Christianity's Relevance for Today: A Personal Perspective

By Russell C. Block

Christianity's Relevance for Today: A Personal Perspective arises from a pastor's six decades of scholarship and experience serving congregations and the wider culture. Russell C. Block, drawing upon his study and personal insights, offers readers a guide to digging up the Bible's hidden treasures. Then he uses the Bible's witness to God's desir

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Vine Press
• Release date: Aug 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781952835636

Russell C. Block

RUSSELL C. BLOCK has served churches in America and abroad for sixty years. A social activist and concerned world citizen, he has participated in urban community renewal, promoted ecumenical and interreligious rapprochement, fostered the church's arts and drama, written articles for newspapers and magazines, and earned an award for religious television programming.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

SECTION 1 My Journey

My Journey

SECTION 2 The Bible

The Bible - What Is It?

Interpreting the Bible

The Language of Christianity

Mis-Using the Bible

SECTION 3 The Church

Defining the Church

The Christian Life: Faith and Deeds Go Together

Challenges to the Twenty-First Century Church

The Christian Ministry

SECTION 4 God’s World and Religion

God’s World and Religion

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge those who have deeply influenced the directions my life has taken, beginning with my parents Charles and Ida Block, who loved, supported and encouraged my growth beyond what they knew; my teachers, from high school through seminary, who acquainted me with music, drama, literature and fine art, science, philosophy and theology, stimulating my inclination to question and explore; my wife’s parents Wells and Beth Thoms, medical missionaries to the Persian Gulf and Oman who lived out their Christian faith with a cosmopolitan and inclusive understanding; and the fellow Christian ministers of different generations who provided me with wisdom, support, occasional due admonition, encouragement and friendship at crucial intervals throughout my life, including my closest boyhood friend Bill Carlough, Harold Hoffman, Bud Van Eck, Gabe Williamson, Roger Swanson and Art Stevenson, as well as Elia Rao, Brahmin convert to Christianity and lay minister in Bangalore, India, and Joe Garlic, Christian example and pillar of the Elizabethport community.

I would have few memorable stories to tell were it not for the wider multitude of family and friends, including members and staff of churches I have served over the years, who surrounded me with kindness, fellowship, instruction and humor, and included me in the intimacies of their lives.

And finally, in preparing this book, I thank my good friend John Prestbo for encouraging me with pointers and prompts to continue, and my wife, Nancy, who has challenged, pushed, prodded, suggested and critiqued, while handling the all-essential computer and copy editing tasks needed to bring my thoughts legibly to paper.

Introduction

Maya Angelou has written, There is no greater agony than wearing an untold story inside you.

Often, throughout my teenage and adult years, my mind has filled with ideas that begged to be expressed. I didn’t always know where they came from, but they were there and persisted. Some led me to write Letters To The Editor and articles for the local newspapers. Occasionally they even netted front-page exposure, with photographs, interviews and editorials. There were also many tales about family adventures and some original short stories, which I recorded for my family and friends.

Now and then, throughout my ministry, I have encountered people who were seriously sick and concerned about their mortality, who would tell me that they had insights, stories and wishes to convey which they felt they should have written down. Many of them, to my knowledge, never did.

When I retired officially from the active Christian ministry I felt impelled to write about my experiences and feelings about being a minister, about the Church, her clergy and members, about the Bible and about my Christian faith. The thoughts persisted, and over the past two years I have worked to express them, with stimulating input from many contemporary writers and the encouragement of my wife, family and close friends.

Specifically, I have been increasingly concerned that while war, human misery and even threats to the planet as we know it seem to be escalating, the Christian Church is struggling to maintain her vitality and relevance to contemporary society, lacking a clear awareness among many congregations of their identity and mission as God’s responsive people, in our world today. The causes are many but are based in large part, I believe, on a lack of understanding of the Bible and its message. It needs to be interpreted appropriately so as to speak meaningfully of hope, comfort, truth and justice, providing direction to people where they are and impelling them to act positively for the benefit of mankind.

