This is the third blog in a series I’ve called “Being church”. In this series I’ve tried to describe how church is actually a verb. When Christians gather together, we are not ‘church’ because we call ourselves a church or because we belong to a congregation or because we built a nice building with a steeple. We become church when we gather and live together in Christ-likeness. We become church as we bear-forth or incarnate the life and ministry of Jesus the Christ.

I’ll have more to say about what it means to be church in the next blog, but now I would like to move on to a description of a community in whom I experienced Christ and the Christian life more intensely, more intentionally, than anywhere else. Note especially how the Bishram community is made up of oppressed people who are reaching out to others who are oppressed. They sustain their communal life through fellowship, sharing whatever they have in common, giving to those who have need, reaching out to those beyond their community, and also through much prayer and study.

My encounter with Bishram Ministries in Nepal began vicariously a few years ago. My sister Patti had visited Nepal on a mission trip, worked with Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan of Bishram Ministries. She returned aglow with the radiant enthusiasm of a new convert. As she told me of their evangelistic ministry in Nepal, I tried to be an attentive brother to her, but truth be known I was rather dismissive of the whole thing. For one thing, Nepal is pretty far away from my daily concerns in Kansas City. And another, Patti and I are on different ends of the theological spectrum, and I was not too interested in her “brand” of evangelism. Proselytizing Hindus and Buddhists and converting them to Christianity is out of my spiritual comfort zone. Over the years, as she repeatedly asked me to travel with her to see Bishram ministry for myself, I politely but resolutely refused. After a while, however, my excuses were running out (especially since I was going to be on sabbatical for a year) and I finally said to her that I would need to hear about the ministry from someone more…well…more academically legitimate. Immediately, she replied that “Billy” “who taught somewhere in Dallas” could tell me about it. Well, the name “Billy” did not strike me as very authoritative, but I reluctantly agreed. Shortly, I received an email from Patti that was in effect a virtual handshake between “Billy” and myself. When I inspected the name on the email, it was none other than the respected theologian, William Abraham. Now, she had my attention.

Soon, Billy and I had a conversation about Bishram, and he convinced me that for many reasons I needed to go. So, I did in January 2008. And the rest of this story is about my experience of an amazing community that is the closest approximation of the early church in Acts chapter 2 that I have ever encountered. Do I now sound like a convert?

If I was going to go halfway around the world, I didn’t want to be just a spectator, so I offered to teach and preach as it would be useful to them. It was arranged for me to teach students in their school of ministry, to teach church leaders in a village, and then to preach whenever needed. I would arrive on Saturday, have Sunday to relax and recover from travel, then start teaching in the school of ministry on Monday. Patti would join us the following Thursday. Then we would travel to western Nepal so that Patti and I could teach in a 2 day conference.

Nepal is a study in stark contrasts. Fertile valleys and rich, biodiverse jungles stretch out  between majestic peaks of the Himalayan range. Nepal is an ancient civilization and slowly making its way into the 21st Century. With 80% of Nepali people being Hindu, Nepal is the only official Hindu state in the world. 10% are Buddhist; 4% are Muslim; and Christians are lumped in the “other” category with less than 1%.

Nepali culture is as beautiful and attractive as the awe-inspiring natural environment. The people are gentle, friendly, and family-oriented. Everywhere you see people walking arm in arm, talking freely, smiling and laughing easily. Their hospitality is legendary; as a culture, they give freely of whatever they have.

However, Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world that faces seemingly intractable obstacles. Their government is nearly incapacitated by incompetence, political infighting, insurgencies, and corruption. Fuel is scarce and only intermittently available. Electricity is on for a maximum of 16 hours a day. Maoist and Tarai factions extort money from people and businesses on a regular basis, and their political rallies can shut down whole sectors of the country. Nepali culture is highly stratified by a complicated and rigid caste system and an absolute hierarchy of men over women.

Sister Asangla, her family, and everyone in Bishram ministry were the Christian incarnation of that Nepali graciousness, attending to my every need. Without exaggeration, without hyperbole, the community of Bishram ministry is a communion that challenges what we have come to call “church” here in the US. Their faith is born and sustained in struggle, in lack, in suffering. They experience and witness to God’s miraculous and transformative power in very real and tangible ways. To be with them – even for a short while – is to be convicted of my (our) idolatrous need for material goods and financial security. They give sacrificially; whereas, for the most part we give out of our surplus. The grace by which they live day to day amidst hardship exposes the materialistic poverty of our faith. As I returned to the US, I left convicted of my many spiritual limitations.

