One of my Christmas presents (requested by me) was Richard Dawkins' book for children, 'The Magic of Reality'.
He gives a definition of 'reality'. It is 'everything that exists'. How do we know things exist? 'We are only going to call something "real" if we can detect it with one of our five senses'. What about radio waves, for example, that we can't see or hear? Well, we know they exist because of what they produce - the signals that we can see or hear on TV or radio. Dinosaurs don't exist now, but we know they did because of fossils. So evidence has a lot to do with our knowledge. That opens up a big area which predictably enough the author ignores.
He then moves on to define 'magic' under the heading 'Science and the supernatural: explanation and its enemy'. He gives three definitions of 'magic': first, 'supernatural' magic which is the kind we find in myths and fairy tales, the magic of witches and fairy godmothers. Secondly, there is 'stage ' magic, that of Derren Brown and Penn and Teller. Third, there is magic as Prof. Dawkins uses it in this book, 'poetic magic': on a page with a beautiful sunset view, we are reminded (or told) that we are moved to tears by a beautiful piece of music, we are breathless with joy in the presence of a night sky; 'magic' in this sense means exhilarating, deeply moving, good-to-be-alive. This is 'magic' for Dawkins' purposes.
I have often thought that Richard Dawkins would have been at home at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A blend of rationalism and, for the 'goose-bumps' things in life which reason cannot explain, there is romanticism. What if one happens to be looking at the bits of reality which consist of the severed limbs of a Baghdad bomb victim or a million children dying of starvation or even nature red in tooth and claw - is that 'magic'? Magic for our author is the life of the emotions in response to the wonders of nature - not an unreal thing at all and delightful as we know, but for him it becomes a substitute for the supernatural, a tame, easily explained, undemanding and unthreatening substitute.
'Now', he proceeds,' I want to return to the idea of the supernatural and explain why it can never offer us a true explanation of the things we see in the world and universe around us. Indeed, to claim a supernatural explanation of something is not to explain it at all end even worse, to rule out any possibility of its ever being explained. Why do I say that? Because anything 'supernatural' must by definition be beyond reach of a natural explanation. It must be beyond the reach of science and the well-established tried and tested scientific method that has been responsible for the huge advances in knowledge we have enjoyed over the last 400 years or so. To say that something happened 'supernaturally' is not just to say 'We don't understand it' but to say 'We will never understand it, so don't even try'. Science, he goes on to say, uses its inability to explain everything and uses it as spur to go on to find answers for unexplained things - it is not lazy as are those who use a 'supernatural' explanation. Then there is an exposition of how evolution gives the answer to how life as we know it came about.
You can see what he is targeting. But
1. Notice that he has re-introduced the word supernatural here - after using the same word to define the 'witches and fairy godmothers' kind of magic he earlier dismissed. This is sadly typical of Dawkins - he is thoroughly dishonest in the way he argues. He subtly builds up a case by allusion and inference, the aim here being to put religion in the same camp as 'fairy tales'.
2. What of the great scientists who have been Christians, or at least convinced theists, and who see a Creator God behind all things, and find the task of 'thinking God's thoughts after him' as more than enough spur to finding answers to life's puzzles? Who are these people who use 'the supernatural' as an excuse for being lazy? Well of course, we know who they are in Dawkins' mind - they are the knaves and fools who do not believe in atheistic evolution.
3. Would the great advances of the last 400 years have been possible without a Christian world-view behind science? Modern-modern science as Schaeffer calls it is actually cutting off the branch on which it sits. Science has become what Schaeffer called 'sociological science', interested more in propaganda than in truth.
4. Dawkins operates with a 'God of the gaps' presupposition which assumes the only purpose of the 'supernatural' is to explain what cannot yet be explained by science. The supernatural as Christians properly use it is the presupposition behind everything that exists, whether explained or not; it tells us the purpose to life which science can never do (though I feel sure Prof Dawkins is going to tell me that Darwin gives us that as well). To say that something has a supernatural explanation is not to put it beyond the reach of science because all of nature has a supernatural explanation. But it is to say that there may be some things that science in itself cannot explain - such as miracles, the incarnation, the resurrection, the origin, nature, purpose and destiny of the human soul.
5. I look forward to seeing if Dawkins will explain why he thinks man has the capacity to be made 'breathless with joy' (he avoids using the word 'awe') at the wonder of what we see.
6. How will he explain why we should believe him when we say the supernatural will not help us to explain anything and will even be a barrier to explanation? How does he know that his explanations will not soon be re-explained? How, in short, can he be sure he knows what he thinks he knows?
I shall read on but I feel this book is likely to be less interested in teaching truth than in propaganda. Surprise, that...
Monday 26 December 2011
Thinking theologically (4)
Contemporary Battles
As we must not lose sight of the unity of truth, neither must we lose sight of the unity of error. There is a unity of truth, a unity of falsehood and a unity of the human person in which the battle is fought out. None of these unities must be allowed to be fragmented even though we need to distinguish between different elements in all three.
Now we look at falsehood. It comes from the Devil, the father of lies, and is therefore primarily a spiritual battle. We wrestle not against flesh and blood (Eph 6:12). Its great purpose is to steal the glory of God and destroy his work. It has taken multiple forms over the millennia and affects us in body and soul. It affects all creation. Its presence in the flesh and in the world means that the Christian life is a daily battle.
It takes particular forms in different generations and we need to take a brief look at those forms in which opposition to the truth is apparent today. Some have been around a long time but are still strong or even particularly strong today; other enemies are more recent (and yet nothing is new!).
1. Rationalism
Rationalism enthrones reason over revelation. The Christian asserts the importance of reason, indeed even its supremacy among gifts God has given us, but always subordinate to revelation. It is how we receive and understand revelation; it is not a source of truth in itself. Rationality is part of being human; rationalism idolises reason.
2. Postmodernism
Postmodernism is (rationalistic) modernism run to seed. It recognises that reason cannot tell us what truth and meaning are. Instead of striving for them (as does modernism, which is still with us), it makes a virtue out of necessity and says ‘there is no absolute truth, there are no metanarratives out there’. It glories in irrationality. The Christian will agree with much that postmodernism tells us about the inability of reason to do what rationalists have long proclaimed, but it will not at all approve the solution that postmodernism proposes.
In the field of literary criticism, where postmodernism began in its self-conscious form, we are left with the notion that the text means what the reader wants it to mean. Everything is a matter of interpretation; thinking merges into imagination as objective controls are absent.
3. Relativism / pluralism
Relativism is the denial that there are absolute truths or values (that is, that certain things are true for all people everywhere always); or that if there are such truths or values they are beyond our grasp, either at present or permanently. Pluralism (in this context) is the idea that all religions are of equal validity, which is the corollary of relativism.
It is worth pausing here to ask: what impact do these three positions (rationalism, postmodernism and relativism/pluralism) have on ‘thinking’?
In view of what we have said above: rationalism rejects revelation as ultimately authoritative, so reason has nothing to respond to; it has to find out truth itself. Such a task is beyond it and leads to despair – despair which has been evaded but not answered in the last century by existentialism (finding meaning, for example, in the assertion of the will) and more lately by postmodernism.
Postmodernism spells the death of thought because it exalts unreason.
Relativism meanwhile more subtly destroys true thought because every potential system of truth is reckoned to contain a virus that says ‘this is not true except for me and those who happen to agree with it’. Truth demands to be universalised and the impulse of logic is destroyed when it is seeking truth but has to regard it as mere opinion. Allen Bloom in 'The Closing of the American Mind' argues that the ‘supervalue’ of ‘openness’ or cultural egalitarianism is actually closedness. It commits us to the acceptance of the status quo and prevents reason pursuing knowledge as it should.
John Owen said: ‘Without “absolutes” revealed from without by God himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice, right and wrong, issued from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers. We could never know who God is, how he may be worshipped, or wherein true happiness lies’ (Biblical Theology, p xl).
4. Pragmatism
The ‘what works rules’ principle that relies on results to validate practise. Not wrong in every situation, it nonetheless substitutes calculation for true thought. As in other cases, the loss of something absolute and objective changes true thinking into something else – creating truth, meaning or one’s own reality, and here – calculation.
5. Mysticism
The Christian faith certainly rejoices in mystery, for God takes the believer beyond the limits of reason, and faith grasps what reason cannot. But Christianity is not anti-rational or irrational. The gospel is called a mystery, says Owen, only because the reality of the gospel as revealed to men exceeds human reason and the Holy Spirit instructs the believer in Scriptural mysteries which are beyond the comprehension of the natural mind (Bib. Theol, p 11). To the believer is made known the ‘mystery of his will’ (Eph 1:9) by a ‘spirit of wisdom and revelation’ (1:17).
The mysticism often regarded today, however, as implicit in religion is anti-intellectual. There is the ‘inner voice’ kind of mysticism seeking and relying on new ‘revelations’ instead of humbly receiving what God has said and meditating on it; but also a mysticism of the emotions, with worship for example not so much accompanied by music as driven by it. It is the pursuit of experience apart from revelation, by-passing the mind.
6. Fragmentation
I referred earlier to the fragmentation of knowledge, against the Christian view of the ultimate unity of all truth. Scholars and academics in all manner of disciplines are specialising in smaller and smaller areas of their subject, with the result that any connecting principles between them are obscured.
7. Amusement culture
Neil Postman dissects the triviality of TV culture in 'Amusing Ourselves to Death'. He observes, ‘I believe I am right in saying that Christianity is a serious and demanding religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether’ (p 124).
These ‘enemies’ are serious not so much because they are substantive attacks on Christian faith and doctrine (though some of course are), but because they undermine the process of thinking itself.
As we must not lose sight of the unity of truth, neither must we lose sight of the unity of error. There is a unity of truth, a unity of falsehood and a unity of the human person in which the battle is fought out. None of these unities must be allowed to be fragmented even though we need to distinguish between different elements in all three.
Now we look at falsehood. It comes from the Devil, the father of lies, and is therefore primarily a spiritual battle. We wrestle not against flesh and blood (Eph 6:12). Its great purpose is to steal the glory of God and destroy his work. It has taken multiple forms over the millennia and affects us in body and soul. It affects all creation. Its presence in the flesh and in the world means that the Christian life is a daily battle.
It takes particular forms in different generations and we need to take a brief look at those forms in which opposition to the truth is apparent today. Some have been around a long time but are still strong or even particularly strong today; other enemies are more recent (and yet nothing is new!).
1. Rationalism
Rationalism enthrones reason over revelation. The Christian asserts the importance of reason, indeed even its supremacy among gifts God has given us, but always subordinate to revelation. It is how we receive and understand revelation; it is not a source of truth in itself. Rationality is part of being human; rationalism idolises reason.
2. Postmodernism
Postmodernism is (rationalistic) modernism run to seed. It recognises that reason cannot tell us what truth and meaning are. Instead of striving for them (as does modernism, which is still with us), it makes a virtue out of necessity and says ‘there is no absolute truth, there are no metanarratives out there’. It glories in irrationality. The Christian will agree with much that postmodernism tells us about the inability of reason to do what rationalists have long proclaimed, but it will not at all approve the solution that postmodernism proposes.
In the field of literary criticism, where postmodernism began in its self-conscious form, we are left with the notion that the text means what the reader wants it to mean. Everything is a matter of interpretation; thinking merges into imagination as objective controls are absent.
3. Relativism / pluralism
Relativism is the denial that there are absolute truths or values (that is, that certain things are true for all people everywhere always); or that if there are such truths or values they are beyond our grasp, either at present or permanently. Pluralism (in this context) is the idea that all religions are of equal validity, which is the corollary of relativism.
It is worth pausing here to ask: what impact do these three positions (rationalism, postmodernism and relativism/pluralism) have on ‘thinking’?
In view of what we have said above: rationalism rejects revelation as ultimately authoritative, so reason has nothing to respond to; it has to find out truth itself. Such a task is beyond it and leads to despair – despair which has been evaded but not answered in the last century by existentialism (finding meaning, for example, in the assertion of the will) and more lately by postmodernism.
Postmodernism spells the death of thought because it exalts unreason.
Relativism meanwhile more subtly destroys true thought because every potential system of truth is reckoned to contain a virus that says ‘this is not true except for me and those who happen to agree with it’. Truth demands to be universalised and the impulse of logic is destroyed when it is seeking truth but has to regard it as mere opinion. Allen Bloom in 'The Closing of the American Mind' argues that the ‘supervalue’ of ‘openness’ or cultural egalitarianism is actually closedness. It commits us to the acceptance of the status quo and prevents reason pursuing knowledge as it should.
John Owen said: ‘Without “absolutes” revealed from without by God himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice, right and wrong, issued from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers. We could never know who God is, how he may be worshipped, or wherein true happiness lies’ (Biblical Theology, p xl).
4. Pragmatism
The ‘what works rules’ principle that relies on results to validate practise. Not wrong in every situation, it nonetheless substitutes calculation for true thought. As in other cases, the loss of something absolute and objective changes true thinking into something else – creating truth, meaning or one’s own reality, and here – calculation.
5. Mysticism
The Christian faith certainly rejoices in mystery, for God takes the believer beyond the limits of reason, and faith grasps what reason cannot. But Christianity is not anti-rational or irrational. The gospel is called a mystery, says Owen, only because the reality of the gospel as revealed to men exceeds human reason and the Holy Spirit instructs the believer in Scriptural mysteries which are beyond the comprehension of the natural mind (Bib. Theol, p 11). To the believer is made known the ‘mystery of his will’ (Eph 1:9) by a ‘spirit of wisdom and revelation’ (1:17).
The mysticism often regarded today, however, as implicit in religion is anti-intellectual. There is the ‘inner voice’ kind of mysticism seeking and relying on new ‘revelations’ instead of humbly receiving what God has said and meditating on it; but also a mysticism of the emotions, with worship for example not so much accompanied by music as driven by it. It is the pursuit of experience apart from revelation, by-passing the mind.
6. Fragmentation
I referred earlier to the fragmentation of knowledge, against the Christian view of the ultimate unity of all truth. Scholars and academics in all manner of disciplines are specialising in smaller and smaller areas of their subject, with the result that any connecting principles between them are obscured.
7. Amusement culture
Neil Postman dissects the triviality of TV culture in 'Amusing Ourselves to Death'. He observes, ‘I believe I am right in saying that Christianity is a serious and demanding religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether’ (p 124).
These ‘enemies’ are serious not so much because they are substantive attacks on Christian faith and doctrine (though some of course are), but because they undermine the process of thinking itself.
Wednesday 21 December 2011
The Prime Minister and the Bible
The speech given by David Cameron last week to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the KJV is one of the most remarkable I have ever seen from a politician.
Richard Dawkins has responded by saying the Bible is a dangerous moral compass, and representatives of the Secular Society and Humanist society have waded in, accusing the PM of using religion as a form of social control (which is of course a perfectly valid criticism of too many political interventions in the spiritual and moral sphere). Nonetheless, there is much of great interest in the speech and taken on its own terms it is heartening.
He begins by saying he comes not as a 'great Christian' on a mission to convert the world but is proud to celebrate the achievements of the KJV. It is as relevant today as as at any time in its 400 year history. He is a 'committed but vaguely practising Church of England Christian'. The Bible with 3 sold or given away every second will continue to have a profound impact on our future.
There are three particular areas of importance: it has shaped our language and culture, our politics, and our values.
In the first area he gives the usual list of literary debts owed to the Bible from Shakespeare to Abe Lincoln, and the music of Bach and Handel and the art of Giotto (the KJV?). One of his favourite lines he says is 'looking through a glass darkly' and compares unfavourably the NIV and GNB translations.
As to politics, he says that 'the knowledge that God created man in his own image was, if you like, a game changer for the cause of human dignity and equality'. He then ties this in with the emancipation of women and laments that some churches still haven't got the point! Still, the point about the image of God is well taken - not one that evolutionists could easily swallow.
As to values, he is clear that British values are Christian values and we should not be ashamed to say so. These include tolerance of other faiths, but we should not be afraid to say things are right or wrong. 'If we don't stand for something, we can't stand against anything'.
He has has a bit of a go at the C of E and tells it to do its job. Perhaps we need to be reminded that it was non-conformity that did probably more to instil Christian values into this country than the C of E.
Nonetheless, some encouraging points from the PM. How will he mesh that in with 'gay' marriages? But then, that will come down to a selective reading of the treasured text.
Richard Dawkins has responded by saying the Bible is a dangerous moral compass, and representatives of the Secular Society and Humanist society have waded in, accusing the PM of using religion as a form of social control (which is of course a perfectly valid criticism of too many political interventions in the spiritual and moral sphere). Nonetheless, there is much of great interest in the speech and taken on its own terms it is heartening.
He begins by saying he comes not as a 'great Christian' on a mission to convert the world but is proud to celebrate the achievements of the KJV. It is as relevant today as as at any time in its 400 year history. He is a 'committed but vaguely practising Church of England Christian'. The Bible with 3 sold or given away every second will continue to have a profound impact on our future.
There are three particular areas of importance: it has shaped our language and culture, our politics, and our values.
In the first area he gives the usual list of literary debts owed to the Bible from Shakespeare to Abe Lincoln, and the music of Bach and Handel and the art of Giotto (the KJV?). One of his favourite lines he says is 'looking through a glass darkly' and compares unfavourably the NIV and GNB translations.
