Chapel – Dr. Patrick Franklin
MICHAEL KRAUSE: We praise your name Jesus, and we give you thanks. All hail the power of Jesus' name. So gracious God. We gather together today, unified in that great name of Jesus, seeking guidance, wisdom and support as we reflect on our past accomplishments and look ahead to working together to promote a brighter future for each one of us and for Tyndale. You brought these people together, and you bring us together to create avenues for service that give us opportunity to glorify you and to grow in peace and understanding with one another. Thank you for this opportunity today to bring Patrick and his family before you and to bless him as he launches into this new role. Thank you for the blessing that he is to us, and Lord we thank you for all of the blessings that you've bestowed upon Tyndale and how thankful we are to work together for your purposes, that your presence accompany us each day, together help us to do your work by doing our work with excellence and reverence. So God bless our time together today and our shared mission and future, and we welcome you to work among us here and now in Jesus name, amen, please be seated.
Our land acknowledgement was developed specifically for Tyndale University in 2018 under the guidance of elder Terry LeBlanc and in consultation with individuals from six nations and the urban indigenous community of the Greater Toronto Area. It reads, For 1000s of years, the Greater Toronto Area has been the traditional land of the Huron Wendat, the Seneca and most recently, the Mississaugas of the credit River. It is part of the dish with one spoon territory, a treaty between the Anishinaabe Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that committed them together to share the territory and protect the land. Other indigenous peoples and other nations have subsequently entered this territory in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect, and it is on these lands and in the spirit that Tyndale seeks to engage in its work. So we acknowledge that our campus is located on traditional indigenous land, and those of us connected to this community gather, work, and study in the context of that history, and it's our privilege and responsibility to partner in the journey to reconciliation, sustaining a safe, welcoming and informed place of learning for everyone.
Good morning. My name is Michael Kraus, and as the academic dean, it's my privilege to welcome you here to this special moment where we are gathered to celebrate the installation of Dr. Patrick Franklin to the Alistair E McGrath Chair of Christian thought and spirituality. Say that quickly 10 time. To all of Patrick's family and his friends and all the guests who's made this special trip to Tyndale today, an especially warm welcome on this cold day. This endowed chair was established in 2018 at Tyndale Seminary in honor of internationally acclaimed theologian and scholar, Dr. Alister McGrath, who's the Andreas idrios Professor of science and religion and was director of the Ian Ramsey Center for Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. Dr. McGrath is renowned for his prolific scholarly work and his diverse areas, including the relationship between science and religion, Christian apologetics, reformation theology, and Christian spirituality.
The inaugural holder of the chair is Dr. Dennis Ngien, who was appointed for a term of five years and is sitting on the platform here with us today. Dr Ngien retired in September of 2022 and is now functioning as a research professor at Tyndale, and he holds a number of other distinguished professor roles across academia worldwide. The title of the chair, the chair of Christian thought and spirituality, is used to capture the twin foci of the chair, the interface of Christian thought and spirituality. This interface is a key theme in McGrath's scholarship, and is foundational to the educational ethos of Tyndale seminary. The term Christian thought includes, among other things, the Reformation theologies that are an important part an important stream within the transdenominational Christian heritage of Tyndale. This joint emphasis in the title on spirituality underscores the inseparability of theology with the life and practice of each one of us in faithful livin. As we continue we were going to read Scripture. Elena Franklin will read the first one and then followed by Ruth malinkowski. Malinowski, sorry.
ELENA FRANKLIN: Thank you. Colossians 1 15 to 23. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God, firstborn over all creation. For by Him, all things were created that are in heaven and on earth, that which is visible and that which is invisible, whether thrones or dominions, principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him. Christ is Therefore before all things, and by Him all things consist. He holds all of creation together. Christ is the head of the Church, which is His body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God, in His fullness, was pleased to live in Christ, and through Him, God reconciled everything to himself. God made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross, that includes you, you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated by your evil thoughts and ways. Yet now God has reconciled you. He has reconciled you to himself by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Christ's death was in his physical body, and as a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand firmly in the presence of God, so be grounded and steadfast. Don't drift or be moved away from the hope and the assurance that you received when you first heard the gospel, the good news, this news has been preached over all the world, and I Paul, have been appointed as God's servant to proclaim it.