What exactly is Bishram Ministries? I must confess it took me a while to understand it, to get the whole picture. Structurally, Bishram is centered in Kathmandu, the capitol city of about 800,000, and is founded and led by Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan, both of whom were working in different churches prior to founding Bishram in 2001. Their mission was to form disciples in a transformative community that is always in mission. As I have said, Nepali society is highly stratified between classes and genders. Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan (of Brahmin lineage) joined together to create a biblical community where there is no division in Christ, and that is exactly what they are doing. As I experienced their communal life in the school of ministry and during the conference, I saw men serving and women leading, and people from all castes joined together in a common life. What the Spirit has done through them is to transform small bits of Nepali society into egalitarian communions that aim to accept, nurture, and disciple each person in the community. It is truly humbling and inspiring to experience such a transformative communion, in which people’s lives are radically changed and through which the community becomes a ‘city on a hill’ that itself proclaims the gospel by the sacrificial love of one for another (John 17:21).

Right now, the central community in which Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan are the leaders is the mother church of a loosely structured Bishram organization. There are other smaller congregations in the Kathmandu area, and still more church communities that have been founded in villages and towns across Nepal. Over the few years since the founding of Bishram, the Bishram mother church has prepared and sent ministers to start new Christian communities, and these become ‘daughter’ churches. These daughter churches range from very small in number to 150 or so believers. Each of the congregations are unique, for each is a manifestation of the indigenous culture of their specific context. This is to say that Bishram does not try to duplicate itself; it doesn’t franchise itself. Rather, their intention is for the gospel to be planted within a particular community and for the church to emerge organically as a Christian incarnation of that culture.

The Bishram mother church is the hub of several important ministries. First, there is the school for ministry that Brother Temjen, Asangla’s very capable brother, directs. This is primarily a residential school that trains people to be leaders in existing churches or to start church communities in other areas. People who have the potential and the drive to serve the church in leadership are sent to live in the school for 2 – 3 years. Of course, these students are poor and have no livelihood while they are in school, so they must depend upon Bishram ministries to support them for all of their needs.

The school has an academic curriculum that itself is challenging and transformative for the students, many of whom have only minimum education when they arrive and very little if any theological training. But the school is a community in and of itself in which the students learn a very different, and more communal, way of life. They live together and share just about everything in common. They unlearn the oppressive divisions of caste and gender. They practice spiritual disciplines of study, prayer, and mission. Words fail to convey the intensity and transformative power of the school of ministry. I’ve seen the lives that have been radically changed: a drug addict who writes and performs Christian music that is used in many of the churches, an untouchable woman (the lowest caste) who has become a leader and teacher in a church. These are only two of many whose lives have been radically reoriented and redeemed, whose gifts and talents are now contributing to the church’s life and mission.

The school for ministry is like the heart of the Bishram organization for it takes in those whose lives seem to be depleted and used up. The school involves them in a redemptive community in which they discover their gifts and are given the skills to use their gifts effectively. They are equipped and sent out into the body of Christ to build it up, to edify it, to renew it.

A second focus of Bishram ministries is to administrate and develop the network of churches. Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan are in regular communication with the pastors and leaders of their daughter churches, in order to train them and to support them in any way they can. Bishram has developed a creative network of teachers who travel among Bishram churches and other churches to teach and encourage the people in their faith and daily life. Most of these pastors need supplemental income to survive, and the mother church supports them as much as possible. However, funds are very tight as you might imagine, so pastors and church planters have to be self-reliant as well.

Bishram has always been concerned with not only the spiritual but the material needs of people. The third aspect of their ministry is to cultivate external relations (e.g., other ministry organizations) to bring in medical missions and job training, for example.

These three forms of ministry are all evangelistic and missional; they are means of spreading and incarnating the Word of God. Because it is illegal to proselytize and to evangelize through mass media, the primary way that people hear the Word of God is for Christians to witness to them, personally, by word of mouth. So, the believers in Bishram churches share their faith, they share their experiences of God’s transforming power, they talk about the new way of life they find in Christ, and they invite others to experience it for themselves in worship services and bible studies. In this respect, each believer is cultivated to become an evangelist.

