March 2000
Back Issues

Contents

• 35th Anniversary Celebration!
• Join Emmanuel for Breakfast at the World Convention
• Meditation: The Most Difficult Word in the Bible
• Book Review: Beyond Sectarianism: Re-Imaging Church and World and Life on the Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community
• Clipnotes (alumni news)
• Faculty Notes
• Development & Recruitment on the Road
• DMin Quote of the Month
• 2000 Doctor of Ministry Course Schedule

35th Anniversary Celebration!

Plan to join the Emmanuel family for this special celebration! n

Join Emmanuel for Breakfast at the World Convention

The 15th World Convention of Churches of Christ will be held in Brisbane, Australia, August 2–6, 2000.

Emmanuel President C. Robert Wetzel will host a special “get-acquainted” breakfast on Friday, August 4, during the convention. Beginning at 7:30 a.m., it will be held at the Brisbane Convention Center.

The cost for the breakfast is $15 per person. Tickets may be purchased by sending a check to Emmanuel School of Religion. For more information about the breakfast, call the Office of the President at (423) 461-1510 or email PresOffice@esr.edu.

For more information about the World Convention, email worldconv@aol.com or visit the World Convention web site at http://members.aol.com/worldconv/. n

Meditation:
The Most Difficult Word in the Bible

by R. Glen Miles (MDiv. ’88)

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome “that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” That is grace. It is the most difficult word in the Bible. As soon as we encounter a word like this one we have the tendency to try and place guidelines and regulations around it. These efforts are often sincere and they usually come from folks who truly want to imitate Christ. But sometimes their work produces some silly ideas. Do you remember that church in the old west with a bylaw that read, “no member shall drink, smoke, play cards or fraternize with Methodists?” We can argue about the merits (or demerits) of drinking, smoking and card playing if you want, but I have known a few Methodists and most of them were okay! Do you see what silliness can come from the sincerest of attempts to try to decipher who gets in and who gets left behind?

Go to the upper room. Who is there with Jesus for the Last Supper? One who would betray, one who would deny, others who would runaway and hide. What does Jesus do? Lecture them on appropriate behavior? Tell them what they need to do to “get saved?” No. Instead, he invites them to eat the bread and drink from the cup. Because they have earned it? No. Because it is a gift freely given from God no matter who they are or where they have been? Yes.

Grace is a difficult word. But it is the first and last word of the Bible. n

Book Review

Beyond Sectarianism: Re-Imaging Church and World

Life on the Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community

By Philip D. Kenneson
Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999

Reviewed by Robert F. Hull Jr. Professor of New Testament

The first book is a contribution to the series “Christian Mission and Modern Culture,” a project of the Institute of Mennonite Studies designed to examine aspects of modern and postmodern culture in relation to the mission of the church.

Kenneson observes that the fifteen-century–long marriage between the church and secular power in the West is over. The question he engages is: What model of church should replace the defunct “Christendom” model in which the state was a prop for the church? The thesis of this book is that the church most faithfully embodies the gospel when it lives as a “contrast-society,” a community that models a way of life fundamentally different from the life of “the world.” The church as “contrast-society” is often labeled “sectarian” (Mennonites, Amish, and all historic “peace churches,” for example). Kenneson investigates this charge, rejects it, and challenges the church to move “beyond sectarianism.”

He shows that there is no neutral use of the word “sect.” Every context of usage assumes a norm or “mainstream” and defines the alternatives as “sectarian.” He points out that the earliest church was, in many regards, “sectarian” in its difference from the wider society, both Greco-Roman and Jewish. There is no monolithic, universal “human community” to which the church must conform in order to bear its witness. Instead, there are various ways of construing reality, various “stories” that define the way people live. Why should the church, which lives by the power of the “master narrative” of God’s saving work in Israel and Jesus, submit that narrative to correction by some other “master narrative,” such as Western liberal democracy?

Kenneson holds that the church in the West needs to “regard the world not as a separate place, but as a way of life ordered by a set of narratives, practices, and convictions that is at odds with those narratives, practices, and convictions the church is called to embody as a condition of its discipleship to Jesus Christ” (87). Such a community will move beyond the label “sectarian” and recover its mission as a “contrast-society.”

What would the church as “contrast-society” look like? Here is where the second book richly complements the first one. Whereas the former book is a critical analysis in sometimes technical language, Life On the Vine is more like an extended meditation on Galatians 5:22–25. It is a diagnosis of a seriously ill church and a prescription for its healing. Kenneson challenges Christians to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit so as “to embody before the world in all its relationships the kind of reconciled and transformed life that God desires for all of creation” (34). A major strength of Kenneson’s analysis of the virtues of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control is that he understands them all to be the reflected glory of God’s own character.

