From the Letter to the Romans:
But what does it say? “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Romans 10:8-13 (NRSV) – March 19, 2013.)
In my opinion there is probably no more misused piece of writing in all of Holy Scripture, unless perhaps it is Paul’s other toss-off line (in this same epistle): “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” (Rom. 3:28 NRSV) Both of them have led people to a religion that is all talk and no walk, which I am quite sure was not Paul’s intention at all!
I went to high school pretty much in the absolute middle of the United States. The geographic center of the U.S. is just outside the small town of Lebanon, Kansas. I went to high school in Salina, Kansas, about 100 miles away. At the time, and probably to this day, it is pretty much conservative, evangelical Christian territory. There are a few nutty Episcopalians, but not many; a few more good German Lutherans and just about as many good German Catholics. But the conservative, evangelical traditions rule the roost.
One of the things I most remember about my high school years in the center of the country are the evangelical Christian pamphlets that one would find distributed in, of all places, the public restrooms of filling stations and coffee shops. I know that sounds weird, and frankly it is weird! But almost without fail, anytime I would make use of such public facilities in the late 1960s I would find a small pamphlet on the wash basin counter, on the back of the toilet, or on top of the urinal telling me that all I needed to do to be saved and escaped the fires of Hell was “confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.” That’s all. Nothing more.
That always struck me as nonsense. Even to a 14-year-old high school freshman, it just seemed like there ought to be more to it than the five-step outline for salvation set out in the public restroom pamphlet (and which I’ve subsequently seen enumerated elsewhere):
- Hear the Gospel (Romans 10:17)
- Believe the Gospel (Mark 16:16)
- Repent of sins (Luke 13:3)
- Confess Christ. (Matthew 10:32)
- Be Baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38).
It seemed like poppycock because pretty regularly the priest in my church would recite other passages of Scripture: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21 KJV) was his favorite offertory sentence. And I recall more than one sermon in which he made reference to the Letter of James with its (to me, at least) cogent reasoning:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.
The leaflet in the lou seemed not even to require faith. I know it says that one step is to “Believe the Gospel” and another to “Confess Christ,” but those only require intellectual ascent, not faith. Just because one accepts the factuality of the Jesus story, and possibly even tells others about it, doesn’t mean that one trusts in Jesus as Lord and Savior. So even though it might have been parroting Paul in the 10th chapter of Romans, it seemed to have overlooked the 3rd chapter. And it’s authors had clearly dismissed James’s conclusion that “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
It’s not that the five steps in the bathroom broadside are wrong. It’s that they are incomplete. There are so many more steps – feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the ill, visiting the prisoners, housing the homeless, selling everything you own and giving the money to the poor, not being a stumbling block to others, loving your neighbor, and many many more. One can’t just talk the talk; one must walk the walk; one must take the journey.
Salvation is a journey of many steps through many places doing many things. Salvation is not achieved with five simple steps communicated through a community water closet!
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
It’s called bibliolatry and it’s been around a long, long time. The dictionary definition of bibliolatry is “excessive reverence for the Bible as literally interpreted.” What I most enjoy about modern bibliolatry is that it denies that it is bibliolatry in the most circular and bibliolatrous of ways. 
It may be the United States’ holiday of Thanksgiving Day, but the Daily Office continues at this time of year delivering its message of repentance rather than encouraging thanksgiving. The Old Testament lesson is another from Malachi in which the Lord speaking to the priests says that he has spread dung on their faces and put them out of his presence! The gospel lesson from Luke has Jesus predicting the end of the world. And then there’s this epistle lesson which condemns the wealthy. Just not a lot of giving thanks!
I suppose I take issue with Scripture more often than I should, but this is one of those bits that I just can’t agree with. I vehemently disagree with James’s equation of “doubt” with what he calls “double-mindedness”. The Greek word translated “double-minded” is dipsuchos , from dis , meaning “twice,” and psuche , meaning “mind.” James use of it to describe someone who has doubts suggests that such a person is divided in his or her interests or loyalties, wavering, two-faced, and half-hearted. 
This is from one of today’s psalms for Evening Prayer. What got my attention and caught my imagination is the Psalmist image of unspoken thoughts being painful and bursting into flame demanding to be spoken. While it is intended to be a positive image of trying to not engage with the wicked until one can no longer refrain from doing so, until one’s righteousness is kindled against them, I could not help but be reminded of James’s words:
It is said that Martin Luther hated the Letter of James; he called it an “epistle of straw” and didn’t believe it should be in the Bible. Why? Some folks will tell you it is because this epistle doesn’t support Luther’s theology of justification by grace through faith; James insists that works are necessary and the reformer just didn’t like that. However, that’s not really the case. Luther had doubts about the epistle’s apostolicity; he didn’t think it was really written by James the Apostle. He was probably right.
The collect for today from The Book of Common Prayer:
If you are a political junkie like me, you’ve been following the campaigns, watching the conventions, reading the editorials, and generally getting angry with one side or the other or both and the whole process. You may have noticed, as I have, that candidates are never alone. They are surrounded by a whole corps, an entire gaggle of handlers, some of whom have the responsibility to make sure the candidate stays “on message”, that he or she makes no “gaffs”. Jesus was surrounded by a gaggle, as well, but these were not handlers and there was no one to keep him “on message” except himself. In fact, the gospel witness is pretty clear that even right up to the end the gaggle that followed him around really didn’t understand the message!
I want you for just a minute to close your eyes. Just sit back and relax, and imagine that you are hearing not my voice, but the voice of your beloved, the voice of the one person in this world who loves you more than any other . . . . 
The Pharisees are crawling out of the woodwork! After the vote yesterday by the Episcopal Church’s 77th General Convention to give bishop’s authority to permit a “provisional rite” for the blessing of committed same-sex relationships (it’s not a marriage rite – keep saying that!) the Twitterverse has erupted with some nasty stuff from detractors and supporters alike. We humans are always so much more likely to see and criticize what we consider the sinful foibles of others than we are those of ourselves. This is what Jesus addresses here. ~ The image of a “whited sepulchre” is so evocative. In an earlier verse, Jesus has accused the Pharisees of only washing the outside of their drinking cups. And elsewhere he reminded his disciples of the unclean mess inside every human being: “Whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer . . . Out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” (Matt. 15:17,19-20) The tweets coming from General Convention (and from those of us observing from afar) on all sides of the many issues facing the church are certainly demonstrating the truth of this! The insides of many “whited sepulchres” are being exposed to public view. ~ I’ve been thinking about the Letter of James and how it might have been written differently if today’s communication technology had been around back in First Century Palestine . . . . Perhaps we might there have read something like this:
