Calgary Herald editorial and letters Nov & Dec 1997

HEADLINE TheModerator met our Saviour one imaginary day . . .
BYLINE Rev. Jim Wallace, For The Herald

The Premise
During the past several weeks Calgary minister Right Rev. Bill Phipps, Moderator of the United Church of Canada, has been embroiled in a theological controversy stemming from some comments he made during an Ottawa newspaper interview.

Is Jesus divine? Is Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, also the ``son of God?'' That's the nub of the controversy.

In broad terms, the moderator responded that Christ's divinity has always been an affirmation of faith, not a provable historical fact. His ideas have sent ripples, and in some cases tidal waves, throughout the Canadian church community.

In the midst of the controversy, Calgary's Rev. Jim Wallace, a Baptist minister who is pastor of South Calgary Community Church in Cedarbrae and former president of the Calgary Evangelical Ministerial Association, telephoned the Herald and asked if he could write a column: What would Jesus say to Bill Phipps?

We were intrigued by the idea.

For another perspective, we asked Rev. Christopher Levan, an Edmonton Journal columnist and principal at Edmonton's St. Stephen's College, a United Church college that has a Calgary campus at Knox United Church, if he would do likewise.

Both have based their responses on Biblical statements attributed to Jesus, paraphrasing them for the sake of these articles.

Rt. Rev. Bill Phipps slipped away for a hike in the mountains. As he approached a meadow, he rested on a rock. Suddenly, a weathered, long-haired hiker came around the bend and sat down beside Bill.

``Bill,'' said the ancient voice, ``I'm glad I could get a few moments with you. I want to talk with you about the things that have been going on over the past few weeks.

``I want to thank you, Bill,'' Jesus said. ``Canadians haven't talked about me so much in years.

``People may not understand what it is all about, but I do. It's not about religion, denominations or creeds. It's about me -- a relationship with me and a commitment to follow me.

``Bill, I appreciate your zeal, though some may not. And I don't mind your questions and doubts either.

``But, Bill, I do not call people to live on the basis of their doubts. I call them to walk by faith. Faith in me. Faith in my Father who sent me. And faith in my Word.

``I know you read my Word a lot. I said the words recorded in the Bible. They are simple, direct and true -- just the way I meant them to be.

``You don't have to rationalize them, Bill. You don't have to make them fit somebody's politically correct model of what I should be. You have to accept them, believe them and follow them.

``My disciple John got it right when he quoted me, `I and the Father are one . . . anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.'

``Bill, I am not just a man who had a profound spiritual experience with God. I am God. I was sent from heaven to reveal God's love to this world. I spoke the words my Father gave me to speak.

``I understand one of the biggest struggles that people have is the Trinity.

``Well, Bill, just look at the water in that lake. It is H2O. It is a liquid, though you see along the edges it is turning to ice. And in the summer, it evaporates as a gas. They are all H2O, Bill, though they are very different in form and appearance.

``Bill, I am God's Son. I am a part of him and yet a different expression of Him. Together with the Holy Spirit that dwells in my followers, we form the full expression of God -- the Trinity. Luke wrote about us in his gospel when he described my baptism.

``I was out in the water with my cousin, John the baptizer. The heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on me in the form of a dove while my Father spoke, `You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.'

``And Bill, my purpose for coming to earth was to provide a way back to my Father. You see, `I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.' Even though people would like to think there are many ways to God, he only provided one --me.''

With the sun setting, Jesus said, ``And one final thing, Bill. I know you are very concerned with the issue of faith and works. It is not a matter of one or the other. ``It is both. ``But people still tend to focus on one or the other.

``In my sermon on the mountainside, I made it clear. I said, `By their fruits you will know them . . . every good tree bears good fruit.' Good works are the reality of a transformed life. However, salvation and faith must come first. You will not have a regenerate society until you have regenerate hearts.

``That is why the focus of my ministry on earth was not confronting the repression of the Romans. It was changing people's hearts. It was transforming their relationship with my Father, so they could become salt and light, hope and truth in a fallen world.

``Bill, don't miss that. Don't look for fruit until you have firmly planted and watered the tree of faith. Keep all of my words in balance.

``And don't forget what my beloved John wrote, `For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes

in him shall not perish but have eternal life'.''

As Jesus' words faded with the setting sun . . . he was gone.

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PDATE Wednesday, December 10, 1997
COLUMN Peter Stockland

stocklandp@theherald.southam.ca

Liberalism, the great Cardinal Newman once said, is the half-way house to atheism.

It was a true, and truly profound, observation from the perspective of Newman's 19th century.

As our own horrifying hundred years drags to a merciful close, though, it's clear the good Cardinal gave us only half the sentence.

