Speaking of Hell...

My daughter who art in England sent me this quote recently as a response to some of my ruminations on Hell.

"I was reading Calvinist theologian Jonathan Edwards lately and, while the quote I provide does not do justice to his contribution to philosophy and religion, it does provide food for thought about the extremes to which we can be led if we plod too unswervingly along the road of any single worldview."

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.

Caution--Protestant lurking

One great strength of the Protestant movement is that interpretation of the scriptures is not left up to one or a few people.

Now I can already hear my R.C. brethren/sisters shouting out their protestations (if you'll pardon the expression). "That's the trouble, not the strength, of your protest movement. Everyone does (or believes) what is right in their own eyes. Look at all your different churches." Or as the Pope likes to call them, not churches at all but merely ecclesiastical communities.

Actually I'd rather not look at them thanks. But I have three reactions to this common complaint. Firstly, the German Shepherd to the contrary notwithstanding, there does seem to be a good deal of variation of belief among Catholics on many topics, even if there is a widely taught official position--the role of women in the church, the celibacy of the priesthood, gays, and contraception being four that come quickly to mind.

Secondly, there is a pretty wide consensus among Protestants on most of the major theological issues, the greater portion of which are shared with the Catholics and the Orthodox church.

And thirdly, I would rather have various groups of Protestants have a few things wrong, than one gigantic denomination not get it right. Imagine if the Pope were to receive a phone call in the night from the Lord. "Joseph, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I am going to unite all the people of the world under one leader centered in one historic city. The bad news is that I'm calling from Salt Lake City."

At any rate, the reason why I call Protestant individualism a strength (and yes, it is also a weakness, like most strengths) is that we are thrown back on the scriptures, creation, the Holy Spirit, Christian experience, prophecy, and so on for guidance rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket--a basket which was constructed largely in the medieval period.

I said all of that to tell you this. I'm not a fan of systematic theology--Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox. I reserve the right to look for new insights, even better understandings, of the character and will of God than we have traditionally been taught. Systematic theology is a speculative human endeavour, trying to piece together from the Bible an airtight explanation for every theological matter, and then being prepared to die (or kill) for those speculations.

So we had the Catholics burning the Anglicans, and the Calvinists imprisoning the Anabaptists, not to mention the Inquisition, for digressions in systematic theology. The Church even burned Bibles lest they get into the wrong hands. What nonsense. This is the purest speculation on my part, but I can't help but think that there has been the odd Pope who, in the quiet of his study or bedroom, has said, "I wish I weren't stuck with this doctrine!"

Therefore, I am willing to listen to earnest, devout, open-minded discussion on biblical topics without immediately writing it off as heresy if these conversations veer into new understandings of what God's intentions are for his creatures.

I call this form of doctrine-building 'theology from the ground up'. I use Scripture pretty widely in my religious ramblings, but since the Bible speaks to human experience, I also understand it, to some extent, from human experience as well.

Thus while I am looking at some of the issues that are raised at neXus, I want you to know that I am bringing a Protestant and earthy approach to it.

Now back to Ron Sexsmith, universalism, and why I reject this particular view of unconditional love.

Does God always get what he wants?

Departing from my stroll down soteriological street for a moment, I want to have a look at a contemporary Canadian music artist who recently performed in Vancouver BC, Ron Sexsmith.

Sexsmith wrote a song entitled "God Loves Everyone" that has almost become the theme song of neXus. Apparently his inspiration for the lyrics was the horrific murder of a gay Univ. of Wyoming student in 1998 named Matthew Shepard.

"The crime itself was horrible enough," says Sexsmith, "but I remember reading about the trial, where there were these folks standing outside with signs saying, 'God hates fags' or "Burn in hell fags.' I couldn't believe that people could actually have those kinds of thoughts. That's where the song started for me. From there, I got in to just trying to write a song about unconditional love, I guess."

Here are the lyrics. If you would like to hear it sung, YouTube has it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Bs7Do8yAI.

God loves everyone
Like a mother loves her son
No strings at all
Unconditional
Never one to judge
Would never hold a grudge
'Bout what's been done
God loves everyone

There are no gates in heaven
Everyone gets in
Queer or straight
Souls of every faith
Hell is in our minds
Hell is in this life
But when it's gone
God takes everyone

Its love is like a womb
It's like the air from room to room
It surrounds us all
The living and the dead
May we never lose the thread
That bound us all

The killer in his cell
The atheist as well
The pure of heart
And the wild at heart
Are all worthy of its grace
It's written in the face
Of everyone
God loves everyone

There's no need to be saved
No need to be afraid
Cause when it's done
God takes everyone

God loves everyone


The words are true to the extent that that nothing is beyond the reach of God: not evil, not hardship, not death. As the lovely old George Beverly Shea hymn puts it:

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.

