A special report from the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission.

“The world hasn’t seen an evil like this for a generation.” This is how the national spokesman for Iraqi Christians in the United States described atrocities by ISIS terrorists in northern Iraq, which include beheading of children and their mothers and fathers, and forcing almost all Christians in the region to flee. While the United States has resumed military action to deal with the crisis in Iraq, its commitment reflects half-heartedness and fails to match the enormity of suffering and potential threats.

“They are systematically beheading children, and mothers and fathers … There’s actually a park in Mosul that they’ve actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick,” Mark Arabo, the spokesman for Iraqi Christians, told CNN. “This is crimes against humanity. The whole world should come together. This is much broader than a community or faith … They are doing the most horrendous, the most heart-breaking things you can think of.”

The Episcopal Vicar of Iraq, Canon Andrew White, recently visited the town of Qaraqosh, which like many other towns and cities has been captured by the ISIS, to assess the situation. “The majority of the town’s 50,000 people have fled, fearing that, like other Christians in this region, they will be massacred. The militants, in a further act of sacrilege, have established their administrative posts in the abandoned churches,” he said, according to Catholic Online.

Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad has called for “international support and a professional, well-equipped army,” saying the situation is “going from bad to worse.”

U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement last week about the American military involvement in Iraq acknowledged the suffering of minorities. “These terrorists have been especially barbaric toward religious minorities, including Christians and Yazidis,” Obama said, but while carefully underlining the humanitarian nature of the intervention. He said it was meant only to prevent the likely advancement of ISIS terrorists toward the U.S. embassy in Baghdad or the U.S. consulate in Arbil, and to help save Iraqi civilians stranded in the Mount Sinjar region.

Obama referred to the more than 50,000 people from the Yazidi ethnic minority, who like Christians were forced to flee their villages and are now trapped on the Sinjar mountains with ISIS men surrounding them. The subtext of his statement was a promise only of a short-term, limited involvement.

It is, of course, a moral obligation of Washington not to leave Iraq in the lurch after its 2003 invasion and subsequent pull-out of its forces. But in fulfilment of this moral obligation also lie America’s interests.

The U.S. took on al-Qaeda and its former leader Osama bin Laden, but now its offshoot, the ISIS, which is also known as the Islamic State, has emerged as far more brutal and powerful – and therefore a likely threat to America in the days to come.

The Spirit and the Prophetic Church

Building Ministry Coalitions for Urban Ministry

Part 2 of 2

Editor’s Note: Read Part 1 in the Spring 2013 issue of The Pneuma Review

The Situation of Post-Katrina New Orleans

The situation of Cradock in Portsmouth is not an anomaly. This is important to note. The city of New Orleans has various relevant examples. During Katrina in 2005, churches in New Orleans were ruined, communities were destroyed, some people were severely hurt and others even lost their lives. Even today—seven years later, churches in distressed communities of New Orleans continue to struggle to rebuild and many of the communities remain discombobulated. Considering the history of the Black Church,³⁵ the Rev. C.T. Vivian, who is a veteran civil-rights activist in Atlanta and former ministry colleague with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., developed a plan. He wanted to bypass the government and organize an ecumenical consortium of churches to work together towards rebuilding the churches and revitalizing the ramshackle urban communities. Rev. Vivian thought that he would be able to pull other predominant African American churches together in the ecumenical spirit of the Black Church to play a key role in revitalizing New Orleans.³⁶

There are thousands of well-to-do churches in America with ministers who are millionaires. Yet, the Church Supporting Churches organization in the hurricane-torn New Orleans has essentially failed in its efforts to revitalize several communities and churches. There is a national disparity of unified support in communities from churches. This problem has become a Christian travesty. The broken communities of New Orleans, like Cradock in Portsmouth, are sad examples of churches missing opportunities for collaborative and prophetic urban ministry.

The Bible, God, and the City

Many seminary and bible school graduates wrestle to connect the theological training they receive in the traditional seminary with doing ministry in the city. Much of today’s theological education system has been irresponsible in providing a necessary bridge between biblical, intellectual, and practical life in the city. This is partly due to stubborn methods for theological discourse. In Urban Ministry: An Introduction, Ronald E. Peters rightly comments that only theology that maintains a bottom-up perspective will continue to be relevant for ministry on the margins.³⁸ Thinkers such as Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, Juan Luis Segundo, James Cone, Gayroud Willmore, Cornell West, Roswith Gerloff, Jeremiah Wright and others have championed other approaches from bottom-up perspectives. In general, their work has sought to address the painful realities of social, political, and racial disenfranchisement associated with theology that produces inept ministry in distressed, urban-type communities.