There is no question in my mind that God inspired the Biblical writings, but they evolved long ago, in different cultures and circumstances, in the minds and at the hands of a wide variety of people, for different purposes. Furthermore, religious writing is different from everyday journalism, scientific treatises and popular fiction. To distill out of the jumble of literary forms in the Bible the powerful redemptive spiritual truths which it conveys, I have needed considerable help from scholars, sages, mystics, archaeologists and historians.

I had no idea about the time and effort that would take. The project has led me back to the Bible and my clergy experiences. Reading Scripture seriously again from different perspectives, doing necessary research, searching out what modern Christian scholars and leaders have written, thinking, evaluating and prayerful contemplation have been challenging but exhilarating. It was necessary to learn how to utilize our computer for writing. And my religious library, filling shelves in a basement room, was essential, as were area libraries and discussions with colleagues and interested friends. There were times when I was unable to continue, to work out what I was hoping to say, but as encouragement kept coming so did new insights, sometimes barely in a trickle, but without them I might not have persevered.

Through it all my faith in God, my understanding of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible and the Church have been enlightened and strengthened. I thank God for leading me through this adventure of the heart, mind and spirit. I have done my best to describe my faith and practice and accept the fact that some who read what I have written may not only find some things wanting but deeply disagree with me. Others may roll their eyes and ask So what?. Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self, wrote Cyril Connolly. But hopefully, my efforts in sharing my concerns, thoughts and suggestions will be pleasing to God, and will be of help to some others who may be struggling to find meaningful direction for themselves and human society in the Bible and Christianity.

SECTION 1

My Journey

My Journey

Every person has a story to tell. It should be true to the teller, and told with confidence that someone is listening because every person’s life story has universal as well as private personal significance, and should be heard. This is my story of my life in the Church as a Christian and a minister. The events and facts are as I recall and understand them, though I have changed some names and details for privacy reasons. For Biblical quotes I am using the New English Bible, unless otherwise noted.

I was born on November 12, 1930 in New York City, and raised through my teens in New Jersey. My parents were nominal Christians, my mother Roman Catholic and my father Protestant. There are those who study and evaluate religions in their youth and make a choice, but that is the exception. Most people, myself included, grow up within a religious context of family and community and generally, without much thought, accept the religion which is most familiar or comfortable.

Most of my friends attended the youth group of a local Missouri Synod Lutheran church, and I joined them. We were attracted by its athletic programs and the occasional dance. Dancing was not encouraged, but was allowed as a popular activity to draw young people. However, when the pastor showed up during a dance everything came to a standstill until he left. He also caused me some disillusionment later on when he expressed to my parents his disapproval of my dating a young Asian girl in the youth group.

Nevertheless, as we were all encouraged to become members and it seemed the expected thing to do, my friends and I joined a communicants’ class. The class work included the memorization of 150 Bible verses, but without much discussion of their meaning. Finally, on the important day of our confirmation as full members of the church, our parents, neighbors and friends were all in attendance at the service. As we knelt at the altar, each of us in turn was asked several questions concerning his or her understanding of the Christian faith and willingness to abide by its precepts. All of us in turn solemnly confessed our faith and promised to follow Christ in our lives. One of the questions included the word canonical, to which we all assented even though we had no idea what it meant. At the conclusion of the ceremony, for the very first time we joined the congregation in the Sacrament of Communion, the bread and real wine symbolizing the body and blood of Jesus Christ. When I rejoined my parents I asked my father what canonical meant. He didn’t know either.

Many of those Bible verses, though, remain in my memory, some having acquired more meaning for me than others. My favorite (which I originally memorized in the King James Bible version) is

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him may not die but have eternal life.

(John 3: 16)

This had a more profound influence on my life than I realized at first.

Eventually I went off to college, the University of Chicago. My mother wanted me to become a physician, passionate that I should obtain the education she was deprived of, having left school after 8th Grade to help support her immigrant family. My father hoped that I would follow him in his business, which had provided a comfortable and enjoyable life for our small family. During the summers I worked at his automotive lubricant company, which gave me some understanding of the world of business and also pleased him.