My difficulty with Sexsmith's song, which is the same problem I have with universalism, is that it suffers from the identical fundamental flaw as Calvinism/Lutheranism; i.e., it fails to account sufficiently for the doctrine of human choice, or free will.

If we were to accept the position that the Kingdom of God, rather than Hell, is the default position for all of humankind (the idea that I have been exploring in earlier posts), we still have to decide if one can opt out of the Kingdom as an exercise of free will. [Whether opting out means one is doomed to a literal Hell or to something else is not the main point here.]

Or to put it another way, while God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, does God always get what he wants? I invite your comments.

Billy Graham Denies Jesus!

.....or so they say.

There is no doubt that Billy Graham is THE iconic evangelist. There is no one in the latter half of the 20th century that could compare with him. I have met a few
important people in my life, including premiers, a prime minister, an Olympic gold medalist, Mr. Hockey, and so on, but I considered it a particular privilege when Billy Graham, on a crusade in Vancouver BC, came to Regent College (where I was employed at the time) and spent time with the faculty and staff. After shaking his hand, I didn't want to wash it for days.

Yet it is that self-same Billy Graham who stunned the evangelical world with televised broadcasts in his later years where he took the position that many would become members of the Kingdom of God who had never heard of Christ. To go further, he felt that there were people of other faiths, or no faith at all, who were called by God to be his children.

Apparently he, too, was troubled with the idea of a person having to have specific knowledge about Jesus and the Gospel to obtain eternal life.

The first of these two broadcasts occurred in May 31, 1997 on the Hour of Power
television program hosted by the well-known pastor Robert Schuller. View the interview at http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/TNCnxA91fHE-robert-schuller-billy-graham-speaking.aspx.

Here is a portion of the transcript:

Dr. Schuller: "Tell me, what is the future of Christianity?"

Dr. Graham: "Well, Christianity and being a true believer, you know, I think there's the body of Christ which comes from all the Christian groups around the world, or outside the Christian groups. I think that everybody that loves Christ or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the body of Christ. And I don't think that we're going to see a great sweeping revival that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time."

"What God is doing today is calling people out of the world for His name. Whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts they need something that they don't have and they turn to the only light they have and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven."

Dr. Schuller: "What I hear you saying is that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into a human heart and soul and life even if they've been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying?"

Dr. Graham: "Yes it is...

Dr. Schuller: "This is fantastic. I'm so thrilled to hear you say that. There's a wideness in God's mercy.

Dr. Graham: There is. There definitely is."

Startling stuff. But it didn't stop there.

Dr. Graham appeared from time to time on the recently retired Larry King's interview program. No appearance was more memorable than the one on June 16, 2005 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YPKdbpVT6I&feature=related). First off, he appears to deny that people, even evil people, will go to Hell. Hell was created for one purpose, and it has nothing to do with humanity.

KING: And do you think he loves the people of 9/11, the people in the planes on 9/11 as much as he loves you?

GRAHAM: Yeah, he does. He does. I can't explain 9/11, except the evil of man. I think that there is a force in the world, a force of evil. There are two great forces, God's force of good and the devil's force of evil, and I believe Satan is alive and he is working, and he is working harder than ever, and we have many mysteries that we don't understand.

KING: Does God love him?

GRAHAM: Does God what?

KING: Satan. Does he love Satan?

GRAHAM: Well, he created him as Lucifer. In the 22nd of Ezekiel, it tells us about it, and he must love him, but the end of Satan is hell. Hell was created for the devil and his angels, or his demons, not for men.

Later in the interview he makes it clear that he loves people of all faiths. In fact, while not doubting their sincerity or motives, he refers to other preachers who lack his love for humankind generally as extremists.

KING: Are you forgiving of the infirmities of other people?

GRAHAM: Absolutely. I am. I mean, I...

KING: Isn't that hard?

GRAHAM: ... try to forgive. I never hold a grudge. In fact, many people say that I never get angry. I don't think I get angry. But maybe I do sometimes, but I keep it. I don't explode to anybody.

KING: Do you feel the same about other faiths?

GRAHAM: Absolutely.