Bishram churches are like congregations, but I hesitate to call them congregations because to American ears that word may give a wrong impression. In America we have so compartmentalized our lives that we tend to think of congregations as institutions that exist side-by-side with other institutions and to which we dedicate part of our time. Because daily life is very difficult in Nepal, and Christianity is a very small minority, I cannot stress enough the life-giving nature of their Christian community, a communion in which they share a common life and share one another’s burdens, and lift each other up in love. Of course, there are degrees of involvement among the ‘believers’ and others who attend (they emphasize belief and discipleship rather than ‘membership’).

But it is important to get a sense for the intense and sustained life these people share with each other throughout the week. Obtaining basic necessities is a daily struggle, and most people endure great hardship and suffering. Because of grossly inadequate sanitary conditions, many are quite ill. There is an interdependence in the Bishram community that most Americans can scarcely imagine: they depend upon one another for their very lives. They are in small groups together and talking to one another throughout the week. In many respects, the Bishram churches are their life. For those who have converted from other religions and have been shunned by their families, the Bishram community has become their closest family and provides a life-line of survival.

Ok, I am a convert. This is the real deal. I have never encountered a Christian community that so closely approximates Acts chapter 2, in which an oppressed community gathers daily to break bread, shares their possessions, studies and prays, ministers in the marketplace, and rejoices in the gracious love of God who does great and awesome things among them. My experience with Bishram has profoundly affected me; I have returned a better disciple of Christ.

In the next blog, I will try to draw these three examples together and come up with some principles for what the church is and how we can be more fully the church.

The Season of Passion has always been the most significant rhythm of the year for me as a spiritual pilgrim. One of my earliest memories of the church is sitting in the three hour Good Friday service – my Dad preaching one of the “seven last words” – and my mother singing, in her rich pain filled voice, “he was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (I found out years later that my mother felt despised at the core of her being, deeply acquainted with the grief of having been beaten and bruised by her father when she was a little girl). What I remember about those three hour marathons was how I felt. For me, sitting in those dark pews in dark sanctuaries with dark music and dark words was very comforting. Somehow I felt safe – sure that the love of God in the story of a sad and suffering Jesus was enough to protect me, no matter what. And, that nothing could ever separate me from the dependable arms of a dependable God..

And yet, as I’ve grown in the Christian faith, I have found myself very uncomfortable with the traditional theory of atonement. The idea that Jesus suffered FOR me simply doesn’t match that childhood experience of Jesus suffering/living/ fearing WITH me. And so, a theory of substitutionary atonement simply doesn’t work for me. In addition, as a decades old feminist, I am all too aware of how “suffering for others” has become the expected Christian script for women in a way it has never defined men.

And yet, I am also beginning to realize that when we turn Jesus into a fellow sufferer, instead of a mighty savior, we can also fall into a diminishment of God that leaves our faith strangled by human finitude.

Recently, as I march resolutely toward the age of 60, I am all too aware of my human finitude. My back gave out in November – and I had to actually cancel out on a pastor’s trip to Nicaragua – a humiliating realization that I am not in charge, and that my leadership is expendable. And my now daily routines of stretching and sitting a certain way and anticipating twinges of pain have permanently destroyed the illusion that I am still a “young woman.” Combine that with a daily glimpse of wrinkles and brown spots - and the horrifying experience of trying to find a mother-of the-bride dress that doesn’t scream “matronly” – well, I now know in a new and visceral way that I am not omnipotent and eternal. So, thank God, God is!

And so, I am even more grateful for the story – for the reality – of the cross, Yes, as the arms of the cross continue to hold me tight, I know that God is WITH me in every moment of sorrow and suffering, pain and disappointment, anger and doubt – and in every moment of sin and brokenness and violence and greed in this badly bruised world. God does not do FOR us what we must and can do as the image of God in the world. God does not rescue us from the darkness of living, but holds and pushes and prods and challenges and saves and loves in the midst of it all.

BUT, as a seasoned servant of life, I also know that there is a kind of darkness and brutality and tragedy and horror that I simply can’t endure as a finite human being – and it is at those moments, that God suffers FOR me and FOR you and FOR the world which God loves.

AT-ONE-MENT with God. Sometimes it’s up to you and sometimes its up to me. Sometimes it’s up to God and us together. And sometimes it’s only up to God. AT-ONE-MENT is a dance – and it is a dance that celebrates the complexity and confusions of life. And it is a dance where the human and divine partners share the privilege of taking the lead – as the music and patterns continue to unfold.

May it be so!