We now see that the atheism arising from liberalism is only a transition to what University of Calgary religious studies professor and cult expert Irving Hexham calls the ``supermarket of spirituality'' defining our age.

``Even today's pseudo-spirituality taps a well of need in the community,'' Hexham told an audience Friday at the Anglican Cathedral Church of the Redeemer. ``There is a need for people to experience faith in a physical sense.''

He urged careful distinction between groups that reflect genuine and coherent, albeit unorthodox, faith as opposed to those with the invented vagaries that typify trendy liberal, New Age belief.

In the former category, he said, the need for physical expression of faith is increasingly expressed through gatherings such as the Promise Keepers rally in Washington, the Nation of Islam's celebrated Million Man March, or smaller events such as the annual March for Jesus held in Canadian cities.

Such events blend the political component of public demonstrations with the ancient religious practice of pilgrimage to give spiritually-famished North Americans a sense their faith is alive and an agent of social restoration, he said.

Hexham, co-author of New Religions as Global Cultures: Making the Human Sacred (Westview Press 1997) said the mixture can produce some peculiar combinations. He pointed, for example, to the mass Unification Church wedding in Washington two weeks ago.

A keynote speaker there was Nation of Islam firebrand Louis Farakhan, whose blend of black pride and vicious anti-Semitism would seem to have little in common with the end-times Christianity of Sun Myung Moon.

But both Farakhan and Moon regard their movements as vital to re-building the traditional family from the devastation caused by decades of liberal experimentation.

All three movements are driven to resolve what their leadership and principal followers perceive as a massive social crisis created and fuelled by the spiritual defects of modern liberalism.

Their political-spiritual ``pilgrimages'' form a counterpoint to the beatific floating of the New Age movement, where books such as the Celestine Prophecy provide a self-satisfied skim on the surface of spirituality.

Hexham notes this approach to faith seems to have also wedged itself permanently inside some of the more hippy-dippy mainline churches.

He find parallels, for instance, in the ``strange views'' of United Church Moderator Bill Phipps and those of celebrity eco-witch, Star Hawk, in that they share a ``flaky, superficial, unfocused'' approach to belief.

Yet politics, too, is a common denominator between Phipps' hyper-emphasis on using the church to push social progressivism and Star Hawk's brand of flaccid enviro-pantheism (``we pray to the rocks and the sky and the grass and the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and a thing called ... '')

Intriguingly, there is no sign here of any wish to entirely abandon faith and accept the atheism that should be a natural outcome of these political views. Why? Where are all the full-blown atheists Newman predicted would be liberalism's historic deposit?

I think part of it is being hit upside the head with the realization that youth, sex, money, dirt, drugs, rock music, selfishness, daycare, microwave ovens and/or Pentium chip computers are not, in fact, adequate substitutes for God.

Another part is being confronted with the horrifying fact that 20th Century atheism is to blame for more torture, blood, mutilation and death than any other belief in human history.

The largest part, though, is simply that no thinking adult past age 22 can seriously believe in the superstition of atheism. It is, at best, a holding pen until maturity arrives.

Teenagers, after all, believe the superstition of atheism because they need some way to vent the temporary insanity of their hormones. But any adult mind that insists all scientifically-verified laws of the universe are mere products of chance is a mind capable of believing that an umbrella opened in the house might cause rain.

But not even adults gullible enough to buy liberalism will be taken in by that. Instead, they shop at the supermarket of spirituality, some getting stuck in the aisle with mixed nuts.

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HEADLINE Lutheran bishop worried over Phipps' remarks
BYLINE Gordon Legge, Calgary Herald

The Lutheran bishop for Alberta and the territories is reviewing shared ministries with the United Church in the wake of controversial statements by the church's moderator.

Rt. Rev. Stephen Kristenson, bishop of the synod of Alberta and the Territories for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada -- the country's largest Lutheran denomination -- is responding to Rt. Rev. * Bill Phipps, moderator of the United Church and a Calgary minister who recently questioned traditional views about Jesus Christ's divinity and his resurrection from the dead.

Statements by Phipps appear to contradict tenets of the Christian faith as understood by Lutherans.

``Until there is a clear sense of where the United Church of Canada is going in regards to its confession as a church body, we will review on a case by case basis each shared ministry to ensure that no member of our church involved in such a shared ministry will have to wonder if they in good conscience can continue that involvement because of theological concerns,'' Kristenson said in a letter to his churches. There are about 40,000 members in 150 churches across the synod.

In a shared ministry, two or more Protestant denominations agree to share the costs and resources in ministering to a particular area.

The Lutheran synod and United Church's Alberta conference share two ministries -- in Norman Wells, N.W.T., and Slave Lake, Alta., where the Anglicans are also involved. The United Church also shares another eight to 10 ministries with Lutherans in another synod in northern B.C.