KING: Do you feel the same about Judaism, Mormonism?

GRAHAM: Absolutely.

KING: Buddhism?

GRAHAM: I love them all, and welcome them all, and love to be with them, and friends with all of them. For example, I just talked to a man in New York City, he was a Mormon.

KING: My father-in-law.

GRAHAM: Your father-in-law. And I've loved the Mormons for years, and yet there is a big divide between the Mormons and some of the other groups. But I have great friends among the Mormons. And the same among the Catholics. Of course, I loved Pope John Paul II and watched the whole process of his suffering, his dying and the tremendous -- my daughter went to represent me ...

KING: I know. You were on with us the night he died.

GRAHAM: That's right. Thank you.

KING: But what about those faiths -- the Mormons and the others that you mentioned -- believe in Christ. They believe they will meet Christ. What about those like the Jews, the Muslims, who don't believe they ...

GRAHAM: That's in God's hands. I can't be the judge.

KING: You don't judge them?

GRAHAM: No.

KING: How do you feel...

(CROSSTALK)

GRAHAM: ... going to hell and all that.

KING: How do you feel when you see a lot of these strong Christian leaders go on television and say, you are condemned, you will live in hell if you do not accept Jesus Christ, and they are forceful and judgmental?

GRAHAM: Well, they have a right to say that, and they are true to a certain extent, but I don't -- that's not my calling. My calling is to preach the love of God and the forgiveness of God and the fact that he does forgive us. That's what the cross is all about, what the resurrection is all about, that's the gospel. And you can get off on all kinds of different side trends, and in my earlier ministry, I did the same, but as I got older, I guess I became more mellow and more forgiving and more loving. And the Jerry Falwells and people like that, I love them---I thank God for their ministry, he has a great university and two or three of my grandchildren have gone there, they have had a tremendous change in their lives for being there---and some of the other people are the same way, but at the other end of the extreme.

Graham's controversial views go back some time. In Nov. 1993 he was honoured by Time Magazine on his 75th birthday. At that time he made these comments about Hell:

The only thing I could say for sure is that hell means separation from God. We are separated from his light, from his fellowship. That is going to be hell. When it comes to a literal fire, I don't preach it because I'm not sure about it. When the Scripture uses fire concerning hell, that is possibly an illustration of how terrible it's going to be -- not fire but something worse, a thirst for God that cannot be quenched.

To conclude this rather lengthy look at one of my heroes, Billy Graham seems to believe that while Christ's death and resurrection made entry into the Kingdom of God possible--by satisfying God's justice and allowing his love to beam forth uninhibited--one doesn't have to know about Christ's work to benefit from it. Nor does Hell appear to be the default destination for the human race unless they consciously accept Christ as his fellow evangelists have typically taught.

Benedict and Billy

I mentioned in an earlier post that some of the preachers in my youth who did not automatically assign "the heathen", or more charitably, those who had no chance to hear the Gospel, to eternal punishment talked about such folks as being judged "according to the light they had."

These dear old Protestant fundamentalists would probably have had a heart attack if they knew that this is somewhat the Roman Catholic position. I quote from the Roman Catholic Universal Catechism (sorry, it's kind of long):

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body.

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church.

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."

There are two avenues to membership in the Kingdom posited by Catholic theologians, then. One is through the R.C. Church, the other through some mysterious process of following the dictates of one's conscience. That leaves us Protestant and Orthodox Christians on shaky ground, it would appear, but it's good news for the unevangelized.

Speaking of Protestants, certainly one of the best known persons of this persuasion in the world is Dr. Billy Graham. Over his long career his original evangelical views have become somewhat modified. We'll look at him next.

Mother Mary, Gengis Khan, and the love of God

I have been working through the issue of salvation based on sufficient knowledge versus some other means of finding entry into the Kingdom of God.

But I think that it is of first importance to distinguish between avenues of entrance with the ability to enter at all. As soon as anyone starts musing on a Muslim or atheist or Wiccan being viewed as a Kingdom sibling, that person will almost certainly be accused of denying the saving work of Christ, or declaring that Jesus is not the sole Way, the One Mediator between God and humanity, the only one through whom a person can come to the Father.

So, to utilize our current Prime Minister's favourite phrase, let's be perfectly clear on this: God's intention in creating humankind was to find an outlet for his creativity by shaping another being (besides his mighty angels in their various ranks) that would be his image-bearer, the object of his love, and the steward of the rest of this incredible world.