As to politics, he says that 'the knowledge that God created man in his own image was, if you like, a game changer for the cause of human dignity and equality'. He then ties this in with the emancipation of women and laments that some churches still haven't got the point! Still, the point about the image of God is well taken - not one that evolutionists could easily swallow.
As to values, he is clear that British values are Christian values and we should not be ashamed to say so. These include tolerance of other faiths, but we should not be afraid to say things are right or wrong. 'If we don't stand for something, we can't stand against anything'.
He has has a bit of a go at the C of E and tells it to do its job. Perhaps we need to be reminded that it was non-conformity that did probably more to instil Christian values into this country than the C of E.
Nonetheless, some encouraging points from the PM. How will he mesh that in with 'gay' marriages? But then, that will come down to a selective reading of the treasured text.
Tuesday 20 December 2011
Thinking Theologically (3)
Christians as Thinkers
1. A renewed mind
The work of the Spirit is essential in enabling us to see spiritual things and thereby be converted (1 Cor. 2:14-16) It is subsequently by the renewing of the mind that we are transformed, the process of sanctification. The ultimate goal of the mind is conformity to Christ, a moral transformation not merely an intellectual function. After all, it is his mind that we have (1 Cor 2:16) and which we are commanded to exercise (Phil 2:5).
This renewal is to be reflected in our thinking about all things – work, sport, gardening, politics, – as well as our more specifically spiritual thinking about God, the Bible or our spiritual lives.
This does not mean that unrenewed minds can never think any true thoughts. Unbelievers think true thoughts all the time and have all manner of insights into all things – even theology. A truth in science for example is true whoever discovers it. But their problem is that they cannot be sure why their thoughts are true; nor can they relate their true thoughts to the ultimate purpose of all things.
2. A dependent mind
Faith is the ground of knowledge. We believe and therefore understand. This was how Adam and Eve were to continue to live. The unbelieving mind has asserted its independence of God. The logical intellectual conclusion of this is rationalism which asserts the supremacy of reason over revelation. Christianity asserts the value of reason, indeed its necessity, but subject to the authority of revelation. We are dependent on God for our knowledge of truth and our ability to think truly. True thinking begins with faith.
This will mean that we pray for our thinking to be guided and faithful to truth.
3. A relational mind
Building on the first two points, it is clear that Christian thinking will be done in relation to God. All human knowledge comes back to the question of commitment to God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This will express itself in worship. Listen to John Owen: ‘Let us proclaim it boldly – the man who is not aflame with divine love is an outsider to all theology’. Did a charismatic or ‘emergent’ Christian ever express himself on the emotional life more strongly?
4. An evangelical mind
‘The perspective which the Christian has about everything is founded upon the reality of Jesus Christ in the gospel. The Christian, of all men, sees life not in abstract terms, but in light of the concrete events of Jesus Christ’ (Thomas N. Smith, R&R magazine, 3:3). We do not ‘leave our minds outside the church door’, but we do lay them at Christ’s feet and renounce attempts to construct truth on the assumption of the supremacy of reason.
This is the light in which to see much of the use of the word logizomai, occurring some forty times in the New Testament (thirty four times in Paul). It is a relating of life to faith, a reckoning and deduction; for example, God does not reckon a believer’s sins against him (2 Cor 5:14); we are to think about good things (Phil. 4:8); and evaluate ourselves and others rightly (Phil. 3:13; 2 Cor.10:2; 12:6). Christian thinking is an evaluation of life in the light of the cross. Worldly wisdom rejects the cross which is the wisdom of God, and Christ who is the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:18-31).
5. A mind captive to the Word of God
Closely allied to the above, the Christian mind will be thoroughly submitted to Scripture. The first duty of man is to receive and respond to God’s Word. Every thought is to be taken captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:6). The believer will be one who loves and meditates on God’s Word (Pss. 119:97; 1:2). He will submit to Scripture (a) in its necessity as the sole authoritative source of saving knowledge of God; (b) in its authority as the very Word of God; and (c) in its sufficiency in that he will not look anywhere else for God’s Word.
The Christian mind will also be passionate about Truth. ‘All intellectuals are in love with ideas; not all intellectuals are in love with the truth’(James Sire, Habits of the Mind, 77). The pursuit of truth, the defence of truth and the proclamation of truth will be the great concerns of the Christian. The Christian should be ready in principle to say ‘If it were proven to me that the Bible were not true, I would ditch it’. In practice this will not happen to the regenerate person because the Spirit will increasingly witness to the Bible’s truth. The Christian will increasingly be committed and submissive to Scripture as the source of the truth that controls his life.
6. A mind integrated with the whole person and leading to obedience
The mind in biblical thought includes the affections and will. Thinking goes on in the heart. This is particularly true in the Old Testament. ‘For the Israelites, thinking or planning takes place in the heart, where their psychology located the matrix of feelings, thinking and willing’(NIDOTTE, 2:306). In the New Covenant the law is put in the mind and written on the heart (Jer. 31:33). In Phil.2:5 the ‘mind’ of Christ is more of a disposition than an intellectual organ and we could of course use the word ‘mind’ as broadly as that today. Biblically it is clear that thinking is not merely an intellectual activity.
In particular there must be integration not only within the inner man but between the inner and the outer. True thinking will issue in obedience. Truly to hear God’s Word is to do it. Jesus’ parable of the builders (Matt 7:23-27) reveals the disaster which ensues when listening and doing are divorced; see also James 1:22-25. ‘Now whosoever supposes that he can know truth while he is still living iniquitously, is in error’(Augustine, quoted in Sire, 97)
It was the possibility of doing other than we ought, that led to sin in the Garden. Yet that possibility is at the heart of what it is to be a moral creature. The significance of this possibility is suggested by the single prohibition in the Garden. One transgression was enough. The division between ‘want’ and ‘ought’, between God's will and mine, was introduced and man has struggled with it ever since. Paul struggles with it classically in Romans 7:14-24 –the good I would I do not etc. The only relief from the hiatus between what we are and what we know is found in the righteousness of Christ (Romans 7:25).
Meanwhile repeatedly we are taught that the test of true faith and true love for Christ is obedience (John 8:31-2; 13:17; 14:15; James 1:25). The Christian as thinker will never conclude that thinking alone is enough. He will not value the detached academic image. The ‘mind’ that is ‘yours in Christ Jesus’ is a servant mindset and servants do things; the Old Testament values wisdom and wisdom is known by her children, that is, her fruit. It is far more than, and not at all interested in, mere abstract cleverness. Even from a secular background, L. Susan Stebbing says ‘…thinking is primarily for the purpose of action. No-one can avoid the responsibility of acting in accordance with his mode of thinking’ The same author says that ‘to think effectively is to think to some purpose’('Thinking to some Purpose' 15). The great ‘purpose’ is the glory of God and our conformity to his Son (that is, obedience, which was the pulse of Christ’s own life) as the means to that end. All our thinking must be directed to these very practical goals.
7. A confrontational mind
Finally, in a fallen world the Christian mind, the mind that is according to the Spirit and not the flesh, will inevitably be in confrontational mode on a daily basis. We are in a battle and this will be fought with the mind. The renewed mind will be the engine room of transformation and daily sanctification (Romans 12:1,2) which means negatively not being conformed to the world; Paul in 2 Cor 10:1-4 describes his ministry as tearing down strongholds and taking every thought captive, destroying ‘arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God’. This is a daily battle as the new man is daily renewed and the old man, already crucified, is daily put off. The outcome is guaranteed, but the battle still has to be fought. The battle is fought of course not just to destroy strongholds but to establish Christ’s kingdom. It is not just an intellectual battle but a battle of the whole person, and above all a spiritual battle, using weapons which are not of the flesh – the weapons of Word and Spirit.
It is important too that this battle is fought at the point at which the devil is attacking today, not yesterday, and at this point we move from looking at the Christian mind to some particular ‘enemies’ and strongholds which we encounter today.
1. A renewed mind
The work of the Spirit is essential in enabling us to see spiritual things and thereby be converted (1 Cor. 2:14-16) It is subsequently by the renewing of the mind that we are transformed, the process of sanctification. The ultimate goal of the mind is conformity to Christ, a moral transformation not merely an intellectual function. After all, it is his mind that we have (1 Cor 2:16) and which we are commanded to exercise (Phil 2:5).
This renewal is to be reflected in our thinking about all things – work, sport, gardening, politics, – as well as our more specifically spiritual thinking about God, the Bible or our spiritual lives.
This does not mean that unrenewed minds can never think any true thoughts. Unbelievers think true thoughts all the time and have all manner of insights into all things – even theology. A truth in science for example is true whoever discovers it. But their problem is that they cannot be sure why their thoughts are true; nor can they relate their true thoughts to the ultimate purpose of all things.
2. A dependent mind
Faith is the ground of knowledge. We believe and therefore understand. This was how Adam and Eve were to continue to live. The unbelieving mind has asserted its independence of God. The logical intellectual conclusion of this is rationalism which asserts the supremacy of reason over revelation. Christianity asserts the value of reason, indeed its necessity, but subject to the authority of revelation. We are dependent on God for our knowledge of truth and our ability to think truly. True thinking begins with faith.
This will mean that we pray for our thinking to be guided and faithful to truth.
3. A relational mind
Building on the first two points, it is clear that Christian thinking will be done in relation to God. All human knowledge comes back to the question of commitment to God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This will express itself in worship. Listen to John Owen: ‘Let us proclaim it boldly – the man who is not aflame with divine love is an outsider to all theology’. Did a charismatic or ‘emergent’ Christian ever express himself on the emotional life more strongly?
4. An evangelical mind
‘The perspective which the Christian has about everything is founded upon the reality of Jesus Christ in the gospel. The Christian, of all men, sees life not in abstract terms, but in light of the concrete events of Jesus Christ’ (Thomas N. Smith, R&R magazine, 3:3). We do not ‘leave our minds outside the church door’, but we do lay them at Christ’s feet and renounce attempts to construct truth on the assumption of the supremacy of reason.
This is the light in which to see much of the use of the word logizomai, occurring some forty times in the New Testament (thirty four times in Paul). It is a relating of life to faith, a reckoning and deduction; for example, God does not reckon a believer’s sins against him (2 Cor 5:14); we are to think about good things (Phil. 4:8); and evaluate ourselves and others rightly (Phil. 3:13; 2 Cor.10:2; 12:6). Christian thinking is an evaluation of life in the light of the cross. Worldly wisdom rejects the cross which is the wisdom of God, and Christ who is the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:18-31).
5. A mind captive to the Word of God
Closely allied to the above, the Christian mind will be thoroughly submitted to Scripture. The first duty of man is to receive and respond to God’s Word. Every thought is to be taken captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:6). The believer will be one who loves and meditates on God’s Word (Pss. 119:97; 1:2). He will submit to Scripture (a) in its necessity as the sole authoritative source of saving knowledge of God; (b) in its authority as the very Word of God; and (c) in its sufficiency in that he will not look anywhere else for God’s Word.
The Christian mind will also be passionate about Truth. ‘All intellectuals are in love with ideas; not all intellectuals are in love with the truth’(James Sire, Habits of the Mind, 77). The pursuit of truth, the defence of truth and the proclamation of truth will be the great concerns of the Christian. The Christian should be ready in principle to say ‘If it were proven to me that the Bible were not true, I would ditch it’. In practice this will not happen to the regenerate person because the Spirit will increasingly witness to the Bible’s truth. The Christian will increasingly be committed and submissive to Scripture as the source of the truth that controls his life.
6. A mind integrated with the whole person and leading to obedience
The mind in biblical thought includes the affections and will. Thinking goes on in the heart. This is particularly true in the Old Testament. ‘For the Israelites, thinking or planning takes place in the heart, where their psychology located the matrix of feelings, thinking and willing’(NIDOTTE, 2:306). In the New Covenant the law is put in the mind and written on the heart (Jer. 31:33). In Phil.2:5 the ‘mind’ of Christ is more of a disposition than an intellectual organ and we could of course use the word ‘mind’ as broadly as that today. Biblically it is clear that thinking is not merely an intellectual activity.
In particular there must be integration not only within the inner man but between the inner and the outer. True thinking will issue in obedience. Truly to hear God’s Word is to do it. Jesus’ parable of the builders (Matt 7:23-27) reveals the disaster which ensues when listening and doing are divorced; see also James 1:22-25. ‘Now whosoever supposes that he can know truth while he is still living iniquitously, is in error’(Augustine, quoted in Sire, 97)
It was the possibility of doing other than we ought, that led to sin in the Garden. Yet that possibility is at the heart of what it is to be a moral creature. The significance of this possibility is suggested by the single prohibition in the Garden. One transgression was enough. The division between ‘want’ and ‘ought’, between God's will and mine, was introduced and man has struggled with it ever since. Paul struggles with it classically in Romans 7:14-24 –the good I would I do not etc. The only relief from the hiatus between what we are and what we know is found in the righteousness of Christ (Romans 7:25).
Meanwhile repeatedly we are taught that the test of true faith and true love for Christ is obedience (John 8:31-2; 13:17; 14:15; James 1:25). The Christian as thinker will never conclude that thinking alone is enough. He will not value the detached academic image. The ‘mind’ that is ‘yours in Christ Jesus’ is a servant mindset and servants do things; the Old Testament values wisdom and wisdom is known by her children, that is, her fruit. It is far more than, and not at all interested in, mere abstract cleverness. Even from a secular background, L. Susan Stebbing says ‘…thinking is primarily for the purpose of action. No-one can avoid the responsibility of acting in accordance with his mode of thinking’ The same author says that ‘to think effectively is to think to some purpose’('Thinking to some Purpose' 15). The great ‘purpose’ is the glory of God and our conformity to his Son (that is, obedience, which was the pulse of Christ’s own life) as the means to that end. All our thinking must be directed to these very practical goals.
7. A confrontational mind
Finally, in a fallen world the Christian mind, the mind that is according to the Spirit and not the flesh, will inevitably be in confrontational mode on a daily basis. We are in a battle and this will be fought with the mind. The renewed mind will be the engine room of transformation and daily sanctification (Romans 12:1,2) which means negatively not being conformed to the world; Paul in 2 Cor 10:1-4 describes his ministry as tearing down strongholds and taking every thought captive, destroying ‘arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God’. This is a daily battle as the new man is daily renewed and the old man, already crucified, is daily put off. The outcome is guaranteed, but the battle still has to be fought. The battle is fought of course not just to destroy strongholds but to establish Christ’s kingdom. It is not just an intellectual battle but a battle of the whole person, and above all a spiritual battle, using weapons which are not of the flesh – the weapons of Word and Spirit.
It is important too that this battle is fought at the point at which the devil is attacking today, not yesterday, and at this point we move from looking at the Christian mind to some particular ‘enemies’ and strongholds which we encounter today.
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Hints of a God-particle glimpsed; much bigger hints of God ignored.
'Scientists are set to confirm they have caught a glimpse of the elusive 'God particle' - the so far theoretical concept that helps to explain some of the mysteries of the Universe.'
I find this fascinating.
Only slight emendations are needed to suggest that scientists have found exciting hints of the existence of God, the so far theoretical concept that helps to explain (all of) the mysteries of the Universe.
Moreover, the glimpse of this concept, as opposed to the Higgs boson particle, will take us back to long before, as opposed to just after, the 'Big Bang' or however one characterises the moment when all things began.
Why is so much evidence for God ignored and so little evidence of a conjectural particle greeted with so much enthusiasm?
I am all for scientific advance, and if something big has been discovered that will help us to think God's thought after him, then that is great. But how tiny our minds appear when we insist on thinking this through in a God-less framework.
I find this fascinating.
Only slight emendations are needed to suggest that scientists have found exciting hints of the existence of God, the so far theoretical concept that helps to explain (all of) the mysteries of the Universe.
Moreover, the glimpse of this concept, as opposed to the Higgs boson particle, will take us back to long before, as opposed to just after, the 'Big Bang' or however one characterises the moment when all things began.
Why is so much evidence for God ignored and so little evidence of a conjectural particle greeted with so much enthusiasm?
I am all for scientific advance, and if something big has been discovered that will help us to think God's thought after him, then that is great. But how tiny our minds appear when we insist on thinking this through in a God-less framework.
Monday 12 December 2011
Thinking Theologically (2)
In TT(1) I began with man made in the image of God and wrote, drawing on James Sire (who was drawing on John Henry Newman): 'three truths provide most of what is needed to undergird the possibility of human knowledge (and therefore, human thought): first, the primacy of God’s existence; second the nature of this God as intelligent, living, personal and almighty; thirdly, that he is the intentional creator of a rational, orderly universe that is not himself (that is, creation is not just an extension of God as pantheism teaches). Only if there is an objective, orderly universe to which our reason correlates, can there be any real basis for human thinking'.
What is the relation between man's being and God's? First, we are dependent on God. In him we live and move and have our being. Second, there is analogy. unlike any other creature our being is like God's. Third, also uniquely among creatures, there is capacity for response - we know God and should adore him and obey him. The medium of such response is God's Word. The first task of the mind is to receive the Word of God, believe it and obey it. The mind should therefore be in the service of a nature that is responsive to God - as God made it.