RUTH MALINOWSKI: John eight verses 31 to 36 so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. They answered him. We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed, John 14, verse six, in reply to a query from Thomas, Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me.
MICHAEL KRAUSE: It's now my privilege to introduce Dr. Franklin to you. You have in your bulletins, description and some of his background, and so I won't cover that, but I'm delighted to be able to introduce him today because he's so well regarded and beloved as a teacher and a mentor at Tyndale. He's developed and taught over 21 different courses in theology, ethics and spirituality. He's taught at the Associate Professor level at both Tyndale seminary, starting in 2018 and a Providence seminary before that, for students in MDiv, Ma, MTS, THM and Doctor of Ministry programs. He's also Tyndale grad, and he earned his MDiv degree in can I say this? 2001 he doesn't look that old. Because Dr. Alister McGrath is not only a theologian, but also a natural scientist. Work as a theologian, sorry, he has explored deeply the intersection of theology and science, and so Patrick's expertise as a theologian explores similar terrain as he served as the past president of the Canadian scientific and Christian affiliation, as well as being a Fellow of the American scientific affiliation.
You can see that list of publications in the brochure, and actually, just yesterday, was announced that his manuscript submission God's dispassionate wrath, was approved for publication in the Canadian American theological review. So he's continuing on his work as a scholar and academic. But he's also committed to the church, and he's served as a pastor and a church planter, and he provides ethical and ethics consultations to a number of churches. He also teaches these mini courses that target an audience that I like this phrase that are between the sermon and the seminary that is intelligent people who want to dig deeper but don't want to go to seminary. These courses like following the way of Jesus, which is an intro to Christian ethics, a course on sexual ethics, a course on why church, are all offered online over a six, six week period. Finally, he is deeply respected here at Tyndale by his colleagues and, of course, in the broader academic community. And I know that when I hear him teach or present, I'm challenged and inspired, and it only increases my compulsion to want to sit in on all of his lectures. Maybe I'll have time for that someday. Now to lead us in the act of installation, I'd like to invite our President and Vice Chancellor, Dr. Marjory Kerr.
MARJORY KERR: Well, good morning everyone, as we transition to the installation of Dr Patrick Franklin as the Alistair E McGrath Chair of Christian thought and spirituality, if we say it out loud several times this morning, you'll keep it in your memory bank. But I want to extend my welcome to each of you as well, because I recognize that represented here, we have folk who represent the theological, scholarly, spiritual and personal influences on Tyndale, on our seminary and on Dr. Franklin, your faithful support through prayer, financial gifts, study, and friendship are deeply appreciated, and I want to say thank you.
In a university setting, endowed chairs are prestigious, permanently funded faculty positions. They're established through philanthropic gifts that serve to advance specialized fields, support research and teaching and create unique opportunities for focused excellence. Endowed Chair holders are established leaders in their field. They are tasked with fostering innovation, driving research, mentoring students and collaborating with scholars, both within and across institutions and organization. And funds that are generated by the invested endowment provide salary support, research stipends and other resources on an ongoing basis. Now at Tyndale, the variables I've just described are not provided to recognize the chair holder alone, but are established and carried out within our shared commitment to follow Christ, and in the context of our institutional mission statement, which says this, Tyndale is dedicated to the pursuit of truth, to excellence in teaching, learning, and research, for the enriching of mind, heart and character, to serve the church and the world for the glory of God. So the commitment of the chair holder, therefore, is a commitment to God and to the mission of Tyndale, as well as to a specific area of scholarly focus. And each of these is reflected in the act of installation that we will now follow, and represents an institutional and community commitment as much as it does an individual commitment.
