Dominik’s Journey ;-)

David Joel Hamilton’s Master Thesis “I Commend To You Our Sister” is now available as a free PDF download online.

Download

This is probably the most exhaustive study on Women in Leadership in the Bible that has ever been conducted. The thesis itself is about 300 pages, the appendices of word studies and background information is another 500 pages. David Hamilton also published a short version under the title “Why not Women - a fresh look at scripture on women in missions, ministry and leadership.”

If it wasn’t for a post in a blog that’s now offline, I would have never found it.

Introduction

In the recent years, there has been an increased interest in the area of apostolic ministries and networks, the restoration of the offices of apostle and prophet, and the question of how this relates to today’s church ministries and government. The main scriptural passage that is being examined and interpreted is that of Ephesians 4:11-12, often titled the Fivefold Ministry Gifts. There are many overlapping, but also competing views on this topic, ranging from strictly cessationist views, to fully restorationist views. The goal of this paper is to present the main arguments and positions of the two opposing positions, evaluate them in terms of their persuasiveness and give some suggestions on how to practically deal with this topic in today’s ministry and church environment. "The core issue in the debate is whether apostles and prophets continue in any form beyond the early church."[1][emphasis mine]

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I guess these days one shouldn’t be surprised by anything on wikipedia.

The Emerging Church Wiki seems to be one more interesting thing out there. Haven’t read it in its entirety, but maybe will soon…

Sometimes, good news comes from were you least expect it. In this case, from a German news magazine, Der Spiegel, which is quite secular and traditionally rather hostile towards Christianity.

Short summary:

According to German sociologists, a 30 year trend of secularization and decline in the Christian Churches is expected to come to halt in the next years. This trend, which was popular among the German middle class, and especially among well-educated females, caused a great interest in Buddhism, New Age, transcendental meditation and others. The result was “individualized religion, … personally combined and prepared menus of various religious ingredients and souls-saving promises.” In this trend, people became highly individualized and broke with tradition, religious dogmas and social norms of cultural communities like the institution of marriage.

Yet, nobody thought that people would get tired and stressed out so soon by their level of individual freedom and breaking from all norms and cultural ties. Psychologists saw an increase of stress in people caused by the continuous need for defining and segregating themselves. People needed to find new criteria and norms after they got rid of their traditional world view and faith. Increasingly, this was not only a chance to redefine themselves, but a burden that demanded creativity and original thought 27/7.

Recently, people started to show greater demand for loyalty, belonging and safety given by stable perspectives of defining and interpreting meaning and purpose. As a result, people are becoming more and more open for churches and religious organizations, providing them that safe environment that they voluntarily had given up. It is expected that the generation of young people growing up today will develop a much greater appreciation of Church and the Christian faith than the generation before them in the last decades.

In midst of all the devastation and tragedy, the question came up pretty quick if Katrina was sent by God. Is Katrina part of the end-times catastrophes sent to judge the earth dwellers for all their wickedness. Quickly, two main positions formed among the Christian community: a) Katrina was foremost a natural disaster. God is love and seeks to show himself as a loving God in midst of the tragedy. God would [b]not[/b] send judgment like this. b) Katrina is God’s wrath poured out on the earth. Fire and brimstone will follow. Me personally, I’m bothered by both positions, because [b]both[/b] fail to see that God has indeed two sides to his character. God is not only love, he is also just. A loving God without justice would be just a grandfather figure. A just God without love would just vengeful. In my opinion, the key to understanding why things like this happen is to see how God interacts with us humans. Foremost, his desire is to love us and have a relationship with us. ALL that he does is motivated by love. Unfortunately, we people are stubborn, sinful, wretched and evil. All of us, not only the non-Christians. So in order to help us out of out own wretched state of sin, God offers help. HE offers warnings. He offers warning shots. And we often still don’t listen. Throughout history, the people of God AND the gentiles have a reputation to [b]not[/b] following and obeying God’s word. And God waited until an appointed time to allow something to happen that would get their attention. (On a side note, in my opinion, it is mostly semantics if we ask whether God merely allowed it or if God actually [i]did[/i] it.) The warnings are plenty: the book of Revelation gives us a good idea. But there is more. God still speaks today. Rick Joyner writes that God revealed hurricane Katrina to them as early as 1998. But even more impressive is a prophetic word given by Chuck Pierce.

[b]The WIND and WATER will rise in the midst of New Orleans.[/b] Many from the south will come north for refuge. Prepare. Prepare now for [b]winds and water that will surprise you[/b]. I will renew the pattern not fully seen before. Worship will be here, and birthed in a new way from here. Prepare! Prepare! Prepare! Shift! Saul will be no more. David will arise from this day forward. The wind from the south will begin to blow. Watch for the effects. This will purify the land and bring great change.

