Category Archives: theology

For Madpriest

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A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.

He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight. When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.

When he was close enough, he called out, “Excuse me, where are we?”

“This is Heaven, sir,” the man answered.

“Wow! Would you happen to have some water?” the man asked.

“Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.”

The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

“Can my friend,” gesturing toward his dog, “come in, too?” the traveller asked.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets.”

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence.

As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

“Excuse me!” he called to the man. “Do you have any water?”
“Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there, come on in.”

“How about my friend here?” the traveller gestured to the dog.
“There should be a bowl by the pump.”

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it.

The traveller filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.

When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.

“What do you call this place?” the traveller asked.

“This is Heaven,” he answered.

“Well, that’s confusing,” the traveller said. “The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.”

“Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That’s hell.”

“Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?”

“No, we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.”

Is Christ Divided? session 8

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Click ‘full post’ for text of latest notes on 1 Corinthians – chapter 7 this time.

Is Christ Divided?
Notes for the house groups on 1 Corinthians.

Week eight, beginning Sunday 25 June: 1 Corinthians 7

Main themes: Marriage and sexuality

Questions to prompt discussion

1.Does Christianity have a positive understanding sexuality? Our wider non-Christian culture would undoubtedly shout ‘No!’ – why is this? Where has the radically disordered understanding of sexuality in our society come from? Is there anything that the church needs to repent of?
2.Is it ever permissible to seek a divorce?
3.Divorce is now prevalent in our culture, and in our church community – how do we live with this situation as Christians?
4.What does Paul mean when he says that ‘the time is short’ (v29)? Was he wrong, or do we just need to ‘spiritualise’ his comments?

Supplementary thoughts:
Paul is now beginning to respond to other questions raised by the Corinthian church in a letter to him; we can guess at their views: a) those who are single should avoid marriage; b) the married should refrain from sex; c) those who are married, especially to unbelievers, should be divorced; d) those who are engaged should not proceed to marriage. Paul goes through each of these points in turn.

Paul very rarely states explicitly that his teaching is ‘from the Lord’, yet he does so for the teaching on divorce in verses 10 and 11, which ties in with what Jesus says in the gospels (Mk 10.2-11 and parallels). Yet Paul seems to have a very pragmatic attitude in much of this passage, and a distinct awareness of human vulnerability and weakness – see verse 11 in particular. Another passage of relevance is Mark 12.25, within its context. Paul is also quite moderate in his attitude, seeming to allow for the possibility that he might be wrong (verses 6, 25, 40).

Much of Paul’s argumentation rests on the desirability of not changing a present state (married/virgin/slave etc), in the light of tribulations soon to arrive – Paul expects the end of the world to arrive within his lifetime (see 1 Thess 4.15 and 1 Cor 15.52 for parallels), though his views moderated over time.

Notes on verses
v 1: literally, ‘it is good for a man not to touch a woman’, ie have sexual relations. ‘Marriage’ is not mentioned.
vv 3&4: Paul is very radical and egalitarian in his teaching here
v 7: it is not known what Paul’s ‘state’ was – he was either celibate or a widower.
vv 12-16: note Paul’s reversal of the direction of contamination (again, very radical!)
v 17: ‘called’ probably means that state in which one was converted, not a vocation to which one is summoned (cf v 20, 24)
v 19 is rather paradoxical, which was probably Paul’s intent – ie ‘rethink the assumptions!’

Not by our own feelings

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A post going into more detail with my thoughts about ‘conversion’. Click full post for the text.

My principal concern and criticism of evangelicalism lies in the way that it relocates the source of religious authority from an institution to an inward sentiment, ie the personal experience of God’s activity normally described as ‘conversion’. There’s a sense in which this is healthy, but what I want to outline are the ways in which it is decidedly unhealthy.

It’s not Scriptural.
I’m grateful for all the feedback to my question on this topic, but many of the references provided, it seems to me, are read anachronistically when they are read as justifying the emphasis upon particular experience. What I mean by that is the Scriptural understanding of ‘the heart’ is different to a contemporary Western understanding of ‘the heart’. So far as I am aware, in the Bible, the ‘heart’ is the seat of judgement and will (sometimes other internal organs), and there is no division between ‘the head and the heart’, understood as a conflict between judgement and passions. The conflict takes place within the heart as a whole. So when we are encouraged by the prophets with the vision of having our hearts of stone replaced by hearts of flesh this is not a reference to becoming more sentimental – it is a reference to making decisions more compassionately, with regard to their effect upon our neighbour. The division current in our society between ‘the head’, meaning judgement and rationality, and ‘the heart’, meaning affections and sentiment, I believe to be wholly foreign to Scriptural categories. I could be wrong on this (please point it out if I am) but this seems to undermine many (not all) of the Scriptural references offered. I’m not disagreeing with the Scripture references as describing a change of heart (ie that which is essential to faith) but that they necessarily describe a “conversion” as it seems to be understood in contemporary evangelical culture.

