refluctuations

Dear Richard Dawkins

2009-10-22T09:54:00.004+02:00

It wouldn’t be quite honest
If I now began to lecture
Like I’d never thought my faith
Was psychological conjecture.
It might just sound too confident
And even slightly proud
Not to mention that I question
And have harboured many a doubt.

Yet call it mere naivety
And bash me with your claims;
I believe that having thought
I’ve simply thought again.
I understand the principles
Of all there is to teach,
But there’s a kind of knowledge
Which your method doesn’t reach

Although we’re in a galaxy
Surrounded by the stars
And all of human history
Flies by like racing cars;
There’s something in our friendships
And something in our scars
That makes us feel eternal,
That makes us haunt the past

So though you try to tell me
That it’s all a case of genes
Just elbowing their neighbours
And driving our machines
I submit that - spite our selfishness
And independent dreams -
We’re longing for relationship;
Our lungs are full of screams

Shouting out against reduction
Of our human enterprise
To simple reproduction
And mutation’s chance surprise
I’ll admit that we are tiny
I’ll admit the world is large
But I won’t accept your doctrine
For it contradicts my heart.

It may be that a herd-instinct
Prepared our good-night-kiss
And all our dating games
Are simply mating with a twist
But to boil down our relationships
To chemical reactions
Is to turn us into robots
With pre-determined actions

All the tragedies of history
All the countless slaughtered crowds
Cannot hear a helpful answer
For the pain is just too loud.
But to simply shrug ones shoulders
At an accident of time
Seems to mock our deep conviction
That there’s such a thing as crime

So I won’t bow at the altar
Of the atheist confession
Just because it turns out nifty
For a simple explanation.
It would be cold betrayal of
Humanity’s experience,
Not to mention break my heart and put
A scar across my conscience

For all the work you’ve done
To rescue us from superstition
I’ve got to take my hat off,
Mention my appreciation.
Yet I cannot help but think
That you’ve a frightening omission;
That the fullness of our being
Can’t be seen through an equation

I truly can prove nothing
By my simple observations
Yet many great men in the world
Have followed invitations
To ask about the meaning of
Our world, our lives’ own chapters
To let the sense of the divine
Fill our poor souls with rapture

So listen to the music
Hear the sound of distant drums
Beating out a holy rhythm
Calling us to come on home
I confess: it all means something,
There’s a goal for which we strive
There’s a Father who is waiting
For his children to arrive

I heart N.T. Wright

2009-07-18T22:08:00.006+02:00

If you are not a theologian, don't read this or you'll get a headache. If you're a theologian, you might get a headache anyway.

Ok... while I don't feel it's my calling to worship every word that comes from the mouth of the Bishop, I've had enough of the dearly bearded N.T. "Tom" Wright getting burnt at the proverbial stake for his good, helpful New Testament work. My small confession: I've read several of his major books, starting with NTPG, JVG, RSG (partly), SBH, P:FP, Justification and wrote my undergraduate diss comparing his eschatology with Joseph Ratzingers.

The poor battered bishop works with the texts of the New Testament and (shock horror!) sometimes he finds himself giving the odd historic confession a tweak. I think that's what the altprotestantische Orthodoxie called sola scriptura. Anyway, I digress.

What bothers me most is the unfairness of several of his reviewers. Two short and sour examples of people who know far more than me about lots and lots, but are nevertheless to be scolded for their stubborn bumptiousness, are:

Paul Helm (systematic theologian):

"[Wright] routinely thinks of tradition as constraining what is thought in the present, and so anything ‘traditional’ must be rejected or at least viewed with suspicion. (eg 135, 223, and many other places.)”

