So what do we make of Donald?
It may be that the storm over his quickly retracted advocacy of punishment for women who had abortions (if it were ever made illegal) has done for him. But the question remains - why has he got so far? As one commentator said recently, even six months ago it would have seemed impossible.
Obviously he gives vent to and has tapped into a deep anti-establishment feeling. The UKIP factor writ large. Also very UKIP is the anti-immigrant stance - fear of and hatred of foreigners - in his case Muslims and Mexicans. Not that all immigration control is wrong nor is the desire for it racist or xenophobic. Trump's rhetoric on the subject however is in a class apart. He articulates the American equivalent of the visceral pub rant.
The saddest feature in all this is what it says about America - even though not half of Republicans have voted for him according to the stats.
That he could get this far though is a demonstration of something gone wrong with the American dream. A dream severed from its spiritual and moral moorings becomes a nightmare.
Americans have justly always cherished - though almost idolised - freedom. Trump promotes it as the licence to trample on anyone who gets in your way to the top.
The capitalist dream has flowered in America. Trump represents it in its corrupt form as the worship of mammon.
He personifies both self-aggrandisement posturing as freedom with all the bullying and condoning of violence that implies; and the vaunting and flaunting of money that comes with the idolising of wealth.
Add to that the apogee of the cult of personality that he represents and you have a toxic mix. Style, heavily lacquered, over substance.
There may be signs the wind is changing. The rant at the political establishment and political correctness can only go so far - for most people. Let us hope so. Though nothing is certain.
But he is a wake up call to us in Britain.
Who would be our equivalent of Donald? And what do we need to do to restore trust in and respect for our political institutions? And our politicians?
Friday, 1 April 2016
Thursday, 10 March 2016
Tim Ward on Stott and Lloyd Jones on Preaching - Westminster Fellowship
The February visit of Tim Ward (Director of the Cornhill Training Programme) to the Westminster Fellowship was a bit like Daniel wandering into the lions' den clasping a bunch of lecture notes, but it was greatly appreciated and we are grateful to Tim for putting a lot of careful thought into his paper. He gave us a comparison of the theologies of preaching of Dr Lloyd Jones and John Stott. What follows is an incomplete account taken from my notes.
We need a theology of preaching. It is not enough to say ' we preach because in certain situations it works (but in another culture/situation we'd do something different)'.
Tim wanted to concentrate on the commonalities rather than on what separates the two men. Yet we cannot ignore the cultural differences - LJ from Wales, Stott through the English public school system. Without lapsing into caricature, this difference is significant. Does this not have some bearing on what might be called their great emphases viz.
LJ : a sense of the presence of God was paramount.
Stott - clarity was paramount.
'Have I ever preached once in my life?' said LJ. This is a crucial statement.
Their great books - Preaching and Preachers - and I Believe in Preaching. The man is important for LJ - the personal element.
No mention of 'anointing' in Stott.
Four aspects to a framework to analyse their positions:
1. Church setting of preaching.
LJ hated tape recording - the individual listening is too much in control. The very presence of a body of people is a part of preaching. Faith comes by hearing - the message received in a congregation. A monologue expresses the gospel best.
Stott similar on this.
Four elements in preaching: (i) The preacher divinely called, commissioned and empowered; (ii) a shared faith between the preacher and hearer; (iii) a Word from God in which the people encounter God; and (iv) an event in which God speaks through the minister. All of these are best combined in preaching in church: 'God's people in God's presence to hear God's Word from God's minister'.
Preaching is one of the marks of the church; the Word preached creates the church.
In the west our deep rooted individualism makes us resistant to such a view of preaching. Our philosophical tradition, wealth and consumerism turn us into people who do not readily become corporate people. We have individual Bibles in church!
2. The proclamatory character of preaching.
The preacher is declaring something. All may evangelise but only the preacher proclaims. More than teaching, it is a revelation, an exhortation.
3. The Prophetic character of preaching
A man with a burden from the Lord (LJ's view) - an OT prophet. He is a mouthpiece of God, standing between God and man.
Also Stott - a bearer of a Word from God.
4. The Prophetic character of the preacher himself.
NB the significant (even if not intended) titles of the two books.