One of the core texts for me is Romans 10.9, which describes, in my view, the core Christian proclamation and expression of faith, but Paul goes on to say ‘For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified’. Here he’s using ‘heart’ in the way I understand above – it is the ground of the personality, the fount of all that follows. I have no doubt that a ‘change of heart’ can be dramatic with profound physical expressions, as with Paul on the road to Damascus. Yet it also seems to me that the process can be gradual – we are not given much detail about how the other apostles grew in faith; I rather doubt that they all had a Pauline conversion! The dramatic and overwhelming personal experience is undoubtedly one way in which God can redeem a soul; I think it is not only presumptuous to imagine it is the only way, but Scripture testifies to diversity in this matter.

A different way of saying this same point is to say that it’s a product of human culture: I’ll go into this in more detail in my talks, as it’s an area where I’ve done quite a lot of research on the context into which evangelicalism was born, but Noll puts it judiciously: “… in other significant ways, evangelicalism was itself an authentic expression of Enlightenment principles. Evangelicals… held, with Locke, that the self’s personal experience was foundational for obtaining reliable knowledge. ‘True religion’, for evangelicals, might be recommended by tradition and by formal authorities, but until people personally experienced the love of God in their hearts, evangelicals held that their standing before God had to be in doubt”. I just don’t see this as legitimately derived from Scripture, and as the wider culture starts to move beyond Enlightenment principles, the influence of the Enlightenment on evangelicalism will become much clearer.

It undermines the church and causes active and profound spiritual harm in the life of Christian believers.
What I mean by this is that when the experience within a believer is given pride of place, the inherited tradition and wisdom of the church is progressively undermined. This means that the possibilities of correction to the individual will become fewer and fewer. This is really about the doctrine of original sin, and the ever-present potentiality of human self-deception. I do not wish to deny the reality, power, and salvific effect of dramatic conversions when they genuinely happen. What I object to is the use of such an experience to demarcate the Christian from the non-Christian. That is, I want to say that the testimony of a ‘conversion’ has no necessary and irrevocable link to the presence of the Holy Spirit within a believer. There are believers who have not had this conversion experience where the Holy Spirit is a shaping force in the life; there are those with eloquent testimony where the Spirit is absent. The root point is primarily that we are not in a position to judge between believers on the basis of such a putative occurrence.

Where there is an emphasis upon this sort of experience, and where in particular it is seen as the marker of salvation, it can cause profound spiritual harm, both in the lives of individual believers (John Wesley himself comes to mind, but I’ve had direct dealings with the consequences in many individuals) and also in the life of a church community (West Mersea carries scars from this). What evangelicalism sometimes seems to have become is an insistence that unless you use particularly effusive and emotional language then you are going to hell, and it therefore has absolutely nothing to say to those who are weak, vulnerable and depressed, other than asking for more and more exertions of belief. The one who is depressed is blamed for the depression; the light burden of Christ has become the crippling weight that destroys the soul. Instead of a works-righteousness there is now a creeping experience-righteousness, each of which is equally Pharisaical. I believe that the inherited traditions of the church have much richer and wiser guidance to offer in terms of shaping the ongoing life of the Christian community.

It leads to quietism (seen most obviously, in the present day, in things like the SBC statement denying global warming).
Conversion is about the shift from a ‘nominal faith’ to an embrace of ‘true religion’ – one which grips a person, which makes a difference in their life. It seems to me indisputable that this shift is essential to Christianity – it underlies all of Jesus’ disagreements with the Pharisees for example, and the Scriptural instruction on this is vast. Yet what matters in this conversion is the orientation of the character; that is, what will then flow, what are the fruits? For we are also told consistently throughout Scripture that deeds count (see Rev 20.12-13 for the most explicit description of that judgement!) Before misunderstandings can run away too quickly THIS DOES NOT UNDERMINE THE PRIORITY OF GRACE! It is to say that when grace is active in our lives it will inevitably have an effect on the way that we live.

The prayers in the BCP are eloquent on this subject: “O God, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee, mercifully accept our prayers, and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping of thy commandments we may please thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.” (Collect for First Sunday after Trinity). At the heart of the BCP’s spirituality – of Protestant spirituality! – it seems to me, there is no room for any pride on the part of the Christian; there is instead an acknowledgement that we proceed solely by grace, both in terms of our inner dispositions (‘will’) and in terms of our outer accomplishments (‘deed’). Yet the outer accomplishments still matter; the wider world still matters. This is what I think has become lost through the evangelical understanding of ‘conversion’, understood as the inward experience of salvation.