In an interview, Phipps said it was unfortunate the letter was sent without consultation with him or others in the United Church. Phipps said he hopes that shared ministries would not be put in jeopardy because of news reports about his comments.

Church representatives will discuss shared ministries between the four major Protestant denominations -- Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and United -- at a conference in January in Grande Prairie. ``I hope when they sit down face to face, he will have a better understanding of what I have actually said and we will have a better understanding of the import of his letter.''

Phipps says he has not received any other expressions of concern from other denominational leaders in Canada. Kristenson said he wrote the letter because some Lutherans requested clarification about their relationship with the United Church because of the controversial statements.

``We are striving to come to understand the extent to which disagreements among ourselves as dominations represent core convictions and which are matters of practice or tradition that can certainly vary without dividing us one from another,'' Kristenson said.

************************

Lutheran minister worried about Phipps' remarks

No historical figure has been studied as extensively as Jesus Christ. Yet the question of who Jesus was and, for many Christian believers, who He is, remains locked in controversy.

As 1.9 billion Christians the world over prepare to celebrate the eve of his birthday, and reaffirm their faith, interest in the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith is on the rise.

Calgary minister Rt. Rev. Bill Phipps, Moderator of the United Church of Canada, sparked a furore recently by publicly questioning Christ's divine nature and His resurrection from the dead.

Phipps's speculations were nothing new in academic or theological circles. Scholars have sought for centuries to substantiate or disprove claims made about Christ's humanity and divinity. Coming as ... it did from an ordained national church leader, however, it fuelled a debate that has been brewing for years. Irving Hexham, professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary, says the interest in Jesus is due in part to a growing fascination with spirituality. This comes in the dying days of a century which has been preoccupied with the pursuit of material and technological gain.

``Jesus is one of the great spiritual leaders and people are coming back to that,'' says Hexham.

With the failure of social, political and economic solutions to this century's most desperate problems, people are looking afresh at the spiritual dimension to provide answers and meaning in their lives, he says. For instance, Princess Diana, the decade's secular icon, looked to Mother Teresa, its spiritual icon, for direction and inspiration. After their deaths, Diana's friends said the princess viewed the ``Saint of the Gutters'' as a model for her own role as ``Queen of Hearts.''

Moreover, an aging population is also contributing to this renewed interest. ``The one inevitable thing is we all die,'' says Hexham. ``As people begin to realize this, they start to ask questions about the purpose of their lives.''

Even though Canada's cultural and religious mosaic is becoming increasingly pluralistic, a 1993 Angus Reid/Maclean's poll found that 78 per cent of Canadians consider themselves ``Christian'' (19 per cent professed atheism or no religion; three per cent were involved in religions other than Christianity).

In 1995, when Lethbridge religious sociologist Reginald Bibby asked the question: Do you believe Jesus was the divine son of God? 72 per cent of Canadians surveyed said, ``Yes.''

Those findings are reinforced in a Southam-Global poll released last week, which showed that three-quarters of Canadians believe religion and sprituality are important and 26 per cent say they are increasingly important.

As well, more people are prepared to say they believe in God, says Hexham. He credits that to the broader acceptance of new cosmological theories which point to the possibility that the universe had a creator.

Hence they are ready to re-examine belief and teachings about Jesus Christ in light of those findings.

``For the first time in a long time, there are an increasing number of people, including philosophers, for whom belief in God is reasonable and rational,'' says the author of New Religions as Global Cultures.

As well, a revival during the 1980s and 1990s of literary, historical, theological, and anthropological studies, the most prominent of which is California's controversial Jesus Seminar, and socio-religious movements such as the slightly less controversial Promise Keepers, have ignited widespread popular interest.

The Jesus Seminar, a divergent group of scholars known for using colored glass beads to vote about the authenticity of statements attributed to Jesus, has successfully used the news media to promote its findings. Whereas the Promise Keepers, with their massive public declarations of faith, have raised the Christian church's profile across North America.

Even the glamorous Hollywood entertainment industry is exploring religious and spiritual themes in television programs such as Nothing Sacred and Touched by an Angel. That together with intriguing archeological finds, such as the discovery between 1947 and 1956 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, with their rich, challenging and tantalizing insights into the religious practices and beliefs of the early Christian era, and the approach of the new millennium, have provoked discussion about Jesus.

But while such study may uncover more facts about the Jesus of history, the Jesus of faith will likely endure until the end of time.

``I think it's amazing,'' observed Phipps, who has withstood the challenges to his position as head of the 720,000-member church. ``We're taking the understanding of Christ into people's homes.

``People are having marvellous discussions. It's become a response to the spiritual hunger in this country.''

*****************************

A prominent Calgary United Church minister has joined about 250 other United Church members across the country in signing a grassroots confession of faith that says ``Jesus is God.''