The clarity of this word speaks for itself. But what is even more amazing is the date this word was given: [b]August 29, 2004![/b] To the very day exactly one year before Katrina hit New Orleans. This is a remarkable demonstration of the prophetic today.

In case you are a doubting Thomas like me, who expects someone to make up words like this after the fact, check out the Google cache. The snapshot was taken Feb 7, 2005 05:02:07 GMT. Up until yesterday, the WaybackMachine had a snapshot dated Oct 13, 2004. Now it shows a "Path Index Error." only. :-/ 09/07/05 WaybackMachine snapshot is live again.

Chuck Pierce’s word went further on:

This south wind would be [b]a purifying wind[/b], cause corruption to be blown on and cause corruption to shake and initiate a righteous move starting with the children, then moving to the youth. We were to watch the government and the Catholic Church shake, and watch New Orleans change.

The hurricane was named Katrina. Coincidence ? Katrina is a variant short form of Katherine (Greek), which means "[b][i]pure[/b][/i]". There is no doubt God has something in mind with this, despite of the tragedy and human misery that it involves. As Christians today, we have to be very careful not to be mocking God speaking to us. Yes, to talk about Katrina as being a judgment sent by God is by far not the most popular thing us Christians could talk about today. And I agree, first and foremost, we have to pray and help. [b]BUT:[/b] We should be very careful to not deny it, belittle it or apologize for it. There is a good chance that the end-times prophecies of Revelation are happening in front of our eyes. We would do well to seek God and ask what his plan for each one of [b]us[/b] is in this day of age.

Addendum

09/08/2005 - A very helpful opinion was released today by Rick Joyner (MorningStar Ministries). The Lessons of Hurricane Katrina (Part II).

Summary

The issue of women in Christian Ministry has been much debated for as long as the Church existed. At all times, various positions where held, based on various interpretations of scripture. The main conservative evangelical view today is that woman should not be allowed to take on any leadership role in church, neither should they exercise authority or teach.

Most of the arguments center around a handful scriptures from the Apostle Paul. But what seems to be very clear at a first look is not that clear when doing some more digging into the scriptures. This paper takes a second look at the critical passages in 1. Cor and 1. Tim.

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Ran across an old blog post from Andrew on the clash between the emerging church culture and the mega church culture.

In short, he writes:

“We feel manipulated […], insulted […], dumb [… and] like we haven’t been to church”.

Some good food for thought.
When thinking of the Saddleback-mania and Willow Crrek-itis, I can’t help but recognizing that it indeed seems to be effective. Yet, the key to this effectiveness lies in the culture these churches are operating in. It just doesn’t work to export the values, concept and programming if the prevalent culture in the target location is completely different and / or opposing to the culture where Saddleback or Willow Creek became successful. E.g., you just won’t find many Baby Boomers in the inner cities or on student campuses.

Along these lines (or not), Brian McLaren writes in his book “Fast Forward: New Maps for a New World” the following (as quoted here, p. 24):

So one of the biggest questions on my screen these days is, How does the Spirit of Jesus Christ incarnate in a postmodern world? This question very likely terrifies or infuriates some Christians because they see the traumatic implications of what I am saying. And maybe they are right: Maybe there is no way ahead. [b]Maybe the faithful thing to do these days is to become intellectually Amish and create communities that live in the past.[/b]

So, the though is out there: Will visiting Willow Creek in 50 years be like visiting an Amish village today ? We’ll see…

Germany’s Uneasiness with the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movement

Today’s Pentecostal and Charismatic movement in Germany is the product of a unique development of very specific spiritual influences and conditions. Over the course of the last 100 years, the movement faced more, longer lasting, opposition than in most other countries. As a result, the movement "presents a complex and diversified picture" with the Pentecostal aspect of it is best seen as "a complex phenomenon rather than … a simple, homogenous "confessional" group".

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The G12 cell-church model and the Shepherding Movement – similarities and differences in discipleship practices

1. Introduction

In the recent years, a new cell-group model became very popular, which more than any other cell-based system before emphasized a top-down authority structure. Most of the churches adapting this G12 system are comparatively young, and mostly located in South-America. In the 1970s, a quasi cell-based movement called the Shepherding Movement came in the spotlight of secular and religious media. Both, the G12 and the Shepherding Movement, have at its core the concern for discipleship. In both cases, the question is how discipleship is achieved and how much authority is exercised thereby. For Christians that still have vivid memory of the Shepherding Movement and its controversies, the G12 movement looks like a re-incarnation of the Shepherding Movement’s authority structure, which was one of the key reason for the movement’s breakdown. The goal of this paper is to examine both movement’s structures and objectives in discipleship practices and evaluate, if and to what extent the worries and warnings of Shepherding “veterans” are justified.   (more…)