Author: Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

It is late at night and I am up.  Actually I just woke up from an evening nap.  That’ll mess up your night.  This jet-lag thing gets old real quick.  Still, the quiet awake nights are a gift – a listening time.  I’ve become more clear about a few things, a few criticism of the (limited) Chinese church I am around.   The Chinese church is focused on two things: mission training and leadership training.  They are thorough-going Evangelicals, which means when they want to have a relationship with g-d it has several qualities in my opinion: a) MILITARY – to varied degrees it is military (not militant).  They use the language of “good soldier” and “battlefield.”  This language is in response to their hardship and diligence.  But it deeply colors their spirituality as well, and this is detrimental to Christ’s love and mercy. b) WESTERN EVANGELICALS – Chinese Evangelicalism is much the same as Western Evangelicalism.  When they want to talk discipleship it focuses much on character, moralism and apologetics.  Their faith and spirituality is mostly private and individual except for Sunday church. c) CHURCH – Mostly when they want to think about church – they can’t really.  Church is just a strange little gathering of believers, who come together to sing worship songs and heard a long teaching sermon.  They might pray in the Spirit (an little...

Off to China on pilgrimage again.  Blessed are those whose strength is in you,        who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.  As they pass through the Valley of Baca,        they make it a place of springs;        the autumn rains also cover it with pools.  They go from strength to strength,        till each appears before God in Zion. – 84th Psalm Strength to strength – nothing to avoid dependence upon g-d alone.  I wish I could say this honestly.  But I take with me prescriptions, money, phone numbers, change of clothes, books. and so on.  Some day I...

This is my favorite Christian day: The Baptizer’s Day, the day that is exactly six months from Jesus’ birthday – this is cousin John’s birthday. Why six months away from Jesus’ birthday? “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30 John is as far from Jesus’ famous birth as possible. We too should strive not for fame or glory, but as Terese de Lisieux said He whose kingdom is not of this world showed me that the only condition worth coveting is “to want to be ignored and regarded as nothing, to find joy in contempt of self.” I want my face, like the Face of Jesus, to be, as it were, hidden and unrecognised. I longed to suffer and be forgotten. – Autobiography, p88 Jesus says of John: I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. – Matthew 11:11-12  Ah, this is the great antinomy of the gospel:  to be great one must be nothing, to be famous one must be slave of others, to be rich one must be penniless.  Then, only then great sainthood...

Spiritual disciplines do not make us holy. Only g-d’s grace makes us holy. Disciplines, rather, make us sit loose to the world, and therefore, make obedience possible. The lack of will to submit to spiritual disciplines belies a person who cannot be saved, by this I mean ‘the person cannot submit to the proper conditions for grace to flourish or operate.’ Without disciplines g-d’s grace has no traction. This opinion stands in contrast to the Evangelical opinion which versejacks Paul’s words in Romans 10:9-10 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Yet Paul goes on to say in the next sentence “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” TRUST is big word. Our Reformed penchant for rationalism (mental thinking only) empties TRUST of any real force of habit or action, and only leaves us with a passive private salvation within the heart. I can only resort at this point to state the old line: “just because I BELIEVE I can fly doesn’t mean I am willing to go jump off the roof.” Why? I know better. I’ll fall. Of course the flight...

Come sit with me by the fireSay nothingStare meTogether let’s climb atop the pyreOur false selvesThere me Come walk with me through her canopyDrapes of greenSmall meShe swings her censer of fertilitySlow quiet pushThrall me Come kneel with me, bells toll the hourDivine songSing meSpeak only the words of heaven’s powerHost and CupFeed me Come slip through with me nightshade’s curtainFour horsemenVeil meStand fast: “No man dies alone,” MertonCrush SerpentBreak me Come run with me at dawn’s first lightEntombment Roll meI have run the race, fought the good fightVict’ry’s wonScroll...