FYI, I attempted weeks ago, privately, to engage Ed in conversation about what he has said. To this point, he has ignored that invitation.
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In my Same Sex Marriage thread, I passed on this comment by one of several people who responds to this blog under the radar and away from the gaze of the dons of the CGGC Shepherd Mafia:
"I would think with all those who have a Dr. degree in the conference there would be more Theological treatises coming out."
I agree entirely.
It is a historical reality that, when the Body of Christ is thriving, issues of theology, even philosophy, are discussed energetically, vibrantly. Consider, for instance, the philosophical and theological tones Paul strikes in Romans and Galatians, in which he explores the meaning of the Gospel in terms of secular Roman law and its concepts of condemnation and justification. Read Hebrews for theology and philosophy. Consider the many volumes that comprise the Works of Luther and of Calvin from the age of the Reformation.
Or, much closer to our theological home, read through the writings of John Winebrenner and C. H. Forney which, these days, are still mentioned in CGGC polity classes but which are deemed too deep today for any setting that is not academic. (And, note that we have to reach 100 to 150 years into our past in the CGGC to find important works with theological significance.)
The one person who is the exception to the death of serious thinking and writing in the CGGC in recent decades has been James Moss, Sr., who is now retired yet is still producing provocative works that attempt to keep thought alive in the CGGC.
There are two reasons very close to my heart that I consider Jim's book, Returning to our First Love to be his most important work.
First, the book is rooted in the study of CGGC history. It is a careful examination of "church planting" in the Church of God from our movement's first days up to the date of the books publication in 1995.
Second, the book is, the most rare of all rarities in the CGGC, a call to repentance--a call to change who and what the CGGC has become and to return to the spirituality, vitality and obedience that once were the core realities that drove the Church of God.
Because I love Moss' book so dearly for those reasons so important to me, when I read the recent issue of The Church Advocate I immediately noted that, in his brief article at the beginning of the issue, Ed Rosenberry--in a single sentence--thoroughly discounted and trashed the central idea in Jim Moss's great and important book.
Say what you might say in favor or in criticism of Ed Rosenberry, you must acknowledge that he is a powerful writer who possesses the ability to write, as he did here, in a single sentence, what requires others an entire book to write.
But then, uprooting and tearing down, destroying and overthrowing and more easily done than the building and planting Jim attempted.
The offending sentence (in its context):
"(John Winebrenner and other Church of God founders) wanted to see a Church committed to making disciples and establishing congregations in Jesus' name. [This sentence itself is a subtle, clever and, in my opinion, devious misrepresentation of the truth. (Now here is Ed's devastating sentence:)] That mission has remained the prime objective of the CGGC to the present day."
The very title of Moss' book, which argues that what once was the prime objective of the Church of God is something that must be returned to, reveals what Jim attempted to build and what Ed is dismantling.
Moss' book is clear in demonstrating that our body had lost its founding vision/first love/prime objective and, for a time, completely abandoned all attempts to establish churches in Jesus' name or for any other reason.
Moss includes one chapter explaining, with great insight, twelve reasons why so many CGGC churches have closed and another chapter offering twelve additional reasons why our body stopped planting churches. Included in this list is, "A turning aside from our first love" (p.113), something Ed Rosenberry now asserts the CGGC never did!
Everyone who has even a modest knowledge of CGGC history knows that Jim Moss is correct. And, the truth is that, if any person living today knows CGGC history better than Jim Moss, it is Ed Rosenberry.
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Oddly...
...I vividly recall a conversation that Ed and I had about CGGC history during the days when we still held two-sided conversations.
I had just led a break-out session on Church of God history during the annual sessions of ERC several years ago and Ed, Linda and I chatted casually after long everyone else moved on.
Ed told me that he had, by that time, put together an outline for a History of the Churches of God.
I told him to his face that the outline he described was impressive and timely and I strongly encouraged him to write the book because I am, to this day, convinced that our body could benefit from his insight.
His outline is simple: The Church of God began as a movement; it changed and became an organization and that it has ultimately become an institution.
Ed described his purpose in writing such a history of our body as a call to return to our movement days.
Implicit in his outline is the very argument Jim Moss makes in Returning to our First Love, that is, the CGGC did really lose its first love and that it must become what it used to be.
That being the case, clearly, there was a time that Ed rejected his recent assertion, "That mission has remained the prime objective of the CGGC to the present day."
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I think it is time that I be clear about what is implied in much of what I write here: Ed Rosenberry is a problem for the CGGC but Ed is not our most serious problem.
Ed is a problem because he has, for instance, stated that he (now apparently) believes that the church is an institution and that leading the institution of the church is very similar to leading an institution like a bank!
Ed pushed for nearly six years for a revised We Believe which affirms that the Bible is our "only" "rule" and then advocated the observance of Lent, something foreign to the pages of the Bible.
Last December, he donned a priestly collar and to lead a high church Advent Mass from the Episcopal tradition at Winebrenner Seminary.
Ed regularly flaunts his opposition to long-established and to recently affirmed teachings and practices of the CGGC and he does it, apparently, without shame or guilt.
But, the real problem in the CGGC today is that the CGGC body, as a whole, allows Ed to make these theologically corrupt and inconsistent statements and take these actions without a word of admonition.
Ed incarnates To Talk is to Walk-ism. But, he does it with permission. And, not only permission. He does it with support. Everyone who reads this and is a part of the CGGC, apart from me, is Ed's accomplice.
Our problem is with Ed only to the extent that he incarnates the dysfunctional CGGC culture. But, truly, our greatest spiritual issue is with the lack of love for--and obedience to--truth.
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