When that race of humans fell from grace and sullied the relationship with the triune God (and with one another), the Creator did not say, "Well, I blew that one. Let them salvage the mess as best they can with a few hints from me as to what their wisest course is from now on. Too bad that a lot of them will miss the hint."

Nor did he say, "Okay, Plan B. Instead of enjoying them all, lavishing love on them, bringing them back to the relationship I originally proposed, I'll arbitrarily choose some of them for gracious treatment and to Hell (literally) with the rest."

And I don't think that he said this either: "Gosh, things are a mess. Tell you what, I think I'll just sort of pretend that nothing's changed, that everything is like that Garden of Eden story they like to talk about, with no need to sweat all this raunchiness and pain--or sacrificial love either. Mother Teresa, Hitler, William Wilberforce, Pol Pot, my mom, Genghis Khan, what's the difference?"

In other words, it's hard to buy the positions of traditional evangelicalism (salvation by certain knowledge alone), Calvinism/Lutherism (salvation by arbitrary predestination), or universalism (salvation whether you want it or not--take that Christopher Hitchens).

I believe that to be true to what the Scriptures say about God's character (love, justice, grace, mercy, community, wisdom, etc.), his intentions for creation, the cosmic effect of Jesus' death and resurrection, God's consistent treatment of his creatures for all time, and human choice (or free will), another explanation must be found.

The trouble is, I'm not sure I have the mind to think it through. I was a business professor after all, not a philosopher, a theologian, and certainly not a genius.

I was smart enough to marry Sharon, move to Canada's west coast, and cheer for the Canucks. Is that enough?

The gates were open wide

I am moved to tears when I listen to the magnificent anthem The Holy City by Stephen Adams, particularly the portion of the third stanza which speaks of the wideness of God's mercy and grace:

I saw the Holy City
Beside the tideless sea;
The light of God was on its streets,
The gates were open wide,
And all who would might enter,
And no one was denied.

A beautiful arrangement of this grand hymn can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nq7ZLofnpk or at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tld1MZ2F4GA.

Now these words quoted above in no way reflect the view of God's grace with which I was raised. Then, as now in many Christian circles, hell was seen as the default destination for the human race unless they repented of their sinful natures and carnal activities and asked God for forgiveness. I believed this with all my heart as a young person, but as I became more exposed to the realities of life in this sorry world of ours, the more restless I became with that interpretation of God's will.

These were some of the stumbling blocks I faced as I tried to hold onto my traditional view of life eternal.

1. The numerous references to God loving the whole world, John 3:16 being the best example.
2. God's emphatic statement that "he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezekiel 18:23); rather, he is "delighted to show mercy" (Micah 7:18). In fact, says St. Paul, he is the God "who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4).

If this is true, the logical part of my mind scolded the sentimental and conservative portion, why does God stack the deck against the same people he claims that he wants to live with him always?

Stack the deck?, I protested to myself. What could you possibly mean?

Just this, I replied. I grew up believing that I had to repent and exercise faith towards a God of whom I had sufficient knowledge ("a saving knowledge" as we often called it) to even realize that such repentance was necessary. In other words, I had to have God, Jesus, my lost state, my need of forgiveness, the atonement, and so on explained to me by someone else who was credible to me.

Those not fortunate enough to have all of this information given to them were doomed from the beginning. And whose fault was it that these doomed ones hadn't heard this news?--why, us Christians. We hadn't done the necessary evangelism.

How logical is that? God wants everyone to become his child. He takes absolutely no pleasure in any other result. Yet those who lack the knowledge to learn about him (and that is most people in the world) go to Hell, while we lucky few go to Heaven, even though we are the culprits who didn't spread the word.

God holds lack of knowledge against the unsaved, who couldn't have possibly known better. But he does not hold the failure to spread the knowledge against us who have it, and should have known better.

And we call this grace?

The Calvinists try to lift this responsibility off of Christians' shoulders with their doctrine of predestination. They say that while Jesus' death was sufficient for all, it was efficient only for some. The some for whom Christ's death has any lasting beneficial effect were chosen by God in advance on no other basis than that he decided to be merciful to a portion of the totally undeserving world, and the rest are doomed even though they are kept from even wanting God by God's choice.

And they call this grace.

Some people of the traditional mindset certainly struggled with this even if their fundamental view didn't change very much. With respect to children, for instance, some preachers talked about an "age of accountability" before which kids could not be expected to understand their need of repentance, and who were exempt from the necessary steps until they had crossed some threshold of moral understanding. But this was not really a consistent position for them, because it did suggest another avenue for salvation beyond the knowledge-based one.