Rev. Michael Ward, minister at Calgary's Central United Church in the downtown core, signed the document on the Internet a few days ago.

``This is something I can attest to and I have no problems with,'' Ward said Thursday.

The petition grew out of the furious national debate sparked by comments of Right Rev. Bill Phipps, United Church Moderator. He told a newspaper he believed Jesus was not God, merely the best human expression of God; and that he does not believe in Jesus' bodily resurrection as a scientific fact.

The confession is circulating at the same time as a request arrived Thursday at national church headquarters to appeal a decision on the Phipps matter in November by the denomination's national executive.

``It was a way of making a positive statement without running someone down,'' said Ward, who has been minister at the 1,000-member church for almost 18 years. ``I have no qualms in believing He (Jesus Christ) is God, fully man and fully God in the traditional mystery of the incarnation.''

The brief confession, prepared by a group of Ottawa United Church leaders, affirms ``Jesus is God'' and that he was physically resurrected from the dead.

It was released Christmas Eve and is being circulated via the Internet, fax and mail, said Rev. Brian Wilkie of Dominion-Chalmers United Church in Ottawa.

``There are a lot of members of the church feeling lonely and isolated as they hear the leadership profess a different gospel,'' Wilkie said. ``We're just trying to encourage one another.''

The group circulated the confession to clear up confusion they say has been caused by Phipps.

The national executive reaffirmed the church's traditional doctrinal beliefs, but said Phipps has a right to express his personal beliefs.

Phipps, who is on leave as minister from Calgary's Scarboro United Church, said in a telephone interview from Toronto he is not disturbed by the confession.

He disagreed with the confession's authors that the country's largest Protestant denomination has been brought to a ``crisis'' by his statements.

``It isn't a crisis,'' Phipps said. ``I think it is a bit alarmist, a bit of an overstatement. It's generated some wonderful discussion. ``It's a huge opportunity to proclaim what we believe and explore what we believe.''

Furthermore, Phipps said the confession's statement ``Jesus is God'' is not one which Christians within the Reform tradition would normally make.

``This `Jesus is God' is not the way we talk,'' Phipps said. ``It is the way newspapers talk. Reform theology would never make such a bald, short unexplained statement. We talk about Jesus being fully human, fully divine, or Word made flesh, or He came to reconcile and make new.''

So far, about 250 church members from Newfoundland to Victoria have signed, including about 65 clergy.

UCC Group's Statement:

This is the full text of a grassroots confession of faith prepared by a group of Ottawa United Church leaders and circulated across the country:

A Confession Of Faith

**************************

The United Church of Canada's highest judicial body has received a request to overturn a decision by church leaders letting Moderator Bill Phipps express his controversial views on the divinity of Jesus.

Ontario minister Don Anderson is attempting to have the church go back to the traditional view of its faith and examine whether Phipps is violating his ordination vows.

Anderson's request for an appeal arrived at national headquarters in Toronto Thursday, said Cynthia Gunn, legal/judicial counsel for the country's largest Protestant denomination.

Anderson would not comment when contacted by telephone.

``I'd love to answer . . . but it's probably best if I leave that to the committee that has to deal with it,'' said Anderson, who is minister at White Lake pastoral area, which includes three congregations about 100 kilometres west of Ottawa.

Anderson's request comes as a grassroots confession of faith is circulating across the country via Internet, fax and mail.

The confession of faith affirms that ``Jesus is God'' and physically rose from the dead.

Phipps, a Calgary minister, stirred up a nationwide controversy in October when he publicly questioned traditional views about Christ's divinity.

A month later, in response to hundreds of letters, faxes, and e-mails, General Council met for four days and issued a four-page statement in which it reaffirmed traditional doctrinal beliefs while saying that Phipps, like others in the 720,000-member church, has a right to express personal views.

Anderson's request for an appeal, including supporting arguments, was sent to the judicial committee of General Council.

In it, Anderson said General Council executive improperly included in its decision several church documents that tend to liberalize traditional views of Christ's divinity.

Furthermore, Anderson implicitly questioned whether Phipps was and is violating the vows he took at ordination where he agreed to be in ``essential agreement'' with the doctrines of the United Church.

General Council executive has 20 days to respond to Anderson's arguments. Then the material will go to the judicial committee executive who will decide whether there are grounds for an appeal. If the request is denied, reasons must be provided.

Gunn said that a decision would likely be made by late February.

*****************************

PDATE Friday, March 13, 1998
HEADLINE United Church rejects minister's bid to appeal
BYLINE Gordon Legge, Calgary Herald

A United Church minister from Ontario has lost his bid to appeal the way a church committee dealt with controversial comments by moderator Bill Phipps.