Evangelical theology, moreover, struggles to appropriate its focus. One the one hand, it is community-focused in that it places a premium on evangelism. On the other hand, it fails to engage people in their everyday situations. Its top-down approach to theology emphasizes the church’s own agenda in the community to “save souls” but seems oblivious to the biblical call to liberate the oppressed and care for the degraded. God, as perceived by such theology, seems to care mostly about people who read scripture and obey. But how might a distressed and impoverished urban dweller perceive this evangelical understanding of obedience? If getting someone to escape to heaven is all that matters, ⁴⁰ then their everyday cares and chronic desperation means nothing.

Sexual abuse is a serious and uncomfortable subject that church leaders cannot afford to ignore. To introduce pastors and Christian leaders to one resource available to them, The Pneuma Review will be printing chapters from The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused, edited by Andrew J. Schmutzer. Part 2 of Andrew J. Schmutzer’s chapter, “A Theology of Sexuality and its Abuse: Creation, Evil, and the Relational Ecosystem” continues in the Fall 2013 issue, followed by more questions and answers about the chapter.

The Fall 2013 issue will include excerpts from Craig S. Keener’s two volume Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts.

Some reviews to look for in the Fall 2013 issue:
Paul J. Palma reviews Who is the Holy Spirit? A Walk with the Apostles (Paraclete Press, 2011), by Pentecostal scholar Amos Yong.
Stephen M. Vantassel reviews A Faith Embracing All Creatures: Addressing Commonly Asked Questions about Christian Care for Animals (Cascade Books, 2012), edited by Tripp York and Andy Alexis-Baker.

In Depth Reviews
Recently added to the In Depth Resources index.

Editor’s Note: now available on PneumaReview.com

D. Stephen Long and George Kalantzis, eds., The Sovereignty of God Debate (Cascade, 2009). Reviewed by Bernie A. Van De Walle.

Matthew E. Gordley, Teaching through Song in Antiquity: Didactic Hymnody among Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians (Mohr Siebeck, 2011). Reviewed by David Seal.

Robert A. Muthiah, The Priesthood of All Believers in the Twenty-First Century: Living Faithfully as the Whole People of God in a Postmodern Context (Pickwick, 2009). Reviewed by John R. Miller.

J. Keir Howard, Medicine, Miracle and Myth in the New Testament (Wipf & Stock, 2010). Reviewed by David Seal.

Marcia W. Mount Shoop, Let the Bones Dance: Embodiment and the Body of Christ (John Knox Press, 2010). Reviewed by Timothy Lim Teck Ngern.

Chad Tyler Gerber, The Spirit of Augustine’s Early Theology: Contextualizing Augustine’s Pneumatology (Ashgate, 2012). Reviewed by Tony Richie.

Margaret Elizabeth Kostenberger, Jesus and the Feminists: Who Do They Say That He Is? (Crossway, 2008). Reviewed by Mara Lief Crabtree.

An interview with Andrew Schmutzer about The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused, and part 1 of his chapter, “A Theology of Sexuality and its Abuse: Creation, Evil, and the Relational Ecosystem” as appearing in Pneuma Review Summer 2013.

 
A Theology of Sexuality and its Abuse—Part 1 A Theology of Sexuality and its Abuse—Part 2

Interview 2 Interview 3

Note from the Editors: Beginning a conversation about sexual abuse is uncomfortable, but we feel strongly that this topic is something the church needs to address. We believe the testimonies of authentic recovery can help us embrace the pain of the hurting and make openings for God to bring healing.

Pneuma Review: Are seminaries preparing church leaders to deal with sexual abuse?

Andrew Schmutzer:

Andrew J. Schmutzer discussing The Long Journey Home in 2011, by Lulu Hé. Courtesy of Moody Bible Institute.