This is perhaps where the greatest difference comes. LJ speaks of the moment when the preacher is wholly taken up. Stott speaks of the preacher and people together brought face to face with God. Is this two men describing the same thing? Stott is keen for the preacher to be hidden - the best man at the wedding, self-effacing. Is this being 'English'? LJ says the preacher must hide his pride and eloquence and make no shows of cleverness, but he cannot get himself out of the way - you are part to the means of grace.
'I am here to tell you...' would never be heard from Stott who preferred 'we' in preaching, not 'you' when addressing the congregation.
In all this there is a deeper issue, the continuation in the minister of Christ's offices of prophet priest and king.
In discussion:
Is there not a important difference in theologies of the Holy Spirit? Yes said Tim - LJ's preaching is in some ways his pneumatology at the service of his ecclesiology.
It was commented that both men put a high value on godliness in the minister.
LJ it should be remembered, regarded Jonathan Edwards as the 'Everest' of theologians, who insisted on the importance of extraordinary outpourings of the Holy Spirit to revive the church.
My comment.
One wonders if a summary of the difference between the two men would be that Stott concentrates on preaching as something man can do and the Anglican tradition tends to major on that - clarity, technique, teaching how to preach - while LJ was much more conscious of preaching as something man cannot do - hence his question 'have I ever preached?'. Of course, Stott believed in the necessity of the Holy Spirit and LJ did not belittle 'ordinary preaching' or the importance of doing it well - but the emphases are in the one case on teaching men to do it better, and being content to leave the Word to do the work ( ex opere operato is perhaps too strong a phrase but it leans in that direction) while LJ leans to the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit and our inadequacy - hence leading us to pray with greater urgency and feeling that true preaching usually evades us altogether. The typical result is a striving for God in the latter case; in the former, a sense of complacency in the act of preaching.
We thank Tim for stimulating us to think these things through.
We need a theology of preaching. It is not enough to say ' we preach because in certain situations it works (but in another culture/situation we'd do something different)'.
Tim wanted to concentrate on the commonalities rather than on what separates the two men. Yet we cannot ignore the cultural differences - LJ from Wales, Stott through the English public school system. Without lapsing into caricature, this difference is significant. Does this not have some bearing on what might be called their great emphases viz.
LJ : a sense of the presence of God was paramount.
Stott - clarity was paramount.
'Have I ever preached once in my life?' said LJ. This is a crucial statement.
Their great books - Preaching and Preachers - and I Believe in Preaching. The man is important for LJ - the personal element.
No mention of 'anointing' in Stott.
Four aspects to a framework to analyse their positions:
1. Church setting of preaching.
LJ hated tape recording - the individual listening is too much in control. The very presence of a body of people is a part of preaching. Faith comes by hearing - the message received in a congregation. A monologue expresses the gospel best.
Stott similar on this.
Four elements in preaching: (i) The preacher divinely called, commissioned and empowered; (ii) a shared faith between the preacher and hearer; (iii) a Word from God in which the people encounter God; and (iv) an event in which God speaks through the minister. All of these are best combined in preaching in church: 'God's people in God's presence to hear God's Word from God's minister'.
Preaching is one of the marks of the church; the Word preached creates the church.
In the west our deep rooted individualism makes us resistant to such a view of preaching. Our philosophical tradition, wealth and consumerism turn us into people who do not readily become corporate people. We have individual Bibles in church!
2. The proclamatory character of preaching.
The preacher is declaring something. All may evangelise but only the preacher proclaims. More than teaching, it is a revelation, an exhortation.
3. The Prophetic character of preaching
A man with a burden from the Lord (LJ's view) - an OT prophet. He is a mouthpiece of God, standing between God and man.
Also Stott - a bearer of a Word from God.
4. The Prophetic character of the preacher himself.
NB the significant (even if not intended) titles of the two books.
This is perhaps where the greatest difference comes. LJ speaks of the moment when the preacher is wholly taken up. Stott speaks of the preacher and people together brought face to face with God. Is this two men describing the same thing? Stott is keen for the preacher to be hidden - the best man at the wedding, self-effacing. Is this being 'English'? LJ says the preacher must hide his pride and eloquence and make no shows of cleverness, but he cannot get himself out of the way - you are part to the means of grace.