In Eden Adam received God's Word and for a time obeyed it. His mind was not only dependent on God's and analogous to it but perfectly responsive to God. He heard God's Word and obeyed. He was also called to be creative. He named the animals 'And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name' (Gen 2:19). So by analogy Adam was creative as God was creative. His mind was able to come to accurate assessments and make decisions that pleased God. It is one of the great 'what ifs' of history, to imagine what man's mind might have achieved without the Fall. Even fallen man, even the line of Cain, accomplished wonderful things (Gen 4:17-22). How much more, had there been no sin. Significantly, the first created thing in the line of Seth was the ark. The line of Cain was constructive but on its own initiative; the line of Seth listened to God's Word and provided for salvation. We take a fuller look at:
The mind in revolt
Sin entered human experience (Genesis 3) because Adam and Eve listened to the snake, through whom Satan spoke, rather than God. They trusted Satan and the evidence of their own senses (Genesis 3:6) and distrusted and disobeyed God. True thinking is dependent on faith in God’s Word. Thinking which is captive to the senses is the characteristic of the sinner. Paul describes the world in sin and the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin in Romans 1:18-28. Suppressing the truth they knew about God, human beings, although knowing God, did not honour him or give thanks to him but became futile in their thinking (v 21). Claiming to be wise (how contemporary that is) they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles (v 23). God therefore ‘gave them up’ as an act of just punishment to their lusts and impurity, their dishonourable passions and debased mind (vv 24,26,28).
This is man today. What is the effect of sin on the mind?
First, there is no understanding at all of spiritual truth; the heart is darkened (Roman 1:21; Ephesians 4:18). He does not know God except as barely discerned Creator whom he rejects (Romans 1:18-20). He has a residual knowledge of God but it is a knowledge that only condemns him. He has no understanding of spiritual things for which the heart must be enlightened and opened up by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Secondly, there is defective understanding of all things. The Puritan Richard Baxter put it like this:2 ‘nothing can be rightly known if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, or to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature [that is, anything in creation], till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense…all creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God’.
In other words, separated from God we have imperfect knowledge of the parts but no understanding of the whole. We are like non-mechanics confronted with the jumbled components of a car engine: we may understand bits and pieces of what the parts do but have no way of putting them together.
Baxter continues: ‘Were they [creatures] separated actually they would cease to be, and the separation would be an annihilation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them unto ourselves.’
The point he is perceptively making is that in reality, creatures ‘cease to be’ if separated totally from God; when, in our fallen minds, we separate them from God in our perception and understanding, they ‘cease to be’ to us what they really are in that we fail to make any sense of them.
He goes on:
[W] hen man was made perfect, and placed in a perfect world…the whole creation was then man’s book, in which he was to read the nature and will of his Creator. Every creature had the name of God so legibly graven on it that man might run and read it…it was, therefore, his work to study the whole volume of nature, but first and foremost himself. And if any had held this course, he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and himself; but when he would know and love the creature and himself in a way of separation from God, he lost the knowledge both of the creature and the Creator…
The point that Baxter makes is profound. Separated from God, our knowledge of creation will never make true sense. We will always be ‘fools’ pretending we are wise. Brilliant though many men and women will be and capable of huge and real achievements in science, arts, technology and every branch of learning, they will never really understand the true use or purpose of anything because they will not honour God and will not know that the purpose of their greatest accomplishments is to glorify him, not themselves. In short, they will not be thinking straight; their thoughts will be futile.
Baxter points us to another important conclusion. I shall suggest later that one of the problems today is the fragmentation of knowledge. This, however, should not surprise the Christian even if the extent to which we see it today is accentuated. Apart from God, knowledge and understanding will be fragmented. It is a feature of man as sinner, not just of the twenty first century.
James Sire quotes John Henry Newman to good effect in this context:
'All knowledge forms one whole, because its subject-matter is one, for the universe in its length and breadth is so intimately knit together … then again, as to its Creator (though He of course in His own Being is infinitely separate from it, and Theology has its departments towards which human knowledge has no relations) yet He has so implicated Himself with it, and taken it into His very bosom, by His presence in it, His providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His influences through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it without contemplating Him'.
In simpler language, all truth is a unity because it is from one God. Moreover, even though God is separate from the universe, his relationship to all he has made means we cannot understand creation without at the same time considering God. Although no longer worshipping and obeying God, creation is still dependent on him and its life can only be understood in relation to him. Supremely is this true of Man whose very being is analogous to God's.
In turn, this means that because of the Fall, we are not thinking properly nor can we, until we know God. It is the work of Christ to bring us back to God and as part of the experience of redemption, to ‘see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God, as exhibited in his works – this is the only true philosophy’. The Christian is to be restored to something of a true ability to think, and to the true purpose of thinking. What is that? In John Owen’s words, the mind’s place is first ‘recognising, reacting to and conforming to revealed truth…theology is nothing but the pure Word of God and our part is the apprehension of it with our rational faculties as they are illuminated by God’.
So then we need to look briefly at some of the relevant attributes of the Christian mind.
What is the relation between man's being and God's? First, we are dependent on God. In him we live and move and have our being. Second, there is analogy. unlike any other creature our being is like God's. Third, also uniquely among creatures, there is capacity for response - we know God and should adore him and obey him. The medium of such response is God's Word. The first task of the mind is to receive the Word of God, believe it and obey it. The mind should therefore be in the service of a nature that is responsive to God - as God made it.
In Eden Adam received God's Word and for a time obeyed it. His mind was not only dependent on God's and analogous to it but perfectly responsive to God. He heard God's Word and obeyed. He was also called to be creative. He named the animals 'And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name' (Gen 2:19). So by analogy Adam was creative as God was creative. His mind was able to come to accurate assessments and make decisions that pleased God. It is one of the great 'what ifs' of history, to imagine what man's mind might have achieved without the Fall. Even fallen man, even the line of Cain, accomplished wonderful things (Gen 4:17-22). How much more, had there been no sin. Significantly, the first created thing in the line of Seth was the ark. The line of Cain was constructive but on its own initiative; the line of Seth listened to God's Word and provided for salvation. We take a fuller look at:
The mind in revolt
Sin entered human experience (Genesis 3) because Adam and Eve listened to the snake, through whom Satan spoke, rather than God. They trusted Satan and the evidence of their own senses (Genesis 3:6) and distrusted and disobeyed God. True thinking is dependent on faith in God’s Word. Thinking which is captive to the senses is the characteristic of the sinner. Paul describes the world in sin and the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin in Romans 1:18-28. Suppressing the truth they knew about God, human beings, although knowing God, did not honour him or give thanks to him but became futile in their thinking (v 21). Claiming to be wise (how contemporary that is) they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles (v 23). God therefore ‘gave them up’ as an act of just punishment to their lusts and impurity, their dishonourable passions and debased mind (vv 24,26,28).
This is man today. What is the effect of sin on the mind?
First, there is no understanding at all of spiritual truth; the heart is darkened (Roman 1:21; Ephesians 4:18). He does not know God except as barely discerned Creator whom he rejects (Romans 1:18-20). He has a residual knowledge of God but it is a knowledge that only condemns him. He has no understanding of spiritual things for which the heart must be enlightened and opened up by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Secondly, there is defective understanding of all things. The Puritan Richard Baxter put it like this:2 ‘nothing can be rightly known if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, or to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature [that is, anything in creation], till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense…all creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God’.
In other words, separated from God we have imperfect knowledge of the parts but no understanding of the whole. We are like non-mechanics confronted with the jumbled components of a car engine: we may understand bits and pieces of what the parts do but have no way of putting them together.
Baxter continues: ‘Were they [creatures] separated actually they would cease to be, and the separation would be an annihilation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them unto ourselves.’
The point he is perceptively making is that in reality, creatures ‘cease to be’ if separated totally from God; when, in our fallen minds, we separate them from God in our perception and understanding, they ‘cease to be’ to us what they really are in that we fail to make any sense of them.
He goes on:
[W] hen man was made perfect, and placed in a perfect world…the whole creation was then man’s book, in which he was to read the nature and will of his Creator. Every creature had the name of God so legibly graven on it that man might run and read it…it was, therefore, his work to study the whole volume of nature, but first and foremost himself. And if any had held this course, he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and himself; but when he would know and love the creature and himself in a way of separation from God, he lost the knowledge both of the creature and the Creator…
The point that Baxter makes is profound. Separated from God, our knowledge of creation will never make true sense. We will always be ‘fools’ pretending we are wise. Brilliant though many men and women will be and capable of huge and real achievements in science, arts, technology and every branch of learning, they will never really understand the true use or purpose of anything because they will not honour God and will not know that the purpose of their greatest accomplishments is to glorify him, not themselves. In short, they will not be thinking straight; their thoughts will be futile.
Baxter points us to another important conclusion. I shall suggest later that one of the problems today is the fragmentation of knowledge. This, however, should not surprise the Christian even if the extent to which we see it today is accentuated. Apart from God, knowledge and understanding will be fragmented. It is a feature of man as sinner, not just of the twenty first century.
James Sire quotes John Henry Newman to good effect in this context:
'All knowledge forms one whole, because its subject-matter is one, for the universe in its length and breadth is so intimately knit together … then again, as to its Creator (though He of course in His own Being is infinitely separate from it, and Theology has its departments towards which human knowledge has no relations) yet He has so implicated Himself with it, and taken it into His very bosom, by His presence in it, His providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His influences through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it without contemplating Him'.
In simpler language, all truth is a unity because it is from one God. Moreover, even though God is separate from the universe, his relationship to all he has made means we cannot understand creation without at the same time considering God. Although no longer worshipping and obeying God, creation is still dependent on him and its life can only be understood in relation to him. Supremely is this true of Man whose very being is analogous to God's.
In turn, this means that because of the Fall, we are not thinking properly nor can we, until we know God. It is the work of Christ to bring us back to God and as part of the experience of redemption, to ‘see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God, as exhibited in his works – this is the only true philosophy’. The Christian is to be restored to something of a true ability to think, and to the true purpose of thinking. What is that? In John Owen’s words, the mind’s place is first ‘recognising, reacting to and conforming to revealed truth…theology is nothing but the pure Word of God and our part is the apprehension of it with our rational faculties as they are illuminated by God’.
So then we need to look briefly at some of the relevant attributes of the Christian mind.
Thursday 8 December 2011
Westminster Conference 2011
I wrote a piece last December called 'Westminster Conference - what's the point?' I was positive but after this year's meetings I want to gush. It was excellent and people who missed it missed something special; what a shame there were fewer than a hundred people there.
The theme was religious liberty. Bob Letham gave us a scholarly introduction to chapter 20 of the Westminster Confession but did not go into depth on the issue of the civil magistrate defending Christian faith, worship or conversation. Knox Hyndman gave a stimulating survey of the Covenanters of the 17th C., leaving me feel that while they won my admiration for the way they chose to suffer than to sin (as they saw it) when persecuted, I am not sure I would like to have been a Baptist under any regime they formed. Obadiah Holmes was a Baptist who suffered for his principles in New England and Stephen Rees gave a powerful and challenging presentation of his life. How ironic that the men who went to New England for religious liberty ended up persecuting others; and those who left these shores to find freedom of conscience, would have probably been more free, at least till the Restoration, had they stayed here. And if the 20,000 who left England in the 1630s alone had stayed - how different would the history of England and America have been?
On Wednesday Lewis Allen gave an excellent paper on why the Puritans 'failed'. Perhaps the broad conclusion was that they failed to take the people with them; imposing godliness by statute can only accomplish so much. By the late 1650s, too many were disillusioned, and ready for change. In the eighteenth century there was perhaps a reaction to doctrinal precision and Robert Strivens charted us skilfully through the departure from orthodoxy on the Trinity and the person of Christ. Many at that time were unhappy to have to sign up to Confessions, including men who were orthodox such as Philip Doddridge - for many reasons he believed it was wrong to tie peoples' consciences to forms of human words. He maintained orthodoxy but others departed from it; while trying to retain the doctrine of the Trinity they varied in degrees of Socinianism and arianism in their view of Christ.
The last paper was a moving and inspiring account of the life and missionary labours of John Eliot, 'Apostle to the Indians'. It was a great note on which to leave and we are thankful to Hugh Collier for it.
The venue was excellent - the Salvation Army 'Regent Hall' in Oxford Street. I hope the Conference will be able to find a new home there. I had looked forward to a soup kitchen, but the cafe was fine.
The Westminster Conference is counter cultural. One has to listen for an hour at a time. Handouts are at a premium. One has to concentrate (did you make it to the end of that word without drifting or reaching for the zapper?). After each paper one is invited to discuss - this was better this year, but a discussion of more than two consecutive contributions on the same issue is rare.
A conference on 'leadership' or 'church planting' would no doubt draw many more. After all, such things are immediately relevant and practical. That is how short sighted we have become. We lose touch with our history and historical theology at our peril. This year's papers were of more immediate relevance than usual perhaps because most Christians are aware of the pressure on our liberties from contemporary governments and some of these issues were touched on in questions. But even where this is not the case, we must not be arrogant in our slavery to the present and the immediate.
The next Westminster Conference is 4-5 December 2012; mark it in your diary now.
The theme was religious liberty. Bob Letham gave us a scholarly introduction to chapter 20 of the Westminster Confession but did not go into depth on the issue of the civil magistrate defending Christian faith, worship or conversation. Knox Hyndman gave a stimulating survey of the Covenanters of the 17th C., leaving me feel that while they won my admiration for the way they chose to suffer than to sin (as they saw it) when persecuted, I am not sure I would like to have been a Baptist under any regime they formed. Obadiah Holmes was a Baptist who suffered for his principles in New England and Stephen Rees gave a powerful and challenging presentation of his life. How ironic that the men who went to New England for religious liberty ended up persecuting others; and those who left these shores to find freedom of conscience, would have probably been more free, at least till the Restoration, had they stayed here. And if the 20,000 who left England in the 1630s alone had stayed - how different would the history of England and America have been?
On Wednesday Lewis Allen gave an excellent paper on why the Puritans 'failed'. Perhaps the broad conclusion was that they failed to take the people with them; imposing godliness by statute can only accomplish so much. By the late 1650s, too many were disillusioned, and ready for change. In the eighteenth century there was perhaps a reaction to doctrinal precision and Robert Strivens charted us skilfully through the departure from orthodoxy on the Trinity and the person of Christ. Many at that time were unhappy to have to sign up to Confessions, including men who were orthodox such as Philip Doddridge - for many reasons he believed it was wrong to tie peoples' consciences to forms of human words. He maintained orthodoxy but others departed from it; while trying to retain the doctrine of the Trinity they varied in degrees of Socinianism and arianism in their view of Christ.
The last paper was a moving and inspiring account of the life and missionary labours of John Eliot, 'Apostle to the Indians'. It was a great note on which to leave and we are thankful to Hugh Collier for it.
The venue was excellent - the Salvation Army 'Regent Hall' in Oxford Street. I hope the Conference will be able to find a new home there. I had looked forward to a soup kitchen, but the cafe was fine.
The Westminster Conference is counter cultural. One has to listen for an hour at a time. Handouts are at a premium. One has to concentrate (did you make it to the end of that word without drifting or reaching for the zapper?). After each paper one is invited to discuss - this was better this year, but a discussion of more than two consecutive contributions on the same issue is rare.
A conference on 'leadership' or 'church planting' would no doubt draw many more. After all, such things are immediately relevant and practical. That is how short sighted we have become. We lose touch with our history and historical theology at our peril. This year's papers were of more immediate relevance than usual perhaps because most Christians are aware of the pressure on our liberties from contemporary governments and some of these issues were touched on in questions. But even where this is not the case, we must not be arrogant in our slavery to the present and the immediate.
The next Westminster Conference is 4-5 December 2012; mark it in your diary now.
Tuesday 6 December 2011
Thinking Theologically (1)
Introduction
This is written out of a particular interest in and concern for the task of ministers and ministerial students in defending and preaching the faith of Scripture. How better may we think theologically, that the legacy we have inherited may not only be passed on but even improved upon?
This is also written in the conviction that due to a variety of pressures in our day, theological thinking is under threat. We at least need to address this fact.
This is not the work the subject deserves. Sometimes, though, it is better to say something badly than not at all. Perhaps it will provoke or inspire someone else to do better.
‘The mind’ and ‘thinking’
One could spend much time discussing and trying to define ‘mind’ and ‘thinking’ and that would take me way beyond the purposes of this piece. Yet some starting point is helpful. These are secular definitions but they are helpful and in no sense conflict with the biblical idea of mind I shall be looking at later.
‘Mind’ according to a fairly standard definition (in the 'New Oxford Dictionary of English' is ‘the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought’. The mind, for present purposes, is that faculty with which we think, though it is more than that.
‘Thinking’ has been defined as ‘the process involved in manipulating information either collected through the senses or stored in the memory from previous experience’. It will be instructive to see how a more specifically biblical approach to the subject alters this, if at all.
We are doing it all the time. Thinking is an intellectual activity – it uses the intellect - but it is of course not just for ‘intellectuals’. I am thinking as I write; you are thinking as you read. Sometimes ‘thinking’ is said to be ‘realistic’ in that it is more purposeful, more focused on outside stimuli and on problem solving; other ‘thinking’ is said to be ‘autistic’ in the sense of imaginative, expressive, and responding more to inner stimuli; this includes daydreaming.
Now if thinking is a basic activity that we cannot avoid for long, why do we need any kind of instruction to help us? Well, first, we can all learn to do things better even if they come naturally. Breathing is natural, but I may learn ways that are more efficient. Public speaking may be ‘natural’ but can be improved by better techniques. Second, this is particularly true if I have to think to a specific purpose such as ministers must do when studying the Bible or thinking about theology. Thirdly, it is even more true if there are factors in our culture which are undermining the whole practice of purposeful thought, which I suggest is the case today.