Historically, no; but some are now trying. Abuse trauma is not simple and trying to train for the complexity of abuse—something that wasn’t even discussed in churches 15 years ago—begins to show the magnitude of this challenge. Seminaries need to start offering (requiring?) courses on a theology of sexuality and its legal and pastoral implications. Academic programs need far more team-teaching from different professionals. Just bringing in a survivor for the class to interact with would make a serious contribution toward pastoral preparation. Issues in sexuality are utterly exploding on so many fronts today: from gender-bending among youth and same-sex “rights” to the ever-present plague of sexual abuse. There are many expectations on our seminaries, and pastors are pulled in so many directions already, I understand that. But sexual abuse is a bleeder that must be tied off immediately. To be ill-equipped and ignorant of sexual abuse today is like living in tornado alley with no alarm system. It’s unacceptable. It’s a disaster itself.

More particularly, we’re going to have to network more between organizations, and frankly, embrace a more holistic anthropology that moves beyond the protracted gender wars and fear of therapy. More aggressive study of relational patterns (e.g., Family Systems Theory) and how power is heard and felt by victims is a practical issue that will have to be woven into standard leadership training and core curriculum—internships may need to become more apprentice-like. There is a complexity to the human-induced trauma of sexual abuse we’re only beginning to face. Unlike some addictions, one doesn’t choose to be a victim of sexual abuse, but the way we process this has not caught up to the complexities we’re now learning about how complex PTSD and mental health affect the entire person. Pastors need to understand: (1) the multi-factorial backdrop of sexual abuse (e.g., beliefs about sex, toxic family traditions, superficial healing rituals, cultural modes of thinking, etc.), (2) and the complex reasons that victims often go on to abuse others (i.e., trans-generational sexual abuse). Specialized training might need to look like continuing education classes or periodic seminars. It should go without saying, but church leaders need to stop avoiding passages in Scripture that address sexual perversion, rape, and standard biblical ethics.

Pastor, renewal leader, and scholar speaks with The Pneuma Review.

Pneuma Review: Tell us about where you come from, what God has done in your life, and what he has called you to be doing. 

Randy Clark:

I was raised in a Christian home as a Baptist, educated at a BaptistUniversity and Seminary, presently completing a doctor of ministry at a United Methodist seminary. I entered the ministry at 18 in 1970. I pastored for 30 years, and itinerated since 1994 while continuing to pastor until 2001 when I resigned to only itinerate. I have been married since July 1975. I have 4 adult children and three grandchildren.

I was healed at 18 and at 57, both times from serious conditions. I pastored in the General Baptist, United Church of Christ, American Baptist, Vineyard, and The Church of the Great Commission. I served on the council of the Association of Vineyard Churches. I founded the ministry called Global Awakening, then the Apostolic Network of Global Awakening. Also, founded the Global School of Supernatural Ministry, and the Christian Healing Certification Program. I was used by God to begin the Toronto Blessing revival in 1994. I started the Randy Clark scholars at United Theological seminary in Dayton, Ohio in 2013, where I am working on developing a Master of Divinity degree with a concentration in Renewal-Supernatural.

I am working around the world doing conferences, Schools of Healing and Impartation, and renewal meetings with a strong focus on healing and impartation.

PR: How has healing become a prominent part of your ministry?

Randy Clark:

When I was healed at 18, it kept me from losing my faith in the midst of liberal theological education. Healing led to experiencing revival. Healing and impartation for healing has created an opportunity for me to travel the world ministering. My doctoral dissertation is about healing, as are other dissertations by fellow students at the seminary.

PR: What kinds of healings have you seen take place?

Randy Clark:

Parkinson’s, MS, Paranoid Schizophrenia, bi-polar, cancers of many different kinds, strokes, blindness, deafness, couldn’t walk without crutches, scheduled amputations of leg below hip, below knee, and above ankle all healed and no amputations, loss of mobility and/or chronic pain from surgically implanted materials, many other types.

Richard Briggs offers a brief and accessible introduction to the Christian hermeneutical task of reading the Bible theologically. His experience as a teacher is evident throughout the work (he serves as Lecturer in Old Testament at Cranmer Hall, St. John’s College, Durham University, and he formerly taught New Testament). His concern is to demonstrate how Christians can “read the Bible wisely” and how they can “take scripture seriously” (p. 1). These concerns, according to Briggs, are deeper and broader than looking for the “right” interpretation of the Bible.

