly good, 2) apparent in the future, 3) difficult or arduous to attain, and yet, 4) regarded as possible to attain. A dying person might naturally desire not to die. Most of us who survive them have this same natural desire. But none of us can really hope never to die. This is an impossibility. Since the object of this desire is impossible, it violates the fourth characteristic of a proper object of hope as set forth by Aquinas. All persons are mortal. This is philosophy 101. But then it might seem that those who have exhausted all means of cure are properly said to be “hopeless.” However, this would only be true if there were nothing more for a human being to desire than the death of tumor cells, HIV virions, and tubercle bacilli. But human desire is far deeper. At the limit, a hope based upon needles and pills dissolves into delusion. A proper object of hope must be attainable. And therefore, if one is dying, one’s hopes must be deeper than death. Death is our ultimate limit. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be wished away. It cannot be prayed away. This was the message that Christians believe the Father delivered to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. This cup will not pass from any of us. Ultimate hope, then, is not about a cure for cancer or AIDS. These are certainly good things to be wished for, but they cannot be the source of ultimate hope. Ultimate hope is a transcendent virtue (Aquinas called it a “supernatural virtue’). The object of ultimate hope must be located beyond the limits of our finite, corporal, individual existence. Now meaning is a transcendental object. The object of ultimate hope must then be a source of meaning, however this might be construed. For Christians, Muslims, and Jews, this transcendent object of desire is the one, holy, all-loving and almighty God. For those of other faiths, or of no faith, this object of ultimate, genuine hope must be whatever source of meaning a person holds to be prior to or to transcend the limits of finite, corporal, individual existence. To reject, or to discover, or to re-cover, or to hold onto an ongoing source of transcendental meaning is one of the major spiritual tasks of the dying. The opposite of hope is called despair, but despair is really just another name for meaninglessness. To suffer without any sense of meaning is abject hopelessness.... Spirituality and the Care of the Dying Now, however, I have an obligation to discuss what this means for health care professionals caring for the dying. The fundamental point I want to make is this: we do not give our patients hope. This follows from what I have already discussed. Hope is already present as a given in every situation of death. Meaning is already there, awaiting affirmation. Our task as health care professionals is to show respect and reverence for the dignity that all dying persons have simply because they are human, and to share our own hope that meaning transcends the dying process. We can do nothing more. We must do nothing less. We must create an atmosphere that is conducive to the patient’s own grasping of the hope that is already there to be grasped. We should neither be so naïve nor so arrogant as to think that hope is ours to give. Health care professionals who think it is their responsibility to provide hope to patients will all burn out. If we take upon ourselves the tasks of offering hope, we are doomed to failure. Sisyphus redux. Health care professionals need to create an atmosphere in which the dying can search for meaning. They need to be open to discussions of spiritual issues, and ready to refer to experts in pastoral care, who, as part of the team, can assist patients in their struggles with these issues. They can help the dying by pointing out, in words and in actions, that they themselves do not consider the state of the patient to be hopeless. Rather, they must somehow communicate to their dying patients gratitude for the meaning and the hope that the dying freely give to those who care for them. The dying can teach nurses, physicians, and other health care professionals countless lessons about life and its meaning every day. They have only to open their ears and their hearts. In the end, then, as Vaclav Havel has stated, hope has nothing whatsoever to do with prognosis. It has everything to do with the human spirit. Health care professionals can only cultivate a spirit of genuine hope in their dying patients if they themselves are in touch with their own spirits. Only in this way is it possible to heal the dying. This means, of course, that no patient’s situation is ever truly hopeless. To speak in such terms narrows the field of human experience to the merely biological and ignores the personal aspects of the patient’s dying. If the situation of the dying is truly hopeless, then the situation of the living is also hopeless. For we are all, every one of us, dying in every moment of our living. I think it also means that clinicians must be careful never to give false hopes to their patients. Puffed up with pride in their scientific achievements, they often promise