Having recently been ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), I pay attention at Presbytery meetings when new ministers are being questioned for ordination or transfer. Two confessions about my attentiveness:  

1. I’m glad it is them and not me up there. It’s intense. 
2. Code words from the new minister’s statement of faith jump off the page when I
read, especially in the Scripture section. words like inerrant and infallible.
The question that comes on the floor of Presbytery about the authority of scripture is not often asked as an authentic theological question, but more of a litmus test. Sadly, scripture’s authority has been an issue that has driven the church into camps. And both camps are guilty of the division.

Last week I read a piece by Walter Brueggemann that helped me reframe this issue. The authority of scripture is not about science and history and certitude. No, Brueggemann claims it is about the authorizing voice of Scripture, and how it empowers communities to live and hope and act in new and transforming ways. Whose is that authorizing voice other than God, the one revealed in the text? I’m left wondering what the difference is between scripture being authoritative and scripture being revelatory.

All Presbyterian elders, deacons, ministers of Word and Sacrament are asked if they believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to them. It is a deeply serious question. Even the language of this question, it seems to me, points to revelation. The Scriptures are an authoritative witness—they point to and testify about and reveal Jesus Christ.

This Presbyterian does not believe in the Bible, but she does believe in God.
I believe in God who has been revealed to me through the words and narratives and miracles and convictions of the Old and New Testaments. I believe in God whose voice summons me to the work of justice and care, to the labor of love and peace.

I recently met with three siblings who lost their mom. Reminiscing over her 90 plus years, they told stories of cardboard dollhouses, cub scouts, and a mother’s love that flowed in and around every corner. They went on to tell me that their mom had started working later in life for a Homes Association. That Association, put together years before civil rights, had bylaws that prohibited African-Americans from renting or owning homes. So this gentle white haired employee took her hand to the White Out. She obliterated any sign of printed discrimination on the documents she sent to new homeowners and tenants. Where did she learn such boldness in the face of bigotry?

Someone was revealed to this woman.  A Holy One. One who spoke through ancient words like, “blessed are the peacemakers” and who was revealed in ancient words like “there is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus.” And isn’t this what we want Scripture to do?  To reveal and to empower?

Brueggemann goes on to say Scripture is “infallible” in the sense that it authorizes a way of living and believing that without fail leads us to the work of peace and kindness, self-control and joy. So, perhaps next time I’m reading a statement of faith or hearing the litmus test being administered on Presbytery floor, I will resist the camp mentality. I pray that I will trust that, like me, my brothers and sisters have experienced God being revealed to them in the book—in the text, which is enough for life. The Bible tells me so.

Jim Burklo got me thinking. In his most recent post (Progressive Christian Elevator Speeches) he identifies the difficulty congregations have these days in knowing how to talk about ourselves.  Even more difficult is talking about ourselves in a way that makes sense to the community at large.  We used to be the “Mainline church,” but we held a memorial service for that term some time back.  Burklo speaks of the desire to describe himself as “progressive,” but acknowledges that this term is increasingly cluttered as well.  Lacking a general term, he opts for what he calls “tag lines.” I would encourage you to read the full list, but a sampling includes:

I’m a progressive Christian who
* keeps the faith and drops the dogma
* experiences God more than I believe in any definition of God
* thinks that God is bigger than anybody’s idea about God

These tag lines speak a fresh corrective to a church that at times has placed a premium on “faith” as belief, while downplaying faith as action.  The present day church has learned anew that Christianity is something that is practiced.  It is not simply believed; it is lived.
In addition, these tag lines question the historical conversation about who God is and how God has been understood and they prioritize the Christian’s personal experience of God. It was Isaiah who confessed, “I saw the Lord high and lifted up.”  This is experiential worship.  Far too often, the people of God gather for worship with absolutely no expectation that God will show up. Burklo rightly asserts experience matters.   

However, as much as I like these tag lines, I also find them raising troubling questions.  Why is it necessary to separate experience from tradition or creed? Our ideas about God are surely limited. Our language falters under the weight of the truth we seek to speak. No definition of God will be adequate.  But the same is true for our experience of God.  God is bigger than our experience. To suggest that God be defined by my experience alone is reductionist.  The present day church that fails to learn how to hold our experience of God in conversation with the tradition of the church impoverishes itself. After all, the tradition of the church is the testimony of how generations before have experienced God.

One suspects, that the tension between experience and tradition may have less to do with testimony that is deemed outdated or passé, and has more to do with problems that emerge when I cannot define God on my own.  The taglines are presented not as statements defining a “church” but rather a Christian.   American culture does individualism well.  The tradition is the voice of community. It is the shared conversation of how God has been known in generations gone by.  However, as long as my experience governs my understanding of God, I don’t have to be bothered with how others experience God.  Experience matters.  But the experience of an undefined God may run  the risk of experiencing an unknown God.  