First however we need to put ‘thinking’ in a Christian context.
Humans as Thinkers
1. We are created in the image of God
Man, male and female, is made in the image of God. If God thinks, we can think. His thoughts are infinitely higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8,9), but at least there is analogy in the function of thought itself. We are called to ‘reason together’ with God (Isaiah 1:18). The first task of Adam’s mind was to receive God’s special revelation (Genesis 1:28) and obey. He was also to use his mind analytically and creatively in the context of general revelation by naming the animals. The animals, meanwhile, could not name him.
There is a case for saying that the presupposition of all thought is the existence of God, the infinite - personal Triune Creator God who speaks. Drawing on a paragraph from John Henry Newman’s 'The Idea of a University' James Sire suggests that three truths provide most of what is needed to undergird the possibility of human knowledge (and therefore, human thought): first, the primacy of God’s existence; second the nature of this God as intelligent, living, personal and almighty; thirdly, that he is the intentional creator of a rational, orderly universe that is not himself (that is, creation is not just an extension of God as pantheism teaches). Only if there is an objective, orderly universe to which our reason correlates, can there be any real basis for human thinking.
2. We are to love God with the mind
The greatest commandment, taught Jesus, is to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:30). This is the first and great duty of men and women and the first duty of the mind. The mind is to be applied to God through his Word and in obedience. ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments’ (1 John 5:3).
A point of interest here is that thinking, if it an expression of love, is evidently to be accompanied by emotion or affection. Love is not merely feeling but it cannot be without it. Thinking is not to be an ice-cold activity.
This is written out of a particular interest in and concern for the task of ministers and ministerial students in defending and preaching the faith of Scripture. How better may we think theologically, that the legacy we have inherited may not only be passed on but even improved upon?
This is also written in the conviction that due to a variety of pressures in our day, theological thinking is under threat. We at least need to address this fact.
This is not the work the subject deserves. Sometimes, though, it is better to say something badly than not at all. Perhaps it will provoke or inspire someone else to do better.
‘The mind’ and ‘thinking’
One could spend much time discussing and trying to define ‘mind’ and ‘thinking’ and that would take me way beyond the purposes of this piece. Yet some starting point is helpful. These are secular definitions but they are helpful and in no sense conflict with the biblical idea of mind I shall be looking at later.
‘Mind’ according to a fairly standard definition (in the 'New Oxford Dictionary of English' is ‘the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought’. The mind, for present purposes, is that faculty with which we think, though it is more than that.
‘Thinking’ has been defined as ‘the process involved in manipulating information either collected through the senses or stored in the memory from previous experience’. It will be instructive to see how a more specifically biblical approach to the subject alters this, if at all.
We are doing it all the time. Thinking is an intellectual activity – it uses the intellect - but it is of course not just for ‘intellectuals’. I am thinking as I write; you are thinking as you read. Sometimes ‘thinking’ is said to be ‘realistic’ in that it is more purposeful, more focused on outside stimuli and on problem solving; other ‘thinking’ is said to be ‘autistic’ in the sense of imaginative, expressive, and responding more to inner stimuli; this includes daydreaming.
Now if thinking is a basic activity that we cannot avoid for long, why do we need any kind of instruction to help us? Well, first, we can all learn to do things better even if they come naturally. Breathing is natural, but I may learn ways that are more efficient. Public speaking may be ‘natural’ but can be improved by better techniques. Second, this is particularly true if I have to think to a specific purpose such as ministers must do when studying the Bible or thinking about theology. Thirdly, it is even more true if there are factors in our culture which are undermining the whole practice of purposeful thought, which I suggest is the case today.
First however we need to put ‘thinking’ in a Christian context.
Humans as Thinkers
1. We are created in the image of God
Man, male and female, is made in the image of God. If God thinks, we can think. His thoughts are infinitely higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8,9), but at least there is analogy in the function of thought itself. We are called to ‘reason together’ with God (Isaiah 1:18). The first task of Adam’s mind was to receive God’s special revelation (Genesis 1:28) and obey. He was also to use his mind analytically and creatively in the context of general revelation by naming the animals. The animals, meanwhile, could not name him.
There is a case for saying that the presupposition of all thought is the existence of God, the infinite - personal Triune Creator God who speaks. Drawing on a paragraph from John Henry Newman’s 'The Idea of a University' James Sire suggests that three truths provide most of what is needed to undergird the possibility of human knowledge (and therefore, human thought): first, the primacy of God’s existence; second the nature of this God as intelligent, living, personal and almighty; thirdly, that he is the intentional creator of a rational, orderly universe that is not himself (that is, creation is not just an extension of God as pantheism teaches). Only if there is an objective, orderly universe to which our reason correlates, can there be any real basis for human thinking.
2. We are to love God with the mind
The greatest commandment, taught Jesus, is to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:30). This is the first and great duty of men and women and the first duty of the mind. The mind is to be applied to God through his Word and in obedience. ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments’ (1 John 5:3).
A point of interest here is that thinking, if it an expression of love, is evidently to be accompanied by emotion or affection. Love is not merely feeling but it cannot be without it. Thinking is not to be an ice-cold activity.
Monday 28 November 2011
Reformation and Revival
Every November seventy or eighty of us (occasionally a few more) gather at Swanwick in Derbyshire for the conference of the Reformation and Revival Fellowship. There is little point in going to this conference unless you like good preaching but if you do, it is one of the best around. Part of the secret of the conference is the subject matter. Reformation and revival enable the preachers to preach God for his own glory's sake. At the ministers' conferences that I also attend, there is always what feels like an ulterior motive; a text is preached with a view to making us better pastors. The professional grid somehow constrains the text. At the RRF the preachers and the listeners are under no such constraints. We join together to hear from God about God and about Christ and about his grace and his purposes. It is liberating and refreshing and not uncommonly the place of rich blessing.
This year Geoff Thomas set us off warmly with a study of the fruit of godly sorrow in 2 Corinthians 7:11; what stayed with many of us, it seemed, was the plea for 'earnestness'. This was pressed home for us by four addresses from Kenneth Stewart (Glasgow) on 'Reformation under Hezekiah'. This good king was nothing if not earnest. We saw his godliness, his thorough reform of religion, his later weakness, his restoration and his pride. Human after all, but determined to serve his God wholeheartedly in his day.
Is earnestness lacking in our day? There seems to be more of a desire to be cool than to be hot. Earnestness is associated with being rather too serious, being old-fashioned, a bit of an anorak. I was leafing through a Christian teenage magazine recently and one of the contributors (a Christian pop chanteuse) was very keen to tell her audience that whatever people said about them, they were beautiful in God's sight. You are not ugly, you are beautiful - that's the message; boost your self-esteem. With that attitude, who is going to be earnest in repentance? Who is going to experience, much less value, godly grief? We are affirming creation to the detriment of affirming the Fall and sin. We all think far too well of ourselves; as Dr Lloyd Jones would say, we are really all far too healthy.
Our third speaker reminded us of this saying of the Doctor's: Philip Eveson gave two excellent papers on Dr Lloyd Jones and his theology of revival. The first paper took us through the influences that formed Lloyd Jones' thinking; his conversion, the Welsh context of Calvinistic Methodism and the 1904-05 revivals; his own spiritual experiences of 1948; his reading of Jonathan Edwards. His concern for revival was no obsession, asserted Mr Eveson; this was a passionate but wholly reasonable conviction. The second paper helped us through the theology of Lloyd Jones, and was very clear but left many of us with more questions than answers and the desire to have had a question session with Philip - a tribute to him, I should say, and no criticism of the clarity of his address.
Some of the questions I might have asked were:
1. Would it have been helpful if the remarkable experiences of great saints of God were not given the term 'baptism in/by the Spirit' as Dr Lloyd Jones does?
2. Is it helpful to read back from an individual spiritual experience to the event of Pentecost and then argue that a repetition of Pentecost is what we want today? Apart from anything else, is that how to look at Pentecost?
3. Does the fear of quenching the Spirit lead to a paralysis in confronting unbiblical manifestations which claim to be of the Spirit?
4. Does it make any difference if we go back beyond the eighteenth century to the seventeenth and sixteenth? What is our model of God 'doing great things'?
This was a good conference and we are thankful to our speakers and preachers for excellent material and much to think about.
If you want to hear the talks or download them go to www.reformationandrevival.org.
This year Geoff Thomas set us off warmly with a study of the fruit of godly sorrow in 2 Corinthians 7:11; what stayed with many of us, it seemed, was the plea for 'earnestness'. This was pressed home for us by four addresses from Kenneth Stewart (Glasgow) on 'Reformation under Hezekiah'. This good king was nothing if not earnest. We saw his godliness, his thorough reform of religion, his later weakness, his restoration and his pride. Human after all, but determined to serve his God wholeheartedly in his day.
Is earnestness lacking in our day? There seems to be more of a desire to be cool than to be hot. Earnestness is associated with being rather too serious, being old-fashioned, a bit of an anorak. I was leafing through a Christian teenage magazine recently and one of the contributors (a Christian pop chanteuse) was very keen to tell her audience that whatever people said about them, they were beautiful in God's sight. You are not ugly, you are beautiful - that's the message; boost your self-esteem. With that attitude, who is going to be earnest in repentance? Who is going to experience, much less value, godly grief? We are affirming creation to the detriment of affirming the Fall and sin. We all think far too well of ourselves; as Dr Lloyd Jones would say, we are really all far too healthy.
Our third speaker reminded us of this saying of the Doctor's: Philip Eveson gave two excellent papers on Dr Lloyd Jones and his theology of revival. The first paper took us through the influences that formed Lloyd Jones' thinking; his conversion, the Welsh context of Calvinistic Methodism and the 1904-05 revivals; his own spiritual experiences of 1948; his reading of Jonathan Edwards. His concern for revival was no obsession, asserted Mr Eveson; this was a passionate but wholly reasonable conviction. The second paper helped us through the theology of Lloyd Jones, and was very clear but left many of us with more questions than answers and the desire to have had a question session with Philip - a tribute to him, I should say, and no criticism of the clarity of his address.
Some of the questions I might have asked were:
1. Would it have been helpful if the remarkable experiences of great saints of God were not given the term 'baptism in/by the Spirit' as Dr Lloyd Jones does?
2. Is it helpful to read back from an individual spiritual experience to the event of Pentecost and then argue that a repetition of Pentecost is what we want today? Apart from anything else, is that how to look at Pentecost?
3. Does the fear of quenching the Spirit lead to a paralysis in confronting unbiblical manifestations which claim to be of the Spirit?
4. Does it make any difference if we go back beyond the eighteenth century to the seventeenth and sixteenth? What is our model of God 'doing great things'?
This was a good conference and we are thankful to our speakers and preachers for excellent material and much to think about.
If you want to hear the talks or download them go to www.reformationandrevival.org.
Monday 31 October 2011
'Is the church where you would like it to be?'
This canny question (a 'strategy' question, not a geographic one, you understand)was put to me by a mature and savvy Christian when he was talking to me about church membership a while ago.
What, as a pastor, should one say? The knee-jerk reaction might be to say 'yes' as this gives the impression of a CEO in charge and in control and succeeding in getting things where one wants them to be. Thankfully I am not sufficiently CEO material and I paused before answering.
'No' I said. A further short pause. 'I think I would be worried if the church was ever where I wanted it to be'. Thinking it through as I spoke (not to be recommended unless you are put on the spot) I added, in the course of fruitful discussion, that if the church was where I wanted it to be, it would suggest that I was in charge of the church rather than the Lord. Also, it implied that I was setting the church's agenda, and if I was satisfied with where it was it suggested something woefully lacking in my desire for the church, or something woefully complacent in my assessment of where we were spiritually.
Yet - there surely is a place for planning and having a 'vision' for one's church. One can hardly lead effectively without it.
But - a good question he asked, don't you think? How you answer is likely to say far more about you than it will say about the church. It makes one think: where would I like the church to be? What would I like to see changed for the better? Where are we weak? What should I be concentrating on? In a way these questions are never far from the mind of a pastor, but sometimes the demands of the immediate cause one to lose sight of the ultimately important.
I am thankful that this man and his wife, with their children, have joined us. May we all work towards making the church more what the Lord would have us be.
What, as a pastor, should one say? The knee-jerk reaction might be to say 'yes' as this gives the impression of a CEO in charge and in control and succeeding in getting things where one wants them to be. Thankfully I am not sufficiently CEO material and I paused before answering.
'No' I said. A further short pause. 'I think I would be worried if the church was ever where I wanted it to be'. Thinking it through as I spoke (not to be recommended unless you are put on the spot) I added, in the course of fruitful discussion, that if the church was where I wanted it to be, it would suggest that I was in charge of the church rather than the Lord. Also, it implied that I was setting the church's agenda, and if I was satisfied with where it was it suggested something woefully lacking in my desire for the church, or something woefully complacent in my assessment of where we were spiritually.
Yet - there surely is a place for planning and having a 'vision' for one's church. One can hardly lead effectively without it.
But - a good question he asked, don't you think? How you answer is likely to say far more about you than it will say about the church. It makes one think: where would I like the church to be? What would I like to see changed for the better? Where are we weak? What should I be concentrating on? In a way these questions are never far from the mind of a pastor, but sometimes the demands of the immediate cause one to lose sight of the ultimately important.
I am thankful that this man and his wife, with their children, have joined us. May we all work towards making the church more what the Lord would have us be.
Tuesday 25 October 2011
The Cathedral of Nature
We went to London today. We took the boys to the Natural History Museum. Queueing to get in lasted an hour. Then we 'did' the dinosaurs who 'ruled the earth' from about 230 million to 65 million BC. Funny that, as they showed extracts from films like '10,000 (or was it 10 million? )Years BC' and 'The Flintstones' which had humans and dinosaurs on earth at the same time. There was some catastrophe about 65 million years ago and there have been about 100 possible explanations put forward as to what this was, including that they were all taken up by aliens or died of hay-fever when certain plants came along and the climate changed. A good dose of Beconase then could have saved these creatures for posterity. A flood was not one of the catastrophic options listed by the museum.
On the floor which tells you how we have evolved from apes I was delighted to learn that we are nearer gorillas or chimpanzees than to orang-utans or gibbons; it's something to do with the jaw. Baboons are not in the running apparently. Neanderthal man was prominent, if I recall, from about 500,000 BC to within 100,000 then the race who were our direct ancestors came long. Neanderthals and these ancestors co-existed for a time (a few tens of thousands of years). I must admit I thought the story was that Neanderthals were our ancestors; you learn something every day. When you realise that the total skeletal evidence on which these weighty conclusions are based would fit into the back of a not very large white van, one is amazed at the extrapolatory ability of palaeontologists.
But there is lots of less conjectural stuff in the NHM and it makes for an interesting day out. It is reading between the lines, however, which is interesting. They call it the 'cathedral of nature' and walking in, it certainly has that appearance. Moreover, sitting on his chair (cathedra, like ancient bishops) up on the steps as you enter, is His Grace Charles Darwin. His white marble statue was unveiled in February 2009 and the statue of Richard Owen who founded the museum in the 19th C, has been ignominiously shunted into an obscure corner - still to be seen with a polite plaque to his name. But he did not agree with Evolution as Darwin taught it, you see, and so has been demoted by Commissar Dawkins and his Stalinist atheist cronies, along with one or two contemporary men of science who dare to suggest that Evolution may not be the answer to everything. Cathedral it certainly is; even science needs its religious overtones. Dawkins interestingly has brought out a children's book called 'The Magic of Reality'. So having rubbished religion we are now back to magic.
After leaving the NHM, we took the tube to Victoria, walked to Buckingham Palace, saw a miniature version of changing of the guard, walked through a lovely autumnal St James' Park to Parliament Square, saw the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Whitehall, Downing Street as well guarded as a military establishment, and Trafalgar Square where punters were abseiling down a specially erected white wall. All wonderful, apart from the scaffolding, plastic sheets and building paraphernalia defacing the Queen Victoria Memorial (outside Buck House), Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square. London, like our culture, seems to be undergoing major reconstruction.
On the floor which tells you how we have evolved from apes I was delighted to learn that we are nearer gorillas or chimpanzees than to orang-utans or gibbons; it's something to do with the jaw. Baboons are not in the running apparently. Neanderthal man was prominent, if I recall, from about 500,000 BC to within 100,000 then the race who were our direct ancestors came long. Neanderthals and these ancestors co-existed for a time (a few tens of thousands of years). I must admit I thought the story was that Neanderthals were our ancestors; you learn something every day. When you realise that the total skeletal evidence on which these weighty conclusions are based would fit into the back of a not very large white van, one is amazed at the extrapolatory ability of palaeontologists.
But there is lots of less conjectural stuff in the NHM and it makes for an interesting day out. It is reading between the lines, however, which is interesting. They call it the 'cathedral of nature' and walking in, it certainly has that appearance. Moreover, sitting on his chair (cathedra, like ancient bishops) up on the steps as you enter, is His Grace Charles Darwin. His white marble statue was unveiled in February 2009 and the statue of Richard Owen who founded the museum in the 19th C, has been ignominiously shunted into an obscure corner - still to be seen with a polite plaque to his name. But he did not agree with Evolution as Darwin taught it, you see, and so has been demoted by Commissar Dawkins and his Stalinist atheist cronies, along with one or two contemporary men of science who dare to suggest that Evolution may not be the answer to everything. Cathedral it certainly is; even science needs its religious overtones. Dawkins interestingly has brought out a children's book called 'The Magic of Reality'. So having rubbished religion we are now back to magic.