The national church's judicial committee ruled the request by Rev. Don Anderson does not meet the grounds for an appeal.

The committee's decision was made public Thursday. It was reached in mid-February and sent to Anderson Tuesday.

Anderson, minister of the White Lake pastoral charge, declined to comment.

Anderson's appeal was launched after Phipps's comments during a newspaper interview last fall.

Phipps -- on leave from Calgary's Scarboro United Church -- said he doesn't believe Jesus was God; and he questioned Christ's resurrection from the dead, the existence of heaven and hell, and the Bible's historical reliability.

The country's largest Protestant denomination received hundreds of letters, both protesting and supporting Phipps's comments.

In late November, the executive of the church's General Council, its national governing body, re-affirmed its traditional doctrinal beliefs and said that Phipps, like other members, has a right to express his personal views.

In doing so, it cited both the United Church's traditional articles of faith, as well as several other documents dating up to the 1990s.

Anderson protested that the council's statement improperly included several church documents that tend to liberalize the traditional views of Christ's divinity.

As well, he suggested that Phipps violated his ordination vows, and asked the committee to formally declare what is church doctrine.

Judicial committee member Charles Huband said Anderson's request did not meet the grounds for an appeal because General Council made no decisions that would give rise to an appeal.

Phipps is in Africa and could not be reached for comment.

- The Issue: Minister's bid to appeal way United Church handled moderator's comments.

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PDATE Saturday, November 22, 1997
HEADLINE Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice: Church moderators should be Christian just as Communist Party leaders should be Marxist religion
BYLINE John Robson, Southam Newspapers

If the Rev. Bill Phipps were asked again about the nature of hell, there is a good chance he'd describe an Ottawa Citizen editorial board meeting. Certainly he has been in the hot seat ever since he came to see us. I have some advice for him that could prove useful.

Before giving it, let me state two things. First, I am not a Christian. I do not find Bill Phipps' positions on the Gospels, the Resurrection or the divinity of Christ unreasonable. What I do find unreasonable, and wrong, is to hold them but also to accept the leadership of a Christian church. When Phipps was elected, The Citizen published an editorial about the alarmingly secular focus of the United Church and its new moderator, citing Mark 8.36 (``For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'') Rev. Phipps asked for a meeting, so the question ``Are you a real Christian or just a secular humanist?'' was clearly on the agenda.

It still is, for three reasons. First is the generic issue of integrity. Church moderators should be Christian for the same reason Communist Party leaders should be Marxist. People should be what they say they are.

Second, religion is important to Canadians, some 70 per cent of whom tell pollsters Jesus was God. United Church parishioners want to know if good will be rewarded and evil punished, and whether they will be reunited with their loved ones in heaven. It is wrong for a minister not to know, and even worse for him not to care.

Third, Bill Phipps has never been shy about speaking out on worldly issues. When a man whose primary identity is minister, then head, of a Christian church speaks out with certainty, he cannot avoid the implication that he does so based on an understanding of the Gospels that he shares with his parishioners. It is particularly disingenuous to declare that the Gospels are either impenetrable or irrelevant theologically, but then to find secular certainty in them. And he did. He assured us that anyone not concerned about the poor would lose their soul. But you can't just believe in Scripture when it coincides with your own preferences. You must accept all of it, including the claim that Jesus was God.

If you can't, there are plenty of religions that do not believe in the divinity of Christ. Sure, the Trinity is a mystery. If you don't like it, renounce the faith. Bill Phipps could become a Unitarian, or a theist, or a Buddhist, or even a Muslim, and have a high regard for Jesus without considering him God.

Or he could become a Christian. There are plenty of churches, and believers, who think that the clear message of the Gospels is one of social activism and that only in ministry to the poor can one serve Christ. Some, like Mother Teresa, focus on individuals where others, like Desmond Tutu, work for systemic change. Either way, if you accept Christ's emphasis on the poor you must also accept his claim to divinity.

If that possibility interests Rev. Phipps, he might want to ponder Matthew 26.34: ``Jesus said unto Peter, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.'' (See also Mark 14.30.) Peter responded indignantly, but in the course of the night, after Christ was arrested, he did precisely that. Come morning, the cock crowed, and according to Matthew 26.75: ``And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.'' (See also Mark 14.72 and Luke 22.61.) But Peter went on to be the rock on which the Catholic Church was founded, and the first Pope.

The parable of the prodigal son might also be useful to Rev. Phipps. He could deny Christ and then profess him, and be a better man and a better priest for it. Scripture is very clear on that point, as it is on most.

If not, there are some less comforting but equally straightforward verses he might want to ponder, like Matthew 10.33, where Jesus says ``But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.''

The worst time to find out that there is a hell, and what it is like, is right after you die. Compared to that, Editorial Board meetings are a snap.

