Author: Teddy Ray

Pastors, theologians, and seminaries — consider Spanish!

The Hispanic population in the US is growing rapidly. A good reason to consider Spanish.
The Hispanic population in the US is growing rapidly. A good reason to consider Spanish.

If you’re an aspiring pastor or theologian, I think you should consider learning Spanish. If you’re a seminary, I think you should consider offering it.

For pastors — with the increase of Spanish-speakers in the U. S., and the small number of Spanish-language worship services by comparison, I expect one of the church’s greatest new “frontiers” in America to come in the form of churches and worship services that use the Spanish language. Whether aspiring pastors are preparing to lead these churches, or simply preparing to more effectively communicate with those who do, I believe they can benefit greatly from facility with the language.

I’ve heard the United Methodist Church has had trouble figuring out what to do with non-English-speaking Hispanics who are pursuing ordination. Ordination guarantees an appointment, and they don’t know what to do if there’s not a Spanish-speaking appointment to give them. That’s something the UMC will need to figure out and get over soon, or they’re going to miss a significant, growing portion of the American population.

For theologians — I expect Spanish to be an important language for upcoming theologians. It’s pretty common to see German offered in seminary, and sometimes even French, so you can interact with the bulk of non-English scholarly work of the past few centuries. With the rise of Christianity in Spanish-speaking countries, I could easily see Spanish becoming the most important non-English language for interacting with 21st century theologians.

(Aspring) pastors and theologians, think about it. Might it be worthwhile to study some Spanish?

Seminaries and divinity schools, might you consider offering Spanish courses? You’ll be preparing your students well for ministry and theological work in the 21st century.

For a good laugh, here’s a look at some of my early stumbles trying to learn Spanish while living in Spain: “The most humbling experience of my life…”

“It’s not about the nail” — Yes, it is. And it might be time to mention it.

A brilliant little video went viral a couple months ago. It’s titled “It’s not about the nail.” If you haven’t yet watched it, you really should.

If the video upsets you, my brief disclaimer: it’s promoting a stereotype that’s not totally fair or true. But it’s a good and funny depiction of said stereotype.

Dear pastors and leaders in the church,

You have people with nails in their foreheads and snags in their sweaters. And yet my experience is that a lot of you are making excuses rather than telling people about the nail.

A rather superficial, but common example. Someone wants to sing a “special music” piece in worship, but you keep putting them off. “Just not a good time, we’re already scheduled out for the next several months, let me run it by the worship committee…” When the real reason is that you’ve heard them sing, and it won’t go well. The audition tape went like this:

This person shouldn’t be put in front of a crowd to sing. For their sake and the crowd’s. But you don’t have the heart to say it, so you make excuses.

Something a bit deeper. This might happen with someone who wants to lead a small group, but you know they have some serious psychological problems, perhaps some psychiatric things that need attention. The kinds that can blow up without notice and do a lot of damage to everyone around. The person needs to see a counselor (and perhaps a psychiatrist). Most of the people around them know they need to get help, but again, no one seems to have the heart/guts to say it.

One final, most important example. Someone wants to join your church, but he’s in an adulteress relationship. Oh, and just for fun, let’s say that he’s a pretty successful businessman and writes sizable checks (yes – a real situation a friend had). When he joins, you’ll stand in front of the congregation with him and ask if he earnestly repents of his sins. It’s too uncomfortable to bring up and might scare him off, so you don’t say anything about it and go ahead with it.

Insert your own situation. The possibilities are endless. Someone has a problem, but you don’t want to say it for fear of offending or causing a disturbance. So instead you work around them. Or perhaps just as bad – you put them in a situation destined for failure, then let them fail.

Sometimes it really is about the nail, and you need to say so. You have a duty to say so. It’s the most gracious and loving thing you can do.

You’ll want to tell them about the nail with grace and tact. But if you’re any kind of real pastor — charged to care for people’s souls and lives — you really need to address it.

Another disclaimer: telling people about the nail doesn’t guarantee success. I’ve encountered acceptance and change along with denial and anger. I think it was important I at least told them about that nail, though.