After leaving the NHM, we took the tube to Victoria, walked to Buckingham Palace, saw a miniature version of changing of the guard, walked through a lovely autumnal St James' Park to Parliament Square, saw the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Whitehall, Downing Street as well guarded as a military establishment, and Trafalgar Square where punters were abseiling down a specially erected white wall. All wonderful, apart from the scaffolding, plastic sheets and building paraphernalia defacing the Queen Victoria Memorial (outside Buck House), Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square. London, like our culture, seems to be undergoing major reconstruction.
Saturday 15 October 2011
Don't blame the referee!
We must not blame the referee for the defeat in Auckland. To lose 9-8 is no disgrace with 14 men, but 14 Welshmen can beat 15 Frenchmen any time. It wasn't the lack of men. The referee's decision actually made it a bit more of a contest. It was the fact that we didn't kick well. You can't expect to win World Cup semi finals if you miss two kickable penalties, a conversion and two drop goals (not to mention Halfpenny's magnificent effort in the last ten minutes).
Wales should have won easily. They lost it themselves. The second best team is in the final. As my wife said, at least Wales will not now have to play a final on a Sunday. It took me a while to be that spiritual.
But well done France for bearing up well against 14 Welshmen.
Wales should have won easily. They lost it themselves. The second best team is in the final. As my wife said, at least Wales will not now have to play a final on a Sunday. It took me a while to be that spiritual.
But well done France for bearing up well against 14 Welshmen.
Monday 10 October 2011
Marriages not made in heaven
The homosexual marriage debate is not about homosexuality. It is not about 'gay-bashing' and Christians who are often intimidated by that unjust jibe should not be afraid to take on the government over the issue of redefining marriage. It is not even about marriage. It is about: who is God? Is God God? Or is the government God? For in the proposal to redefine an institution which has its roots in the Bible and in ancient antiquity, the government is behaving with breathtaking audacity worthy of atheistic totalitarianism. One is reminded of the attempts by the French and Russian Revolutions to redefine the week.
There is an elderly Christian lady of my acquaintance who regularly tries to persuade me that Tony Blair is the anti-Christ. I remain agnostic on that equation, but I will say that never has the whiff of sulphur hung so pungently over a political leader as when David Cameron (yes, that nice man who defends the family) announced last week that he would seek to redefine marriage, at the same time as he bullied the supine party faithful to applaud him.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less'.
'The question is,' said Alice 'whether you can make words mean so many different things'.
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.' (See 'Through the Looking Glass').
The question here, of course, is not just who is to be the master of words, but who is to define the reality that the words represent. The present government has taken upon itself that task.
There are two levels of reality. There is reality according to Truth, that which is as God made it, and of course marriage at this level will always be between a man and a woman. Nothing will ever change that. Homosexual marriage is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and nothing the government ever does will be able to change that.
But there is another level of reality which is according to the Lie. This is the level at which people live most of their lives and which is the controlling sphere; it is the 'world', life according to the flesh. At this level meanings can be changed and manipulated. At this level marriage will, if the government has its way, come to include same sex relationships. People will be conned into living a lie. It is an example of the contemporary ability for what George Orwell would have called 'doublethink' in Newspeak (in '1984'):the acceptance of two mutually contradictory statements as correct (a very postmodern ability).
The government will have its work cut out. Why should marriage be restricted to one man / woman and A.N Other - why not allow for polygamy and polyandry? What will happen to the definition of adultery? And what of grounds for divorce?
Procreation does not feature as such in the present legal definition of marriage, but it is most certainly a key purpose of biblical marriage; clearly that will have to go.
This is without mentioning the place of religious bodies who will have all manner of objections to performing such ceremonies. My astonishment will sound naive I know but how can the government, for the sake of a small minority, go against millenia of religious belief and moral teaching of the world's major religions?
Christians must give the government a hard time over this issue; it is a most serious attack not only on Christian morality but on the nature of marriage and the family, on society, and on the prerogative of God to declare what is right.
'If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?'
The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven ; his eyes see, his eyelids test, the children of man.
The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence...
For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face'. (from Psalm 11:3 - 7).
There is an elderly Christian lady of my acquaintance who regularly tries to persuade me that Tony Blair is the anti-Christ. I remain agnostic on that equation, but I will say that never has the whiff of sulphur hung so pungently over a political leader as when David Cameron (yes, that nice man who defends the family) announced last week that he would seek to redefine marriage, at the same time as he bullied the supine party faithful to applaud him.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less'.
'The question is,' said Alice 'whether you can make words mean so many different things'.
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.' (See 'Through the Looking Glass').
The question here, of course, is not just who is to be the master of words, but who is to define the reality that the words represent. The present government has taken upon itself that task.
There are two levels of reality. There is reality according to Truth, that which is as God made it, and of course marriage at this level will always be between a man and a woman. Nothing will ever change that. Homosexual marriage is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, and nothing the government ever does will be able to change that.
But there is another level of reality which is according to the Lie. This is the level at which people live most of their lives and which is the controlling sphere; it is the 'world', life according to the flesh. At this level meanings can be changed and manipulated. At this level marriage will, if the government has its way, come to include same sex relationships. People will be conned into living a lie. It is an example of the contemporary ability for what George Orwell would have called 'doublethink' in Newspeak (in '1984'):the acceptance of two mutually contradictory statements as correct (a very postmodern ability).
The government will have its work cut out. Why should marriage be restricted to one man / woman and A.N Other - why not allow for polygamy and polyandry? What will happen to the definition of adultery? And what of grounds for divorce?
Procreation does not feature as such in the present legal definition of marriage, but it is most certainly a key purpose of biblical marriage; clearly that will have to go.
This is without mentioning the place of religious bodies who will have all manner of objections to performing such ceremonies. My astonishment will sound naive I know but how can the government, for the sake of a small minority, go against millenia of religious belief and moral teaching of the world's major religions?
Christians must give the government a hard time over this issue; it is a most serious attack not only on Christian morality but on the nature of marriage and the family, on society, and on the prerogative of God to declare what is right.
'If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?'
The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven ; his eyes see, his eyelids test, the children of man.
The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence...
For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face'. (from Psalm 11:3 - 7).
Sunday 9 October 2011
Commitment! Commitment! (as sung by Tevye to the tune of 'Tradition!')
So now we know. The moral imperative behind permitting homosexual marriages and the concomitant redefinition of marriage, is the desire and need to foster 'commitment'.
I am glad to know this - glad, that is, in the sense that having a bad answer to an investigation into one's health can be better than no answer at all - because I had asked Ms Lynne Featherstone in a letter to her after the Lib-Dem conference what the moral drive behind homosexual marriage was. I have yet to receive a reply, but the Prime Minister has rather answered it for me. Equality - yes (as I suggested to Ms Featherstone but also thinking there must be something else) and now we know, according to the PM - commitment.
Commitment is the fig leaf with which the government is going to try to lend moral decency to this breathtaking proposal. It is in some ways a shrewd move. Commitment is of course something no-one could easily oppose. It is a Good Thing. Faithfulness in relationships is something to be encouraged and applauded. We would want to see it in marriage. In any relationship. And if the committees (is that the right word in this context for two committed people?) happen to be two men in a sexual relationship, then surely we should expect it of them too. So let's encourage it and let them get married.
Indeed it could even be sung as a kind of anthem - as Tevye, the Topol character in 'Fiddler on the Roof' sings 'Tradition!' It sounds good, worthy, moving even.
The problem is that, like tradition, it is ultimately completely morally empty. Commitment is a 'formal' virtue; is is the husk to the kernel, the insulating protection to the wire that conveys the current. It has a definite usefulness; but it derives its real value from the matter it contains or carries. One can, it should not need to be pointed out, be utterly committed to totally the wrong thing. There is a certain honour among thieves, by which we normally mean they are loyal to each other for their criminal purposes. Men and women show incredible (even enviable) commitment to the most cruel, perverse and self-serving ideals and activities and have done all through history. Idolatry is a case study in commitment.
Nor is a distinction between commitment to people and to ideals or tasks valid here. All types of commitment have to be measured in the end by this criterion: commitment to what or whom or for what purpose. Commitment in itself means very little. It may even be a moral evil.
So I remain unimpressed by the moral high ground the government is occupying in this iniquitous and arrogant matter. Equality has come to mean that people must be allowed to do what they like (within grounds circumscribed by the government of the day of course). Commitment is dragged in to bolster what is obviously regarded as a weak case, but it is a staff to splinter in the hand that leans on it. Commitment to an immoral relationship will never make the relationship moral. In fact if it presumes to dress itself in the institution of marriage, so that marriage, that God-given ordinance,is now stretched and distorted to embrace moral perversion, then commitment has become an instrument of great evil. Law, as Francis Schaeffer might have said, has never been so sociological.
I am glad to know this - glad, that is, in the sense that having a bad answer to an investigation into one's health can be better than no answer at all - because I had asked Ms Lynne Featherstone in a letter to her after the Lib-Dem conference what the moral drive behind homosexual marriage was. I have yet to receive a reply, but the Prime Minister has rather answered it for me. Equality - yes (as I suggested to Ms Featherstone but also thinking there must be something else) and now we know, according to the PM - commitment.
Commitment is the fig leaf with which the government is going to try to lend moral decency to this breathtaking proposal. It is in some ways a shrewd move. Commitment is of course something no-one could easily oppose. It is a Good Thing. Faithfulness in relationships is something to be encouraged and applauded. We would want to see it in marriage. In any relationship. And if the committees (is that the right word in this context for two committed people?) happen to be two men in a sexual relationship, then surely we should expect it of them too. So let's encourage it and let them get married.
Indeed it could even be sung as a kind of anthem - as Tevye, the Topol character in 'Fiddler on the Roof' sings 'Tradition!' It sounds good, worthy, moving even.
The problem is that, like tradition, it is ultimately completely morally empty. Commitment is a 'formal' virtue; is is the husk to the kernel, the insulating protection to the wire that conveys the current. It has a definite usefulness; but it derives its real value from the matter it contains or carries. One can, it should not need to be pointed out, be utterly committed to totally the wrong thing. There is a certain honour among thieves, by which we normally mean they are loyal to each other for their criminal purposes. Men and women show incredible (even enviable) commitment to the most cruel, perverse and self-serving ideals and activities and have done all through history. Idolatry is a case study in commitment.
Nor is a distinction between commitment to people and to ideals or tasks valid here. All types of commitment have to be measured in the end by this criterion: commitment to what or whom or for what purpose. Commitment in itself means very little. It may even be a moral evil.
So I remain unimpressed by the moral high ground the government is occupying in this iniquitous and arrogant matter. Equality has come to mean that people must be allowed to do what they like (within grounds circumscribed by the government of the day of course). Commitment is dragged in to bolster what is obviously regarded as a weak case, but it is a staff to splinter in the hand that leans on it. Commitment to an immoral relationship will never make the relationship moral. In fact if it presumes to dress itself in the institution of marriage, so that marriage, that God-given ordinance,is now stretched and distorted to embrace moral perversion, then commitment has become an instrument of great evil. Law, as Francis Schaeffer might have said, has never been so sociological.
Friday 7 October 2011
Augustine, sin and grace
I am nearing the end of the remarkable biography 'Augustine of Hippo' by Peter Brown, first published 1967, new edition 2000.
There is much more I want to work at, but two things have deeply impressed themselves on me. First, the unshakeable grip Augustine had on the depravity of human nature, inherited from Adam - original sin. His defence of this against the pride, optimism ans superficiality of Pelagius and his disciples is an object lesson in tenacity as well as in unscrupulousness. He held firm to his convictions, and whenever Augustine was convinced of something, he really was convinced, and fought for it. His errors were big too, but his efforts on behalf of the church were heroic.
How ironic it is that in an age when we are witnessing the empirical truth of what Augustine taught about human depravity, in wars and rumours of wars, collapsing regimes, corrupt politicians and financial leaders, in moral perversion and cruelty to the weak, at a time that is when you would have thought people may have lent a listening ear to the doctrine of original sin, on the contrary, they are busy proclaiming the opposite. In other words, the more that sin has dominion, the more it conceals its true nature; the more depraved man becomes, the less he is aware of the real nature of his problem. How right Augustine was, whatever reservations we may have about elements of his arguments. He was right on the big issues. Unlike some of us today, too, he fought for them.
Second, Augustine was a hero of grace. Nick Needham calls his book on Augustine 'The Triumph of Grace' and it is a good reflection of the man's great vision of God and of God's ultimate victory. The triumph of God and his church was, to Augustine, assured, in the midst of all the moral decay, superficial intellectuality and political collapse he saw around him. God was sovereign and would conquer. Grace will reign through righteousness unto everlasting life; sin abounds, but grace superabounds.
That is a vision of God worth going to bed on; and waking up with; and taking into the pulpit; and living and dying for.
There is much more I want to work at, but two things have deeply impressed themselves on me. First, the unshakeable grip Augustine had on the depravity of human nature, inherited from Adam - original sin. His defence of this against the pride, optimism ans superficiality of Pelagius and his disciples is an object lesson in tenacity as well as in unscrupulousness. He held firm to his convictions, and whenever Augustine was convinced of something, he really was convinced, and fought for it. His errors were big too, but his efforts on behalf of the church were heroic.
How ironic it is that in an age when we are witnessing the empirical truth of what Augustine taught about human depravity, in wars and rumours of wars, collapsing regimes, corrupt politicians and financial leaders, in moral perversion and cruelty to the weak, at a time that is when you would have thought people may have lent a listening ear to the doctrine of original sin, on the contrary, they are busy proclaiming the opposite. In other words, the more that sin has dominion, the more it conceals its true nature; the more depraved man becomes, the less he is aware of the real nature of his problem. How right Augustine was, whatever reservations we may have about elements of his arguments. He was right on the big issues. Unlike some of us today, too, he fought for them.
Second, Augustine was a hero of grace. Nick Needham calls his book on Augustine 'The Triumph of Grace' and it is a good reflection of the man's great vision of God and of God's ultimate victory. The triumph of God and his church was, to Augustine, assured, in the midst of all the moral decay, superficial intellectuality and political collapse he saw around him. God was sovereign and would conquer. Grace will reign through righteousness unto everlasting life; sin abounds, but grace superabounds.
That is a vision of God worth going to bed on; and waking up with; and taking into the pulpit; and living and dying for.
Tuesday 4 October 2011
Why pray for revival?
Yesterday I was present at a discussion among ministers about revival. We had had a stimulating and encouraging talk about the north Wales revival of 1904-05. The discussion tended to follow lines one has heard before, though it was none the worse for that.
A central issue always is: what is the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility? Can we in any way 'prepare' for revival? Can we contribute to a chain of causation leading to its coming? The human contributions may consist of prayer, preaching, penitence (repentance) and purity (a holy life - 'God can't fill a dirty vessel') yet the history of revivals shows God is notoriously difficult to pin down and bestows his blessing where he wills. There may be common themes in revivals but it would be a brave man who said 'this must happen or else there will not be revival' or 'if this happens, then revival will follow'. Charles Finney was such a man, of course.
Let us look at prayer for revival. Who would not pray at some point, 'Lord pour out your blessing on this land'? Increasingly one hears Christians , at long last slowly being brought to our knees and our senses by the abject failure of the church in its cleverness to make any inroads on the darkness around us, realising that without a great movement of the Holy Spirit we are lost.
Yet systematic prayer for revival is also characteristically tied to a postmillenialist eschatology - as in Jonathan Edwards' 'Humble Attempt' (1747). Revival is the way in which the gospel prepares the way for the Lord's return. If one is a premillenialist, then characteristically one would pray for the Lord's immediate return, as the Brethren apparently did in the 19th Century (and I have been told they forbade praying for revival).
What of the poor Amillenialist? The optimistic representative of this group is close to the postmillenialist and may pray in that manner; the pessimistic amillenialist is likely to think more like the premillenialist.
Can prayer for revival be separated from eschatological concerns?
Not entirely one would hope, or we are being less than fully theological about things (and that is something with which we could never charge Jonathan Edwards).
But surely the true Amillenialist is concerned above all with the glory of God (and I am not suggesting our friends in other eschatological camps are not). With this in mind, is not revival principally seeking God for his own sake and for his presence? It was rightly concluded at yesterday's meeting that the presence of God, felt and powerful, is the characteristic of revival proper. It is not the results, even though Jonathan Edwards would be right to see widespread revival as bringing in a gospel 'golden age'. But why does God send revivals? It would be presumptuous to think there is only one answer to this, or that we could certainly know it. One might, for example, say that it is because the world is getting so bad. But why at certain times in certain places, when we could say with some justification that other places and other times are as bad if not worse. Did the Isle of Lewis need that much more purifying in 1949-51?
Or is it because the people are praying, or holier than others? Or the church deader than others? It is difficult to pin down - why in 1904 did revivals break out in Rhos near Wrexham? The people were gathered for a series of meetings to deepen spiritual life. Is it preaching? Iain Campbell (Lewis) has said he has studied many sermons of the early 20th century of preachers used in revival times in Lewis, and there is no discernible difference on paper between times of revival and times of non-revival. The content is the same. The difference is the (greater) presence of the Spirit of God.
