Author: Paul Burkhart

Let the Female Pastor Reformation begin!

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luther-95theses-humor-memeOn this blog, I currently have two running series I’m doing: “Reflections on Repentance” and “Women & the Church“. For these series, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research on those topics.

For the Women in Ministry series, I’ve been researching what, for me, is the biggest thing that gives me pause in my own egalitarian view in support of female pastors: the complete dearth of women leaders throughout the history of the whole Christian church. With a couple thousand years now of godly men (and women) looking at the same Scriptures I am, why have the vast majority of them come to the same view limiting women’s role?

Well, that’s another post for another time, but rest assured, as I’ve been researching this, I feel I’ve satisfied my concerns in this area. But that’s not what this (mostly tongue-in-cheek) post is about.

For my research for the repentance series, I keep ending up at the Reformation and its leaders. This got me thinking, and doing some math…

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I’ve got some problems with repentance (and how you people talk about it)

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belle-isle-bridge-long-walk This post is part of my 2013 Lent series: Reflections on Repentance.

Martin Luther famously kicked off the Reformation by saying the whole of the Christian life is one of repentance. In this, he was implying that it was not a singular moment, but rather a lifelong process. Yet, as I’ve lived life in the Church, I have found that this is not quite the way that most Christians talk about repentance, nor does it seem to be the way the Bible itself does.

If you ask your run-of-the-mill Christian convert, or even pastor or theologian, what repentance is, you will usually get some answer that involves the phrase “180 degrees” or talk about a change of your mind or turning away from a sin you do.

Good sermons and books on repentance will usually involve the Luther formula of using the Holy expectations of a Holy God to expose just how sinful we are, and then hitting us with just how radical God’s grace is in light of that. They will show us our need, trying to woo us to a God that forgives us. They try to expose even those sins hidden to ourselves or those that we hide from others or those that have beset us for years, and then invite us to “turn” from those things and instead trust God.

Sermons and books like this have contributed to beautiful moments in my life, drawing my heart to God and convicting me of my sins.

And yet, I have a problem with this. In these articulations of repentance, there seems to be a disconnect. A major, major disconnect.
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Intelligent Repentance: Hearing our Hearts

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[This is part of my 2013 Lent series: Reflections on Repentance.]

“Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink— even if you have no money!
Come, take your choice of wine or milk— it’s all free!
Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good?
Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food.

“Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David.
See how I used him to display my power among the peoples.
I made him a leader among the nations.
You also will command nations you do not know, and peoples unknown to you will come running to obey,
because I, the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, have made you glorious.”

Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near.
Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong.
Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them.
Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

— The writings of the Prophet Isaiah, Chappter 55, verses 1-9 Continue reading →

Lent & Repentance: Come & Mourn with Me Awhile

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ash-wednesday-faces-of-the-faithful-photos

This is part of my 2013 Lent series: Reflections on Repentance.]

Last week was Ash Wednesday, which begins the church season of Lent. On that day, hundreds of millions of people (perhaps even as much as a billion) went to quiet services and got ash crosses finger-painted on their foreheads.

It’s a strange act, but perhaps the most striking one in Christian tradition. It’s certainly my favorite.

No matter how widespread Christianity has been in the world, I can’t imagine there was ever a time in which the public mark of ashes on one’s face did not stir some sort of double-take from passers-by. Even to this day, it’s the most counter-cultural and outward thing many American Christians widely do.

Ashen forehead crosses are one of the few Christian traditions that is still ours, and hasn’t been co-opted by the wider culture, and thereby watered-down in its meaning or force.
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All new, free Lent vol.2 Mixtape is ready for download!

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lent-mixtape-2-coverToday, I’m really proud to make available the all new Lent Mixtape for this year. It’s a completely new batch of songs, none of which have been on any of my past mixtapes. I’ve been working on this one for a while and, as I say on the Mixtape page, it’s already serving me pretty well as a soundtrack for this year’s Lent. I hope it’s able to be the same for you. Just like the past Mixtapes, it’s free to stream, download, and share.

To also serve you in this time, be sure to check out last year’s Lent, Volume 1 Mixtape, my church’s Lent 2013 Prayerbook (pdf), as well as other Lent posts on this site.

Download last year’s Lent Mixtape (new one on Monday!)

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oldrich-kulhanek-lent-mixtapeIt’s Lent, which means it’s time for a new Church Season Mixtape. I have a completely new track list I’m working on for this year’s Lent, but it’s not quite done yet. So, for the weekend, I wanted to make available last year’s mixtape. I don’t know if I’ll keep it up after this weekend so get it now! It really is one of my favorite mixtapes I’ve done, and I think it turned out very well. So go to the listen/download page and enjoy. And share it with your friends!

Also, be sure to check out the dedicated tab above for all posts on Lent. I pray these resources help you have a fruitful time in his season.

Ash Wednesday Egalitarianism, or “Why do female preachers suck?”

/ Paul Burkhart / 11 Comments

paul-schrott-ash-wednesday-bwYes, that’s me in that picture. I love that picture. It’s been used in a few posts since it was taken a couple of years ago. This isn’t (just) because of some weird sense of narcissism that loves to see my face on my blog posts. Rather, this picture is a very meaningful reminder of one of the most formative nights in my Christian life.