This is a horrible distortion of what Wright actually wrote on p. 135:

“Part of me recoils from having to question this traditional reading… because I can see a great truth underneath the claim being made… but … we must pay attention to the text…” (Justification, p. 135)

Gerald Bray (systematic theologian):

"... [Wright's] grand picture does not do justice to the
New Testament, where the use of the word ‘justification’ and its many cognates
cannot bear the meaning of ‘covenant faithfulness’ that Bishop Wright attaches
to it." (review of 'Justification' in the Churchman, p.102)

This short sentence reveals lots about Bray's knowledge of Wright's work. Wright does not attach the meaning "covenant faithfulness" (CF) to the word "justification and its many cognates". Wright applies this meaning specifically to "the righteousness of God" (dikaiosune theou). According to Wright, justification is a lawcourt image of God declaring someone to be dikaios, "in the right" - i.e. he's in line with standard reformation thought. That God justifies, declares to be just, is never denied by, rather taught by Wright. The point of contention is whether there is a thing called "God's / Christ's righteousness" which gets transferred across the courtroom. Wright sees this as a 16th/17th Century abstraction of a biblical truth. The problem? Simply: the confessions of the 16th and 17th centuries are written into the constitution of some modern theological colleges/groups. Oops a daisy.

Any reader of Wright will know this, and Bray's sloppy sentence has destroyed much of his credibility when writing / mud-slinging on this topic.

End of rant.

Check out the ntwrightpage.com for lots of his articles
and this blog from some students discussing his work.

free to minister

2009-07-14T19:22:00.004+02:00

"No secret of Christian ministry is more important than its fundamental God-centredness. The stewards of the gospel are primarily neither responsible to the church, nor to its synods or leaders, but to God himself. On the one hand, this is a disconcerting fact, because God scrutinizes our hearts and their secrets, and his standards are very high. On the other hand, it is marvellously liberating, since God is a more knowledgable, impartial and merciful judge than any human being or ecclesiastical court or committee. To be accountable to him is to be delivered from the tyranny of human criticism."

John Stott, The Message of Thessalonians, p. 51f.

rock with you

2009-07-02T18:29:00.001+02:00

God's reign

2009-02-24T22:11:00.007+01:00

Andy asked me at the Coffee Bible Club if I would say something about God's reign and human freedom. According to the motto "Mistakes are signs of growth" (M. Yaconelli), I will venture to say something:

1a The reality of human responsibility is a big assumption woven into Scripture's stories
1b The reality of God's reign is a big assumption woven into Scripture's stories
1c The expressions of both of these realities have the character of humble confession, and not of dispassionate assertion

2a These realities seem to collide in the context of the persecution of God's people by unbelievers like Pharaoh
2b In such situations of oppression, faith confesses hope in the continuing reign of God
2c This gives birth to the talk of reprobation in some isolated cases (Pharaoh, 1 Pet 2,8)
2d Therefore these isolated cases are best understood as fruit of the confession of the continuing reign of God, and not as an assertion of a general fact of reprobation

3a God's people confess that they have become God's people due to God's grace and work alone
3b The emphasis on the election of God's people by grace is strong and widespread in the stories of Scripture
3c The emphasis on the hopeless inability of God's people to be God's people according to their own strength or willpower is strong and widespread in the stories of Scripture
3d These emphases give birth to the talk of God's choice, because this gives God the glory for all the good work of his Spirit in dark hearts
3e Therefore talk of God's choice is best understood as a confession of faith in the lostness of man and in the love and power of God's Spirit, and not as an assertion of an abstract fact

4a Turning the bible into a book about election and reprobation distorts the bible's story
4b The bible is about the holy creator God whose will is to bless all people in all nations, particularly (although not exclusively) through people who live in special covenant with him.
4c soli deo gloria

On the Sacraments

2009-02-08T20:54:00.004+01:00

I once read an article by someone who had had an incredibly low view of the sacraments as a young Christian. His view had been challenged and changed by reading Calvin's Institutes on the topic, which had lead him back to the way Paul talks about things in the New Testament.

So I thought I'd share some of the good things I discovered there:

It seems to me that a simple and proper definition would be to say that it is a outward sign by which the Lord seals on our consciences the promises of his good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith...