We laugh at the “not about the nail” video because we all know that it’s about the nail. And the obvious correct answer is to deal with the nail. I’ve found that too often in church world, we let someone walk around with that big nail jutting out of their forehead and never tell them.

not about nail

But the greatest of these is love?

what is loveThe famous “love chapter” of the Bible – the one you hear at every wedding – ends conclusively, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Of all the statements in all of Scripture, this may be the one our culture is quickest to embrace. Love trumps all. You’ll hear plenty about how at the end of your life, the amount of money you made, or how high you climbed the corporate ladder, or how much you achieved doesn’t matter all that much.

What matters? How much you loved and were loved.

I frequently see this in the church, too. God is love. Jesus was the ultimate example of love. Jesus even says at the last supper, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

And so, anything that threatens unity, peace, acceptance — in a word, anything that doesn’t promote love — is just downright unChristian. For that matter, anything that makes anyone feel sad or suggests that they might have done something bad has no place, either. To make someone feel sad or bad surely isn’t loving.

Especially in the recent homosexuality debate, a growing contingent inside the church — and virtually everyone outside the church — has asked how the church could deny anyone’s love.

A good friend of mine – strong in his faith – says he can’t understand how God would create someone with love for another person, then deny the person that love. (At the same time, he flinches at the notion of endorsing an incestuous relationship, and not just because of the genetic consequences. He tends to believe that’s a sickness, not something God would put in them. If they were born that way, it’s a genetic disorder. Is it reasonable to consider the one relationship normal and God-given and the other a sickness to be denounced? Is he just closed-minded and unable to see the injustice in denying these people their love?)

So the question: do we understand what love is?

I won’t argue that love is not all that remains in the end. That it’s not “the greatest of these.” I surely won’t argue that the character of God isn’t love, or that Christ wasn’t the perfect exemplar of love.

But I will say that Jesus said and did a number of things that today’s American culture – hyper-aware of our feelings as we are – would probably call mean. It’s hard to put a “nice” slant on, “You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good?” He calls people children of hell and talks about God’s authority to throw people into hell. Are these the words of a “loving” Son, representing the God whose character is love?

Yes, Jesus welcomes sinners. But he also acknowledges that they’re sinners (sometimes in some rather uncomfortable ways: see, woman at the well) and then tells them to stop sinning. Some of these people must have felt judged. How dare he say that what they’re doing is sin? And tell them to stop? And suggest that hell awaits those who don’t? That kind of confrontation isn’t becoming of the rainbows-and-butterflies Savior I frequently hear about.

And Paul, just chapters before he wrote that soaring “love chapter,” called his readers worldly, not spiritual. Then he used some biting sarcasm with them (1 Cor 4:8-13). Then he dared to tell them not to associate with sexually immoral people — in fact, to expel someone who was in their midst. Is there anything less accepting? Less hospitable? More likely to cause divisions and conflict?

Either we have misunderstood love, or Jesus wasn’t such a perfect example of love. We have misunderstood love, or that great author of the “love chapter” was himself a terrible example of love. We have misunderstood love, or a God who would call some people wicked and send them into eternal fire is not a God of love. We have misunderstood love, or we might as well discard the Bible that gives so many examples of judgment and exclusion and denial of particular human passions.

And then there’s the issue of whether, particularly in the recent homosexuality debates, our culture has privileged romantic love above all else. If so, I would argue that this is a rather modern turn and we might be cautious to believe romantic love should hold such a high and exclusive place in our values systems.

God is love

I believe that God is love, and yet I believe there are certain deeply ingrained human passions — perhaps even things we would say were in-born — that God tells us not to act on. Because to act on those removes us from the will of God.

I believe that Christ’s example was an example of love, but it was so loving that he warned people when they were on their way to destruction

I believe that Paul knew what he was talking about when he said “the greatest of these is love.” But I think when he told the Corinthians to expel the immoral person, he showed us a different sort of love than we’d like to accept today.

This quote from this article says it very well: “When we are tempted to hide or change a difficult truth (even a truth-as-I-see-it) in the name of love, we are guilty of a failure to believe that God is who God has revealed himself to be. Likewise, when we get so committed to certain truths that we ignore the hurt done to those we are called to love, we fail in faith.”

There must be a way to do both. It needs to begin with understanding what love is.

Do you believe in the kind of love exhibited throughout Scripture, or a different kind of love – a philosophical love that would reject much of what God, Christ, and Paul say and do in Scripture?

We can have our common cultural notions of love, or we can have the loving God of Scripture. I don’t think we can have both.