Others would try to take a more generous view of "the heathen" as they generally called them, the ones who had never heard the gospel. I occasionally heard reference to these folks being "judged according to whatever light they had."

I actually thought that they were perhaps on a better track. There are those enigmatic references to people with no knowledge of God through the normal channels, as it were, but who were equally part of God's kingdom. These include Melchizedek (Genesis 14), to whom Abraham himself showed obeisance, and "the other sheep that are not of this sheep pen" (John 10) that Jesus saw as much his children as his Jewish disciples.

And St. Paul refers to the possibility of knowing God in his creation: ...since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made... (Romans 1:19-20).

Then I began to think of all the people who had the so-called knowledge about the traditional Christian teaching about salvation but who could not possibly take it seriously. I think of the prostitute in Vancouver who was convinced by the some well-meaning Christians to accompany them to a large evangelical church. She walked in and the first thing she saw was the man leading the service--one of her customers. Or the young woman who joined the working girls on the streets here in Abbotsford after she was raped by her youth pastor. Are they automatically consigned to the burner because of the sins of others? Does that go for children of Christian child molesters? Battered wives of Christian husbands? Customers of business people who, as the old song has it:

Mr. Business went to church;
He never missed a Sunday.
Mr. Business went to Hell
For what he did on Monday.

All right, I heard my traditional self saying, let's turn my old thinking on its head. Let us suppose (using the royal "us" here) that instead of some place called Hell being the default position, that it is Heaven, or the Kingdom of God, whatever name one wants to apply.

In other words, what if we were to say, "You're in before your out."

More on this as I puzzle it through.

Christianity in 25 words or less

As you know, faithful reader, neXus hosted a goodish contingent from the Gur Sikh Temple to a potluck and Sunday evening service last week.

I was charged with welcoming our guests and giving them a brief explanation of what we are about as a Christian congregation.

How do you do that? It's safe to say that Christianity is vastly more diverse than Sikhism in style and theology. Virtually none of our guests had any experience with Christian churches.

I was reminded of the time a couple of Chinese exchange students asked Sharon and me to take them to church. At the end of the service, one of them inquired, "Why did I not see Jesus?"

Say what?? Did she think that he was still alive and well and living, in bodily form, in British Columbia?

Thus we were somewhat confused as to what she was anticipating, but eventually figured out that her knowledge of the Christian church was limited to pictures she had seen in China of Catholic churches. She was expecting a crucifix in our church building.

With that confusion in mind, this is what I decided to say to prepare these mostly Indian-born, life-long Sikhs for what they were about to experience. I decided to touch on two issues only:

1. That we are a casual, contemporary church in terms of style, but that there are other, very different forms that churches took.

2. That while our style is different from that of the Sikhs, there is a great deal of overlap in our worldviews.

And all in two minutes or less!

Jas Singh, as he did for much of the evening, adeptly provided simultaneous translation services.

Ladies and gentlemen, community neighbours, and our sisters and brothers in faith:

My name is John Sutherland. On behalf of Nexus Church I welcome you on this historic occasion. The council of the city of Abbotsford has set as one of its goals that the many and diverse faith institutions in our community take the steps necessary to learn more about each other. As two congregations that love God and seek to do His will, Nexus Church and the Khalsa Diwan Society are the first in Abbotsford to meet this goal.

I want to acknowledge the presence this evening of Med Manzanal. Med is the person that the city hired to give leadership to their diversity goal. She is the person who worked with Jasbir Singh, Satwinder Bains, Mr. Hundal, and myself in making this special service tonight a reality.

The city of Abbotsford is not alone in pursuing this goal of greater understanding among the diverse racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups in our community. The Abbotsford Board of Education is a partner in this objective. I would like to acknowledge the presence of Abbotsford School Trustee Preet Rai, who has been a wonderful ambassador for the Sikh community on the school board.

Christian churches take many forms. Some have very large and beautiful church buildings; others meet in more modest places. Some have clergy who wear special clothing; others are much more casual. Some Christians use a good deal of ritual in their worship; others are more spontaneous; some are very traditional; others more contemporary. As you can see, Nexus Church fits into the modest, casual, spontaneous, and contemporary category.