If I were to add a tag line or two, I might suggest:

I am a progressive Christian who knows
-Tradition matters: the movement of God’s Spirit today has integrity with the movement of God’s Spirit yesterday, today and every day.
 -Community matters: a faith revealed as love cannot be lived alone.
-Ideas matter: God is bigger than but not removed from our ideas, and can be found in our testimonies.

Since The Center for Progressive Christianity came into being in 1994, it has succeeded in widely spreading the term “progressive Christian” around the world.  It embraces a pluralistic spirituality, inclusion of people who have been traditionally excluded from the church, openness to metaphorical interpretations of Christian tradition, and commitment to practicing the faith to make the world a better place.

But now it can be said that there are two kinds of progressive Christianity in America.  In the last few years, the term “progressive Christian” has begun to be used by evangelical Christians who are disaffected from right-wing politics.    Their definition of “progressive Christian” is mostly a political one; they tend to have orthodox, traditional views about religion while standing for economic justice and peace.

By contrast, The Center for Progressive Christianity does not define progressive Christianity in political terms.  It’s 8 Point Welcome Statement embraces people of all sorts of persuasions.  Our movement is committed to inclusiveness at many levels. We care a lot about justice, peace, and environmental responsibility, but we recognize that there are many different ways to approach these goals.  While we encourage political activism, we care even more about values that are more enduring than current political passions.

So it is more important than ever for us to be clear about what we mean when we say we are progressive Christians.  For years I’ve been writing and collecting “tag lines”, short phrases that we can share with others about the kind of Christianity we represent.  Lots of folks are embarrassed to call themselves Christians, because of all the bad things that have been done in the name of our faith, and particularly by the traditional Christian claim that Christianity is the only true religion.  Our progressive Christian movement is about  re-imagining and re-defining our religion, boldly reclaiming our identity, and finding succinct ways to express it:

I’m a progressive Christian who

* keeps the faith and drops the dogma
* experiences God more than I believe in any definition of God
* thinks that my faith is about deeds, not creeds
* takes the Bible seriously because I don’t take it literally
* thinks spiritual questions are more important than religious answers
* cares more about what happens in the war-room and the board-room than about what happens in the bedroom
* thinks that other religions can be as good for others as my religion is good for me
* goes to a church that doesn’t require you to park your brain outside before you come inside
* thinks that God is bigger than anybody’s idea about God
* thinks that God evolves

Do you have any “elevator speeches” you’d like to add to this list?

“Kingdom of God” may well be one of the most common phrases in Christian parlance.  According to the Gospel accounts, it was on Jesus’ mind and tongue a lot.  A whole generation (at least) of theologians, church leaders and members sought to “bring in” the Kingdom by applying the ethical teachings of Jesus.  One seminary I know has a “Kingdom Conference” once (or is it twice?) a year, bringing in well-known scholars, preachers, missionaries and representatives of all sorts of ministries, all seeking to describe, explain and embody the reign of God.

So, what about the psychology of the Kingdom?  An odd idea?  I’m reading a book by Robert C. Roberts: Spiritual  Emotions: A Pscyhology of Christian Virtues (Eerdmans, 2007).  In the chapter on humility, he reflects on the “psy-chological structure” of the kingdom of God, which is love: “That kingdom [of God] is a society in which each member is so surrounded by and conscious of focused love – both the love of his [sic] God and fellow creatures – that measures and inequalities of the kind that preoccupy us in the current order of things fade into the background of inattention,” (p. 90).  Here is a rendering of Jesus’ response to the religious leader about the greatest command-ment, to which Jesus added the second: “You shall love the Lord your God…and your neighbor as yourself.”  We get the ethics of this command, but do we get the psychology?   

Now, we cognitively “get” all the talk about love within the kingdom of God.  Christians are good at talking about love.  Maybe it’s because we don’t experience it that much, which is a true tragedy.  Maybe it is because it does not penetrate the psychological structure of our souls.  Admittedly, Roberts is really talking about humility, but he shows how the deep penetration of divine love into our hearts – into our psychological structures – is a necessary step on the way to what he calls the virtue emotions like humility. 