Is it because the people are seeking God? Even when, as we often see, no more than in 1904-05 perhaps, the theology leaves something to be desired?
Perhaps praying that is more concerned with the Giver than the gift is the prayer which , while we would not presume to call it or anything else the key to revival, is the praying that is closest to the heart of revival and most correspondent to the true effects of revival - a people enraptured with God. Perhaps it is out of his desire to cause people to love him for himself that God makes it so difficult for us to define the terms on which revival will come, and acts so gloriously sovereignly as to both time and place. Yet it may also give a hint as to why some areas are and have been more blessed than others.
As to fruit - Jonathan Edwards is surely right to say that love will be the fruit of a true work of God.
A final point - the theology of worship that says we gather together only to encourage and edify one another but not to 'worship', is surely selling itself short here in relation to expecting or longing for the felt presence of God. It is a theology that is inimical to revival. Yet those of us with a fuller theology of the Lord's Day meeting should not be triumphalist; God is known not to bless only because of correct theology.
A central issue always is: what is the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility? Can we in any way 'prepare' for revival? Can we contribute to a chain of causation leading to its coming? The human contributions may consist of prayer, preaching, penitence (repentance) and purity (a holy life - 'God can't fill a dirty vessel') yet the history of revivals shows God is notoriously difficult to pin down and bestows his blessing where he wills. There may be common themes in revivals but it would be a brave man who said 'this must happen or else there will not be revival' or 'if this happens, then revival will follow'. Charles Finney was such a man, of course.
Let us look at prayer for revival. Who would not pray at some point, 'Lord pour out your blessing on this land'? Increasingly one hears Christians , at long last slowly being brought to our knees and our senses by the abject failure of the church in its cleverness to make any inroads on the darkness around us, realising that without a great movement of the Holy Spirit we are lost.
Yet systematic prayer for revival is also characteristically tied to a postmillenialist eschatology - as in Jonathan Edwards' 'Humble Attempt' (1747). Revival is the way in which the gospel prepares the way for the Lord's return. If one is a premillenialist, then characteristically one would pray for the Lord's immediate return, as the Brethren apparently did in the 19th Century (and I have been told they forbade praying for revival).
What of the poor Amillenialist? The optimistic representative of this group is close to the postmillenialist and may pray in that manner; the pessimistic amillenialist is likely to think more like the premillenialist.
Can prayer for revival be separated from eschatological concerns?
Not entirely one would hope, or we are being less than fully theological about things (and that is something with which we could never charge Jonathan Edwards).
But surely the true Amillenialist is concerned above all with the glory of God (and I am not suggesting our friends in other eschatological camps are not). With this in mind, is not revival principally seeking God for his own sake and for his presence? It was rightly concluded at yesterday's meeting that the presence of God, felt and powerful, is the characteristic of revival proper. It is not the results, even though Jonathan Edwards would be right to see widespread revival as bringing in a gospel 'golden age'. But why does God send revivals? It would be presumptuous to think there is only one answer to this, or that we could certainly know it. One might, for example, say that it is because the world is getting so bad. But why at certain times in certain places, when we could say with some justification that other places and other times are as bad if not worse. Did the Isle of Lewis need that much more purifying in 1949-51?
Or is it because the people are praying, or holier than others? Or the church deader than others? It is difficult to pin down - why in 1904 did revivals break out in Rhos near Wrexham? The people were gathered for a series of meetings to deepen spiritual life. Is it preaching? Iain Campbell (Lewis) has said he has studied many sermons of the early 20th century of preachers used in revival times in Lewis, and there is no discernible difference on paper between times of revival and times of non-revival. The content is the same. The difference is the (greater) presence of the Spirit of God.
Is it because the people are seeking God? Even when, as we often see, no more than in 1904-05 perhaps, the theology leaves something to be desired?
Perhaps praying that is more concerned with the Giver than the gift is the prayer which , while we would not presume to call it or anything else the key to revival, is the praying that is closest to the heart of revival and most correspondent to the true effects of revival - a people enraptured with God. Perhaps it is out of his desire to cause people to love him for himself that God makes it so difficult for us to define the terms on which revival will come, and acts so gloriously sovereignly as to both time and place. Yet it may also give a hint as to why some areas are and have been more blessed than others.
As to fruit - Jonathan Edwards is surely right to say that love will be the fruit of a true work of God.
A final point - the theology of worship that says we gather together only to encourage and edify one another but not to 'worship', is surely selling itself short here in relation to expecting or longing for the felt presence of God. It is a theology that is inimical to revival. Yet those of us with a fuller theology of the Lord's Day meeting should not be triumphalist; God is known not to bless only because of correct theology.
Thursday 11 August 2011
A History of Christianity
Diarmaid MacCulloch's 'A History of Christianity' is a Big Book - over 1000 pages and by my reckoning about 480 words to a page. I began it on holiday (25th July to be precise) and have just finished it (16th September). I have rarely managed more than about 25 pages an hour, often less, so it represents at least 40 hours reading over 7 or 8 weeks. It wouldn't have been feasible at any other time of year.
MacCulloch describes himself as 'a candid friend of Christianity' from a strong Anglican background. His approach is not that of a believer; his references to the Bible are usually sceptical, treating it as a human document and sometimes as a species of propaganda (eg the book of Acts). Pluralism rules. He treats all forms of Christianity (Catholic, Protestant, Eastern, Coptic etc - and Mormonism too), as equal, and all religions as equal too (in terms of truth claims at least) as far as one can tell. King David was a murderous usurper. Jesus is (probably) merely human - MacCulloch explicitly follows the reconstruction of the life of Jesus by the 19th century German scholar D.F.Strauss. The effect of the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield is described as 'mass hysteria'. Events are given a reductionistic psychological, political or economic rationale; the idea of a supernatural providence or purpose is (of course) not canvassed.
Yet I have enjoyed reading it. On occasions I have paused to thank God for giving a man the ability to know and organise such a quantity of information - aware of how one struggles sometimes even to put a sermon or an essay together - so that it is extremely useful and (largely) interesting to read. It is excellently indexed and often helpfully cross-referenced within the text itself to help one refer to earlier or later mentions of the subject he is dealing with. It is, therefore, a valuable reference work.
Parts of it were hard-going. The labyrinthine political and ecclesiastical struggles of Byzantium and of Russian Orthodoxy and the papacy do not interest me much. At page 551 you come to the period leading up to the Reformation and at p. 604 to the Reformation itself. This is where it began to take off. Three times the author quotes or refers with approval to Warfield's dictum that the Reformation was the triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over his doctrine of the church. With some exceptions (such as the dreary twentieth century history of ecumenism)the last 400 pages have been more gripping than the first half of the book.
Jensen brothers in Sydney: take a bow. You get mentioned on page 1009, as leaders of an 'aggressive' style of Evangelicalism that wants to alter 'the direction of worldwide Anglicanism towards what it might have become in a more radical sixteenth-century English Reformation combined somewhat anachronistically with a campaigning style of evangelism borrowed from American revivalism.' Oh well.
I have learned a number of new (and often useless) facts; that 'chapel' comes from 'capella' , the name first of the short cloak that 'St' Martin of Tours gave to a beggar and then the name of the small buildings where this cloak was later displayed - and there's me thinking it was a non-Conformist word; that Freemasonry seems to have begun in 16th century Scotland - probably another Presbyterian split; that 'empiricism' comes from the name of a 3rd century scholar called Empiricus rediscovered in the 16th century; and that Napoleon made bees his emblem because decorative golden bees were found in the tomb of Childeric, the long dead father of the slightly less long dead Clovis.
How have I lived without knowing all this - and much more?
Particularly sobering (though not from his point of view) is MacCulloch's observation that in the modern world among many aspects of traditional Christianity to have been jettisoned without fuss, the most notable casualty has been Hell. It has dropped out of preaching and out of popular concern: there is, I think, some irony in the author's question, 'does this continent [Europe], arguably so far the world's most successfully balanced consumer society, need a Christian Heaven and Hell?' In theological terms he traces it back to F.D.Maurice and others in the nineteenth century so that the fires of hell 'hardly flicker at all now in worldwide televangelism'.
Significantly too our customs at death have changed: in 2000 70% of British funerals and 25% of American were cremations, from a base of nil in 1860. The scattering of ashes is becoming, says MacCulloch, a new personalised ritual for a secular society, one fireworks enthusiast using Roman candles to send his ashes into space, someone else using an unmanned satellite to send them even higher. 'Death is not so much distanced as sanitised or domesticated, made part of the spectrum of consumer choice in a consumer society...Changing attitudes to death and Hell mark a growth of this-worldly concerns in a large part of contemporary Christianity'.
Reflections?
1. It is a spiritually 'drying' experience reading a book of such scepticism - though MacCulloch is even handed, and is no doubt working by the canons of professional scholarship. But I was glad to be reading other more uplifting books at the same time. Constant reductionism is hard on the soul; not when one is reading a book about physics, football or the history of Greenland perhaps, but the history of the church from the secular perspective is particularly gruelling. I must read a Merle d'Aubigne next.
One has to ask though - how objective is such an approach? How can an unbiassed author dismiss the spiritual experience of, say, a miner converted in Bristol under the preaching of Wesley or Whitefield, as 'hysteria'? Surely objectivity demands that people's claims for their own experiences be taken with all seriousness unless proven absolutely bogus.
2. How much the history of Christianity is reflected in its art and architecture! And how much it is to do with ritual and liturgy. But then, spiritual Christianity cannot be measured; it leaves books but otherwise fewer incontrovertible traces, though in fact it is the salt of the earth. More of the good in society than we shall ever know has been due to the presence of the saints. Love to God and to one's neighbour and the countless words and actions (let alone thoughts) that demonstrate the existence of God are rarely accessible to the science of the historian.
3. Such a 'history of Christianity' is probably better called 'the history of the visible church' or of 'Christendom' (a term apparently first coined in 9th century England by a scribe trying to translate into English the concept of 'universal Christianity' in a work by by the fifth century scholar Orosius - useful eh?). Reading this history is a sobering education in what has been done in the name of Christ and of his church (including by those bearing the label Protestant and Reformed) - crusades, witch hunts, slavery for long before it was abolished and the financing of mission in China on the back of the opium trade. These are hackneyed criticisms (and MacCulloch is not out to 'do Christianity down' as he recounts these facts of history) but there is uncomfortable truth in them.
How much of it is truly 'Christianity' of course depends on defining terms. When one thinks of the countless lives touched by grace, and however feebly, lived out in praise of a gracious God , a book like this is not getting close to real Christianity. Behind the visible church there is the body of Christ, not of course completely dissociated from it, but neither by any means to be identified wholly with it.
4. Yet history is the story of God's providence. The great benefit of a book like this is the panoramic sweep both of time and space that it gives. Even what we might be tempted to call Christendom and worse has been decreed and guided by God. The story of the visible church has been under his control. He works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. All is ultimately to his perfect satisfaction and to the glory of his Son. We cannot be dismissive of what we do not like about 'church history'. It is still very much our story.
In the end we look from Christianity to Christ and to God. This book in essence sees religion as a human phenomenon. Thank God it is not merely that. There is a God and in a world that through the most religiously privileged people of that day crucified his Son, he is working his purposes out to their inevitably glorious conclusion.
MacCulloch describes himself as 'a candid friend of Christianity' from a strong Anglican background. His approach is not that of a believer; his references to the Bible are usually sceptical, treating it as a human document and sometimes as a species of propaganda (eg the book of Acts). Pluralism rules. He treats all forms of Christianity (Catholic, Protestant, Eastern, Coptic etc - and Mormonism too), as equal, and all religions as equal too (in terms of truth claims at least) as far as one can tell. King David was a murderous usurper. Jesus is (probably) merely human - MacCulloch explicitly follows the reconstruction of the life of Jesus by the 19th century German scholar D.F.Strauss. The effect of the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield is described as 'mass hysteria'. Events are given a reductionistic psychological, political or economic rationale; the idea of a supernatural providence or purpose is (of course) not canvassed.
Yet I have enjoyed reading it. On occasions I have paused to thank God for giving a man the ability to know and organise such a quantity of information - aware of how one struggles sometimes even to put a sermon or an essay together - so that it is extremely useful and (largely) interesting to read. It is excellently indexed and often helpfully cross-referenced within the text itself to help one refer to earlier or later mentions of the subject he is dealing with. It is, therefore, a valuable reference work.
Parts of it were hard-going. The labyrinthine political and ecclesiastical struggles of Byzantium and of Russian Orthodoxy and the papacy do not interest me much. At page 551 you come to the period leading up to the Reformation and at p. 604 to the Reformation itself. This is where it began to take off. Three times the author quotes or refers with approval to Warfield's dictum that the Reformation was the triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over his doctrine of the church. With some exceptions (such as the dreary twentieth century history of ecumenism)the last 400 pages have been more gripping than the first half of the book.
Jensen brothers in Sydney: take a bow. You get mentioned on page 1009, as leaders of an 'aggressive' style of Evangelicalism that wants to alter 'the direction of worldwide Anglicanism towards what it might have become in a more radical sixteenth-century English Reformation combined somewhat anachronistically with a campaigning style of evangelism borrowed from American revivalism.' Oh well.
I have learned a number of new (and often useless) facts; that 'chapel' comes from 'capella' , the name first of the short cloak that 'St' Martin of Tours gave to a beggar and then the name of the small buildings where this cloak was later displayed - and there's me thinking it was a non-Conformist word; that Freemasonry seems to have begun in 16th century Scotland - probably another Presbyterian split; that 'empiricism' comes from the name of a 3rd century scholar called Empiricus rediscovered in the 16th century; and that Napoleon made bees his emblem because decorative golden bees were found in the tomb of Childeric, the long dead father of the slightly less long dead Clovis.
How have I lived without knowing all this - and much more?
Particularly sobering (though not from his point of view) is MacCulloch's observation that in the modern world among many aspects of traditional Christianity to have been jettisoned without fuss, the most notable casualty has been Hell. It has dropped out of preaching and out of popular concern: there is, I think, some irony in the author's question, 'does this continent [Europe], arguably so far the world's most successfully balanced consumer society, need a Christian Heaven and Hell?' In theological terms he traces it back to F.D.Maurice and others in the nineteenth century so that the fires of hell 'hardly flicker at all now in worldwide televangelism'.
Significantly too our customs at death have changed: in 2000 70% of British funerals and 25% of American were cremations, from a base of nil in 1860. The scattering of ashes is becoming, says MacCulloch, a new personalised ritual for a secular society, one fireworks enthusiast using Roman candles to send his ashes into space, someone else using an unmanned satellite to send them even higher. 'Death is not so much distanced as sanitised or domesticated, made part of the spectrum of consumer choice in a consumer society...Changing attitudes to death and Hell mark a growth of this-worldly concerns in a large part of contemporary Christianity'.
Reflections?
1. It is a spiritually 'drying' experience reading a book of such scepticism - though MacCulloch is even handed, and is no doubt working by the canons of professional scholarship. But I was glad to be reading other more uplifting books at the same time. Constant reductionism is hard on the soul; not when one is reading a book about physics, football or the history of Greenland perhaps, but the history of the church from the secular perspective is particularly gruelling. I must read a Merle d'Aubigne next.
One has to ask though - how objective is such an approach? How can an unbiassed author dismiss the spiritual experience of, say, a miner converted in Bristol under the preaching of Wesley or Whitefield, as 'hysteria'? Surely objectivity demands that people's claims for their own experiences be taken with all seriousness unless proven absolutely bogus.
2. How much the history of Christianity is reflected in its art and architecture! And how much it is to do with ritual and liturgy. But then, spiritual Christianity cannot be measured; it leaves books but otherwise fewer incontrovertible traces, though in fact it is the salt of the earth. More of the good in society than we shall ever know has been due to the presence of the saints. Love to God and to one's neighbour and the countless words and actions (let alone thoughts) that demonstrate the existence of God are rarely accessible to the science of the historian.
3. Such a 'history of Christianity' is probably better called 'the history of the visible church' or of 'Christendom' (a term apparently first coined in 9th century England by a scribe trying to translate into English the concept of 'universal Christianity' in a work by by the fifth century scholar Orosius - useful eh?). Reading this history is a sobering education in what has been done in the name of Christ and of his church (including by those bearing the label Protestant and Reformed) - crusades, witch hunts, slavery for long before it was abolished and the financing of mission in China on the back of the opium trade. These are hackneyed criticisms (and MacCulloch is not out to 'do Christianity down' as he recounts these facts of history) but there is uncomfortable truth in them.
How much of it is truly 'Christianity' of course depends on defining terms. When one thinks of the countless lives touched by grace, and however feebly, lived out in praise of a gracious God , a book like this is not getting close to real Christianity. Behind the visible church there is the body of Christ, not of course completely dissociated from it, but neither by any means to be identified wholly with it.
4. Yet history is the story of God's providence. The great benefit of a book like this is the panoramic sweep both of time and space that it gives. Even what we might be tempted to call Christendom and worse has been decreed and guided by God. The story of the visible church has been under his control. He works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. All is ultimately to his perfect satisfaction and to the glory of his Son. We cannot be dismissive of what we do not like about 'church history'. It is still very much our story.
In the end we look from Christianity to Christ and to God. This book in essence sees religion as a human phenomenon. Thank God it is not merely that. There is a God and in a world that through the most religiously privileged people of that day crucified his Son, he is working his purposes out to their inevitably glorious conclusion.