We look forward to worshipping God with you this evening. We will begin with a song sung by Chris Janzen. Chris serves as the worship coordinator in our church, and has picked out this song especially for this evening. Then our main teachers, Peg Peters and Dave Phillips will speak for about 10 minutes about our Christian religion. Finally, Peg and Jasbir Singh are going to discuss the ways in which Sikhism and Christianity have similar perspectives.

Thank you again for coming. I hope that you feel very welcome.

We sought and we found

Sunday afternoon, April 3, 2011 was closer to hellish than heavenly. I don't think I was more nervous before my wedding day. "Why is that?", you say. Thanks very much for asking. You're so polite and such a good listener.

I had been busily involved for the prior month in arranging for a group of Sikhs from one of the gurdwaras (Temple, place of worship) in Abbotsford to attend neXus. The motivation was twofold.

My first reason for this was because such activity is consistent with our values (the colours I talked about in my previous post) of inclusiveness, cultural engagement, and our belief that God and the truth of the Gospel are actively revealed through all of God’s creation; everything and everywhere.

And secondly, it was a means of cooperating with our city's goal of breaking down the "silos" that surround the many racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural groups of cosmopolitan Abbotsford.

The Friday before THE Sunday, I met with a young woman named Med Manzanal, Abbotsford's diversity coordinator, and three representatives of the Gur Sikh Temple: Mr. Hundal, the president of the Temple executive; Satwinder Bains, a prominent woman in town and chair of the Indo-Canadian Studies Programme at our local university; and Jasbir Singh, a teacher in the Abbotsford School District who has been my opposite number in terms of getting this initiative together.

We discussed what the service would look like, and what level of involvement there would be by the Sikhs themselves. In the course of the conversation Mr. Hundal, who is approximately my age, admitted that he had never been in a Christian church. I hastened to reply that I had never been in a Sikh Temple, although I had visited their elementary school. I'll admit that it was hard to judge his enthusiasm for the project, although Satwinder and Jasbir (or Jas, like jazz, as we call him) were clearly keen.

At any rate, I arrived good and early at the rented facility we use for our Sunday night services. People were setting up round tables, dressing them up with tablecloths and daffodils, and getting the food and beverage service ready. I continued to pace, wondering if the regulars would be eating a mountain of goodies all by ourselves.

And then a trickle of guests showed up--Jas and his family, including his spouse, daughters, and parents. The girls had brought along a couple of their friends. Med was there, putting out information on Abbotsford's diversity initiative.

The trickle became a bit of a stream--a few older Sikh gentlemen in their characteristic turbans, members of the Temple executive. Then as we neared the starting time, the flood began. Guests poured in. We were rolling out additional tables. Preet Rai, my colleague on the Abbotsford School Board arrived (all 6'5" of him) with his lovely wife Rupinder, and his father, a retired Indian army colonel with his back still ramrod straight.

We even had a few community members we hadn't known were coming: our local MLA John vanDongen, the federal liberal candidate, the former executive director of Canadian Food for the Hungry. Soon 150 people packed a space typically occupied by 50.

Now I was nervous for another reason--how would the service go over with people largely born in India and some with very little English. As Preet told me after, it was "brilliant." Jas helped with with simultaneous translation of my welcoming remarks. Our worship coordinator, Chris Janzen, sang Ron Sexsmith's God Loves Everyone with the words on a screen.

One of our teachers, Randall (Peg) Peters, talked with Jas about our respective faiths. He did this by asking Jas, "What are your dreams for your daughters?" Jas teared up a bit. The first thing he said in response was, "That they would love God." At the end, Peg and Jas hugged each other. That memory will go with me to heaven.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some quotes from those in attendance:

“Tonight is about embracing two cultures as one and about accepting diversity, openness, truth, and honesty,” said Jasbir Singh, representative from the Khalsa Diwan Society. “It’s been overlooked that these two cultures actually have a lot in common. Today’s Nexus service reminds us about being present in the moment, about extending acceptance and that is why this initiative is so great.”

In a letter of thanks, Kabal Hundal, Khalsa Diwan Sociey President stated, “Everyone really enjoyed themselves watching the presentations and interacting with the community. We also took great pleasure in the variety of delicious food made available. It was a very rewarding event and we learned a lot about bringing all the nationalities together for a bright future.”

“It’s great to see our Sikh neighbors and Nexus members eating together, talking together, and praying together,” said Heather Peters, Nexus Church member. “It’s amazing to be a part of something that is truly in the spirit of bridging the cultural divide.”

To see a few interviews with people who attended the service, go to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ-5QUuAPCM.