more natural hope than is realistic. Perhaps it is because their own faith is too weak to sustain their own transcendent hope, let alone that of their patients. So they substitute natural hope in their own technological prowess for transcendent hope in the love of God. Health care professionals place their hopes in the wrong places -- in the limited and the transitory. Physicians, nurses, respiratory technologists, and other health care professionals should recall the words of T.S. Eliot, for their own work, as well as for their patients: I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of he wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting. Hope requires imagination. Health care professionals can help patients to hope if they can teach them to imagine the real. Patients on the brink of despair sometimes only need help imagining that their deepest and absolutely ultimate desires can be fulfilled. Hope requires faith, and faith requires imagination: imagination not as fantasy, but imagination as the apprehension of the not yet realized real. Health care professionals also need to remember that hope is sustained and nurtured in relationship and in community. The ultimate term of human hope is a loving relationship with God. But patients can catch glimpses of that ultimate relationship if health care professionals provide them with evidence that they are still very much part of the human community (31). People often build walls around the sick. They project onto the sick their own lack of faith, lack of hope, and lack of love. People can deny their own death by portraying the dying as essentially different from them (32). But the dying are part of the living. We bear the death of the Lord, deep in our hearts. And the Lord has already borne in Himself, all of our dyings. We need to reassure the dying that even as the bonds of corporeal reality that link us together are slowly dissolving that they are first and foremost persons, and remind them of our faith that their personhood will abide with us now and forever. Hope is the healing of the dying. When the chemotherapy no longer works, and the radiation dosage limits have been reached, and the pain persists as a gnawing dull reminder of the finitude that is our common lot, the dying, in virtue of their hope, can engage death as their own. “The image of death as passivity and helplessness may well be the greatest American fear." And in its material aspect, this passivity is the truth. Not one of us can escape. Death will happen to each of us in its biological aspect. But the hope of the dying is not to be found in biology textbooks. For what, then, can the dying hope? Certainly they cannot hope for corporal immortality. And anyone who demands this of God is guilty of pride; trying to be something more than human. Just as certainly, the dying cannot hope for perfect medicine. No matter how sophisticated and successful medical science becomes; no matter what new cures await the biomedical world; no matter what life-sustaining technologies doctors and nurses may apply, medicine will, with all the natural necessity one can ever know, face its limitations, finitude, and failure. Ultimately, medicine must confront the ineluctable mortality of the creatures to whom it ministers. And just as certainly, the dying cannot hope to avoid all suffering. Even if all pain were one day perfectly controllable, the experiences of finitude, failure, and loss that are essential to the human condition will always arise as occasions of human suffering far deeper than the suffering occasioned by pain. This can happen to any of us, in any of the dying moments of our living, in which we recognize, on the brink of despair, our own unworthiness and need for unconditional healing and forgiving love. But this is especially the radical situation of the dying person. But in Christian faith, one can emerge from the brink of despair to engage death in hope -- desiring nothing but the love of God, in death, and in every dying moment of one’s life. To engage death in such hope requires faith -- trust that one’s ultimate desire to be loved totally and unconditionally will be fulfilled, and that through the death and resurrection of Christ, one’s humanity has been made totally transparent to the Absolute. To engage death in faith, hope, and love is to experience the love of God in each dying moment of one’s living, reaching its summit in one’s corporeal dissolution into the very mystery of God. This hope is good, apparent in the future, by no means an empirical certitude, and yet possible in faith. As a Christian, this is what I believe all human beings desire most. I cannot believe that there is any other hope for any of us. To read or print the entire article click here "Love is the essential inner character of holiness, and holiness does not exist apart from love." Mildred Wynkoop. "For if we love another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us." - I John 4:12. "I am the life that’ll never, never die; I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me-I am the Lord of the dance, said he" - Sydney