Calvin's got a bit of a reputation for being a scary chap, but - without wanting to defend all his theology - something that strikes me about his writing is that he's very aware of his own weakness and of the gentleness of God with battered saints. What a great way of thinking about the sacraments: the whole point is to strengthen our feeble selves. Check out his descriptions of our faith, and of God:

As our faith is slight and feeble unless it be propped on all sides and sustained by every means, it trembles, wavers, totters and at last gives way. Here our merciful Lord, according to his infinite kindness, so tempers himself to our capacity that, since we are creatures who always creep on the ground, cleave to the flesh, and, do not think about or even conceive of anything spiritual, he condescends to lead us to himself even by these earthly elements.

Those quotes are from Book 4 Chapter 14: 1 and 3 of the Institutes. This counts as one of my two contributions to the Calvin-Year thing, by the way :) The second is a poem, here.

Bus adverts

2009-01-19T19:39:00.004+01:00

Cartoonist Noel Ford comments on the atheist bus campaign... classic!!!:

HT: Dan Hames

Why Christians are not pro-Israel

2009-01-14T09:59:00.005+01:00

In Summer 2006, as Israel and Lebanon were embroiled in a short war, I wrote a polemic post called: Why Christians are not pro-Israel. I think it was too polemic, but I believe the theological argument still stands up to scrutiny. Christians are certainly pro-Jewish (in the sense of having a deep respect and awe for those people who share the same roots of faith), but certainly not pro-Israel (in terms of blind support for a modern state).

My argument doesn't concern the "right" of modern states to defend themselves against attacks etc. My argument is a theological one, born out of living in Germany, where post-Holocaust theology has done some strange things with some Christians, leading to the belief that the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 is a sort of eschatological signpost which fulfills the Old Testament promises concerning the land.

The theme of "the Land" is completely redefined in the New Testament. Firstly it is spiritualised: The hope for a land is now the hope for God's "rest/peace" (Heb 4) and secondly it is universalised: the call of Joshua to "take the land" which belongs to God's people can now only be understood as a call for God's people, now gathered around the Messiah, to fill the space of "all peoples" (Mt 28) with the sound of the gospel.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

renaissance and relevance 2c: the timeless story

2008-11-21T20:13:00.005+01:00

One of the questions I'm asking of the various theologies doing the rounds is whether they resemble the bible's witness. However, the question of what a 21st century "biblical" theology looks like has caused me to wander off and explore multiple issues surrounding the concepts of revelation (hence the multi-part answers! 1; 2a; 2b). This time I’m thinking about how ancient bible texts could be “timeless”. Warning: This post is long and theological.

Christian theology is based on the claim that both New and Old Testament are in some sense a trustworthy source for our knowledge about salvation in Jesus Christ. These texts are time-bound because they are ancient (see 2b: the time-bound story) But if we don't reject the possibility of God revealing himself through time-bound texts on principle, the New Testament's implicit authority and claim that the Old Testament texts somehow speak to new generations yet to be born, can be explored.

In what sense do texts bridge the divide?
The NT reflects on the way the OT functions. Our interpretation of Scripture is surely "christological" (Lk 24,27), and certainly of a different quality as we are led by the Spirit (2 Cor 3,15-16).

But this still doesn't answer the "how" question very well. The NT sees the OT encouraging, endurance-inspiring, warning, correcting, teaching and training Christians, today (1 Tim 3,16; Rom 15,4; 1 Cor 10:11; Heb 3,7ff) So it seems to me that the way the OT functions is that we, addressed as the people of God, are "asked" by Scripture to think and feel our way into the situation of God's people then and apply this to our lives.

If this is the way Scripture is meant to function, then the explanation of the context of Scripture for its original hearers will play an important role. We have to "get inside" the hopes and fears of the exodus-people, wandering in the desert. This time-bound message, addressed to an ancient people, becomes a timeless message when we let God address us as the people of God and identify with them - in this sense, the words were not just written for them, but for us. (Romans 4:23-24).

