I was rather shocked on Sunday morning to hear that one of my Dad's churches has burnt down. The blaze was so fierce, all that's left are the stone walls. At its peak, there were fifty fire-fighters trying to bring the fire under control.
Fire destroys Radford Semele church
The fire services are still investigating how the fire started, and haven't yet ruled out arson.
I'm not sure if this is very funny or extremely sad, but I found a video of a Baptist preacher preaching talking about the phrase 'pisseth against the wall' from the King James.
Baptist preaches on KJV "him that pisseth against the wall"
This is the verse he preaches from:
Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam,
and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against
the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take
away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till
it be all gone.1 Kings 14.10 (KJV)
From this verse the preacher's message is that real men (as opposed to 'males') urinate standing up. The problems in America are caused, it seems, by men urinating sitting down. How he manages to ignore the fact that in the context of this verse is that urinating standing up is not a good thing: doing it will get you 'cut off' from the people of God. I don't claim to understand what's going on here, but I'm pretty sure it's not what this guy says!
He also uses manages to rant about how the King James is better than all other translations, for saying 'males', editing out 'Hell' and 'Jehovah' (which is the name of God). From a bit of research on the internet it seems that this isn't the only strange thing this guy has said.
I am currently reading through Romans with a friend at college, and we are up to Romans 7. One of the things we mentioned was how easy it is to mis-read Paul and interpret what he says as gnostic.
For example:
7.5 For while we were
living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at
work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But
now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us
captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the
old way of the written code.
Not only does Paul set up a radical distinction between 'the new way of the Spirit' and 'the old way of the written code', he also locates sin at work in 'the flesh', 'our members'. Equally, in the previous chapter Paul writes:
6.12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
His emphasis is so strongly on our sinful bodies, on sin which works in our 'mortal body', that it is not a big step to gnostic theology, where the spirit is holy, the flesh evil.
It is also not a big step to the neo-dualism of contemporary evangelicalism. Now there's a sentence and a half! When I worked for A Rocha in London, one of the things I did was go around churches giving talks about the biblical basis for creation care. A regular comment that many of us encountered (and no doubt they still do) was that God is more interested in saving souls than restoring creation.
There is undoubtedly some truth in that statement. God has a special love for humans, made in his image to worship, glorify and love him. However it is no different to the gnosticism that was denounced as heresy, and completely fails to understand the Old Testament, and much of the new.
When Paul locates sin at work in mortal flesh, he is not saying that God will do away with physical bodies. He is not saying that all material things are evil and that what is important is our soul. What he is saying, is that God needs to transform our mortal bodies if we are to obey him. The very next verse in Romans 6 is this:
6.13 Do not present your
members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present
yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life,
and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
God wants us to use our bodies, our minds, our strength, our souls – all of ourselves – to serve him. He is not interested in disembodied children, but children in his image as he made them, bodies and all. The 'newness of life' that Paul talks about earlier in Romans 6 is the basis on which we are able to 'present' our 'members to God as instruments for righteousness'.
6.4 We were buried
therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk
in newness of life.
Just as our baptism is a physical event, and just as Jesus' resurrection was a physical event, so also our newness of life is a physical event. So, coming back to Romans 7, serving God in the 'new way of the Spirit' is correctly interpreted and capitalised by the ESV as the 'new way of the Holy Spirit': i.e. the new bodied life in the power of the Holy Spirit, not a new life somehow disconnected from our bodies, and purely 'spirit'. The true meaning of the word 'spiritual' is not 'the life of a spirit', 'but life in the power of the Spirit', mind, body, soul and strength.
I am sure that no self-respecting and thoughtful evangelical would disagree with what I have just argued. Why is it then that the focus of 'gospel ministry' is so often proclamation on its own, without the accompanying care for people's 'fleshy' side? I myself have been guilty of this mistake, but hopefully no longer.
Wearing my A Rocha hat (A Rocha is a Christian environmental charity, seeking to transform communities and ecosystems in Jesus' name and power) I would go further still, and say that God's concern is for the whole of creation, not just humans. After all, Revelation teaches us that heaven comes down to earth, not the other way around. The whole world will be transformed by God, not just those people who call on Jesus' name. (For more on this, please look in the Sermons section, or search for 'creation care' or 'hope for the planet'.)
When we pray 'your kingdom come', what we are praying for is the full and complete kingdom, which includes the transformation of the world, as well as the transformation of the people within the world. The latter concern for people's physical well-being is being rediscovered by the church, but we are still lacking the former concern for the world.
The challenge is this: have we sold out to a gnostic dualism between spirit and flesh? Have we in practice (if not in theology) ignored the fleshy side of life in favour of the spirit side of life? If we have, we need to do both to be doing full and proper 'gospel ministry'.
You may have seen that my college, Wycliffe Hall, has been in the press again. Yesterday the college authorities settled with Elaine Storkey, admitting that she had been unfairly dismissed. Astonishingly however, that is not the end of the matter.