Carter, "Lord of the Dance". Karl Rahner referred to us creatures as homo orans or humanity as prayer. What would such a statement mean in conjunction with Biblical passages such as the one above or to quote Mrs. Wynkoop again, "...that holiness has to do with persons in relationship"(25). What gleanings are there in these three seemingly disjointed points in combination with ideas such as holiness and God as triune? My thesis will build steadily on such thoughts as those fore mentioned. I will start with a brief look at modernity and how the residue of modernity has affected us in all the gamut of life. This will follow into a sketch of where we are now (i.e. postmodernism). This rough draft of postmodernism will lead into where we are in the context of spirituality. Is this spirituality simply a new label with modern traces and or a precursor to something deeper yet misguided? The final sections will bring in a Wesleyan bent by keying in on holiness and prayer as, in the words of C. S. Lewis, a taking part in the dance. The dance is that of humanity living in the triune God. "In his Sacred and Profane Beauty , the Lutheran phenomenologist of religion Geradus Van der Leeuw claims that dance is lived meaning; in it, body and spirit commune both with each other and with the world. Dance is the rhythmic mimesis, or representation of a theological reminiscence: that God is love, that is, movement" (Murphy 233). That living and ecstatic habituation in the Trinity is prayer and what flows from such a living, is the redemption and sanctification of the world and ourselves. My purpose in all of this is to show how prayer is not an objective closet experience of a few saints. Prayer is participation in the Trinity. In this participation is societal redemption and not merely a spiritual agenda. Prayer as participation in the God who breaks forth is also the essence of what a holy life means. It is this holy habituation in which humanity truly becomes human. These three fold aspects interpenetrate one another in the beautiful, mysterious, and manifold aspect called the dance. It is this dance and in the unfolding of this dance I now wish to explore. Click here to read or print the entire article. Modern theology has tended to fall, to varying degrees, into two spheres of thought: experiential-expressive and cognitive-propositional. [1] Both of these modes are forms of foundational epistemology. That is, they search for, and build their theologies upon, some type of unquestionable foundation. This can be a universal religious experience or concept, or a correspondent, propositional 'truth'. Either way, there is an inherent dependency upon empirical and/or rational faculties (both products of the Enlightenment) that are increasingly being questioned. In reaction to these lines of thought, anti-foundational theology developed. One of the predominant forms of this is postliberal theology, which has its roots at Yale Divinity School with George Lindbeck and Hans Frei. I will build my theological proposal upon this stream of thought, though not in direct correlation to it. [2] While recognizing the more common usage of the term 'anti-foundational' in respect to theology, I have chosen the term non-foundational because I am not necessarily against foundations; that is, I am not denying their existence and/or validity. [3] Rather, I am trying to convey the sense that it may not be possible to know conclusively (i.e., scientifically) these foundations. Hence, my theology is not based on an empirically determined foundation; neither is it founded upon a denial of such a foundation, but on a faith choice brought about by membership in a religious community. On the other hand, the experiential nature of Pentecostalism has led me to claim both my religious experience of relationship to God, as well as the objective revelation found in the incarnated Christ, as 'foundations' for my God-speaking. Nevertheless, these 'foundations' are found only within the realm of faith. This realm of faith is not understood as a hermetically sealed entity, a commodity that is transferred from generation to generation in a sealed package. Neither is it a general, anthropological category that is existent in all of humanity. It is a way of life that exists in process, a process that consists of both progression and regression. It contains momentary decisions and affectional/dispositional development. When one has entered this faith-journey, one is in faith and growing in faith. [4] It is for this reason that at least some validity can be recognized in the cultural-linguistic proposal of Lindbeck. This cultural-linguistic approach is one framework for discussing faith and the choice of faith. Lindbeck speaks of religious systems as being comparable to cultures or languages. These languages have their own rules, which he equates with doctrines. These rules govern the continuance and practice of the religion, though they are not static, eternal propositions. The degree to which a religion is faithful to its rules it is truthful, or coherent. The religion that is the most coherent is that religion