The Abiding Presence
I am a fan of Hugh Martin (1822-85). He did not write a lot, as far as I am aware, but the works I have - 'The Atonement' , his commentary on Jonah and expositions on Simon Peter - have satisfied at every level.
Recently I purchased 'The Abiding Presence' (Christian Focus, 2009) and read it over my holiday. It is a remarkable book. His starting point is the conjunction of the presence of Jesus with his people (Matt 28:20 )and the existence of the gospels - the 'memoirs' of Christ ('the book of the generation of Jesus Christ' Matt 1:1').
He shows from John 14:16-26, 16:13-22 that the presence of the Spirit is the real presence of Christ.
'You may have his perfect and all sufficient biography; but without the Spirit of Jesus you cannot appreciate the life of Jesus; for you are not yourself quickened to live in the same spiritual world, or atmosphere and realm, with him.'
He expands on how the living presence brings the 'biography' to life, and illustrates from particular events in the gospels (the baptism, the temptations, the sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth, and the cross)how these speak to us today through the abiding presence of Christ. The section on the 'perpetuity of the sacrifice' in relation to the cross is particularly helpful in showing how the cross, while being a 'once for all' sacrifice, has still a present efficacy for the believer.
There follow sections on the application of the principle to other parts of the New Testament, discussion of the twofold revelation of Christ (to us and in us) and a closing section on the presence of Christ in his people - its causes and consequences, and cautions concerning it.
A book that probably needs to be read more than once - but penetrating and full of insights.
Recently I purchased 'The Abiding Presence' (Christian Focus, 2009) and read it over my holiday. It is a remarkable book. His starting point is the conjunction of the presence of Jesus with his people (Matt 28:20 )and the existence of the gospels - the 'memoirs' of Christ ('the book of the generation of Jesus Christ' Matt 1:1').
He shows from John 14:16-26, 16:13-22 that the presence of the Spirit is the real presence of Christ.
'You may have his perfect and all sufficient biography; but without the Spirit of Jesus you cannot appreciate the life of Jesus; for you are not yourself quickened to live in the same spiritual world, or atmosphere and realm, with him.'
He expands on how the living presence brings the 'biography' to life, and illustrates from particular events in the gospels (the baptism, the temptations, the sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth, and the cross)how these speak to us today through the abiding presence of Christ. The section on the 'perpetuity of the sacrifice' in relation to the cross is particularly helpful in showing how the cross, while being a 'once for all' sacrifice, has still a present efficacy for the believer.
There follow sections on the application of the principle to other parts of the New Testament, discussion of the twofold revelation of Christ (to us and in us) and a closing section on the presence of Christ in his people - its causes and consequences, and cautions concerning it.
A book that probably needs to be read more than once - but penetrating and full of insights.
Wednesday 10 August 2011
Riots in London
'An orgy of rioting and looting' over four days in August, and 200 people arrested. This was how the 'Liverpool Daily Post' described the aftermath of the police strike in Liverpool in 1919. It did not take much, even directly after the Great War, to cause people to lose their inhibitions about stealing and violence - just the removal of the threat of being caught.
So these things are not new. I am not trying to sanitise the present troubles in our cities by relativising them, but a sense of perspective is helpful. OK - so there was no police strike this time, but a large part of the scale of the present riots has been because people suddenly realised that if they come out in enough force, the police are, at least initially, helpless. There is no fear of getting caught.
Nor are riots in London particularly a new thing. Read Peter Ackroyd's 'London: The Biography' or a similar history of London to see that the city has frequently exploded. We have seen it in our own time, though not on the same scale as this week. The city is like a simmering pot that occasionally only needs a slight disturbance to boil over, apparently unpredictably. How much anger is there below the surface? How thin is the veneer of control and respectability.
Nor can people take the easy option that some may be tempted to take and blame immigrant communities. London has been made up of immigrant communities for most of its history. All colours and races have been visible on our TV screens in the thick of the trouble.
Nor is it new in history. 'Before the age of the Caesars, the Senate could not keep order. Armed gangs terrorised the city of Rome and the normal processes of government were disrupted as rivals fought for power. Self-interest became more significant than social interest...Then, in desperation, the people accepted authoritarian government.' (Francis Schaeffer in 'How should we then live' chapter 1).
Mob rule is a funny thing. A common feature shared by many - often a sense of resentment, anger and hatred, coupled with greed - is suddenly ignited by a spark - in this case the shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham. Fanned by the modern phenomenon of 'social media' (though it used to happen without that) a mood of rebellion takes over. Fear of authority is reduced and disappears; the boundary of conscience is easily crossed as is the boundary of respect for law; the appetite takes over, the exhilarating focus on what can be done physically, for now the only boundary to action is what is physically possible. Anything that can be done is done. Shops can be looted with impunity, so - just do it.
Perhaps a new feature is the prominence of the young, though that is by no means necessarily novel. Yet a clergyman had a good point in a TV interview when he said (in terms) that if we have undermined the authority of parents at home and of teachers at school, and instilled in children the idea that they need not be told what to do, we can hardly complain when they go onto the streets and do not listen to anybody.
A certainty in all this is the spiritual absolutes. However novel or not the present experience of our cities is historically, it is the expression of sin which is lawlessness. The immediate manifestation may have new features, and elements of it may be explicable in terms of contemporary issues, but ultimately it is, like all sin, inexplicable and irrational.
It is, of course, nonetheless wrong for that. God's glory is challenged as authority is held in contempt; his laws are trampled on; love for him and one's neighbour are forgotten. Lament the spiritual state of a nation that behaves like this. Pray for his mercy, for his salvation to be made widely known. But do not falsely grieve over a supposed golden age when things were so very different.
So these things are not new. I am not trying to sanitise the present troubles in our cities by relativising them, but a sense of perspective is helpful. OK - so there was no police strike this time, but a large part of the scale of the present riots has been because people suddenly realised that if they come out in enough force, the police are, at least initially, helpless. There is no fear of getting caught.
Nor are riots in London particularly a new thing. Read Peter Ackroyd's 'London: The Biography' or a similar history of London to see that the city has frequently exploded. We have seen it in our own time, though not on the same scale as this week. The city is like a simmering pot that occasionally only needs a slight disturbance to boil over, apparently unpredictably. How much anger is there below the surface? How thin is the veneer of control and respectability.
Nor can people take the easy option that some may be tempted to take and blame immigrant communities. London has been made up of immigrant communities for most of its history. All colours and races have been visible on our TV screens in the thick of the trouble.
Nor is it new in history. 'Before the age of the Caesars, the Senate could not keep order. Armed gangs terrorised the city of Rome and the normal processes of government were disrupted as rivals fought for power. Self-interest became more significant than social interest...Then, in desperation, the people accepted authoritarian government.' (Francis Schaeffer in 'How should we then live' chapter 1).
Mob rule is a funny thing. A common feature shared by many - often a sense of resentment, anger and hatred, coupled with greed - is suddenly ignited by a spark - in this case the shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham. Fanned by the modern phenomenon of 'social media' (though it used to happen without that) a mood of rebellion takes over. Fear of authority is reduced and disappears; the boundary of conscience is easily crossed as is the boundary of respect for law; the appetite takes over, the exhilarating focus on what can be done physically, for now the only boundary to action is what is physically possible. Anything that can be done is done. Shops can be looted with impunity, so - just do it.
Perhaps a new feature is the prominence of the young, though that is by no means necessarily novel. Yet a clergyman had a good point in a TV interview when he said (in terms) that if we have undermined the authority of parents at home and of teachers at school, and instilled in children the idea that they need not be told what to do, we can hardly complain when they go onto the streets and do not listen to anybody.
A certainty in all this is the spiritual absolutes. However novel or not the present experience of our cities is historically, it is the expression of sin which is lawlessness. The immediate manifestation may have new features, and elements of it may be explicable in terms of contemporary issues, but ultimately it is, like all sin, inexplicable and irrational.
It is, of course, nonetheless wrong for that. God's glory is challenged as authority is held in contempt; his laws are trampled on; love for him and one's neighbour are forgotten. Lament the spiritual state of a nation that behaves like this. Pray for his mercy, for his salvation to be made widely known. But do not falsely grieve over a supposed golden age when things were so very different.
Thursday 16 June 2011
Sri Lankan Killing Fields
Anyone interested in the nation of Sri Lanka and in the work of the gospel there should watch the Channel 4 'Dispatches' programme 'Sri Lankan Killing Fields' broadcast on Tuesday night. It is on iplayer at www.channel4.com.
It is not easy viewing as some of the scenes are among the most harrowing I have seen on television. It shows the last weeks of the civil war, in 2009, and in particular the very strong video evidence of war crimes and human rights atrocities perpetrated by the Sri Lankan government. Not that the Tamil Tigers were guiltless - they were responsible for their fair share of atrocities during the 25 year war. But the way in which the government appears to have systematically herded civilians into so called 'no fire zones' only to bomb and shell them repeatedly, and attack hospitals, as well as the summary execution of prisoners, was horrific.
Why is there no public outcry? Why are we bending over backwards to dislodge Gaddafi but do nothing about Mugabe in Zimbabwe or even make an audible protest about the Sri Lankan regime? Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and nothing has been said as far as I am aware by our government or at least in such a small whisper that it was easily missed.
It is not easy viewing as some of the scenes are among the most harrowing I have seen on television. It shows the last weeks of the civil war, in 2009, and in particular the very strong video evidence of war crimes and human rights atrocities perpetrated by the Sri Lankan government. Not that the Tamil Tigers were guiltless - they were responsible for their fair share of atrocities during the 25 year war. But the way in which the government appears to have systematically herded civilians into so called 'no fire zones' only to bomb and shell them repeatedly, and attack hospitals, as well as the summary execution of prisoners, was horrific.
Why is there no public outcry? Why are we bending over backwards to dislodge Gaddafi but do nothing about Mugabe in Zimbabwe or even make an audible protest about the Sri Lankan regime? Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and nothing has been said as far as I am aware by our government or at least in such a small whisper that it was easily missed.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Bonhoeffer: has Metaxas whitewashed him?
I shall make no bones about it - it is a long time since I was as engrossed by a book, even a biography, as I was by Eric Metaxas's 'Bonhoeffer: pastor, martyr, prophet, spy' recently. It is racily written and with a keen ear for the catchy phrase and snappy put-down of baddies (Nazis mainly). But it is a challenging book as well as a good read and highly recommended. It has got me into re-reading some Bonhoeffer classics I first read many years ago, and also into reading one or two new things.
One of the questions that arises is: has Metaxas painted Bonhoeffer as rather more evangelical than he was? The evidence of what he writes is irrefutable and eminently quotable by an evangelical. The man seems to have had a very real love for and relationship with the Lord, and a real devotional life. But this is all from the period before he went into prison. One can read 'Life Together', 'The Cost of Discipleship' and even 'Ethics' and get much real help. For us who have lived in relatively tranquil times, it is mind-numbing to think about how one would have coped with the kind of pressures facing men in Bonhoeffer's position, with the Lutheran church capitulating to Hitler, and Bonhoeffer even losing faith eventually in the Confessing Church which promised far more than it delivered. But who will cast the first stone at anyone trying to find a way through the ethical maze of those dark days?
The theological climate is different when reading his theological letters from prison written from 1943-45. This is when his ideas of 'man come of age' and 'religionless Christianity' began to be explored although never fully developed. In subsequent years many sought to develop them and he was largely drawn on for example along with Tillich, Bultmann and Barth in the 'Honest to God' debate, though they were by no means saying the same things. Perhaps Bonhoeffer was taken to false conclusions by those professing to follow him. But he certainly said things which would lead to a radical secularising of Christianity and of Christian language and concepts.
In his 'The Abolition of Religion' (1964) Leon Morris helpfully analyses the debate and comes down fairly forcefully against Bonhoeffer.
It is fair to say that Metaxas does not really deal adequately with the 'Letters and Papers from Prison'. The theological debate is skirted in favour of perhaps one too many love letters from or to Bonhoeffer's fiancee Maria. It would have been good to have more rigorous debate about Bonhoeffer's ideas in this book.
A good complement is the helpful shorter biography by Edwin Robertson, 'The Persistent Voice of Dietrich Bonhoeffer'. He too borders on hagiography (is this an inherent danger with a relatively young man who died under a tyranny?) but in the other direction, far more sympathetic to the 'Letters and Papers' but with less attention to certain 'evangelical' aspects of the early Bonhoeffer.
Still, we hope to debate the book at the John Owen Centre Theology Study Group on Monday 20th. Should be good! (See Gary Brady at 'Heavenly Worldliness' on this theme too).
One of the questions that arises is: has Metaxas painted Bonhoeffer as rather more evangelical than he was? The evidence of what he writes is irrefutable and eminently quotable by an evangelical. The man seems to have had a very real love for and relationship with the Lord, and a real devotional life. But this is all from the period before he went into prison. One can read 'Life Together', 'The Cost of Discipleship' and even 'Ethics' and get much real help. For us who have lived in relatively tranquil times, it is mind-numbing to think about how one would have coped with the kind of pressures facing men in Bonhoeffer's position, with the Lutheran church capitulating to Hitler, and Bonhoeffer even losing faith eventually in the Confessing Church which promised far more than it delivered. But who will cast the first stone at anyone trying to find a way through the ethical maze of those dark days?
The theological climate is different when reading his theological letters from prison written from 1943-45. This is when his ideas of 'man come of age' and 'religionless Christianity' began to be explored although never fully developed. In subsequent years many sought to develop them and he was largely drawn on for example along with Tillich, Bultmann and Barth in the 'Honest to God' debate, though they were by no means saying the same things. Perhaps Bonhoeffer was taken to false conclusions by those professing to follow him. But he certainly said things which would lead to a radical secularising of Christianity and of Christian language and concepts.
In his 'The Abolition of Religion' (1964) Leon Morris helpfully analyses the debate and comes down fairly forcefully against Bonhoeffer.
It is fair to say that Metaxas does not really deal adequately with the 'Letters and Papers from Prison'. The theological debate is skirted in favour of perhaps one too many love letters from or to Bonhoeffer's fiancee Maria. It would have been good to have more rigorous debate about Bonhoeffer's ideas in this book.
A good complement is the helpful shorter biography by Edwin Robertson, 'The Persistent Voice of Dietrich Bonhoeffer'. He too borders on hagiography (is this an inherent danger with a relatively young man who died under a tyranny?) but in the other direction, far more sympathetic to the 'Letters and Papers' but with less attention to certain 'evangelical' aspects of the early Bonhoeffer.
Still, we hope to debate the book at the John Owen Centre Theology Study Group on Monday 20th. Should be good! (See Gary Brady at 'Heavenly Worldliness' on this theme too).
Saturday 11 June 2011
Bonhoeffer's 'Life Together' (4)
'Confession' is a word that makes most Protestants grimace and twitch, but it is worthwhile hearing what Bonhoeffer has to say on the subject in the context of a Christian community. It helps to recall his strong Lutheran background and the nominal condition generally in the churches, quite apart from the issue of the state church's complicity with Hitler.
'He that is alone with his sins is utterly alone...The pious fellowship permits no-one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone in our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is, we are sinners!
'But it is the grace of the gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. "My son, give me thine heart" (Prov 23:26).
This is where the Christian brother can help. 'Therefore [Christ] gave his followers the authority to hear the confession of sin and to forgive sin in is name. "Whose soever sin ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:23)... So in the Christian community when the call to brotherly confession and forgiveness goes forth it is a call to the great grace of God in the Church. It is:
'...a breakthrough to community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him...In confession the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart...He confesses his sin and in the very act finds fellowship for the first time.
'...a breakthrough to the cross. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation....we break through to the true fellowship of the Cross of Jesus Christ.
'...a breakthrough to new life. Where sin is hated, admitted and forgiven, there the break with the past is made.
'... a breakthrough to certainty. Why is it that it is often easier to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, he is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. Why should we
not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person...But since the sin must come to the light some time, it is better that it happens today between me and my brother, rather than on the last day in the piercing light of final judgement. It is a mercy that we can confess our sins to a brother.
'Does all this mean that confession to a brother is a divine law? No,confession is not a law, it is an offer of divine help for the sinner. It is possible that a person may by God's grace break through to certainty, new life, the Cross and fellowship without the benefit of confession to a brother...We have spoken here for those who cannot make this assertion. Luther was one of those for whom the Christian life was unthinkable without mutual, brotherly confession. Confession is within the liberty of the Christian. Confession as a routine duty is spiritual death; confession in reliance upon the promise is life'
'He that is alone with his sins is utterly alone...The pious fellowship permits no-one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone in our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is, we are sinners!
'But it is the grace of the gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. "My son, give me thine heart" (Prov 23:26).
This is where the Christian brother can help. 'Therefore [Christ] gave his followers the authority to hear the confession of sin and to forgive sin in is name. "Whose soever sin ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:23)... So in the Christian community when the call to brotherly confession and forgiveness goes forth it is a call to the great grace of God in the Church. It is:
'...a breakthrough to community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him...In confession the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart...He confesses his sin and in the very act finds fellowship for the first time.
'...a breakthrough to the cross. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation....we break through to the true fellowship of the Cross of Jesus Christ.
'...a breakthrough to new life. Where sin is hated, admitted and forgiven, there the break with the past is made.
