Message from the Pastor
Our Post Easter Color
On Easter, the world identifies us as Christians all clothed in white. However, the day after Easter, we choose a color that speaks to our hearts. We won’t be naked, still covered by the Christian cloth, though the color is different. The theology of each denomination is the different color that we pick for our Christian cloth. The theology of each denomination distinguishes the followers of that denomination from the other denominations. We are Methodists which means we follow John Wesley’s theology. Wesleyan theology is based on four interrelated eye-opening sources: scripture,
tradition, experience, and reason.
The sacred scriptures are the first source that opens our eyes to experience God in our daily life, in each moment that we breathe. The scriptures tell us that our God is the “God of events: the redeemer from slavery,” 1 the God of Mount Sinai, the God of Good Friday, the God of resurrection and Easter, and the God of salvation. The Old Testament and the New Testament present authentic testimonies of God’s grace in different places and times. Hence, the Bible empowers us to talk about God in an authentic way. The Bible teaches us that God the Father is manifesting God’s self in events of history through the Holy Spirit and the Son. Hence, as the Book of Discipline presents, Scripture is the first authentic source that illuminates the other resources: tradition, experience and reason.
The tradition is the second authentic source that covers all testimonies between the New Testament age and our own time. The tradition presents wonderful witnesses of our theological foundations. Therefore, tradition is a valuable source “for constructing our own theologies.” 2According to the Discipline, traditions lead us to “think about God in new ways, enlarge our vision of shalom, and enhance our confidence in God’s provident love.”
Biblical tradition teaches us the ways that others understood God’s grace in their time. Tradition is a valuable source that invites us to learn from others’ wisdom and others’ mistakes. We learn from different people who sought Christ in their time, people with different nationalities, different ethnicities, different race, different gender, different sexual orientation, and different sexual identity.
Experience is the third source in our systematic way of thinking or the Wesleyan theology. This source presents our experiences of encountering God within our particular social context. For John Wesley, experience is the combination of feeling and interpretation. 3We express our new life in Christ through experience.
Wesleyan theology. This source presents our experiences of encountering God within our particular social context. For John Wesley, experience is the combination of feeling and interpretation. 3We express our new life in Christ through experience.
Reason is the last source in our systematic way of thinking or the Wesleyan theology. In the Wesleyan theology, “reason reflects on the spiritual data presented to (heart).” 4 We use our reason in reading and interpreting the Scripture. We make a connection between God’s will and events that represent God’s grace in the world of creation. Reasoning is our ability to observe the life events and then it is our scientific knowledge and our mental ability to use philosophy for interpreting God’s actions. We hope that interpreting God’s actions would lead us to God’s will. But “our reasoning and our experience are limited because of our human’s finitude. Our experience and reasoning need to be corrected by biblical norms.” 5That’s why we put the Scripture at the beginning of our theological sources.
We made the right choice of color for our Christian cloth, didn’t we? Methodism looks great on us. What do you think?
Pastor Danyal
1 The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Noonday Press, 1975, page 8.
2 Radical love : an introduction to queer theology, Patrick S. Cheng, Seabury Books, 2011, page 45.
3 Theodore Runyon, The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998), 152.
4 Ibid.
5 Theodore Runyon, The New Creation: John Wesley’s Theology Today (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998), 161-167 .