Storkey is now suing James Jones, the bishop of Liverpool and chair of Wycliffe's trustees, for religious discrimination! I was quite astonished when I read this:
The case has now been adjourned until June, at which point the three
members of an employment tribunal will have to decide whether Storkey's
liberal feminist brand of evangelical Anglicanism constitutes a
religion, as compared with other evangelicals running Wycliffe Hall....
Following the resolution of the unfair dismissal claim, Charles Crow, representing Storkey, turned to the remaining matter.
"Within
Christian evangelism there are two determinate strands; conservative
evangelism and an open and more liberal evangelism," he said."Those
are open and definable strands and as an open and clear proponent of
one of those strands, she [Storkey] has been discriminated against."
First, I think it's amusing that Storkey's own lawyer doesn't understand the difference between 'evangelism' and 'evangelicalism'. Given that, what understanding can he really have about the theological debate? (Either he got it wrong, or he was misquoted by the Grauniad..)
Second, what does she think she's doing? Does she really want to separate 'open' and 'conservative' evangelicalism legally? Such a result could surely have no effect but to divide further the evangelicals in this country.
Third, my friend Custard asks if there really is such a thing as 'open' or 'liberal' evanglicalism. Certainly 'liberal evanglical' is 'oxymoronic', given that evangelical theology is by nature conservative, and in part a reaction against liberal theology. The question of an 'open' evangelical is perhaps not quite the same. To be sure, some mean 'liberal' by it, but others mean 'not quite as hard-line as some of the conversatives I know, and not quite as whacky as some of the charismatics I know'. This discussion is probably for another blog post.
Finally, I am pleased that the chairman of the tribunal has shown some common sense:
Arranging a preliminary tribunal hearing for June 10 this year,
Robin Lewis, chairman of the tribunal, highlighted the difficulties
inherent in a theological dispute being thrashed out in a secular forum
and urged the two parties to reach an agreement."One part of the tribunal's regulations was not to resolve theological disputes within certain colleges at Oxford.
"It was to protect people from discrimination.
"I very much hope that the remaining hearing that has been timetabled won't be necessary. I hope that it can be resolved.
"What
I would ask the parties is how useful an adjudication might be by the
three of us, sitting in this building, on theological matters?"
Hopefully Storkey can be convinced to drop the case, which is a mis-use of the employment tribunal, potentially very damaging to the church in the UK, and ridiculously unbiblical.
At the end of last term we had a study week on Church Growth & Church Planting. It was a good week – one of the better study weeks.
One of the points of interest for me was that, although the week was focused primarily on numerical growth and planting, there were a couple of sessions about discipleship. I have often placed more emphasis on discipleship than evangelism, thinking it more important to grow deeper before growing wider.
However, I think that each is equally important, and that each feeds the other. The more people existing Christians see coming to faith, the deeper their own faith becomes. Equally, people with a strong and deep relationship with God become more like him, and therefore more attractive and able to share their faith in a non-threatening and powerful way.
Many Anglican churches are stuck in 'discipleship' mode; and even that has been watered down to little more than maintenance of what is already existing. Without new Christians, a church becomes stagnant, and without depth new and existing Christians wither and die.
The challenge to me, and to the Anglican church, is a renewed focus on evangelism and numerical growth, which is after all a sign of the kingdom throughout the New Testament. God still wants people who know him more and more, and people to know him for the first time.
This topic has been mulling over in my mind for a long time. Since the 'rediscovery' of charismatic gifts and the phenomenal growth of the Pentecostal church, I suppose it has been a hot topic for the church generally.
I am currently reading Knowing God by J.I. Packer, a chapter a night – a fantastic book, which I will review when I'm done – and last night I read chapter 12, 'The Love of God'. Packer makes some excellent points which happen to coincide with my own feelings on this subject, so I will quote him, and then comment.
In Romans 5.5 Paul says, 'God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.' Packer says:
Paul is not talking of faint and fitful impressions, but of deep and overwhelming ones.
...
Paul assumes that all his readers, like himself, will be living in the enjoyment of a strong and abiding sense of God's love for them.
Third, notice that the instilling of this knowledge is described as part of the regular ministry of the Spirit to those who receive him – to all , that is, who are born again, who are true believers. One could wish that this aspect of his ministry was prized more highly than it is at the present time. With a perversity as pathetic as it is impoverishing, we have become preoccupied today with the extraordinary, sporadic, non-universal ministries of the Spirit to the neglect of the ordinary, general ones. Thus, we show a great deal more interest in the gifts of healing and tongues – gifts of which, as Paul pointed out, not all Christians are meant to partake anyway (1 Cor. 12:28-30) – than in the Spirit's ordinary work of giving peace, joy, hope, and love, through the shedding abroad in our hearts of knowledge of the love of God. Yet the latter is much more important than the former.
...
It will be tragic if the concern for revival that is stirring at the present time in many places gets diverted into the cul-de-sac of a new Corinthianism. The best thing that Paul could desire for the Ephesians in connection with the Spirit was that he might continue towards them the Romans 5:5 ministry with ever-increasing power, leading them deeper and deeper into knowledge of the love of God in Christ.
...