A quick aside: talk of humility can quickly elicit a suspicious response.  Feminist and other forms of liberation thought have shown us that when people in power start talking about humility, it mostly turns out to be something that others (i.e., not the ones advocating it) should take up.  I want to acknowledge this tendency.  But if I under-stand Roberts, then even the powerful in the kingdom of God, with psychological structures permeated by divine love, become willing to lose their lives (position, status, prerogatives, control), in order to have the life of the king-dom.

I’m not naïve (I think?  Hope?) about the radical change involved in this sort of Kingdom love transforming our psychological structures.  To experience it usually involves a prior and ongoing death struggle.  But I am taken by the vision: the transformation of psychological structures that show the love of God.  It is, after all, the heart of the Gospel. 

In my previous entry I shared some reflections on a friend and colleague who died over the summer—Brevard Childs.  In this entry I want to reflect on the life and contributions of Letty Russell, another friend and colleague who also died a few months ago.

 The obituaries on Letty all noted that she was a feminist theologian, which is an honorable thing to be.  I think if I were writing the obituaries I would have said simply that she was a very good theologian.  She was a feminist, indeed, and a passionate one.  She was also a life long member of Reformed (Presbyterian and UCC) churches, and that perspective was also evident in her living and writing.  And she was deeply, persistently, naggingly committed to a more just and open church in a more just and open world.

 She was probably not the first theologian to find in the Hebrew term shalom the heart of what she thought of as God’s vision for the world.  But she centered on shalom more wholeheartedly than any other Christian I know.  She wrote on shalom, taught shalom and served as host at shalom meals.

 For her shalom meant not only “peace” but “wholeness” “justice” “equity.”

 Her vision of the church was of a community gathered around a round table, where everyone could see everyone else and where no one sat at the head of the table or at the foot.  I will however add that I noted that whenever the rest of us sat at a dinner table or a committee table or a classroom table with Letty, the table may have been round but we always knew who was really in charge.

 In addition to her strong stress on shalom she brought two major gifts to doing theology from a feminist perspective.

 For one thing she really was concerned for justice for people of all sorts and conditions.  Racial inequality and economic inequality annoyed her just as much as gender inequality.

 For another thing, annoyed as she could be at Christian tradition and critical as she could be of our canon, she was first and foremost a lover and interpreter of Scripture.

 Tuesday, at the memorial service in Letty’s honor, Professor Yolanda Smith danced a beautiful tribute to her life and ministry.  As she entered the sanctuary to dance her memorial to Letty, Yolanda held the Bible high.

 Letty was a remarkable woman.  Requiescat in shalom.

During this summer two of my friends and colleagues died.  Each had made significant contributions to theological education and to the church.  In some ways their theological commitments were strikingly different, but they shared a fierce devotion to the Bible and an unshakeable conviction that scripture still speaks to contemporary people.  I want to write this month about Brevard Childs and next month about Letty Russell.

 Brevard Childs was an Old Testament scholar.  He began his career approaching biblical texts much as his contemporaries did—with a focus on a text’s original historical context.  But he also studied with Karl Barth, and under Barth’s influence he came to appreciate the ways in which the whole Bible is always greater than its parts and to believe that the power of scripture is not limited to the history behind scripture.

 Childs became the leading proponent of what came to be called a canonical approach to the Bible.  This strategy for biblical interpretation made two claims.  First, what scholars and preachers and all Christian readers are supposed to interpret is the biblical text in its canonical form—as the church has accepted and loved it.  He wasn’t nearly as interested in the sources behind Genesis as he was in Genesis itself and what counted for his reading of Matthew was not so much how Matthew used Mark or the elusive Q but how Matthew told the story in his own terms.

 The second claim was that we should read the whole canon as a series of text in a kind of ongoing conversation.  Childs’ commentary on Exodus was a stunning example of learning to read the Old Testament texts in conversation with other Old Testament texts and how to read Exodus in the light of its use in the New Testament.

 My suspicion is that his work will be seen more as a corrective to other movements in biblical studies than as a movement all by itself, but in the light of his work, all of us do stand corrected.

 What was clearest about Childs was that he was driven above all by theological interests.   Put more simply he was driven by his profound Christian faith.  Many of us would have disagreed with him about the scope of that faith—especially as it related to issues of social justice.  (He was in favor of social justice; he just wasn’t sure it was the subject for preaching or exegesis).  But what was clearest in his writing and his preaching and his argument and his prayers was the profound conviction that the God who is God is revealed in Jesus Christ and that scripture bears witness to that revelation.

 Requiescat in pacem.