What happened to me at college was a common experience of high school graduates leaving home for their higher education. An unseen door suddenly opened up on a dazzling new vista. Along with fresh responsibility there was the heady experience of independence, which felt like nearly total freedom to do what was novel, interesting and exciting. The world was my oyster in the great, sophisticated city of Chicago. Though I had known New York well, attended shows with my parents and even studied piano at Juilliard while in high school, Chicago was a new city with new attractions and a midwestern brashness.

There were great museums, art exhibitions, triple-feature films; the college newspaper for which I designed a new logo and wrote articles; live jazz with famous musicians; beer, cigars, and lots of fellow students who loved to get together to drink, tell stories, and do some wild and crazy things. We dismantled a civil war cannon on campus and hid its parts, later having to relocate them under the eye of the campus security police and put the cannon back together in its proper place. We also recruited enough guys to lift up a Volkswagon beetle and set it down snugly between two neighboring trees fore and aft.

In spite of many distractions, including a narrow escape from being mugged on Chicago’s infamous South Side, I managed fairly decent course grades, heard many philosophers, writers and musicians address the students on campus, listened to many operas as an usher downtown, and could have graduated in three rather than four years with a B.A. had I settled down seriously enough. My cultural eyes were opened wide, thanks to Chicago U’s permissive atmosphere, but I was not sufficiently focused on studying to take advantage of its academic flexibility.

Back home during summer vacation after my second year at college, my parents and my best friend Bill convinced me that I needed a solid course structure and better grades to pursue the pre- medical degree I was interested in. Bill’s pastor offered to help me enroll in Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where Bill was already a student. I accepted his kind offer to provide some financial assistance, and in September enrolled at Hope.

Hope College was a much smaller institution than the University of Chicago but had, in addition to fine science departments, an outstanding philosophy professor, religious courses and daily chapel services. The town celebrated its Dutch heritage annually with a colorful Tulip Festival and Main Street parade during which women in costume energetically scrubbed down the pavement and sidewalks, while girls and boys performed the wooden shoe Klompen dances in the streets. This was very different from the big city, with fewer temptations to neglect my studies, which I tackled conscientiously.

My friend Bill was a year ahead of me but we lived in the same private rooming house just down the hall from each other. One evening, after a busy day of classes, I needed to ask Bill a question. I walked down the hall and knocked quietly on his door. When he didn’t answer I opened the door to see if he was sleeping, and there I found Bill on his knees, praying by the side of his bed. Dumbfounded, I silently closed his door. I had never seen anyone doing that before.

As college graduation time approached I found that I needed several more credits in organic chemistry to receive my degree. Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, offered an intensive summer course that would fulfill my requirement, and so I headed there for July and August. The weather was stiflingly hot and humid but the air-conditioned library offered the welcome relief and quiet needed to study.

However, I found myself in a mental and spiritual crisis as I faced the imminent need to decide what do with the rest of my life. I was no longer sure I wanted to become a doctor, and if not, then what? The evangelical Christian atmosphere for which Wheaton College was well known may have influenced my thinking, as did Bill’s prior enrollment in Western Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) on the same campus as Hope College. As I continued to attend my classes and labs, I wrestled with deep uncertainties, endured many sleepless nights and lost 25 pounds. And I thought often of Bill on his knees, praying. He never spoke to me of his faith, but I noticed that he seemed quite sure of where he was going and why.

Then one night, alone in my room and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, for the first time in my life I fell on my knees at my bedside, compelled by a force I didn’t understand, and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, in what was a powerful personal encounter. Something like Jacob’s monumental wrestling match with an angel which changed his life, perhaps, but without the crippling physical consequences. I tried to find contemporary words to express the new but strangely exhilarating relationship in which I suddenly found myself. The result: Jesus is my Boss and with him I can live and die in confidence.

Coming to that commitment had been excruciatingly diffi cult, an intense and costly struggle within myself. As many Christians would say, I had a born-again experience, but I had no idea how it happened, and was not expecting it. There are several other words that express the same experience: conversion, change of heart, turned around, and called. Every Christian is called to be a believer and follower of Christ, whether that calling is sudden, a dramatic struggle, or whether it occurs, as it more often happens, through the witness of parents or other respected adults as one grows up and matures in the faith community. One may not need to know when that happened, what day, what hour, where one was or whom one was with. However it happens, it is all the same! It is an opening of the spiritual eyes and heart, and yet remains a mystery.