I believe that the Spirit is found in the interplay between the institution and the individual, and that excessive reliance on one pole will inevitably lead to idolatry. In correcting (necessarily correcting) the institution so successfully, evangelicalism has itself now become an institution in need of radical correction. In December 1789 John Wesley wrote some advice to Sarah Mallett, one of the earliest Methodist lay preachers, which included this advice: “You are not to judge by your own feelings, but by the word of God.” Like many things that Wesley said, this seems to me to be right.

A request for help

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I’m reading Mark Noll’s ‘The Rise of Evangelicalism’ at the moment – nearly finished, and there’ll be a long post about it when I do – but I was wondering if people could point out Scriptural references to ‘conversion’, as understood in the Wesleyan/ Whitefield/ Edwards sense, ie an inner experience or assurance of salvation, the ‘heart strangely warmed’ etc.

I can’t think of many. The ‘born again’ passage of John 3 might qualify, though it’s a bit of a stretch; more broadly the whole ‘remove hearts of stone and give hearts of flesh’ strand seems relevant – but are there any others? All references gratefully received!

Spurgeon on weekly communion

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“So with the Lord’s Supper. My witness is, and I think I speak the mind of many of God’s people now present, that coming as some of us do, weekly, to the Lord’s table, we do not find the breaking of bread to have lost its significance—it is always fresh to us. I have often remarked on Lord’s-day evening, whatever the subject may have been, whether Sinai has thundered over our heads, or the plaintive notes of Calvary have pierced our hearts, it always seems equally appropriate to come to the breaking of bread. Shame on the Christian church that she should put it off to once a month, and mar the first day of the week by depriving it of its glory in the meeting together for fellowship and breaking of bread, and showing forth of the death of Christ till he come. They who once know the sweetness of each Lord’s-day celebrating his Supper, will not be content, I am sure, to put it off to less frequent seasons. Beloved, when the Holy Ghost is with us, ordinances are wells to the Christian, wells of rich comfort and of near communion.” “Songs of Deliverance,” Sermon no. 763, July 28, 1867, preaching from Judges 5:11.

(taken from the I-Monk’s interesting series)

The Forgotten Ways (Alan Hirsch)

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I found this to be a very good book, although it had one or two very irritating flaws, not the least of which was an astonishingly inane jacket-quote from someone called Leonard Sweet, which would have prevented me from buying the book if I had seen it beforehand.

But that’s a cavil. This is an excellent book about mission; one that I will almost certainly be sharing with the wider leadership team here. It’s had quite an impact on me, not least in providing ‘the fourth thing’… I’ve often thought that (following Eugene Peterson’s analysis) there were three things in my ministry that I felt called to concentrate on: celebrating communion; teaching and preaching; and spiritual direction. However, I’ve also felt that there was a ‘fourth thing’ that was in me and that didn’t quite fit with this – and I’ve variously called it management, or leadership, or even (before I came to Mersea and decided against doing a PhD) ‘the Civil Service element’ in my character. What this book has done for me – and for which I am profoundly grateful – is given me a different description of this element, and one, moreover, which gives me great peace. It is the apostolic element. Hirsch quotes Steve Addison saying:

“The apostolic role within established churches and denominations requires the reinterpreting of the denomination’s foundational values in the light of the demands of its mission today. The ultimate goal of these apostolic leaders is to call the denomination away from maintenance, back to mission. The apostolic denominational leader needs to be a visionary, who can outlast significant opposition from within the denominational structures and can build alliances with those who desire change. Furthermore, the strategy of the apostolic leader could involve casting vision and winning approval for a shift from maintenance to mission. In addition, the leader has to encourage signs of life within the existing structures and raise up a new generation of leaders and churches from the old. The apostolic denominational leader needs to ensure the new generation is not “frozen out” by those who resist change. Finally, such a leader must restructure the denomination’s institutions so that they serve mission purposes.”

In a week of great and diverse stresses it has been very healing and heartening to read that.

There were two other elements that really resonated with me: the first, that the apostolic call isn’t about pastoring as commonly understood: ‘in actual practice, a predominantly pastoral conception of the church and ministry now actually constitutes a major hindrance to the church reconceiving itself as a missional agency’. The second, that the apostle is first and foremost a working theologian, one who safeguards the ‘DNA’ of the Christian faith. That is precisely what I have seen as most essential in my ministry so far, and the source of all the positive things that have followed (such as there have been).

