Church must change world through witness, bishop says
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Bishop George Bashore |
Sept. 28, 2005
By Tom Slack*
CINCINNATI (UMNS) - To
have an impact on the world, the church of the future must have a
confident witness, and its people must be "atonement bearers," according
to retired United Methodist Bishop George Bashore.
"Atonement is not an
isolated creedal statement," Bashore said, "but rather it speaks
primarily of life-changing power through costly love. God takes the
initiative through Christ with us, and so we take the mind of God in our
relationship with a hurting world."
Bashore spoke to
participants in a workshop at the Confessing Movement's annual
conference. The workshop, "A Bishop Looks at the Future of the Church,"
was one of several held during the Sept. 22-24 conference, which drew
more than 300 people. The Confessing Movement is an unofficial United
Methodist caucus working to help the church "retrieve its classical
doctrinal identity," according to the organization's Web site.
The bishop retired in
2000, after 12 years leading the denomination's Pittsburgh Area preceded
by eight years in the Boston Area. Today he is bishop-in-residence at
Mount Lebanon United Methodist Church in Pittsburgh, where he teaches a
Wednesday morning Bible study.
Through the class, "I find myself thrust into pastoral care," Bashore said.
A 50-year member of the
congregation asked him, "Will you teach me how to pray? All this time
I've prayed, but not really." A young widow whose husband died during
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks asked, "How can I discern what the
will of God is? This thing has torn my life completely apart." Another
Wednesday morning Bible student wanted to know more about eternal life,
when the possibility of her receiving a kidney transplant became less
and less likely.
"A broken heart is
always synonymous with a yearning heart," Bashore said, "about a
deep-seated yearning to meet this God and know something about the
vitality of this God, and every one of our churches ought to be able to
share the stories of faith so that they can know how to meet this God
and experience this God.
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A UMNS photo by Tom Slack Bishop George Bashore makes a point during remarks to the Confessing Movement.
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Bishop
George Bashore preaches on the importance of the church's members being
"atonement bearers" in a hurting world. Bashore, retired, spoke Sept.
23 at the Confessing Movement's annual conference in Cincinnati.
Atonement, he said, is about "life-changing power through costly love." A
UMNS photo by Tom Slack. Photo #05-652. Accompanies UMNS story #544.
9/28/05 |
"Propositional truths are important," he said. He told those gathered to
"contend for the apostolic faith within the United Methodist Church,"
adding that the propositional truths "need to become experiential truths
in the lives of our people in our congregations. When that happens, the
church is going to have an unbelievable future."
Sociological studies
show Christian faith is losing its impact on the values, morality and
decision-making processes in our nation, Bashore said. As he sees it,
the problem is that society uses the church's vocabulary and even the
church's concepts and ideals, but without the church's content.
"The greatest
procrastination is that we borrow from Jesus' concepts and statements,
but don't introduce people to Jesus, the source of the power behind
those concepts and statements."
Children and youth need
to be trained theologically, Bashore added. They need to not only learn
the propositions of theology but experience the power of the cross in
their lives.
Some older people, like
the longtime church member who asked to be taught to pray, might need
elementary help on how to pray, how to read the Bible, how to share
one's faith. But more than anything else, people young and old need a
sense of the grace of God, and integral to that grace is always a cross.
"We are more than
lovers of love," he said. "We are more than persons of hopefulness and
wishful thinking. The One who wept over the sons and daughters of
Jerusalem had a passionate longing for the righting of souls in
relationship to God, so much so that he went to the cross to accomplish
it."
There may be varying
theories and understandings of atonement, Bashore said, but atonement is
not owned by any part of the theological spectrum. The reality of
individual and societal sin, he added, is so demonic and so destructive
that all people need to be "atonement bearers" to one another, and all
churches must be atonement bearers to the world.
The bishop named six ways in which the church can have an impact through its witness.
- The church must
witness to an eternal God who has "exploded into our world through
incarnation." It must tell the stories of God's transformation of people
who move away from self-centered concerns. He mentioned people in his
home church in Lancaster, Pa., who testified in church gatherings, "I
met Jesus and he changed my life."
- The church must
witness through caring for people. Bashore said his return to pastoral
care in a congregation shows him the many ways in which relationships
are broken, and the church cares for people "when passion and compassion
walk hand in hand." "Do we even know one another?" he asked. "At the
same time we build in admonitions to become a family as the body of
Christ, we don't make it happen."
- The church must
witness through worship. "Boring and lugubrious worship must go!" he
said. "We must move beyond battles between traditional and contemporary
worship, and grow in our understanding of God's gifts through cultural
diversity. Worship should primarily be evocative and not just a bunch of
words. Orthodoxy doesn't mean 'right thinking.' It means 'right
praise.' And we should never allow people to leave our worship
experiences without an opportunity for commitment" - which, he added,
might include a signup table to write to legislators as well as an altar
call.
- The church must have a
victorious witness to immortality and eternal life. "We will be the
community around the world who have that 'for thou art with me'
confidence about living and dying."
- The church must
address human hurt in God's world. The world has become a "glocality,"
Bashore said, and relationships depend on the intersection of the global
and the local.
- The church must have a
visible witness in the world. Recalling his sermon at the summer 2000
consecration of Bishop Violet Fisher, Bashore told how a rainstorm drove
the gathering into a large hotel lobby, where the service was concluded
as hotel guests looked on from various levels in the atrium.
The church can have an impact on the world "only if we have a confident witness," he said. "We must be atonement bearers."
*Slack is director of communications of the United Methodist Church's West Ohio Annual Conference.
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Resources
Confessing Movement
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