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PDATE Saturday, November 22, 1997
HEADLINE Tough times old hat for Phipps
BYLINE Gordon Legge, Calgary Herald
DNOTE Early Edition.

If you rummage through the trunk of Rev. Bill Phipps's green Ford Tempo, you're sure to find a baseball and a well-worn glove.

That's because when times get tough in his career, the United Church moderator turns to another religion.

When he was introduced to the United Church at its national meeting in Camrose in August, he stepped on to the stage sporting a Blue Jays cap.

Now that he is embroiled in a controversy raging pew-by-pew across the church's breadth, he says he has turned to a book about the persecuted black baseball legend, Jackie Robinson, the first major league player to break the color barrier 50 years ago.

The controversy began for Phipps, 55, after he raised questions during an October newspaper interview about Jesus Christ's divinity, Christ's resurrection, the existence of heaven and hell, and the Bible's historical validity.

This weekend the church's national executive is meeting in Toronto to decide what to do about the controversy.

Many of the officials said Friday they were pleased Phipps had sparked the theological debate.

``I see this as a tremendous opportunity for the church to re-examine what we believe about Christ, about God and how that will impact on our lives. We've been too comfortable about God,'' said Rev. Mark Wartman, minister at St. James United Church in Regina.

Years ago when the United Church General Council sessions became tense, Phipps introduced a noon-hour baseball competition and donated a trophy. Now known as the Moderator's Cup, it's become a tradition at their national meetings.

``He wanted to loosen people up to go outside and have a bit of fun,'' says his wife, Carolyn Pogue Phipps.

Phipps inherited his interest in baseball from his father Reginald, an Eaton's accountant who loved family, church and friends in that order.

Born in Toronto on May 4, 1942, Phipps grew up in a staunch United Church home.

His older sister, Elda Thomas, said it was with his father that Phipps first developed his lifelong passion for social justice, tagging along with his dad who volunteered at inner-city missions in the early 1950s. From his mother, Cora, he learned unconditional love. ``He always knew whatever happened, mother was there for him,'' says Thomas.

When Phipps's mother was dying in 1981, he left the family cottage in Lake Simcoe to be with her. He's done the same many times for congregants.

``He's never been afraid to be with someone in pain,'' says Pogue Phipps. ``Most of us are afraid of the darker side of life. Bill isn't. He'd simply call it life.''

While teenagers were drifting away from the church in the 1960s, Phipps stayed because he loved the music.

Phipps was studying law when he became involved with a downtown Toronto church, working with children in a welfare neighborhood.

Then he spent a summer with Brooklyn Presbyterian Church on the edge of New York City's Bedford-Stuyvesant. It was a summer of riots and soldiers on the street, recalls Phipps. ``I saw the church trying to be the church in a war zone.''

He changed course and decided to attend Chicago's McCormick Theological School on a three-year international student scholarship.

There he learned from the famed community activist Saul Alinski, marched with Martin Luther King Jr., met famed Biblical theologian William Stringfellow, worked in a children's leukemia ward, and assembled lawnmowers at a Sunbeam factory.

For someone who had grown up in a comfortable home in 1950s Toronto the Good, Ontario the Plain, Phipps told the United Church Observer, ``It was like a blast from a furnace.''

He returned to Toronto after being ordained in 1969 and articled for his law degree while doing community organizing at night.

In 1983 he moved to Alberta where he took an administrative job as executive secretary for the church's Alberta and Northwest Territories conference, its regional governing body. The mid-1980s was a pivotal time for him. His marriage of 12 years ended in divorce.

He visited Nicaragua, which was engulfed in a murderous civil war, and returned to tell tearful stories about the peasants he met.

As executive secretary, he stood at the barricades alongside the Lubicon Cree, and joined in a prayer service near the Gainers picket line.

Moreover, that role put him in the midst of the gay ordination debate that erupted in 1988, the scars of which have spilled over into the current debate.

While opponents characterize him as manipulative, friends simply see him as skilled in using the political process.

He and Pogue Phipps married in 1990 and moved to Calgary's Scarboro United in 1993.

Since arriving, membership at the upper-middle-class church on the edge of the Beltline downtown has doubled to about 325 families.

``He has a real affection for people, a real concern and love for each individual,'' says Mary Beard, 80, a former Baptist missionary in Bolivia who joined the church three years ago.

She liked his theology and his openness and acceptance of her, something she found missing in other churches. The congregation has stepped up its outreach to neighboring Connaught community, through letter-writing campaigns addressing child poverty, school reading programs and evenings serving dinner at the Mustard Seed.

Phipps also conducts a couple of weekly Bible studies from which he culls material for his sermons.

Shortly after Bill and Carolyn married, two of her three children died within a two-year time span.