A final long quotation (from Karl Barth, which the book ends with):

It is certain that we all have reason to ask ourselves each of these questions and in every case quickly and clearly to give the answer:
No, the church’s existence does not always have to possess the same form in the future that it possessed in the past as though this were the only possible pattern;
No, the continuance and victory of the cause of God, which the Christian Church is to serve with her witness, is not unconditionally linked with the forms of existence which it has had until now;
No, the hour may strike, and perhaps already has struck, when God, to our discomfiture, but to his glory and for the salvation of mankind, will put an end to this mode of existence because it lacks integrity;
Yes, it could be our duty to free ourselves inwardly from our dependency on that mode of existence even while it still lasts. Indeed, on the assumption that it may one day entirely disappear, we definitely should look about us for new ventures in new directions.
Yes, as the Church of God we may depend on it that if only we are attentive, God will show us such new ways as we can hardly anticipate now. And as the people who are bound to God, we may even now claim unconquerable security for ourselves through him. For his name is above all names….

Amen. Praise the Lord!

Untouchable

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(This is the synchroblog for this month.) Click ‘full post’ for text.

Every society has purity taboos – these days they often masquerade under the description of ‘hygiene’ – but even if a situation is hygienically sound, we may still have all sorts of qualms. Any society will have these taboos, and they will be used to regulate that society, to determine who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ – and those who are out will be precisely not touched.

This kills. Consider – a baby that is well fed but otherwise not touched will die. A baby raised in continuum fashion will thrive, even if perpetually hungry.

And the lethality of the taboo is what engages Jesus in his life and teaching. For Jesus is the one who overcomes the taboo; who deliberately transgresses the boundaries; he is the one who gives life.

This has direct political consequences. It is a large part of why Jesus is executed. A socially constructed polity must have the scapegoat – and the purity law dictates who is to be the one marked off.

It is part of the Christian ethic, part of the task for each generation of disciples, to overcome the taboos generated by their society and touch those on the outside.

It is also a part of the Christian ethic to overcome the taboos that have been established within, and to be touched on the inside.

In each case, this is where the grace of Christ operates; this is where redemption occurs; and this is where the church can be really the church.

To be a Christian is to touch and be touched. To be untouchable is to be in hell.

“The Peace of the Lord be always with you!”

To the lost Christ shows his face;

To the unloved he gives his embrace;

To those who cry in pain or disgrace,

Christ makes, with his friends , a touching place.

Other people talking about this today:
Mike Bursell muses about Christianity at the Movies
David Fisher on Touching the Pharisees – My Untouchable People Group
Jeremiah at Models of church leadership and decision-making as
they apply to outreach
John Smulo talks about Christian Untouchables
Sally Coleman shares on The Untouchables
Steve Hayes on Dalits and Hindutva
Sonja Andrews visits the subject here
Phil Wyman throws out the Loose Lips – A “SinkroBlog”

Is Christ Divided? session 7

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Notes for the house groups on 1 Corinthians.
Week seven, beginning Sunday 11 June: 1 Corinthians 6

Click ‘full post’ for text.

Main themes: 1: Lawsuits
2: Theology of the Body

Questions to prompt discussion

1.Can a Christian ever take another Christian to court? What about insurance claims? What about a car crash?
2.If not – or even if generally not – how should the wider church community be involved? (Think discipline; think also about care and relief; think about what status this gives to the church as a practical (legal?) organisation)
3.Why not rather be wronged?
4.The wicked will not inherit the kingdom – but what if they are believers? (cf Rom 7.15)
5.What are the implications of our bodies being members of Christ?
6.Why ‘flee’ from sexual immorality? That is, why not try and fight it?

Supplementary thoughts:
Again the theme of judgement within the church community, and therefore of church discipline, is prominent. Paul is arguing strenuously for the community being competent within itself to resolve internal disputes. Appeal to an outside authority is an appeal precisely to the world, and therefore not an application of ‘kingdom values’. Compare this attitude with that advocated in the Sermon on the Mount, especially in terms of inner spiritual orientation.

The second half is really an application of this first point to practical affairs, ie what people DO with their bodies. This isn’t just about sexuality, but about the whole of human life, especially economic life – and therefore justice.

“Everything is permissible” – the heresy of antinomianism may have been behind the dispute in chapter 5 (antinomianism = there is no law; a misapplication of the freedom in Christ which believers enjoy). Freedom can itself become a form of slavery, to the individual will, so Paul is making two warnings – a choice can be harmful to the wider community (we’ll come back to this one in chapters 8-10) but it can also be harmful to the individual themselves – ‘mastering them’, like an addiction. Paul has a much stronger sense of the nature of sin than do the Corinthians, and therefore of how individual choice is inevitably compromised or overwhelmed.

Notes on verses
vv 1-6 compare with Rom 13.1-7 (!)
v 2 compare Daniel 7.22; Rev 2.26-27
v 7 ‘cheated’ (NIV) = defrauded, ie financial dispute
vv 9-10 compare Gal 5:19-21
v 11 probably a reference to baptism
vv 12 & 13 probably quotations from Corinth
v 13 ‘sexual immorality’, Greek porneia anything sexually illicit, fornication
v 15 ‘members’ = limbs