Briggs addresses his concern in three parts. Part One attends to the hermeneutical importance of context (historical, literary, and theological). Chapter 1 is a study of Luke 24 that serves to introduce the basic idea of biblical interpretation. Chapter 2 uses Luke 18 to show the importance of historical context. Luke 9:51 is the focus of Chapter 3, in which Briggs describes Scripture as a literary work. Utilizing a balanced and nuanced argument, Chapter 4 suggests eight reasons for reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. Then, as a way of demonstrating how to read the Old Testament, Chapter 5 provides an interpretation of the book of Isaiah.

These five chapters are short on theory and long on practice. The greatest strength of Part One lies in its use of Biblical examples to illustrate the hermeneutical task. However, many important hermeneutical concerns are omitted from the discussion because the bulk of the chapters consists of the interpretation of only a few biblical texts. Briggs is an engaging writer who expresses himself clearly, but he does not attempt to be comprehensive in his description of the hermeneutical process.

Part Two consists of three chapters that present Briggs’s view of Scripture. Chapter 6 examines 2 Tim. 3:16 and 2 Pet. 1:20-21 as a means of expounding on the inspiration of Scripture. For Briggs, the Bible is “filled with the spirit, or breath, of God” (p. 77), but it is also a book that comes to us through the human process of writing, transmission, and translation.

I enjoyed reading this book so much that I read it over a second time and then read separate chapters that were of particular interest. You may want to do the same. The book will give you a feel of Christianity through the ages. And you can return to chapters or sections that are of interest to you.

If you are not a Church historian, this book will be informative reading. MacCulloch not only analyzes the development of the Western Church, but also the various Eastern Churches. He looks at the rise of Islam and its interaction with the culture, growth and relationship to Christianity. MacCulloch also looks at the Roman Empire and its influence on Christianity and how the church used the Roman Empire to spread the gospel.

In regards to the rise of Islam, it is interesting but disappointing that the Western Church did not help the Eastern Church when Islam was converting Christian nations by the sword to Islam. It is to be noted that the Eastern Church did help France when they were attacked by Moslem armies and resulted in France being saved.

MacCulloch suggested that the Pentecostal church in the future will be amalgamated into the wider church. I can see that happening in the west as the line of demarcation becomes less distinguishable with other Christian groups but I am doubtful if this will happen in the third world.

Reviewed by Aldwin Ragoonath

Preview this book: www.goodreads.com/book/google_preview/7903841-christianity

As would be expected from a Christian musician who combines depth of experience with theological training, Michael Card balances devotional and scholarly insights. Motivated by his experiences among African American churches and their moving tendency to address Jesus as Master, Card uses both personal anecdotes and stories from the history of American slavery as a lens through which to take the reader on a journey through the old and new testament worlds of slavery, and particularly to draw out the new testament theme of Christian life being deliverance from one slavery, that of the world, into the freedom that comes only from setting apart Jesus as a new Master. The book is divided into three main parts, each of which engages the reader at the level of the imagination to allow stories of African American slavery to help illuminate Biblical contexts. The first and shortest articulates the beginning of Card’s aforementioned journey, namely among African American communities, and the inspiration from the early church that, in the words of Ignatius, a ‘better freedom’ comes only through setting apart Christ as Lord. He also describes something of the three contexts of Old Testament, New Testament and African American slavery. The first is dealt with somewhat swiftly (and one suspects potentially idealistically) and is not really mentioned after this brief treatment. The latter two he sees as similarly brutal and demeaning, and it is the New Testament witness, illustrated with African American stories, that he focuses on in the rest of the book.

The second, much lengthier, part of the book deals with the life and teaching of the apostle Paul and his emphasis on Christian discipleship as characterised by being a ‘slave of Christ’. Card’s focus on the theme is illuminating and the reader is struck by the sheer extent of such teaching and references to slavery throughout Paul’s life and writings. Of particular note is his insight that the Pauline words used to describe three of the greatest gifts of grace, namely justification, redemption and reconciliation, all come to us from the world of slavery. Being a slave of Christ, however, is not like the slavery to the world that oppresses people in captivity, but Christian disciples are freed from such an old life and freed to a discipleship that involves pleasing our Master, healing divisions through our common identity, and a life of service. Card admirably does not shy away from difficult questions and points out that although Paul was not ostensibly an abolitionist, this was because his main emphasis was that all Christians, slave or free, were to find their identity not in their literal freedom, or lack of it, but rather in their common identity of having Jesus as Master. Nevertheless, if they could, they should take their opportunity for freedom.