that we could judge to be the most correspondent. [5] This does not deny the ability of other faith groups to contain some measure of correspondent truth, which is a key point of recognition that aligns with Lindbeck's goal of inter-religious dialogue. It does, however, acknowledge that everything that is believed and spoken is not correspondent to actual truth. Conversely, it also gives space for doctrines that are 'more than rules'. There is a grammar to the faith language that can be seen as correspondent to actual truth. [6] It is my goal in this thesis to address one arena of the rules within the Christian faith while coming from the (un)specific perspective of Pentecostalism. [7] My arena of address will tend to blur the lines that have traditionally been drawn between ecclesiology and pneumatology, as well as eschatology. For what I am addressing is the role of the Holy Spirit within the church. This is not a denial that the Spirit is active throughout Creation and in other groups of people. [8] It is to say that there are specific ways in which the Spirit is at work in a greater or more prevalent way within the Christian ekklesia. Since I am addressing the issue of the church, I feel it would be appropriate to give at least a cursory description of what I envision the church to be. Avery Dulles wrote a classic text on ecclesiology in 1974 wherein he described several distinct, yet overlapping, models of the church that were being proffered in the rich ecclesial time following Vatican II. In the expanded edition of 1987 he gives his own proposal. [9] Dulles presents five common models, the church as: institution, mystical communion, sacrament, herald and servant. He calls his proposal the community of disciples. Taking this work as a catapult, I would recognize that each of the models conform to specific aspects of the mission of the church. Certain models point more toward the internal mission (mystical communion, sacrament and institution), while the others are directed more toward the external mission (servant and herald). All of the models have an aspect of ontology to them, but the church as mystical communion seems to be more directed toward the church's being, rather than doing. My pneumatological ecclesiology cuts across the Dulles schemata. In fact, I would say that Pentecostalism realigns ecclesiology, even as it does in most other arenas. I would say, then, that the church, in its being, is characterized as a mystical communion of the believers in Christ brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit. This assertion gives the greatest sense of the central Pauline metaphor of the church as the Body of Christ. The church, then, is by definition a segment of humanity. The church is the people who have been called out of the whole. The church is the ecclesia. The question then becomes, what have they been called out for? Flowing out of the presence of the Spirit among the people as a worshiping community (Dulles' Church as Mystical Communion), the church is an organic society (Church as Institution) that provides access to the grace of God (Church as Sacrament) primarily through its ministries of correction and edification (Church as Herald) and mercy (Church as Servant). [10] The specific task of this paper is to address one aspect of the church: the role of the Holy Spirit. It is an attempt to present a more pneumatological ecclesiology, over against models that have centered on the establishment of the church solely around the person of Christ, especially when this is seen as an historical event. I will do this by first addressing the writings of Paul Tillich. [11] Tillich was one of this century's greatest students of the Holy Spirit. Tillich discussed the life in the Holy Spirit under the rubric of 'unambiguous life', which can be delineated in three different metaphors: Spiritual Presence, Kingdom of God and Eternal Life. Following this discussion, I will address the question from a Pentecostal point of view, roughly paralleling the 'unambiguous life' with the 'Spirit-filled life'. In this discussion I will argue that in the Spirit-filled life, the Spirit is drawing the church into the presence of God, the power of God and the End of God. My understanding, and argument, is that Tillich can provide Pentecostals with categories and a language for discussing the work of the Spirit, yet it must be understood in a purely Pentecostal-charismatic sense. It should be noted that there are many areas of great divergence between Tillich and Pentecostalism, e.g., inspiration of scripture. These divergences will not be addressed here, though this would be an important study. Here I will concentrate on those points that provide a dialogue of construction. Finally, I will place this discussion within the context of postmodernism's renewed interest in spirituality, arguing that the Spirit-empowered church is able to provide a 'festival' within the postmodern 'carnival'. Click here to read or print the entire article "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." Romans 4:25 Atonement means reconciliation (at-one-ment). It