In truth, in very truth I tell you, unless a man [or woman] has been born again [from above] he [she] cannot see the kingdom of God. (John 3: 3) When anyone is united in Christ, there is a new world; the old order is gone, and a new order has already begun.

(2 Corinthians 5: 17)

Christians are called to be members of the Church, the Body of Christ. The vast majority then are called to continue their life’s work, profession or occupation in a Christian spirit. Some, however, believe they are called to be ministers or other full-time church workers. That, I soon became convinced, was to be my calling. And so I applied and was accepted immediately into Western Seminary where I studied for the next three years for a Bachelor of Divinity degree.

In the fall of my first seminary year, my friend Bill and his fiancée, a medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School, arranged a blind date for me with Nancy Thoms, another medical student living in the same Ann Arbor co-op. There were no sparks, however, until we met again the following year. By then I was travelling all over the state on weekends to fulfill preaching assignments, and Nancy would sometimes accompany me—and critique my sermons.

I felt the need for a life companion, but I had to overcome unsettling feelings arising from my parents’ conflicted marriage. My father was a gregarious, self-made man, who quickly elevated himself in Kiwanis, the Masons, and later the church which he and my mother joined when I began seminary. My mother’s parents immigrated from Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire when she was 4 years old. Her father was a talented artist and skilled craftsman who fashioned crystal and porcelain giftware for royalty in a state glassworks, but he was emotionally unstable and died a few years after arriving in this country, leaving his family poor and his widow bitter. My mother inherited his artistic talents, did a little drawing, but was a skilled seamstress and designer of dolls’ clothing. She loved beautiful things, and cared for them assiduously. Both of my parents sincerely loved and were proud of me and my wife and children, and they were very generous to us. But while I was growing up, they argued constantly, marring our family life.

I marveled at the evident love and harmony in a family I came to know well as a college student at Hope College. And then I met Nancy’s parents, Beth and Wells Thoms, who spent a year in Ann Arbor on furlough from their missionary work in the Persian Gulf and Oman. Wells was a doctor, whose parents had been pioneers in that part of the Middle East, bringing the Gospel along with Western medical care and education to those desert lands before the advent of the modern oil-rich economies. In time, I learned from them more about faith, love and compassion, especially watching Wells’ ministrations to the poor and illiterate, the lepers, the blind, the sick and the injured, several years later on a brief visit to Oman. His faith was simple and deep, a dependable anchor in difficult times, and touched me deeply. Beth, a daughter of former American missionaries in India, worked beside her husband at the hospital, taught women to read and write Arabic, and showered love and grace on their humble lives. I became very close to them both. They freely offered support and love, and in addition opened to me an intimate view on the world of Islam and its devotees, from beggars to royalty, among whom they worked for 40 years.

In June, 1956, when I finished seminary, Nancy and I were married in a small chapel in Ann Arbor, and set off on our honeymoon, stopping to visit Nancy’s uncle and aunt, Galen and Maude Scudder, retired from missionary work in India, who were running a small hospital among the coal miners of eastern Kentucky. In July we arrived as newly-weds in Peapack-Gladstone, New Jersey, my first pastorate. We were euphoric, happily naïve, and embarking on my ministry felt like an exciting and beautiful experience. But Nancy still had to complete her final year of medical school in Michigan, and so we were apart that first year for all but the holiday breaks.

Several families in the church quickly adopted and thoroughly spoiled me, taking pity on a young fellow whose new wife was off elsewhere, providing supportive friendship, meals and access to their refrigerators and advice whenever needed. (Nancy, of course, was meanwhile burning the midnight oil, living alone in a rented room and grabbing food in a hospital cafeteria between classes.) The following year, although we were together, she took the train daily to nearby Summit, where she completed a year’s internship. The following October, our first son, Kenneth, was born.

During our three-year sojourn, we were blessed greatly by the church and its members in