Dr. Franklin, I'd invite you to join me now. and Dr. Green and Dr. Krause, have you come to my right? In the name of God and in the presence of all gathered, we are pleased to install Dr. Patrick Franklin to the Alistair E McGrath Chair of Christian thought and spirituality at Tyndale seminary. Dr. Franklin, your appointment as the holder of the Alister McGrath chair stands upon a call to contribute to the mission of God through teaching, mentoring, scholarship and service, by installing you into this role, we believe you have the gifts and graces necessary to conduct the work of the chair, and this is evidenced in the fruitfulness of your scholarly vocation and Christian ministry to this time. Do you believe that God has called you to serve as a teacher in the church and to this role at Tyndale as the Alistair E McGrath Chair of Christian thought and spirituality?
PATRICK FRANKLIN: I do.
MICHAEL KRAUSE: Patrick, the mission of Tyndale Seminary is to provide Christ centered graduate theological education for leaders in the church and society whose lives are marked by personal maturity, spiritual vigor, and moral integrity, and whose witness faithfully engages culture with the gospel. So do you commit to participating in this mission, faithfully giving your time and your talents as a member of the Tyndale faculty and as a participant in God's mission to the world?
PATRICK FRANKLIN: With God's help, I do
BETH GREEN: In your role as the McGrath Chair of Christian thought and spirituality, you are part of a community that includes students, staff, faculty, alumni, supporters, and the broad constituency of God's people who share a common commitment to the mission of God. Do you commit to faithfully and collaboratively engage with these colleagues in ministry so that the whole people of God may be built up and equipped for the work of ministry?
PATRICK FRANKLIN: With God's help, I do.
MARJORY KERR: I now ask everyone gathered here as witnesses to stand as a sign of your affirmation. Dr. Franklin, Patrick, on behalf of Tyndale University and Tyndale seminary, and in the presence of these witnesses, we affirm your calling. We pray God's blessing upon you, and we install you as the Alister E McGrath Chair of Christian thought and spirituality as a community, we covenant to prayerfully support you and your family in this calling, may God bless you and keep you, may God give you a deep sense of peace, purpose, and fruit for your labor as you serve in this role, in this place, at this time, I now invite to the platform Elena and All those who are participating in the prayer of dedication, if you would come to the front.
DENNIS NGIEN: Shall we pray? Our Dear heavenly Father. As a community of faith, we bow before you in reverence of Your Majesty, dedicating Dr Patrick Franklin to you for your service in this sacred moment of installation to the Alister McGrath chair, we ask for your special touch and the perpetual anointment upon him that he might become a faithful instrument of divine power. We pray that, oh Father, that Patrick will be like Enoch walking in a daily communion with you, that he might be like Job learning to be patient under every circumstance, rain or shine, that he might be like Joseph turning his back on evil temptation, that he might be like Moses, choosing to suffer rather than enjoy the pleasure of sin, that he might be like Caleb and Joshua, refusing to be discouraged because of numbers or little results, that he might be like David, always lifting up his eyes and countenance to God for help, for we confess that we have no goodness of our own, no strength of our own, no wisdom of our own, except yours that descend from on high.
O Lord Jesus, may the cross, your Cross be the exemplar of Patrick's vocation, may your humility dissolve any hint or taint of vanity, may your selflessness rebuke any element of status seeking, may your courage condemn any weak conformity to the worldly standard. O Lord Jesus make him willing to accept the lowly tasks, brave enough to accept the important tasks, and steadfast enough not to abandon his calling to the chair and the demands placed upon him.
O Holy Spirit, we bow before you the spirit of holiness. Save him from himself, the old self that still remains sometimes remains as tyrants and oppositions of our justified status. Preserve him from himself that he might not allow the old self to reign above your word. O Lord the Holy Spirit. Do not forget him, even when he forgets you. Do not forsake him, even when he is tempted to forsake you. Call him back to yourself when he deviates from the path of righteousness.
We commit Patrick and his family, grant them faith that clings to no one but you alone. Whatever good things they lack persuade them not to seek another, but you alone, the very substance of our well being. Whenever the sufferer be potion, or pain, or distress, woo them back to yourself alone, to your bosom, the place where he finds, they find solace, peace, and comfort, Almighty God, let thy servant, your servant, Patrick, hunger for your beauty. Let him thirst for your favor. Let his whole being desire the double portion of your grace. Let his heart be convinced that your most earnest purpose is to be his God, creating, providing, redeeming, sustaining, and renewing him for this task and for your name's sake, we bow before you, asking you to establish the works and the labors of his hands to God be the glory, the God who is three in one blessed forever. And all of God's people say? Amen.