is God's work whereby he provides the basis for and accomplishes the goal of reconciliation between himself and sinful humanity. Reconciliation is God's re-creative (redemptive) act whereby his original intention of communion between himself and his creatures is fulfilled. God created the human community in order to share the loving fellowship of his own triune community (Father, Son and Spirit). By creation God invited others into the fellowship of his own life. In much the same way that parents bear children in order to express and share their love, so God himself created out of his self-giving and other-centered love. God created others to share what he already possessed--the fellowship of a loving community (John 17:24-26). But sin alienates God and humanity. God's holy communion cannot embrace ungodliness any more than light can embrace darkness. There is no darkness in God, and there is no communion with sin in his light. Light must dispel darkness because they cannot coexist at the same time and in the same place. Therefore, sin separates God and humanity (Isaiah 59:2). The holiness of God's community is at stake. The holy God cannot dwell among the wicked (Psalm 5:4). Thus, God excluded his original children from the Garden (Genesis 3:23-24), excluded wicked Israel from his presence (2 Kings 17:22-23), and will one day banish the ungodly from his eternal communion (Revelation 21:6-8). Yet, just as parents yearn for their children, so God yearns for his people. Even when Israel was a rebellious child, God compassionately yearned for their fellowship (Jeremiah 31:20; Hosea 11:8). Even when Israel was an unfaithful wife and had sold herself into prostitution, God pursued her as a husband yearns for reconciliation with his beloved (Hosea 1-3). Even while we were yet enemies, God demonstrated his love for us in that Christ died in order to restore fellowship with his people (Romans 5:6-11). In Jesus Christ God first loved us before we loved him (1 John 4:7-12). The holy God, then, takes the initiative in reconciliation. God invites us into his fellowship and seeks a renewed communion (1 John 1:3). The holy God wants to dwell with his people. In Israel, he gave them his holy presence as he dwelled among them in the tabernacle (Leviticus 26:11-12). In the church, he gives them his holy presence as he dwells in them through his Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 6:16; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19-20). In the new heaven and new earth God will fully dwell among his redeemed people (Revelation 21:3-4)..... Click here to read or print the entire article Conclusion The death and resurrection of Jesus are God's two mighty acts of reconciliation. The cross is God's self-humiliating participation in human suffering in order to substitute himself for the sake of his own self-satisfaction. The resurrection is God's justification of Jesus through which we presently experience the power of a sanctified life, live with hope in the face of death and expect our full sanctification by God's Spirit in the eschaton. In Jesus Christ, God suffered with us and for us. He did not distance himself from our suffering, but joined us in it. He did not succumb to sin, but overcame it in his life and ministry. He did not leave us in our sin, but destroyed it through his death. He did not leave us in our death, but justified us through his resurrection. Atonement destroys sin and restores life. It cancels the debt of sin and gives back the life that sin stole. In Jesus Christ, God reconciles the world to himself. He fulfills his goal for creation. He again unites with humanity in one community and he will restore the Garden of Eden (Revelation 22:1-6). Atonement is God's work. The gospel is what God has done in Jesus Christ. We do not "do" the gospel. We believe the gospel, trust the gospel, respond to the gospel and obey the gospel. But the gospel is God's work of atonement whereby he reconciles us through submissive faith. God is the actor, and we are the receiver. God accomplishes redemption, and we accept his gift. We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). Just as he created, so has he redeemed. God created out of his self-giving, self-sacrificing love, and so he has also redeemed. God has made atonement and overcome the barrier that separated him from his creatures. His self-humiliating, self-sacrificing, self-substituting love has acted in order to defeat sin and empower our holy, hopeful and immortal lives. In Jesus Christ God atoned for sin and death, and now we are called to receive his gift and emulate the one who loved us. First appeared in "What Did God Do to Sin and Death Through Jesus Christ?" pp. 53-63, in Theology Matters: Answers for the Church Today, ed. by Gary Holloway, Randall J. Harris, and Mark C. Black (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1998) and as part of a chapter in my Yet Will I Trust Him. Click here to read or print the entire article September 11th, 2001: A day when millions of hearts were broken, if not shattered. Who of us will ever forget it? I was overseas