Systematizing Scripture today
If God has chosen to reveal himself and witness to his great acts in time-bound texts, then there is a sense that our systematic theology should reflect something of the narrative of Scripture. Themes like Creation, Exodus, Covenant, Exile should shape our systematic theology. The bible just isn’t “Calvin all messed up”; God chose to go the “messed-up”, time-bound way. Whilst system is good, because it means we get some orientation, systematic theology should be “narrative” in some sense, which means: “it tells the story.”

In this sense, Christian theology doesn’t have to reinvent itself all the time. The story we have is something given. This is an important starting point, the basis of all the hard work of contextualisation. Christian theology will always involve talking about something given.

Yet in analogy to our discussion of revelation earlier (2b), systematic theology today must be a time-bound, 21st-Century systematic theology if it is to communicate to a particular people in a particular time and place – systematic theology is in this sense dependent upon the culture it speaks into whilst offering a critique of the culture.

The desire to be “relevant” is in this sense justified because time-bound Scripture "wants" to speak to generations yet unborn. For this reason, while the results of some of the most liberal theologians end up being too far removed from the story of Scripture, their drive to communicate the faith to their own generation needs to be honoured.

So how do we discern what is in tune with Scripture and what is horribly discordant?

The role of the Holy Spirit
Should we forget methods here? … A good point to be made here is that the Holy Spirit opens blind eyes and deaf ears to understand what God wants to say through Scripture to each new generation. Yet this good point can be pushed to such an extreme that all method is rejected and the interpretation becomes entirely subjective. The work of the Holy Spirit is not so much on the level of giving us "new information" but about him giving us a "new heart."

An entirely subjective interpretation (“the Holy Spirit told me it means X”) means that no-one’s argument can hold any sway with me. This can be potentially tyrannous, because then the "right" interpretation cannot be patiently argued for any more – it can only be defined or promoted by the strongest, the loudest, or the most popular.

Trusting in the work of the Holy Spirit, the task of interpretation is hard work and involves proposals and arguments and counter-arguments!

The idea of Christ as the centre of the Scriptures
One method of interpretation that has been particularly popular since Luther is the idea that Scripture and the doctrine we find in it can be measured by the principle that Scripture has a centre: Jesus Christ. Using this method, Luther relegated James and Hebrews to the back of his bible, because they weren’t “central” enough.

The statement as it stands is correct – Scripture is about Jesus Christ. But the statement can be misused. It suddenly becomes very easy to say "this or that part of your theology does not correspond to Christ – let’s chuck it out”. Yet the definition of “Christ” has already been defined along the lines of (say) South American liberation theology, British conservative evangelical theology, or German liberal Enlightenment theology.

We need to check to see if our Christ-lens is not just an Enlightenment-Christ-lens or a Southern Baptist-Christ-lens or a Liberation-Theology-Christ-lens and realise that the formal principle of all theologies is Scripture, because, with the exception of a few lines by a few ancient historians, all we know of Christ is in Scripture.

So the idea of “Christ as the centre”, while remaining a helpful way of approaching the Scriptures, particularly in regards to the Old Testament, doesn’t provide us with a short-cut method in the hard task of interpretation and discernment. The idea can indeed be simply a way of sidelining a very important part of the story.

The role of Tradition
So what could help us to discern, methodically? When starting out on this task of interpretation, it’s a bit much to jump straight from the 21st Century back to the texts. The good news is that we’re not the first to try and jump back and understand the texts.

Our method of interpretation isn't entirely objective – we start with our own presuppositions and we stand on the shoulders of giants - we live in a tradition. And we rest on that tradition - not that we don't question it – the various traditions of the church are contradictory, so we must question them. But we rest on tradition - we live in it. Interpretation involves standing in the river of tradition – one can’t pretend to be the first person to have read the bible.