'I am here to tell you...' would never be heard from Stott who preferred 'we' in preaching, not 'you' when addressing the congregation.
In all this there is a deeper issue, the continuation in the minister of Christ's offices of prophet priest and king.
In discussion:
Is there not a important difference in theologies of the Holy Spirit? Yes said Tim - LJ's preaching is in some ways his pneumatology at the service of his ecclesiology.
It was commented that both men put a high value on godliness in the minister.
LJ it should be remembered, regarded Jonathan Edwards as the 'Everest' of theologians, who insisted on the importance of extraordinary outpourings of the Holy Spirit to revive the church.
My comment.
One wonders if a summary of the difference between the two men would be that Stott concentrates on preaching as something man can do and the Anglican tradition tends to major on that - clarity, technique, teaching how to preach - while LJ was much more conscious of preaching as something man cannot do - hence his question 'have I ever preached?'. Of course, Stott believed in the necessity of the Holy Spirit and LJ did not belittle 'ordinary preaching' or the importance of doing it well - but the emphases are in the one case on teaching men to do it better, and being content to leave the Word to do the work ( ex opere operato is perhaps too strong a phrase but it leans in that direction) while LJ leans to the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit and our inadequacy - hence leading us to pray with greater urgency and feeling that true preaching usually evades us altogether. The typical result is a striving for God in the latter case; in the former, a sense of complacency in the act of preaching.
We thank Tim for stimulating us to think these things through.
Thursday, 25 February 2016
Newish Atheists
I have been catching up with atheist literature.
First came God is Not Great by the late Christopher Hitchens. It is a racy read as befits a book by a journalist. In the end though it is not compelling - you look for arguments and get anecdotes. You expect a reasoned discussion about why atheist regimes (Stalin, Hitler) killed more than religious ones in the 20th Century and get an angry diatribe about the support given to said regimes by the Pope and the Orthodox church. I agree - it is appalling - but hardly demolishes Christianity or whitewashes atheism.
It is interesting to see the arguments these writers marshall: religion kills (all the wars religion has caused); it is hazardous to health (refusal to allow condoms in Africa); metaphysical claims for existence of God are unconvincing; arguments from design fallacious; revelation – OT is a ‘nightmare’, NT is evil, the Koran borrowed; the miraculous is tawdry; hell is immoral; religion's corrupt beginnings (Mormon - yes well...); religion not needed for moral behaviour; the East is as bad as the west (not according to Sam Harris who rates Buddhism as light years ahead of anything in the West); child abuse; collusion in secular totalitarian regimes (as above); it resists rationality and seeking truth; above all it is manufactured.
My appetite whetted I went for Atheist Universe - The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism by a less well known author, David Mills. Four fifths of this book is about the scientific issues of creation and evolution. Hardly in itself the answer to Christian Fundamentalism. There were a couple of other chapters - on hell, the non-danger as he sees it of internet porn and a brief dismissal of the notion that America was founded on Christian principles.
Most engaging was Sam Harris's The End of Faith. Like all the 'new atheists' he is fixated by a definition of faith I have yet to come across in any reliable Christian context - that it is 'unjustified belief', or believing without any evidence.
Armed with this mis-definition Harris brilliantly picks apart religions: it is anti-rational and dangerous, there is no place for it in civilised society; progress is not possible in religion; fear of death is at root of much of it; evidence – religion is satisfied with relying on none; there are legitimate experiences that we call religious but which can be brought under the government of reason and should be; good and evil – based on what causes happiness or suffering; we need a study of consciousness - spirituality without religion – Buddhism rocks, Christianity, Judaism and Islam suck; remember how Christianity treated witches and Jews; the horror that is Islam; we waste too much time and money fighting sin - especially drugs, and Christianity holds back medicine (embryo research etc).
And so on.
Harris has written other books, on ethics (The Moral Landscape) and spirituality without religion (Waking Up). He is the most penetrating of the new atheists so far but - I shall be interested to see what he makes of the morality and spirituality issues in his books. I know John Lennox has had a go at his morality without religion arguments (see Lennox, Against the Flow , a superb exposition of the book of Daniel).