MARJORY KERR: In recognition of the Covenant commitments that have been made today. Join me in recognizing our friend and brother, Dr Patrick Franklin,
PATRICK FRANKLIN: Hello, everybody. Welcome. I want to start just by saying thank you so much for being here today. This day is very exciting for me and also just a little bit weird. Uh, being the focus of attention. And so I really appreciated Elena's reading and Ruth's reading, bringing us to Scripture, lifting up Christ, who is the Lord of all, the Supreme Lord of all. I want to say thank you to my colleagues. It's very rare to be able to work amongst people who are your mentors and your friends and your brothers and sisters in Christ, and it's just such a wonderful place to be. And I thank you for coming to this and being supportive. Many of you, number of you seated kind of in the front rows here, have come from various places. Some of you have walked with me and my family for a long time, and I was having a spiritual direction meeting a couple weeks ago with my spiritual director, and we started just by sitting in God's presence. We kind of got caught up in light on life a little bit. He asked me, What's going on? What's with this McGrath chair thing you're talking about a little bit? And then we just sat and he said, you know, where is God with you right now? And what came to mind, I suddenly envisioned a room of people, and many of you were there, your faces, and I was in the shape of a cross being held up. But I wasn't the focus. It wasn't like, I don't know, it wasn't a god complex or something. It was. It was participating in the work of Christ. I think. This journey has often been hard and sacrificial and difficult, and the emphasis was on all of the people who were holding me, without whom I would just fall to the ground. And it's not people versus God, it's you, the body of Christ that have held me and propelled me. So thank you for being here.
When I think of the Alister E McGrath chair in Christian thought and spirituality, I said it one word comes to mind, especially for me, and that word is integration, integration, knowing and loving Christ, knowing and loving God with heart, soul, strength, mind, loving neighbor as oneself, seeking to know Him and to love Him in order to serve Him all over the world and equipping others to do so. Integration, I think that represents Alister McGrath's work really well. I mean, he's a research scientist initially, and then he became a historical theologian with a specialty in the Reformation, but wrote on all kinds of topics. His textbook is, I think, the most widely used book in the world. I think of my mentor, Dr Dennis Ngien, whose passion is reformation theology, but not just as an abstract set of ideas, as it links to piety, relationship with God, spiritual formation, growth in the Christian life. And so I stand in good company when I think about this word, integration, a unity, harmony, peace, in a word shalom.
Think of Genesis one where God is speaking creation into being, ordering it with his word, it is good. It is very good, summoned and animated into being and life by the word, full of purpose, fullness and potentiality. Who does it? get my little device working here? Sorry, I almost forgot I had it. Maybe we're not going to work. Here we go. Our society is characterized not by integration, but disintegration and division. Everywhere we see disagreement. I think I'll just raise my hand so in the back you may have to pay attention. Device doesn't seem to be working. I should just go with my own PowerPoints, right? Dr Ngien, not okay. I'll just raise my hand like this. How about it? So everywhere we see disagreement, animosity and disrespect for other viewpoints and for those holding them, leading to a context of cynicism and polarization, especially if you're on social media or if you're reading the news. Sometimes, if you're like me, you can be tempted, to be led to a place of despair, like, is there actually any meaning in the universe? Is there really any clear and objective distinction between good and evil? Can anyone really claim to be serving the truth in a way that isn't self serving? Can anyone be trusted? Indeed, trust in one another is at an all time low.
I'll give a shout out to Dr. Marjory Kerr who a few years ago brought my attention to a study called the Edelman Trust Barometer study. It's a huge international study that surveys the world and different countries and is interested in questions related to trust and Richard Edelman comments, he says, the consequences of low trust in government, systematic unfairness, and lack of common values is a descent from an acceptable level of societal debate to a critical level of polarization. These figures may shock you, but in Canada, there was this striking measurement, and people were asked to answer the following questions. If a person strongly disagreed with me or my point of view, I would help them if they were in need. 26% of Canadians said, Yes. Be willing to live in the same neighborhood, 24%. and be willing to have them as a co worker, 19%. Now the figures were worse in the US, so we can pat ourselves on the back for that, I guess. But wow, my goodness, our situation is one in which we've lost the narrative, the great narrative, of the Christian faith.
