16 December 2009
Group 5: Bible Questions- A Time for Burning
This week our group reflected on the Bible cluster questions, which asked us to examine the Bible’s presence in the situation, what other texts would relate to the situation, as well as the learning goals especially in relation what the people were learning about God.
All of us agreed that the Bible is present in the film, but not in chapter and verse form. Since the whole movie takes place in and around church means the Bible has a huge role, even implicitly. There were many references to Jesus and his disciples, but there were no specific references to text or stories from the Bible.
When our group reflected on what texts and stories might relate to this situation we thought of several.
- Exodus 22:21 says: “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”
- Leviticus 19:34 which states that “The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
- Matthew 10:34: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.”
- John 4:1-42: The story of the Samaritan woman at the well who as seen as an “other.”
- Acts 10: The story of Cornelius and how Peter sees the vision of animals in a sheet, and God says that what God has sanctified one must not call common.
As for learning about God, we didn’t really feel that what God wants or who He is, was ever really focused on. The biggest learning that occurred was by the one social ministry chair person and that learning was not due to formal education, but actually experiencing first hand having a discussion with someone who was of a different race.
The learning goals should focus on a discussion of how to show love as a Christian and also talk about change in the church. When teaching on these learning goals we thought the devotional, theological and historical methods would work together best to create a study around these issues.
Outside of the Bible cluster questions we also discussed how we thought that the Pastor definitely represents a boundary leader in that he is trying to integrate faith and the civil rights movement together, where other churches put that as “out there” impacting only schools and businesses. If we were in this church, we thought about holding discussions with members to outline what we believe to be true when it comes to worshipping God, studying His word and sharing His love and then examine those beliefs to determine if they are man made or aligned with God’s Word.
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17 December 2009 at 10:03 am
First off, thank you for pulling out Biblical passages from the Old Testament. Sometimes people just ignore that text, which is sad. Anyway, I wanted to comment to say that I liked how you ended with the thought that we are to examine things to see if they are man made or if they truly align with God’s word. My question to you all is this: Is the hostile environment between Christians man made or the word of God? If it is man made then how are we to change? Where in the Bible does it say that Christianity should be fighting so much? Does it say that we should be uniting at all? This is an issue that plagues our world today. Denominations are fighting one another for people, money, and to be the one and only church body to get to heaven. Which is a concept that goes against the love and grace that God has for us all. Further, at the time of the disciples there wasn’t yet a full church, but over time it became the Catholic Church. Not until the Reformation did we see denominations and there has been division, hatred, and noncooperation ever since. Does the Bible really touch on this subject then? Or do we need to rely more on revelation and prayer to see where God is directly is will? I think that will along with word is needed. Especially when the word fails us.
17 December 2009 at 6:24 pm
Frieda says...
I wouldn’t say that the Word fails us but our interpretation taken out of context of the original situation. The church community is the body for discerning God’s Word addressing new situations with perhaps some prophetic leadership. In this film the situation was racial integration; today the situation is integration of gays that has people in the ELCA divided on the ordination of gay people. More conservative congregations are looking to the conservative LCMS when the ELCA has stated that no congregation will be forced to call a gay pastor. Some interpret certain Bible verses as condemning homosexuality but I think the condemnation is against licentiousness. If you want to hold such an unchanging standard, look at how we condone divorce when the Bible says it is permitted because of the hardness of people’s hearts, not because it is God’s plan.
18 December 2009 at 12:16 am
To reply to Amanda, I would first like to say that the Reformation was not the beginning of denominations and division and the like. That goes way back, almost (and some say it does) to the New Testament itself (Paul and Barnabas part ways, disagreements between Jewish and Hellenistic Christians on circumcision and laws…). The Orthodox church, the eastern church, has also been around from the beginning, and the Orthodox and Roman Catholic groups often have had disagreements, from way back long before the Reformation.
There have been struggles to come to consensus on how to be followers of Christ since Jesus left the earth and we humans were left on our own to figure out what God wants for us. Granted we were left with the Holy Spirit, but somehow our human nature still manages to get in the way.
Our work as people of God will forever until Christ returns involve trying to figure out how to do what God wants and how to live in relationship with God and one another. In some ways I think maybe we are doing better with that, but we still have a long way to go (there is still racism, sexism, etc.).
18 December 2009 at 5:27 pm
group4 says...
I found it interesting that your group didn’t think that anything about God was taught in the video, because I came away with a sense that it was. Then when I take a step back from that and think about why it is, I think it was because of what the pastor said and did. In his intial sermon, he talked about what God wanted with the congregation, and what was required of Christians. Later, when he talked about being a prophet and how he thought he was called to stand where he was standing and be a prophetic voice, I thought that there was some implicit learning going on there. I learned that the pastor at least thought that God calls his people to be voices crying out against injustice, and that teaches me a lot about God.
-Julie Bender, Group 4