What is Understood.

I laughed out loud (lol) when I saw a friend of mines posting of a link to The Onion web site. The Onion is a satirical news site that pokes fun at some of our headlines, and takes a sarcastic look at world events all in good humor. The headline said that on this day in history, Cy Young was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame despite not winning a single Cy Young Award.

What is ironic is that while this is obviously a humorous point, many seem to use these same type of arguments to justify their position. Bill Bauknight in his article in the January/February Confessing Movement newsletter does exactly that. In his critique of the United Methodist Bishops statement on Gods Renewed Creation: A Call to Hope and Action, Bauknight uses this opportunity not to critique the position of the UMC and our Bishops on the environment and climate change, but rather once again to spit out the same rhetoric that is causing division in the first place.

It would seem that his primary problem is that it is "Bible Light" and "Gospel deficient." Yet in the opening paragraphs our bishops begin with the assumption stating this is Gods creation, God invites us to renewal despite what we may have done to contribute to the problem, and that "Christ's resurrection assures us that death and destruction do not have the last word." There is your premise for the entire argument Mr. Bauknight. You say it is Gospel deficient, I say that they have very clearly laid out with that statement that the Gospel is the foundation for the entirety of the statement. Bauknight says "The bishops offer a recipe for dealing with all the problems of the world, though this recipe is not distinctively biblical." Yet in the letter itself both the Apostle Paul's letters and the Prophets are cited to ground the letter as based on the scripture. It would appear that instead of wanting a statement from our Bishops that is founded on scripture and Jesus as the basis for addressing the problem of global climate change as well as nuclear proliferation, and good use of Gods creation, they would have simply been more satisfied had they just put together a document of nothing but Bible quotations. What is understood need not be discussed.

It would also appear that Bauknight has trouble with the notion that our Bishops feel that the Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to such responsibility."Indeed, if one removes from it the few references to Scripture and Jesus Christ, the letter could have been issued by the United Nations or the Sierra Club." Firstly so what! If the United Nations and the Sierra club see the creation in the same way as we in the church do, then thanks be to God! Secondly and I think most importantly, you cannot remove the references to scripture, God and Jesus Christ, because they were written intentionally as the basis of a Christian/United Methodist argument for protecting the creation that we have been charged with by God. As much as you may like to take it out to basically disagree with our bishops for the sake of disagreeing, you cannot challenge the credibility or integrity of the faith of our episcopal leaders, by picking and choosing. But I think you know that already.

Finally Mr.Bauknight misses the point all together. "Furthermore, the letter
fails to address the central problems of The United Methodist Church." Mr. Bauknight you are right. It does not do that because that is not the subject. The intent is to talk about the call that God through Jesus Christ has on our lives for the care of Gods creation and our failure as a church to take seriously this charge. Our Bishops have spoken about some of the central problems the church has faced. I am inspired how our Bishops, through the Four areas of Focus, are taking the lead in addressing the internal problems of the church as well as how to grow externally. But that is a discussion for another time and place. One way to address that however is to take a stand, and that stand is that God will not allow us to sit idly by while Gods creation continues to be destroyed, and that we desire to be the instruments of Christ Jesus by which Gods creation may be renewed.

Bauknight concludes by saying in the next issue, he will lay out what the Confessing movement wishes the bishops would have said. I'll be curious to see what that is, but if it is anything like the critique, it may be better served being posted on The Onion, much like the Cy Young comment or better yet, a critique of the Sermon on the Mount, for Jesus failing to mention himself repeatedly and that it is based more on Hammurabi's code instead of the Gospel. What is understood need not be discussed.

The bishops statement can be downloaded here

The Confessing movement article can be downloaded from here.