How many people here are fans of board games? Anybody? We'll just go to the next slide there. Yeah, a few people. You're nerds like me. Now, monopoly is not really a nerdy game. It's kind of introductory game. But if you prefer the metaphor of sports, you can think about that and what I'm about to say, board games are interesting, right? We, all have a sense of what a board game is about, or what a sport is about. You know, we have a sense of what it means to win. There are some common pieces like dice and cards and spaces to move around on and various other things like that. And so we all know how to play a board game, right? Okay, well, what if we were to get a great big table and bring in 100 board games and dump out all the pieces, mix them all up, and then say, randomly select 150 pieces off the table. Now go play the game. What on earth would we do? This is a little bit like our situation today. When it comes to things like moral disagreement. We're using the same language. The principle sounds similar. You know, we're using dice, we're using cards. We have a board. But what game are we even playing? Do we even know? Who writes the rules? And so in our society, what tends to happen is whoever controls the narrative predetermines what game we are playing. And so the importance of spin, story selling, as one theologian puts it rather than story telling, that if we can sell people into the game we want to play and manipulate them into it, we can control the outcomes.
Now, what about the church? Is it any different? The church is supposed to be different, but unfortunately, division and polarization are characterizing the church as well, and our tendency in response is to choose one of two things to maybe latch onto. First of all, we might choose orthodoxy, or Secondly, we might choose orthopraxy. What do I mean by these terms? Well, if you're a student here in theology, you'll know that orthodoxy essentially has to do with right belief, and orthodoxy has to do with pursuing truth, rejecting false beliefs, rejecting dishonesty and lies, focusing on correct teaching and doctrine, on genuine belief, on heeding legitimate authorities when evaluating truth claims, especially scripture and the great tradition of the church. On the importance of clarity and stating beliefs and convictions. Having statements of faith are important to many of us, right? It also emphasizes the importance of bearing verbal witness to the Christian faith and defending its truth. The great examples of this are people like Justin Martyr in the early church, the apologists who tried to make Christian faith credible in the context of the Roman Empire. But we have modern examples too, like C S Lewis or G K Chesterton, Rebecca McLaughlin, and, of course, Alister McGrath, who also serves as a public apologist. If we were to give a short form motto for this, we might say, believe the right things, ideas matter. Just preach the truth and beware of religious heretics.
Now the other approach is orthopraxy, which has to do with right practice. And those who want to pursue this, if we're making it into an either or, and I'm doing that for the sake of this discussion, they want to emphasize right practice, the pursuit of justice, the pursuit of goodness, the rejection of injustice and evil and tyranny. The focus is on challenging illegitimate claims to truth, illegitimate claims to authority, abuses of power. It emphasizes the character of God, especially as revealed by Jesus. It emphasizes the importance of solidarity with the victims of injustice, the importance of the church's moral credibility, it's public witness. So maybe instead of loving statements of faith, these people prefer statements of core values. Worship of God as an embodied way of life, seeking to love one's neighbor as oneself as a form of worship, kind of like when children treat each other well, it brings honor and happiness to their parents, right guys?
And if we were to think about the past, we think about the early church and the very provocative way it lived its life. Rodney Stark talks about how the early church went to save baby girls who were discarded at the Roman garbage dumps, for example, giving away their money, reaching out to those who were different and so on. Standing out is different. We think of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Catherine booth and the Salvation Army, or Martin Luther King Jr, or Dorothy Day, or World Vision and its work, again, to truncate it a little bit, but to turn it into maybe a cheap motto, it might be something like just do the right thing. Love matters more, be kind and hospitable. And the deviants here are not religious heretics. They're the moral heretics who don't see the world the way we see it.