When their grieving ended, the couple decided to institute a Christmas service for all those people who don't find the season very jolly -- The Hard to Be Merry Christmas service.

Apart from baseball, Phipps is an avid hockey fan, rooting for the downtrodden Toronto Maple Leafs.

He's also somewhat of a romantic, given to hiding away love notes in his wife's suitcase when she leaves town.

Also given to wearing vests, blue jeans and T-shirts with messages on them (his car has two bumper stickers: Racism Hurts and Feminism is the Radical Notion that Women are People), Phipps dons the occasional suit, like the day he accompanied a congregant to court who had been charged with sexual assault.

To replenish his energies, he needs time alone, so the couple drives up to the mountains for long quiet walks.

He also loves listening to jazz and classical music as well as spending time with his dog, Chinook.

Those who know him say that if Phipps has weaknesses, they are that he over-extends himself, he's impatient with stupidity and he's impulsive.

Moreover, there's a humility borne of insecurity. ``He doesn't have as good opinion of himself as others,'' says Beard.

``He likes to be liked,'' says longtime friend Bruce Miller, an Edmonton minister who was among four people across the country who nominated Phipps for Moderator.

``He is quite hesitant. He tries to make everybody feel included. He's very upset personally when people feel their faith is threatened by what he says.

``He's open. He lets it all hang out. There's no hidden agenda. It's all there.''

Pogue Phipps says that whenever the couple is walking into a situation where they don't know what the outcome will be, he tells her, ``Just hold God's hand.''

``I think he's holding God's hand.''

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PDATE Tuesday, November 25, 1997
HEADLINE Moderator ordered to temper comments
BYLINE Gordon Legge, Calgary Herald

Calgary Rev. Bill Phipps has been told to temper his comments on the divinity of Jesus Christ, but will remain Moderator of the United Church of Canada.

At a meeting in Toronto Monday, the executive of the country's largest Protestant denomination reaffirmed the church's traditional doctrinal beliefs while saying that Phipps -- like all others in the 720,0000-member church -- has a right to express his personal views.

Phipps, on a three-year leave of absence from Calgary's Scarboro United, reiterated his apology to those hurt by his comments, but added, ``I still believe what I believe.''

Phipps ignited a firestorm last month when he said: ``I don't believe Jesus was God;'' questioned Christ's resurrection from the dead; the existence of heaven and hell, and the Bible's historical reliability.

The comments caused an uproar in some quarters. Rev. Alan Schooley, minister at Calgary's Southwood United Church, accused Phipps of heresy and called for the moderator to repent or resign.

In a statement the executive of the General Council expressed its gratitude and respect for Phipps's ``unique gifts'' and the contribution he can make to the church during his three-year term.

However, because of his role as a church spokesman, the spiritual leader's views must be tempered by the need to conform to the denomination's stated policies.

The council said the doctrinal standards of the United Church are set out not only in the more traditional articles of faith established at the beginning of the church in 1925, but also in a series of other documents, including its 1968 creed and 1990s documents on the Lordship of Jesus and the authority and interpretation of scripture.

Church members should recognize and celebrate the diversity of interpretations of such documents, said the executive.

``The debate has just begun,'' said John Dutton, chairman of the Calgary Presbytery, the local governing council, which represents 34 churches with about 11,000 members in the Calgary area.

``It was wise that they supported the moderator; it was wise they supported the doctrinal beliefs of the church. It still leaves a wide open door for a lot of discussion that must take place in the church.''

Jack Grant, chairman of the board at Southwood United, said he was pleased with the council's report. ``From my perspective, I can endorse what General Council is saying there,'' Grant said.

``You have to be cognizant that you're representing a faith that spreads across the vast regions of this land; and while there can be some different views, you have to accept the basic beliefs on which the church was founded.''

Southwood minister Schooley could not be reached for comment. Despite calls for Phipps' resignation, his tenure was never in question during the four-day executive meeting because he could not be removed without a formal process through the church courts.

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PDATE Sunday, November 30, 1997
HEADLINE A whole lotta love

As members of the Rt. Rev. Bill Phipps' home congregation, Scarboro United Church, we are disturbed at the limited picture of this man that has been portrayed during the recent controversy. While there has been much talk about his political activism, and considerable distortion of his theological beliefs, there has been virtually nothing said about his role as a caring and compassionate pastor, teacher and counsellor.

Jesus said, ``The greatest commandment is love.'' Bill Phipps lives this.

Norma Bannerman

(This letter by Bannerman was signed by 112 Scarboro United parishioners.)