when the carnage took place. A few days later, as I boarded the plane in Paris to return home in the aftermath of this diabolical act perpetrated upon America and the civilized world, the silence aboard the aircraft spoke volumes. The flight attendants and pilots represented an industry plundered and abused by lawless men for the slaughter of innocent people. They had colleagues who were used as ammunition to desecrate and murder. Behind me sat a couple whose son-in-law had been killed in the Pentagon attack. Their daughter is left expecting their first child, who will now be fatherless. A Belgian businessman sat next to me in as much of a state of shock as I was. He worked for the International Monetary Fund and well knew that money alone would never be the solution to this carnage. The Pakistani taxi driver who took me to my hotel in Washington upon arrival said in Hindi, “They trampled our hearts under their feet and then smashed them with their hands…their consciences have rotted.” The immigration officer in Washington looked at my passport showing dozens of countries visited and then reaching out his hand said, “Welcome home, Mr. Zacharias.” That journey summed it up. With those who hurt with you, there was something in common. With the murderers and those who applaud them, we have no common value. That lies at the heart of this tragedy. The fact is that in a tragedy as complex as this, there are several converging issues. I raise four of them. Click here to read or print the entire article.
Towards the end of his life, in the early 1960s, Karl Barth changed his mind about the center and heart of Christian ethics. Previously he had written that the key term for his "ethics of reconciliation" was "faithfulness." It is the "one total thing," he wrote, "that is required of man as the Christian life."[1] However, as he began to prepare his discussion of ethics for publication, he shifted the focus of what is the fundamental obligation of humanity. Instead of faithfulness, "invocation" became his controlling theme of the Christian life -- the central duty of ethics. He writes:[2] We thus understand the command, "Call upon me" (Ps. 50:15), to be the basic meaning of every divine command, and we regard invocation according to this command as the basic meaning of all human obedience. What God permits man, what he expects, wills, and requires of him, is a life of calling upon him. This life of calling upon God will be a person's Christian life: his life in freedom, conversion, faith, gratitude and faithfulness. Thus, invocation is our response to God's grace. It is a response of joy, gratitude and commitment in the light of God's covenant of grace through Jesus Christ. While faithfulness remains an important aspect of the Christian life, the over-arching principle is better understood as invocation. Interestingly, Barth intended to place his reflections on "invocation" between his discussion of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism is the "foundation of the Christian life" and the Lord's Supper is its "renewal." The former is the "beginning" of God's history with obedient man, and the latter is the "continuation" of that history through the gracious sustaining of obedient man. Prayer stands as the ground and substance of both baptism and the Lord's Supper. "Invocation" is the central, controlling concept of both and the fundamental characterization of the Christian life.[3] Between the beginning of our Christian life in baptism and the weekly renewal of that life in the Lord's Supper, our life is a life of prayer, of invocation. It is a life of calling on God. Before Barth, Calvin saw the centrality of prayer as the basis and means of sanctification in the Christian life. At the end of his discussion of justification and sanctification, and prior to his exposition of the doctrine of election, Calvin titles a chapter with these words: "Prayer, which is the chief exercise of faith, and by which we daily receive God's benefits."[4] Prayer is the mode of our Christian existence. It is the means of our sanctification, and all our obedience must involve invocation - a calling upon God. Through prayer we claim the benefits of Christ; we claim the faithfulness of Christ in our place. And through prayer we commit ourselves to following him; we commit ourselves to discipleship. Our faithfulness, our obedience, flows from our invocation through the covenant of grace, which is grounded on the faithfulness of Christ. Like many before him,[5] including Calvin,[6] Barth took the "Lord's Prayer" as the clearest revelation of what that life of invocation involves. It provides a "framework" for the discussion of the Christian life.[7] Here God gives us "point by point the criterion of a life, action, and work that is determined by prayer" as it is prayed by the one who is "representative of all men before God."[8] Jesus, as God identified with man, as Immanuel, prays this prayer with us. He unites us with himself before God, and gives us the model of approach to God. As a result of this "kindness," as Calvin says, we receive tremendous confidence and consolation in that "we know that we are requesting nothing absurd, nothing strange or unseemly -- in short, nothing unacceptable to him -- since we are asking almost in his own words."