Revival means the work of God restoring to a moribund church, in a manner out of the ordinary, those standards of Christian life and experience which the New Testament sets forth as being entirely ordinary; and a right-minded concern for revival will express itself, not in a hankering after tongues (ultimately it is of no importance whether we speak in tongues or not), but rather a longing that the Spirit may shed God's love abroad in our hearts with greater power. For it is with this (to which deep exercise of soul about sin is often preliminary) that personal revival begins, and by this that revival in the church, once begun, is sustained.
J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 133-134
I wholeheartedly agree with Packer. The Spirit's work is so much more than we might sometimes be led to believe – he gives so many gifts to each and every Christian, not least the fact that they are believers! Of course the 'sporadic gifts' are important – I have no doubt that God heals people today – but focussing too much on them leads us to forget the more important, universal gifts.
I want to sit down one day and read a proper and full exposition of the work of the Spirit – I believe Calvin in particular does this well.
Everything we do as a Christian is a gift of the Spirit! We live entirely by grace, which God gives us in the power of the Spirit. In talking so much about 'the gifts', in constantly asking the question 'what is my gift?', 'what is my ministry', we forget that all we have is a gift, and that we are given all we have in order that we might serve God and each other, and steward creation aright. If we get this sorted in our Christian lives, then we will have the right perspective on the 'sporadic gifts' as well – they are not for ourselves, but to enable our service of others, to build up the church.
Given all this, I would argue that it is not just 'conservative' Christians who 'quench the Spirit' (1 Thessalonians 5.19) by refusing to allow space for his work publicly – 'charismatic' Christians do the same by focussing too much on the particular gifts the Spirit gives, and too little on the primary, universal gifts that he gives. Both are important in the life of the church – but the universal gifts are much more so; the balance needs to be restored.
I think that the greatest miracle is not a dramatic healing but someone who dies in Christ.
I have been reading some of the minor prophets recently, and it hit me quite how angry God is with his people, and with the nations surrounding them. Of Ninevah God says, 'Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts...' followed by some fairly graphic and disgusting things (Nahum 2.13, 3.5-7 etc). Micah begins with the promise of destruction for Israel's idolatrous behaviour. Obadiah condemns Edom, Jacob's brother Esau, for gloating over Israel's misfortune. And so on.
This made me think. Most obviously I suppose, it highlights just how angry God gets with sin. A stereotype of Protestant preaching is 'fire and brimstone from the pulpit', which reflects God's anger and just wrath, while perhaps being a bit over the top. It is an uncomfortable message, and not one people want to hear – it doesn't sit easily with the general understanding of God as a benevolent father with a big white beard. More serious are Richard Dawkins' attacks on 'the God of the Old Testament' for such unpleasant displays of vengeance and anger; unpleasant, that is, to our modern 'tolerant' sensibilities.
There are two dangers here. The first, corresponding to the uncomfortableness that people feel, is to deny God's wrath. This underestimates sin, and reduces God's holiness. Even claiming it is part of the Old Testament understanding of 'territorial gods' is false, because it is in the New Testament too. It is simply not the case that the God of the Old Testament is vengeful and the God of the New Testament is peaceful.
If we are seeking to be faithful to the Bible we cannot avoid the fact that sin makes God angry. Therefore, just as sin is not confined to the Old Testament, so God's anger isn't confined to the Old Testament. If you want proof, look in a concordance under 'wrath' and 'anger' – not to mention Jesus' display of anger in the temple (Matthew 21 etc). God's righteous anger is a central part of the message of the whole Bible, perhaps at its clearest in the prophets.
The second danger, corresponding to Dawkins' attack, is to stop here, and simply emphasise how angry God is with us 'miserable offenders', effectively denying the message of grace clearest in the New Testament (though present also in the Old). For the Bible tells us that yes, God justly punishes sin, and therefore we sinners deserve death, but that he also loves us and wants to have mercy on us. The interchange in Hosea is particularly astonishing, as we read of God's love and justice wrestling with each other.
It is for precisely this reason that the cross is absolutely central, for on the cross God's love and justice meet – they are both defined entirely and exclusively by the cross. It is on the cross, as Jesus bears the penalty for our sins, their consequence, that God fulfils his justice, whilst at the same time fulfilling his love, as he sets us free from that penalty through Jesus.
If we take the Bible as a whole, we see the Old Testament preparing us for and pointing us to the cross. It is on the cross that the tension between God's love for his people and his righteous judgement of their sins is resolved. The curses of the Old Testament, the condemnation that God speaks over the nations, over his own people, all of that wrath is poured out on Jesus, and we are saved by his blood.
And so we return to the minor prophets. As I was reading Nahum I realised that on the cross, God spoke those curses to his own Son, who willingly and obediently put himself under those curses. And he did that because he loves us so much, and because we have disobeyed him so much, and because he is so holy and just and righteous and faithful.
So on the cross, God's wrath was indeed satisfied – and, in the frequent alternative words to In Christ Alone, God's love was glorified also. However, we need to make sure we strike the balance between God's wrath and his love, so we don't cheapen his love, and so we don't turn God into Dawkins' stereotype. This balance is struck by Paul in some important verses in his letter to the Romans, on which note we will finish.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
Romans 5.6-9 (ESV)
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