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PDATE Saturday, November 29, 1997
HEADLINE Evangelicals could take some tips from Phipps: Pastors lament United Church moderator's theology, but his thoughts on poverty elicit sympathy
BYLINE Gordon Legge, Calgary Herald
Is there such a thing as a heresy of silence, a heresy of inactivity? That's the question posed by Rev. Tim Callaway, minister at Westview Baptist Church in Ranchlands, reflecting on the theological controversy stirred up by the moderator of the United Church of Canada.

Calgary minister Rev. Bill Phipps, elected moderator in August, was accused by conservatives during the past month of being a heretic after questioning traditional Christian beliefs, such as Jesus Christ is God. Instead, he espoused social action on behalf of the poor and marginalized as being the way to salvation.

Callaway, himself a conservative Christian, flips the tables by wondering out loud whether it's simply good enough to espouse orthodox Christian views without subsequent social action.

Callaway wonders about those who show up dutifully for church every Sunday but there's no evidence it has any impact on their daily lives.

For instance, during the past few months many people, mostly migrants from other parts of Canada arriving in Calgary looking for work, have shown up at his church door asking for aid. While he's willing to help, Callaway's appalled at the number of evangelical Christians who regard every destitute visitor as ``a scam artist.''

``I'm amazed at the response I get from people,'' says Callaway.
``I wish I could be a comfortable suburban Christian.
``It would be so easy if Jesus hadn't said `love your neighbor'.''

Quoting the Bible, Callaway asks, ``If you can't love your brother whom you have seen, how can you love the brother you haven't seen?

``I'm all for an orthodox statement of faith,'' says Callaway.
``I'm also for an orthodox statement of life.''
Meanwhile, at last week's regular luncheon meeting of the Evangelical Ministerial Association, the assembled ministers prayed for Phipps and the United Church for having gone so far astray.

While mainline Protestants, such as the Anglicans, are quietly embroiled in identical questions of faith as the United Church, evangelical or conservative Christians stand four-square on their orthodoxy.

Phipps, and others within the United Church, are celebrating this outpouring of discussion about Christ's nature and other key Christian doctrines, arguing that it will foster intelligent discussion and the pursuit of truth.

Evangelicals disagree. That will only further polarize the church by creating more confusion, says Charles Nienkirchen, professor of Christian history and spirituality at Rocky Mountain College - A Centre for Biblical Studies in Brentwood.

``If you can't trust the Biblical account of God's involvement with Jesus Christ,'' he asks, ``what can you trust?"

That kind of polarity is the tragedy of the North American Christianity, Nienkirchen says.

``Mr. Phipps is asking us to chose between historical Christianity and social compassion. That's the worst of all possible choices.'' What's needed is more conservative Christians with Phipps' social conscience, he says.

``The problem with ultra-conservative evangelical Christians is that they do not have a socially-relevant agenda.''

For example, evangelical ministers should have led the way in providing donations for a new women's emergency shelter after it burned down, he says. Instead, evangelicals are prone to imposing their own agenda, along with their answers on society, alienating the very people they most want to reach.

``Jesus bought authority to the agenda of society,'' says Nienkirchen.

``We have retreated into a cultural ghetto.''

Neinkirchen says there is a spiritual hunger across the land.

But having abandoned the collective social traditions of the past and mistrusting traditional views, people in the late 20th century are searching outside the traditional religious institutions for new sources of spiritual experience and authority.

``The Phipps' controversy unwittingly flows into this,'' says Nienkirchen.

Moreover, North America has entered a post-Christian era, dominated by religious pluralism.

In order for conservative Christians to hold their own in the decades to come, they will have to bear faithful witness in society to what they believe about Christ, he says.

``It's a call to fidelity, fidelity in terms of the ultimate truth AND immediate needs.''

Another evangelical professor agrees.

Conservative Christians must demonstrate their love of God and their love of the poor simultaneously, says Gerry Bowler, director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Contemporary Culture.

``If you do love God, the pain of your neighbor will be very real to you and prompt you, individually and collectively, to action.''

Bowler believes that while Phipps' remarks have encouraged others of like mind, it provides an opportunity for conservatives to seize the day.

Evangelical churches, like the Christian and Missionary Alliance and various Pentecostal groups have grown in recent years, while the United church has shrunk, says Bowler, associate professor of history at downtown Canadian Nazarene College.

``This drift to secularism, rationalism and materialism has proven utterly unpopular for the unchurched,'' he says.

People want certitude and conviction.

Bowler, who grew up in the United Church, says that conservative churches ought to pull their preachers off television and start advertising instead. Bowler throws out a suggestion: ``Confused by your leadership, here's a church that knows what it believes.''

So what is a person to do who is trying to make sense of all the claims and counterclaims? Seek out people who claim to have the answers, says Bowler.

If they are sufficient, they're probably appropriate for you.

``If you're hungry and thirsty, go to the place that feeds real food and drink. You don't go to the library when you have hunger pains.''

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