[9] It is from this "incomparable text," Barth writes, that "we learn not only that we should pray, but also what we should pray and how we should pray."[10] This prayer, then, reflects a theology of prayer. This prayer, as the center focus of Christian life, reflects what is the essence of theology for the Christian life. This prayer says something about who God is, who we are, what we need and what we are to be. It is, as Bonhoeffer observed, the "quintessence of prayer."[11] Yet, at the same time, prayer is worship. Unlike the other major symbols of Christianity's catechisms, like the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandments, this catechetical symbol is specifically worship; it is liturgical.[12] It is prayer. The Lord's Prayer, therefore, also says something about worship. Here theology and worship intersect. "What takes place in worship," Lochman writes, "is not something solemn but theologically unrewarding and irrelevant."[13] On the contrary, worship must be theologically rooted. Though it transcends conceptual thought, worship cannot take place without the most elemental of theological reflection. The unity of the two, worship and theology, is expressed in the Lord's Prayer. Evagrois summarized the point in this way: "If you are a theologian you truly pray. If you truly pray you are a theologian."[14] The fatherhood of God might be viewed from two standpoints. One perspective, characteristic of a social interpretation of the Lord's Prayer,[15] is to understand God's fatherhood in terms of creation and the identification of Jesus with humanity in general. Walter Rauschenbusch, for example, sees it as an expression of Jesus' "consciousness of human solidarity" where "we are one with fellow-men in all our needs."[16] Another perspective is to understand God's fatherhood redemptively. The fatherhood of God reflects our oneness with Christ where he shares our humanity and we share his sonship. God is our father because Christ is his son.[17] Fatherhood in the Sermon on the Mount seems to reflect the redemptive understanding. Kingdom people have God as their father. They are the people who do the will of the Father (7:21), who seek to be perfect as the Father is perfect (5:48), who love their enemies (5:44-45), whose light shines in the darkness (5:16), and who are the peacemakers (5:9). The emphasis on "fatherhood" in the Sermon is redemptive sonship. God is Father because he has acted in Christ to redeem. We are sons because we have claimed Christ's faithfulness as our own.[18] We address God as Father because God has entered into fellowship with us through his Son. To pray "Our Father" is to express God's total involvement in our world for us just as a parent acts for his children. The invocation, therefore, expresses two things: our prayer is addressed to a "loving parent" and yet he is "beyond the sphere of our control."[19] God is not aloof, but neither is he comprehended. God is present, and he is in control. The presupposition of prayer is fundamentally this: God cares like a parent cares, and he rules like a king. We pray to, we worship, a Father who not only loves, but who is also able to act as the Sovereign God. We pray to our Father in heaven.......Click here to read or print the entire article Conclusion In 1952 Albert Einstein was asked a question by a Princeton doctoral student that perhaps many of you have thought about from time to time. He asked: "What is left in the world for original dissertation research?" Einstein's response is insightful. He said, "Find out about prayer! Somebody must find out about prayer."[29] The secularist in our post-modern and post-Christian society struggles with the concept of prayer, and in this regard, many in our congregations have become secularists. Prayer for many is simply a means of self-actualization. It is self-induced therapy; a psychological couch which emboldens us to seek change in the world. Secularized prayer is simply a method of self-motivation and self-comfort. It does not, as Coleman writes, "intend to move [God] to intervene or to change [an] external circumstance. The [secularist] prays for justice, healing, comfort, peace, thinking that these things will be accomplished if he does them."[30] Secularized prayer looks to the human achiever rather than the divine giver; it redeems by works rather than grace. The Lord's Prayer is rooted in the grace of a heavenly Father, and in the sovereign power of that heavenly Father.[31] Christian prayer, as Lochman writes, "is more than an instrument and expression of the pious (or, in secular terms, the meditative) self-understanding."