So if the story is timeless – if it speaks to all generations – it is always in light of and in awareness of tradition. The Protestant standard of “sola scriptura” (Scripture alone) is not about throwing away tradition - if we do that, we do not have any reference points - we have no language to build on. Sola scriptura means that Scripture alone is that which fundamentally corrects and reshapes all tradition. It means that the church is semper reformanda – always reforming.

After all that, I should draw this post to a suitable close.

Conclusion: a triple-listening
(in conscious dependence upon John Stott, who basically said the same thing):

Our theology will be listening to the story the time-bound texts tell, helping us to identify with the people of God. Our theology will be listening to the way the story has been heard over centuries past by the people of God. And our theology will be listening to the stories the world has to tell so that we can re-tell God’s story and understand what it means to be God’s people today.

Coincidentally, recently I was made aware of a new “narrative” statement of faith composed by The Crowded House. Perhaps it will inspire others - see what you think!

convers community

2008-11-03T15:26:00.002+01:00

Here's a group who want to be a blessing in the ex-communist regions of Germany.

http://www.24-7shorts.com/ Check out the short video: "Prayer as fellowship"

Thanks bro for the tip.

Kiwi Chronicles: Jesus is for Losers

2008-10-23T10:51:00.003+02:00

Andy in New Zealand has hit the nail on the head with this post.

"I'm a loser,
you're a loser
and we are not OK."

A very helpful parody of Thomas Harris' transactional analysis gospel, IMO.

renaissance and relevance 2b: the time-bound story

2008-10-17T20:45:00.002+02:00

One of the ‘problems’ with creating a systematic theology is the cultural gap between our world and the worlds of the texts. How do I get from an ancient text to a 21st Century theology? Can a time-bound text be timeless, i.e. speak to all people, everywhere, in every generation?

time-bound and timeless?
One of the consequences of studying texts in their context is the impression you get of how specific they are, how directed they are to the people the author wanted to communicate to then. (A modern example would be, the phrase “big brother.” Before George Orwell’s book 1984, I assume people would have taken it literally. Afterwards, it meant something like “the non-liberal government system.” Nowadays “Big Brother” is a liberal TV Producer with a friendly cheeky character who only pretends to be strict.)

If a text is very specific, even “time-bound” then the text is in a sense dependent upon the surrounding culture. For example: ‘sacrifice’ only has symbolic worth in a culture which at least understands the concept in some primitive way. The “history-of-religions” school jumped on this and showed how texts are bound up in their culture and proposed that each text can be seen as a snapshot of the evolution of a religion. This does seem to make the concept of revelation less “special”, less “from God”, because the texts are so "limited" to the culture - yes, so “human.”

So does the dependence of a text upon its surrounding human culture exclude the possibility of talking about God revealing himself through a text, even it being in some sense “God-breathed”?

One of the interesting points to be made here is that if God is to reveal himself in any personal way (i.e. communicate), then his revelation of himself has to be specific and time-bound. If he didn’t reveal himself in a particular time and place with a particular language in a particular culture then he would not be communicating at all.

Revelation must then, by its very nature, be specific and time-bound. So I've not answered my question: "Can a time-bound text be timeless revelation?" However, I have suggested that revelation has to be time-bound, unless we are talking about a sort of ambiguous general revelation in nature.

By all accounts, the New Testament is not about a vague general revelation, but about God's special revelation - about Jesus Christ - the image of the invisible God. The claim is: Generally, we don't know God, but God has made himself specifically known in Jesus Christ.

Someone might reject this claim because they reject the possibility of God being a living God, who might act and speak at all. But that is merely a dead dusty deism - God can't challenge everything I've ever known. As I've alread emphasised, my theology can only be a theology of the living God.

