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["Hawn, Beth" <BethAH@mbm.org>]

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April 28, 1999
Mennonite Board of Missions
Beth Hawn
(219) 294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>

Speak as boldly as Paul, seminary president tells mission leaders

DES PLAINES, Ill. (CMC/GCMC/MBM)  -  Drawing parallels between Paul's 
experiences with the church at Corinth and today, J. Nelson Kraybill, 
president of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, told some 70 mission
 leaders gathered for a conference here that "we must be as bold to speak
the 
gospel today as Paul was in Corinth."  Kraybill was one of three speakers to

address the conference in April.

During the time of Paul's ministry, Corinth was remarkably similar to modern

North American cities, Kraybill said.

One of the greatest cities of the age, Corinth had a population of more than

70,000.  Kraybill dubbed it "yuppie city of the ancient world," explaining
it 
was a center of both commerce and learning.  As Paul's early mission work 
was focused on urban areas, Corinth, where many cultures and religions met, 
was the ideal place for the early Christian church.

According to Kraybill, the scandal of the gospel in this setting was that it

made claims about Jesus that rejected all of the other gods of the era.
Then, 
as now, "tolerance" was an important concept.  The addition of Jesus to the 
pantheon would have been tolerable and even accepted; the worship of Jesus
 to the outright exclusion of the rest of the recognized gods was
intolerable.

"There is an expectation of tolerance that provincializes the gospel,"
Kraybill 
said.  "We get wooed into an environment of mutual respect.  I think Paul 
went beyond that.  The loss of the centrality of Jesus may be related to our

loss of a sense of an eschatology."

Eschatology is a theological word describing the study of the end times,
 and it is a common theme throughout the Bible.  But Kraybill said that 
Christians today have lost some of the sense of just how central this was 
to the understanding of the Bible's authors.

"If we focus on justice and service," Kraybill said, "then we've lost the 
motivating force of faith, and that's eschatology.  All of Paul's theology 
grows out of his eschatology.  Paul's vision for the future is one of 
restoration and re-creation."

Throughout the course of the weekend, Mary K. Oyer, professor 
emeritus at AMBS, led the assembly through the hymns from around
the world found in Hymnal: A Worship Book.  Citing cultural expectations 
about personal space and cultural expectations, Oyer said that we as North 
Americans should expect that music found elsewhere in the world will 
inevitably be different from that generated here.

"Disagreements over music used to be the biggest source of division in the 
church," Oyer said.  "Battles over musical taste aren't so much about poetry
 and music as they are about how we are a church influenced by the world
 around us."

Singing a variety of hymns from around the world, participants found 
themselves confronted with music their own congregations likely would 
never have looked at.

"I'd never sung some of those hymns before," one participant said, "but it 
was good to learn them.  In fact, I'd like to take some of these home to
broaden
 our perspective as a church that sings."

Inagrace Dietterich, meeting resource person and director of theological
research for the Center for Parish Development, also addressed the
gathering,
 sounding the theme that the role of the Holy Spirit in our spiritual life
tends 
to be a much-neglected part of the Trinity.

"The trouble with the Spirit is that it's not under our control," she said.

Kraybill concurred.  "The Spirit is here in our world today, right now," 
he said.  "We are called to lay down our lives (in surrender to the leading 
of the Spirit) daily - a living sacrifice.  The spirits of racism, classism,

and economic superiority are the 'powers' of this age.  It is those 'powers'

that are doomed to perish in the kingdom of God.  And it is our task to be 
about the work of bringing that kingdom forth in our world today."
				* * *
Christy Risser

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