I said in the beginning of this series on Women in the Church that for most of my life, I had been one of the staunchest defenders of male-led church leadership. I knew all the arguments, I believed the caricatures of the other side, and importantly, I had experienced that women made terrible preachers of sermons.

Now remember: this was “pre-conversion” Paul that was thinking these things. But still, as I had visited friend’s churches, listened to audio, and seen female televangelists, it was hard not to notice that I had never heard a “good” sermon offered by a woman. It seemed clear to me, then, that this unique “anointing” and “gifting” to preach was reserved for men.

Don’t get me wrong. I had received incredible guidance, teaching, and wisdom from women. But these had been in the contexts of schools, lectures, books, blogs, campus ministers, podcasts, and the wider world–not church sermons.

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Join liberti for Ash Wednesday tonight

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liberti-churchIf you find yourself in the Philly area, I just wanted to extend an invitation to you to join my church, liberti center city, tonight for our Ash Wednesday service. It will be a time of reflection, singing, prayer, imposition of ashes, and inviting into this year’s Holy Lent.

The service is tonight at 7pm sharp, at 17th and Sansom St. There is also free parking available.

A group of us will probably get dinner afterwards. So if you’re in Philly, and especially if Ash Wednesday is new to you, I encourage you to come on out and join us at the beginning of this Holy Lenten season.

Also, for the rest of the Lent season, liberti has put together a simple prayerbook to guide our times of meditation and reflection. The liberti Lent prayerbook is a highlight of my Lent every year, and so be sure not to miss out.

Weekend Photo Challenge: Home (the one to come)

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scotland-grave-1

This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is “Home“. (I put up a funny response yesterday. Today is the serious one.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about death recently. I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it’s because of that paradox of sanctification in which God grows us less by medicating us than by exposure therapy. Nothing exposes my inner-atheist like thinking about death and reminding myself of my shocking lack of confidence in the hereafter.

That’s why this prompt for this week struck me so much. Having moved a few times in my life to vastly different places, and with my parents having moved away from the last place in which I lived with them, I still don’t quite know what to call “home”.
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Weekend Photo Challenge: Home(screens) [a quick Android vs. Apple]

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is “Home“. Tomorrow, I’ll have a serious post on this topic but, for the weekend, I wanted to put up this fun one. Beware: people are passionate about this topic.

For my new job, I’ve been given an iPhone. The generosity of my company is wonderful, but an added benefit is that I get to compare this iPhone with my much-beloved Android phone.

Even after a week of having to spend most of my day on the iPhone, I can safely say I strongly prefer the Android. (I put up a little Facebook status to this effect and it started an amusing comment war amongst a few fanboys that I thought was pretty funny.)

At the end of the day, I know this discussion is all about personal preference and is not an objective argument. But I just wanted to post these pictures up of my two phone homescreens and ask one question:
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Lent 2013 is on the way. What are you doing?

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

Munch-melancholyNext Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, which kicks off Lent, the time of year in which we our sins and shortcomings weigh on our minds and shoulders a little more than usual, that we might feel their sting, and that might propel us to Christ.

Lent is always a very meaningful time for me spiritually. It is my most fruitful time of blogging and meditating, and I hope that today is similar. This is probably because I’m wired to be extra sensitive to the quieter, subtler movements of my own heart.

I can also be prone to despair over my inability to change or grow, but even in the midst of the difficulty and darkness of this season, there’s always the dawn of Easter ever-more cresting upon the Lenten horizon.

Historically, there have been many ways that the Church had engaged in this time, and so there is great freedom in how we might do that. This is how I’m engaging in Lent this season: Continue reading →

Women’s Ordination is indeed the end of the world

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

Delaunay-City-Paris
We’ve spent a few weeks focusing on Genesis—the beginning of our story as Christians—and seeing what cues we can draw from it regarding our continuing discussion of women’s roles in churches. Having done that, I thought it might now be helpful to check out what implications the end of our story might hold for us.

After a few generations of bad (or incomplete) teaching, Western churches are, I think, reconnecting with the accurate Christian doctrine of heaven. The sense I get is that more and more of us are regaining the belief that the final heaven is not some abstract, ethereal, disembodied existence, but rather this material earth and these physical bodies renewed and re-imagined.
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Male-Only Church Leadership: Blessing or Curse?

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments

michaelangelo-adam-eve-eden-fall

In these discussions on women’s roles in church leadership, a favorite little one-off argument by Egalitarians (and a pretty darn good sound bite) is that the very idea of exclusive male headship is part of the curse laid upon humans in the Genesis Eden story. In Genesis 3, this is what God speaks over the woman as a curse in response to her sin:

“I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

I’ll be honest with you. I haven’t done the research on the Hebrew or scholarship on those lines to know exactly what these lines really might mean.

Honestly, both sides could use them. Conservatives could say that the curse is that women will desire the authority that God rightfully gave men. Egalitarians would say that man’s “rule” over women is the curse.
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