[32] It is an expression of the life of faith, "the chief exercise of faith," as Calvin put it. It is trusting in the redeeming love and sovereign power of the heavenly Father who has made our cause his cause. This trust is objectively expressed in baptism and the Lord' Supper. There we are assured and we faithfully believe in the reality of God's redemptive love for us in Jesus Christ. The Lord's Prayer expresses our yearning for the coming of God and our need for God's involvement in our life in the here and now. As we see the pain and the suffering, the hurt and the sin of the world around us, we groan for the consummation of God's kingdom when all pain and sorrow will be abolished. It is a cry of trust, "I believe." As we see our own sinful and impotent souls, we groan for the healing and forgiving power of God's love in our hearts. We sense within ourselves the struggle with the flesh and the worry of materialism. It is a cry of weakness, "Help my unbelief." In the Lord's Prayer, we commit ourselves to God's cause, to his kingdom and his righteousness, knowing that he has already committed himself to our cause in Jesus Christ. The Lord's Prayer, therefore, affirms God as our gracious Father and confesses our utter dependence upon him as his children so that we receive all things as from his hand.[33] The Lord's Prayer, then, underlines the truth of that beautiful refrain of one of our old hymns, "Its me, Its me, Its me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer." In an almost anticlimactic way, I want to link theology and worship with praxis by offering two suggestions. Both of these suggestions are grounded in Jesus' presentation of this prayer as a model for his disciples. The first suggestion is to center our personal, private prayers around this controlling model. Our own prayers can self-consciously follow this pattern of God's glory and human needs. Invested with theological maturity, the Lord's Prayer has a depth that will satisfy all our prayer needs. Yet, in its simplicity, it is available to all believers of whatever age or maturity. My second suggestion is to incorporate this prayer into the public life of the church. The prayer is liturgical in nature. It can be used to focus our worship and the corporate prayers of the church. Its use in responsive readings or unison prayer can yield both a sense of corporate solidarity and transcendence in worship that is badly needed in our increasingly secularized assemblies. As a final word, let me leave you with Simone Weil's conclusion to her reflections on the Lord's Prayer.[34] It is a word that I have found true in my own personal devotions using the Lord's Prayer. The Our Father contains all possible petitions; we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it. It is to prayer what Christ is to humanity. It is impossible to say it once through, giving the fullest possible attention to each word, without a change, infinitesimal perhaps but real, taking place in the soul. Click here to read or print the entire article
Pastoral CareP= Prayer, Patience, Perseverance A= Acquaintance with God and Acceptance of others S= Sensitivity and Sincerity T= Tenderness and Tenacity O= Objectivity, Openness and Out reach R= Realization of humanity and mortality A= Ample understanding and Active Faith L= Love of God and Love of others as we listen, learn and live
C= Compassion, Comfort and Care A= Assurance and Acceptance of the Inevitable R= Reassurance of God's Promises and Redemption E= Empathy, Endurance, Effectiveness, Effort, Ethics, Example and Excellence.
The International Association of Christian Chaplains promotes a participative, creative and horizontal type of democracy and government. The IACC embraces and promotes the leadership concept of 'primus inter pares' (first among equals). The IACC is aware of the imminent need of recovering our theological roots and heritage in order to fulfill the mission received from Jesus Christ. The IACC considers the new discoveries and advances in the field of medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology and ethics as being of high value. However, in keeping our Christian theological birthright we are committed to be Christian pastoral loyal to the proclamation of the Word. The IACC understands that pastoral care is born in the Word implying a dynamic dialogue and relationship between Creator and creatures. Thus, pastoral care provided in the light of the Word allows people to experience shalom and wholeness. The IACC recognizes that people seek chaplain's help primarily because of the pastoral role which speaks of their "unique" connection with the Living Water and Bread of Life that may help them find meaning and comfort amid struggles. The IACC considers that one of the goal of pastoral care, perhaps the most relevant, is helping human beings understand and accept more fully their humanity in relationship with others and God as well as helping them to fulfill their calling as people of God. The IACC sees pastoral care as a ministry of compassion anchored in the grace and love of God. Pastoral care takes place in many different ways including visiting the sick, attending to the dying, comforting the bereaved, shepherding those who are struggling of facing difficulties of any kind, proclaiming visibly and verbally the Word, and fulfilling the priestly calling.
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