But in the end I have not found a compelling argument to give up believing in God and in Jesus Christ. Or in the glories of a personal God, of the Trinity, of eternal love, of a personally created universe and of man in his image, of the beauty of holiness, of eternal life, of the wonders of God's law, of inviolable justice, and yes, of the horrors of hell, of the glories of the Bible and God's plan for his people, and of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Unverified belief Harris calls it. But there is plenty of evidence. And there is the human soul - an idea he plays with. And there is a knowing that is not based on the senses but does not contradict them (usually) and is stronger and deeper than them. How can these atheists be so sure that what they cannot sense is not there?
And I think what a skimmed milk universe these people live in, how thin, tawdry, empty. After all, their philosophy is bounded by what can increase happiness and decrease suffering. What? Is suffering the worst evil? And is earthly happiness the greatest good? How sad.
First came God is Not Great by the late Christopher Hitchens. It is a racy read as befits a book by a journalist. In the end though it is not compelling - you look for arguments and get anecdotes. You expect a reasoned discussion about why atheist regimes (Stalin, Hitler) killed more than religious ones in the 20th Century and get an angry diatribe about the support given to said regimes by the Pope and the Orthodox church. I agree - it is appalling - but hardly demolishes Christianity or whitewashes atheism.
It is interesting to see the arguments these writers marshall: religion kills (all the wars religion has caused); it is hazardous to health (refusal to allow condoms in Africa); metaphysical claims for existence of God are unconvincing; arguments from design fallacious; revelation – OT is a ‘nightmare’, NT is evil, the Koran borrowed; the miraculous is tawdry; hell is immoral; religion's corrupt beginnings (Mormon - yes well...); religion not needed for moral behaviour; the East is as bad as the west (not according to Sam Harris who rates Buddhism as light years ahead of anything in the West); child abuse; collusion in secular totalitarian regimes (as above); it resists rationality and seeking truth; above all it is manufactured.
My appetite whetted I went for Atheist Universe - The Thinking Person's Answer to Christian Fundamentalism by a less well known author, David Mills. Four fifths of this book is about the scientific issues of creation and evolution. Hardly in itself the answer to Christian Fundamentalism. There were a couple of other chapters - on hell, the non-danger as he sees it of internet porn and a brief dismissal of the notion that America was founded on Christian principles.
Most engaging was Sam Harris's The End of Faith. Like all the 'new atheists' he is fixated by a definition of faith I have yet to come across in any reliable Christian context - that it is 'unjustified belief', or believing without any evidence.
Armed with this mis-definition Harris brilliantly picks apart religions: it is anti-rational and dangerous, there is no place for it in civilised society; progress is not possible in religion; fear of death is at root of much of it; evidence – religion is satisfied with relying on none; there are legitimate experiences that we call religious but which can be brought under the government of reason and should be; good and evil – based on what causes happiness or suffering; we need a study of consciousness - spirituality without religion – Buddhism rocks, Christianity, Judaism and Islam suck; remember how Christianity treated witches and Jews; the horror that is Islam; we waste too much time and money fighting sin - especially drugs, and Christianity holds back medicine (embryo research etc).
And so on.
Harris has written other books, on ethics (The Moral Landscape) and spirituality without religion (Waking Up). He is the most penetrating of the new atheists so far but - I shall be interested to see what he makes of the morality and spirituality issues in his books. I know John Lennox has had a go at his morality without religion arguments (see Lennox, Against the Flow , a superb exposition of the book of Daniel).
But in the end I have not found a compelling argument to give up believing in God and in Jesus Christ. Or in the glories of a personal God, of the Trinity, of eternal love, of a personally created universe and of man in his image, of the beauty of holiness, of eternal life, of the wonders of God's law, of inviolable justice, and yes, of the horrors of hell, of the glories of the Bible and God's plan for his people, and of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Unverified belief Harris calls it. But there is plenty of evidence. And there is the human soul - an idea he plays with. And there is a knowing that is not based on the senses but does not contradict them (usually) and is stronger and deeper than them. How can these atheists be so sure that what they cannot sense is not there?
And I think what a skimmed milk universe these people live in, how thin, tawdry, empty. After all, their philosophy is bounded by what can increase happiness and decrease suffering. What? Is suffering the worst evil? And is earthly happiness the greatest good? How sad.
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