Now, when we separate these two things, orthodoxy and orthopraxy, we end up distorting both of them. From a Christian point of view, truth, in all its complexity and all its holism, is the presupposition of justice, and justice simply is the embodiment of the truth. And this is why we pray to our Father, your kingdom, come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The pursuit of justice without the centrality of truth, inevitably takes the form of some particular context bound tribalistic conception of justice, kind of arbitrary. Its vision is myopic, and it struggles, ultimately, to explain why one moral choice or one way of life or one system or one form of government is more just than another one. The pursuit of truth, on the other hand, without the centrality of justice, leads to a kind of naive detachment, one lacking relational awareness of self and others. It ignores the fact that all of our truth, questions, and concerns, and quests for knowledge are motivated ones, value laden ones.
In other words, as St Augustine put it, and he put it, so keenly, we pursue what we love, the pursuit of truth is therefore a moral endeavor, a matter of character we might claim to just want the naked truth or just the brute facts, thank you very much. But we are often misled to the extent that we love and desire ungodly things. So we seem to be stuck. We corrupt morality and justice by evading the truth, and we corrupt the truth by evading morality and justice. Paul in Colossians 1 21 just nails the problem when he says that in our fallen state, we are alienated from God, and we act as enemies of God in our minds and in our evil behavior. So how do we recapture the narrative? That original vision, peace, harmony, justice, God's word and so forth.
The classic Christian tradition asserts that in God, in Christ, truth and justice are one. They are unified, like two sides of the same coin. So for us, orthodoxy and orthopraxy should be one. They should be unified. We should be equally devoted to both. Now I want to come back to this passage in Colossians, chapter one. There's so much there, I can't say a lot about it, but I want us to focus on what it offers us in terms of a grand vision for Christ holding all things together, a grand vision or narrative of the unity and integration of everything in Christ.
It begins by telling us that the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. It also tells us that, in good, parallel fashion, he's the beginning of the church and the firstborn of the new creation. And then it tells us some things that he integrates, using this language of in Him, in Him, in Him, in Christ, in Him, all things were created. And in fact, not just in Him, but also for Him, and through Him, that God, when He spoke His mind into being, He spoke with His word and with the breath of His Spirit, thus forming all things in and through Christ the word. We see this coming together again in the Incarnation when Christ sums up all things in under one head, as it says in Ephesians, this ancient doctrine of recapitulation Christ summing up all things under one head in order to put death to death and to bring new creation by His resurrection and His new life.
Secondly, we read that all things are held together and reconciled in Him. Held together and reconciled in Him. The world doesn't feel that way. It feels divided and disintegrated, and sometimes the university doesn't feel that way, right? We're all paying attention to our disciplinary silos, right? And the biblical scholars don't talk to the theologians, and the theologians don't talk to the biblical, that's not true at Tyndale, but in the academy, it kind of is a lot of the time. But in Christ, these things are integrated, reconciled, and more than that, reordered. When things are integrated, they are reordered the way that God wants them to be ordered, like Jesus says we seek first the kingdom of God and all things sort of find their rightful place. when we do that, all of these other things shall be added unto you as well. So all things are held together and reordered in Christ.
And then, thirdly, all things are reconciled. And when we talk about all things being reconciled, we're talking about God as the agent of that reconciliation. It's not something that we've achieved. We talk a lot about reconciliation, and that's good, but it's always a seeking after a participation in the reconciliation that only God can achieve. Now this, this new vision of Christ holding all things together, renewed vision rather, confronts a couple of false promises, maybe or false statements. One of them is false unifying stories.
So this story of Jesus holding things together confronts other false unifying stories. Modernity is full of them, right? Our hope is in progress. Our hope is in technology. Our hope is in making myself rich, so that somehow the invisible hand will make everybody else rich. Our hope is that science and technology will deliver us from I don't know the end of the earth, the drying up of the sun, the expansion of the Universe. I'm not sure it's going to save us from all that. So it confronts false unifiers, but it also confronts something a little more contemporary, which is that we got really cynical about those big stories, and we're now led to be tempted into nihilism. There just is no meaning. There just is no truth. There's no narrative. If we're being honest, it's all about power. It's interesting because the ancient writers in the ancient Near East sort of thought in those terms and Genesis speaks a very different vision of the world when it says that God simply commands and it is He doesn't have to create through an initial act of violence. And then in Him, the church also has some characteristics. The church is created, held together and reconciled in Him, in Christ, not in our efforts or activities. In Him. The church is a sanctified offering.