Emmanuel School of Religion has ample reason to be grateful for the work of this alumnus, who is Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Milligan College. n

Clipnotes

BILL TINGLE (MAR ’82) and his family completed their furlough relief assignment with CMF in Kiramu, Ethiopia, in April 1999. They moved back to Elizabethton, Tennessee in October 1999. n

Paul M. Blowers presented a series of three lectures for the Abilene Christian University Bible Lectureships in Abilene, Texas, on February 22.

Eleanor A. Daniel led a Bible Study Workshop for the Women’s Retreat at First Christian Church in Johnson City, Tenn., March 4. She will attend a joint Emmanuel and Pepperdine faculty retreat in Johnson City, Tenn. March 24-26. Dr. Daniel will lead an Adult Education Seminar at West Towne Christian Church in Knoxville, Tenn. March 31–April 1. She will attend the TCM Board Meeting April 7–9, and the Mission Service Board Meeting April 14. Dr. Daniel’s book A Primer for Christian Teachers has been published in Polish.

JACK B. HOLLAND will teach a parenting class on Wednesday evenings in April and May at Boones Creek Christian Church in Gray, Tenn. He will attend the “Belief and Bioethics” conference at the Center for Biomedical Ethics of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville March 15–16. Dr. Holland is reviewing Authentic Sexuality by Balswick and Balswick for the journal Leaven.

ROBERT F. HULL is speaking at Unicoi Christian Church on “Men, Women, and Church Leadership” March 8, 15, and 22.

FRED W. NORRIS will present a paper on missions at the Emmanuel/Pepperdine faculty retreat March 25. He is serving as a consultant on contextualization and ethics for the Christian Missionary Fellowship Mexico City Team. Dr. Norris has an article titled “Gregory of Nazianzus” in the Biological Dictionary of Christian Theologians, eds. Patrick Carey and Joseph Lienhard (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000).

ROBERT J. OWENS will teach the series “I Believe in Life Everlasting” to the Sunday Adult Forum of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Johnson City, Tenn., March 12–April 9.

ROLLIN A. RAMSARAN reviewed John D. Harvey’s book Listening to the Text: Oral Patterning in Paul’s Letters (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998) for Review of Biblical Literature. You can see his review online at http://www.bookreviews.org/Print/0801022002-P.html.

BRUCE E. SHIELDS will preside at the Annual Meeting of Members and Board of the European Evangelistic Society at First Christian Church in Johnson City, Tenn., April 9–11. He will attend and function as a member of the Steering Committee of the Association of Doctor of Ministry Education at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, April 27–19. Dr. Shields will play with the Johnson City Symphony Orchestra and Bristol Ballet Company March 31. n

DAVID FULKS to Minnesota Bible College, Alberta Bible College, West Virginia University, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Penn State University, and Lincoln Christian College-East in March; to Atlanta Christian College and Georgia Tech in April. He will attend the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals in Atlanta, Ga., in April.

DAN LAWSON to Iowa and Southern California in March; to Colorado and Arizona in April; and to Kansas and Oklahoma in May.

JERRY RUDBERG to Seattle, Renton, and Edmonds, Wash., and to Salem, Coquille, Myrtle Point, and Portland, Ore., in March; to Vancouver, Wash., Twin Falls, Idaho, and to Portland, Burns, Tigard, and Hillsboro, Ore., in April. To Boise, Nezperce, Meridian, and Grangeville, Idaho, to Pomeroy, Renton, Edmonds, and Dayton, Wash., to Enterprise, Imbler, Redmond, Cloverdale, and Bend, Ore., and to the Christian Heritage Conference at Wi-Ne-Ma Christian Camp in May.

C. ROBERT WETZEL to Emmanuel’s Western Scholarship Dinners in Oregon and Washington and to First Christian Church in The Dalles, Ore., Eastside Christian Church in Renton, Wash., and Lake Tapps Christian Church in Sumner, Wash., in March. To Haus Edelweiss in Heiligenkreuz, Austria, to teach Ukrainian students in April. To First Christian Church in Chicago, Illinois, May 7. n

DMin Quote of the Month

By Tim Campbell, MDiv '92 and current DMin student

"Entering the DMin program, I expected challenging classes, top-notch instructors, and the comradery of fellow colleagues in ministry. What I did not expect was how practical these classes would be and how much I would grow spiritually. My thanks to Emmanuel for not focusing just on ministry formation, but our own spiritual formation as well."

For information about Emmanuel’s Doctor of Ministry degree program contact Melissa Noble at 1-800-933-3771. n

2000 Doctor of Ministry Course Schedule