'... a breakthrough to certainty. Why is it that it is often easier to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, he is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. Why should we
not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person...But since the sin must come to the light some time, it is better that it happens today between me and my brother, rather than on the last day in the piercing light of final judgement. It is a mercy that we can confess our sins to a brother.
'Does all this mean that confession to a brother is a divine law? No,confession is not a law, it is an offer of divine help for the sinner. It is possible that a person may by God's grace break through to certainty, new life, the Cross and fellowship without the benefit of confession to a brother...We have spoken here for those who cannot make this assertion. Luther was one of those for whom the Christian life was unthinkable without mutual, brotherly confession. Confession is within the liberty of the Christian. Confession as a routine duty is spiritual death; confession in reliance upon the promise is life'
Friday 10 June 2011
Bonhoeffer's 'Life Together' (3)
Community not an Ideal but a Divine reality (continued).
'Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients...A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men. When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first and see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God.'
Community a Spiritual and not a Psychic (Human) Reality
'Christian community is founded solely on Jesus Christ; it is a spiritual and not a psychic reality, created only by the Holy Spirit not by natural urges, powers and capacities of the human spirit.
'The basis of all spiritual reality is the clear, manifest Word of God in Jesus Christ...In the spiritual realm the Spirit governs; in human community, psychological techniques and methods. In the former naive, unpsychological, unmethodical, helping love is extended towards one's brother; in the latter, psychological analysis and construction.
'...we can meet others only through the mediation of Christ. Spiritual love proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ. It will not seek to move others by all too direct personal direct influence, by impure interference in the life of another....Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.'
On the Psalter:
Discussing the difficulty we feel in uttering as our own the psalms of imprecation, of claimed innocence and the psalms of passion: 'A psalm we cannot utter as a prayer, that makes us falter and horrifies us, is a hint that here Someone else is praying, not we; that the One protesting his innocence, who is invoking God's judgement, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He it is who is praying here, and not only here but in the whole Psalter. The Man Christ Jesus, to whom no affliction, no ill, no suffering is alien and who yet was the wholly innocent and righteous one, is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of his Church. The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the true sense of the word...Now we understand how the Psalter can be prayer to God and yet God's own Word...The individual prays, in so far as Christ prays within him, not in his own name but in the Name of Jesus Christ; he prays out of the Manhood put on by Christ; he prays on the basis of the prayer of the Man Christ Jesus.
' The Psalter is [also] the vicarious prayer of Christ for His Church.'
On ministry:
The greatest ministry to one another is the ministry of the Word of God, but for this to be real other ministries must be exercised too:
the ministry of holding one's tongue(Ps 50:20-21; James 4:11-12; Eph 4:29);
the ministry of meekness(Rom 12:3,16): 'One who lives by justification by grace is willing and ready to accept even insults and injuries without protest, taking them from God's punishing and gracious hand';
the ministry of listening: 'Just as love to God begins with listening to his Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that he not only gives us his Word but lends us his ear';
the ministry of helpfulness; '...in trifling, external matters; nobody is too good for the meanest service'.
the ministry of bearing (Gal 6:2)'The Bible speaks with remarkable frequency of 'bearing'. It is capable of expressing the whole work of Jesus Christ (Isa 53:4,5)'.
And then- the ministry of proclaiming - one to one, warning, encouragement, rebuke. 'Nothing can be more loving than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the paths of sin'.
Finally, the ministry of authority:'Whoever will be great among you, shall be your servant / minister' (Mark 10:43).
'Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients...A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men. When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first and see whether the trouble is not due to his wish dream that should be shattered by God.'
Community a Spiritual and not a Psychic (Human) Reality
'Christian community is founded solely on Jesus Christ; it is a spiritual and not a psychic reality, created only by the Holy Spirit not by natural urges, powers and capacities of the human spirit.
'The basis of all spiritual reality is the clear, manifest Word of God in Jesus Christ...In the spiritual realm the Spirit governs; in human community, psychological techniques and methods. In the former naive, unpsychological, unmethodical, helping love is extended towards one's brother; in the latter, psychological analysis and construction.
'...we can meet others only through the mediation of Christ. Spiritual love proves itself in that everything it says and does commends Christ. It will not seek to move others by all too direct personal direct influence, by impure interference in the life of another....Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.'
On the Psalter:
Discussing the difficulty we feel in uttering as our own the psalms of imprecation, of claimed innocence and the psalms of passion: 'A psalm we cannot utter as a prayer, that makes us falter and horrifies us, is a hint that here Someone else is praying, not we; that the One protesting his innocence, who is invoking God's judgement, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He it is who is praying here, and not only here but in the whole Psalter. The Man Christ Jesus, to whom no affliction, no ill, no suffering is alien and who yet was the wholly innocent and righteous one, is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of his Church. The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the true sense of the word...Now we understand how the Psalter can be prayer to God and yet God's own Word...The individual prays, in so far as Christ prays within him, not in his own name but in the Name of Jesus Christ; he prays out of the Manhood put on by Christ; he prays on the basis of the prayer of the Man Christ Jesus.
' The Psalter is [also] the vicarious prayer of Christ for His Church.'
On ministry:
The greatest ministry to one another is the ministry of the Word of God, but for this to be real other ministries must be exercised too:
the ministry of holding one's tongue(Ps 50:20-21; James 4:11-12; Eph 4:29);
the ministry of meekness(Rom 12:3,16): 'One who lives by justification by grace is willing and ready to accept even insults and injuries without protest, taking them from God's punishing and gracious hand';
the ministry of listening: 'Just as love to God begins with listening to his Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that he not only gives us his Word but lends us his ear';
the ministry of helpfulness; '...in trifling, external matters; nobody is too good for the meanest service'.
the ministry of bearing (Gal 6:2)'The Bible speaks with remarkable frequency of 'bearing'. It is capable of expressing the whole work of Jesus Christ (Isa 53:4,5)'.
And then- the ministry of proclaiming - one to one, warning, encouragement, rebuke. 'Nothing can be more loving than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the paths of sin'.
Finally, the ministry of authority:'Whoever will be great among you, shall be your servant / minister' (Mark 10:43).
Wednesday 8 June 2011
'We have only done our duty'
In Luke 17:10 Jesus commends to his disciples the attitude of bondservants, or slaves, who confess after completing all their work, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’ (or ‘what we owed’).
This does not sound very much; we would like to think we do far more than our duty to God. Surely it is more honouring to do all we do for God from the freedom of love, from Spirit-inspired delight in him? ‘Duty’ sounds rather a meagre offering.
Yet it is ‘what we owe’. If we owe it to God to love him with all our heart and mind and strength, as well as our neighbour as ourselves, perhaps duty is not such a small thing after all. Maybe it is our concept of duty which needs to be revised. It is a bigger thing than we may think.
From Creation onwards
To begin with, duty is what we owe to God as his creatures. By virtue of being alive in his world we owe him lifelong perfect obedience and worship. We owe it to him as Creator. Our chief end is to glorify him and enjoy him forever.
Our duty was augmented when God made a covenant with Adam. On Adam’s continued obedience he would, it is implied, attain eternal life that could not be lost. God was not bound to do that. Such reward is by covenant, not by the relationship between Creator and creature. The prohibition (not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil , Gen. 2:16,17) is also over and above Adam’s duty as a creature; covenant augmented the basic creaturely duty and added the promise of reward; but it was still duty, albeit now a further covenantal duty, that Adam owed to God.
It is duty that is contradicted by sin, by which man does what is the opposite of his duty. As a result he became a bondservant to Satan and is now a slave of sin. The sin that he now cannot help doing is the payment of a false debt to a false master, a service without rewards though with all sorts of empty promises attached.
It is duty that was re-presented, expressed and itemised in the law given at Sinai.
Servanthood and Sonship
Duty, offered to God, is the expression of servanthood.
Duty is reinforced, not cancelled out, by adoption as a son. The idea that a son does not owe duty is a strange one. Sonship changes the relationship and the motivation of service but strengthens the bond of duty. Love becomes the motive and gives power to obey but does not remove the obligation nor alter the terms of the duty.
Grace and Duty
It is the antinomian error to believe that grace and duty are not compatible. Grace is God’s undeserved goodness to his creatures and in particular to his sinful creatures. Why should such grace dissolve the obligation the creature owes? In the sphere of redemption why should reinstatement to the life of the Spirit that was lost by sin, remove the saved sinner from the realm of obligation to God? Why should God’s law no longer apply? Why should its terms be changed? The relationship within which the sinner obeys the law – the covenant of grace rather than the covenant of works – has changed, but not the law itself nor the fact of owing obedience to God. The inner attitude to the law becomes one of love and delight (Pss. 19:10; 119:97) rather than of hatred and fear; but this does not mean that law is any the less binding on him. Antinomianism is sub-Biblical and sub-Christian in this regard. Its hidden presupposition is that law, obligation and duty are un-Spiritual things. But redemption is in fact liberation from the bondage of law-breaking to the liberty of law-keeping.
The place of blessing
Duty is the basis of human dignity. It means I have a responsibility to God. It is where God addresses me not as a recipient of blessing or as a victim of wrong or suffering, but as a responsible creature.
Duty is where I have a choice – to obey or not. At this point I am a moral creature.
Duty is where I exercise power. This sounds paradoxical but it is true. If I see my life through the lens of ‘rights’ I am a claimant but not an actor. In the exercise of duty I act – I do. Doing the will of God is the place of only real power because it is where God blesses. When I am weak then I am strong.
Duty is the place of blessing – it is in my doing of the law that God blesses me (Jas. 1:25).
In the public sphere
In the public sphere, duty is the basis of civil obedience. It is my duty to God that is the basis of my obedience to the state.
Duty is the basis of human rights. For it is my performance of my duty to God that a government should protect, and it is my duty to God that it is my right to perform without hindrance from the state. No government has a right to prevent a human being performing his duty to God and this creates human rights in me. At the point where a government fails in its duty here, I must obey God rather than man.
And so, duty is also the basis of civil disobedience, as well as of civil obedience. It is at the point of duty to God conflicting with my duty to the state that I must disobey the state.
Duty is the basis of Christian freedom – only God can bind the conscience.
Duty is the guiding principle for Christian behaviour in society. We may exercise, and do all we can do protect, such rights as we enjoy in a democratic society. But ultimately they are vulnerable and frail things. They are a poor and unreliable guide to what I should do and what I should insist on. They change with the cultures and mores of a given age. They reflect the culture and the more influenced by Christianity a culture is, the more rights a Christian will have. But if we keep our eye on ‘rights’ we shall be led astray. We shall reflect our culture rather than reflecting God. My duty to God, however, does not change. Difficult decisions will be made as to how to exercise it in a given situation but duty, not rights, remains the surest guide to ethical living.
The spirituality of duty
Duty is summed up in love to God and my neighbour.
Duty is the source of pure motivation – that God commands it. To do something because it is commanded is the purest love to God. Never dream that to do something other than our duty, to act from something called ‘freedom’ as if we could by so doing offer God more than he requires, is ever more than a vain conceit.
Failure in duty (and only failure in duty) requires forgiveness.
Duty is what Christ came to do. He delighted in doing his Father’s will (Jn. 4:34; Heb. 10:7 [Ps. 40:8]). That was why he came (Jn. 17:4). The psalmist (who ultimately is Christ) delighted in doing the will of God (Ps. 119:14-16). Shall we do more than Christ? He was the most free of men – no-one could even take his life from him (Jn. 10:17,18) – yet how did he use his authority and his freedom? In obeying his Father – in doing his duty.
To be able to say ‘ we have only done our duty’ is no little thing. It is what the only Son, and the humblest and greatest of all Servants, did. We can never do more than our duty. We cannot even do our duty. All that we do is our duty, but we never do all that is our duty. Only Christ has done that; it is his righteousness, his freely accepted duty done for us, that is ours by grace and is our hope in the judgement. We are unworthy servants; he alone was worthy.
This does not sound very much; we would like to think we do far more than our duty to God. Surely it is more honouring to do all we do for God from the freedom of love, from Spirit-inspired delight in him? ‘Duty’ sounds rather a meagre offering.
Yet it is ‘what we owe’. If we owe it to God to love him with all our heart and mind and strength, as well as our neighbour as ourselves, perhaps duty is not such a small thing after all. Maybe it is our concept of duty which needs to be revised. It is a bigger thing than we may think.
From Creation onwards
To begin with, duty is what we owe to God as his creatures. By virtue of being alive in his world we owe him lifelong perfect obedience and worship. We owe it to him as Creator. Our chief end is to glorify him and enjoy him forever.
Our duty was augmented when God made a covenant with Adam. On Adam’s continued obedience he would, it is implied, attain eternal life that could not be lost. God was not bound to do that. Such reward is by covenant, not by the relationship between Creator and creature. The prohibition (not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil , Gen. 2:16,17) is also over and above Adam’s duty as a creature; covenant augmented the basic creaturely duty and added the promise of reward; but it was still duty, albeit now a further covenantal duty, that Adam owed to God.
It is duty that is contradicted by sin, by which man does what is the opposite of his duty. As a result he became a bondservant to Satan and is now a slave of sin. The sin that he now cannot help doing is the payment of a false debt to a false master, a service without rewards though with all sorts of empty promises attached.
It is duty that was re-presented, expressed and itemised in the law given at Sinai.
Servanthood and Sonship
Duty, offered to God, is the expression of servanthood.
Duty is reinforced, not cancelled out, by adoption as a son. The idea that a son does not owe duty is a strange one. Sonship changes the relationship and the motivation of service but strengthens the bond of duty. Love becomes the motive and gives power to obey but does not remove the obligation nor alter the terms of the duty.
Grace and Duty
It is the antinomian error to believe that grace and duty are not compatible. Grace is God’s undeserved goodness to his creatures and in particular to his sinful creatures. Why should such grace dissolve the obligation the creature owes? In the sphere of redemption why should reinstatement to the life of the Spirit that was lost by sin, remove the saved sinner from the realm of obligation to God? Why should God’s law no longer apply? Why should its terms be changed? The relationship within which the sinner obeys the law – the covenant of grace rather than the covenant of works – has changed, but not the law itself nor the fact of owing obedience to God. The inner attitude to the law becomes one of love and delight (Pss. 19:10; 119:97) rather than of hatred and fear; but this does not mean that law is any the less binding on him. Antinomianism is sub-Biblical and sub-Christian in this regard. Its hidden presupposition is that law, obligation and duty are un-Spiritual things. But redemption is in fact liberation from the bondage of law-breaking to the liberty of law-keeping.
The place of blessing
Duty is the basis of human dignity. It means I have a responsibility to God. It is where God addresses me not as a recipient of blessing or as a victim of wrong or suffering, but as a responsible creature.
Duty is where I have a choice – to obey or not. At this point I am a moral creature.
Duty is where I exercise power. This sounds paradoxical but it is true. If I see my life through the lens of ‘rights’ I am a claimant but not an actor. In the exercise of duty I act – I do. Doing the will of God is the place of only real power because it is where God blesses. When I am weak then I am strong.
Duty is the place of blessing – it is in my doing of the law that God blesses me (Jas. 1:25).
In the public sphere
In the public sphere, duty is the basis of civil obedience. It is my duty to God that is the basis of my obedience to the state.
Duty is the basis of human rights. For it is my performance of my duty to God that a government should protect, and it is my duty to God that it is my right to perform without hindrance from the state. No government has a right to prevent a human being performing his duty to God and this creates human rights in me. At the point where a government fails in its duty here, I must obey God rather than man.
And so, duty is also the basis of civil disobedience, as well as of civil obedience. It is at the point of duty to God conflicting with my duty to the state that I must disobey the state.
Duty is the basis of Christian freedom – only God can bind the conscience.
Duty is the guiding principle for Christian behaviour in society. We may exercise, and do all we can do protect, such rights as we enjoy in a democratic society. But ultimately they are vulnerable and frail things. They are a poor and unreliable guide to what I should do and what I should insist on. They change with the cultures and mores of a given age. They reflect the culture and the more influenced by Christianity a culture is, the more rights a Christian will have. But if we keep our eye on ‘rights’ we shall be led astray. We shall reflect our culture rather than reflecting God. My duty to God, however, does not change. Difficult decisions will be made as to how to exercise it in a given situation but duty, not rights, remains the surest guide to ethical living.
The spirituality of duty
Duty is summed up in love to God and my neighbour.
Duty is the source of pure motivation – that God commands it. To do something because it is commanded is the purest love to God. Never dream that to do something other than our duty, to act from something called ‘freedom’ as if we could by so doing offer God more than he requires, is ever more than a vain conceit.
Failure in duty (and only failure in duty) requires forgiveness.
Duty is what Christ came to do. He delighted in doing his Father’s will (Jn. 4:34; Heb. 10:7 [Ps. 40:8]). That was why he came (Jn. 17:4). The psalmist (who ultimately is Christ) delighted in doing the will of God (Ps. 119:14-16). Shall we do more than Christ? He was the most free of men – no-one could even take his life from him (Jn. 10:17,18) – yet how did he use his authority and his freedom? In obeying his Father – in doing his duty.
To be able to say ‘ we have only done our duty’ is no little thing. It is what the only Son, and the humblest and greatest of all Servants, did. We can never do more than our duty. We cannot even do our duty. All that we do is our duty, but we never do all that is our duty. Only Christ has done that; it is his righteousness, his freely accepted duty done for us, that is ours by grace and is our hope in the judgement. We are unworthy servants; he alone was worthy.
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