Dennis Ngien loves to talk about the alien righteousness of Christ, right, coming from Martin Luther. It's not our righteousness, it's Jesus' righteousness that we depend on and trust so in Him, we then become this amazing offering. We become a temple, in fact, the temple of His Spirit, and then in Him we are rooted and established. He is before the church. He is its foundation. He is its cornerstone. He is the beginning and end of us, of our church and our ongoing existence. Christ Himself. Not our church program, not our vision statement, not our strategic demographic analyses, Christ Himself.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer used to like to say that genuine Christian community is not an ideal that we have to achieve. It's a reality that Christ has achieved into which we are called to participate. I think that applies to this grand vision of the world too, with Christ as the head, the one in whom all things hold together, that's not something we can make happen. We can't coerce the world into that kind of harmony. We can enter into it. We can bear witness, we can participate. We can say, Lord, may your kingdom come.
I'd like to close with the sort of, okay, well, how do we do this question? Just very quickly, and I don't think it's rocket science. I think we keep returning to simply following Jesus, John 8 31, to 36 if you hold to my teaching, Jesus says you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Does Jesus call us to orthodoxy or to orthopraxy. It's a false dichotomy, right? Let's walk through it. We have Jesus teaching first of all, right? That's our orthodoxy, right? I want to believe what Jesus believes, and then if we follow His teachings, we are truly His disciples.
So secondly, our obedient response is our orthopraxy, we then will know the truth, Jesus says, at a deeper level, what is this one? It's annoying of the truth that is also interested in the world, passionate about God's will, living in the way of Jesus. And then finally, we will live lives that are truly free. And it doesn't end there, because the Christian life is an ongoing journey. We then return to Jesus' teaching with new eyes to take that next step in in this process of following our Lord. Is it orthodoxy, or is it orthopraxy? Jesus said in John 14 6, I am the way and the truth and the life. What is it? Is it a way, or is it a truth? Ah, well, the truth is the way that leads to life, because all three of these things, way truth and life cohere in Jesus.
I'd like to close with a prayer with the words of Paul as a kind of prayer over all of us, you and me included. So would you pray with me? As Paul prayed for the Colossian believers God, I ask you to fill all of us gathered here with the knowledge of your will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives so that we may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to your glorious might, so that we may have great endurance and patience and giving joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light, for He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Amen.
KEVIN KIRK: Well, what a joy it has been to celebrate Dr. Franklin and the role of this chair in the life of Tyndale university and in the life of the church in Canada. I'm Kevin Kirk, and I get to work with a group of staff who work with our alumni and with supporters in fundraising to provide the needs for our students. And today, there is an additional celebration taking place on campus. It's 80/20 day. For those of you who are not in your first year at Tyndale, you will remember 80/20 day from other years, but this is a day where we celebrate all of those who support you, figuratively, we're 80% of the way through the traditional academic year, and although the cost that you pay is significant, the cost that you pay represents about 80% of the cost to attend Tyndale. The other 20% figuratively, is covered by supporters and alumni who have come before you and who are now paying it forward to enable you. There are hundreds of supporters and alumni that support you every year. And Isn't it incredible to think that you have all of these people behind you cheering you on, and today we celebrate them, so we're inviting you to join us for lunch in the dining hall. Lunch is only $5 and all of the funds that are raised are going to go to creating a special bursary for a student. So we're going to use that you get to participate in something to support a student, even today, as we celebrate philanthropy, and we are also going to have a party, so there are activities and some games and some things for you to do down there. So for those of you who are not RSVP'd for the reception with Dr. Franklin, I invite you to go directly through the dining hall following this service. Thank you for celebrating Dr. Franklin and this chair and for celebrating our donors today. Thank you.
JAMES PEDLAR: Please stand to receive the benediction. And now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, may the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among us and remain with us always. Amen. Go in peace.