So having conceded the possibility of a speaking, acting God, rejecting Scripture as revelation merely because it has a humble, lowly and time-bound form means rejecting the possibility of the living God communicating at all with humble, lowly, time-bound creatures.

renaissance and relevance 2a: the big story

2008-10-15T21:41:00.004+02:00

One of the questions I'm asking of the different theologies doing the rounds is how they correspond to the bible's content and storyline.

what does being 'biblical' mean?
There's a lot to be said here for a good degree of caution in this regard.

- It's far too easy to forget about the assumptions we bring when we read texts - to forget that we have our own "glasses" on, which have not only been shaped by our culture, but also by our personal experience.
- It's also fairly easy to string together bible verses and present a fast-food systematic theology by working deductively - starting with ideas and looking for proof-texts.
- Yet there's a sense in which this has to be our approach to texts. What I mean is: We have to start with what we already know and work with analogy to come to a new understanding. Just as we start learning language with the category "apple" and later find out about "golden delicious" and "granny smith", so we start with our own category "love" when we read the bible for the first time. This gets developed as we read more. Perhaps we manage at first to find proof texts which back up our definition, but as time goes by our definition gets challenged and changed. This process takes time.
- Because proof-texting can be too easy, judging competing theologies should not be like ten-pin-bowling (i.e. "I've got a verse which knocks you out!"), but more like a glacier forming a valley (i.e. "This has got significant weight and momentum from the whole of scripture and that rock over there is going to be well and truly worn away!")

jugendtreffen

2008-10-12T12:58:00.003+02:00

Dear German-speakers,
I've started blogging auf Deutsch again, inspired by the youth conference in Tabor.
Liebe Grüße,
Sam

renaissance and relevance 1: the living God

2008-09-29T21:42:00.005+02:00

I'm having something of an "old-school" renaissance at the moment. For me, old-school means the evangelical authors I read lots of during my time at Uni in England, particularly John Stott.

At college in Germany, we're thinking hard about how to make our theology relevant, often that means trying to understand the way other people think - studying the views of all sorts of different theologians, particularly those who are in no sense evangelical.

Although I've still got most of my last year left, there's a sense in which this renaissance and reflection is causing me to weigh up what I've heard from all these dissonant voices and try and work out the direction I want to go in.

There are several criteria which seem to me to be helpful in expressing how my thinking is, regarding these various theologies.

Is it about the living God?
Does it resemble the bible's witness and "take in all the data"?.
Does it build up the church?
What sort of people does it produce?

These questions are not as direct as simply asking "is it true" - but they are more appropriate because human theologies do tend to be a mixed bag - no-one's got everything right. Nevertheless there's a sense in which you can judge the flavour of a theology by asking these sorts of questions.

I'm going to try and talk about these questions over the next few posts. First up is:

The living God
I understand the problems caused by people trying to prove God's "existence" as if he were just another force in the laws of physics. This "force-god" ended up becoming incredibly small as scientific knowledge increased (which is why I think "Intelligent Design" will end up creating similar problems).

I also think that prolonged study of God from a birds-eye view makes you think that God is unimpressive or even non-existent. If you have a sort of "table-football" way of looking at God and the world then there's a sense in which God becomes just another plastic figure on the pitch.

There are all sorts of theologies which result from this table-football god. Most of the time it means that the "Managers" doing the theology are incredibly clever and impressive having studied the table-football pitch for so long in all sorts of languages. They certainly seem more impressive than the table-football god, who is merely another plastic figure, and as a result, their "schools" are full.

The difference between these sorts of theology and tasty, full-flavoured theology is that theology proper is about knowing the living God. The more biblical way of putting it is perhaps "being known by God" - that's better because it gives you the sense that the knowing is first and foremost about being taken up into something - someone bigger than oneself. Theology is not about studying table football. Theology is about being on the pitch and smelling the grass, heaving and panting after the ball and feeling the sting of the mud in the graze on your knee. You know nothing about the world outside the game. You're playing. And God encounters you. You don't see him coming, but when he speaks or acts it rearranges your world.

Considering all he has done to awaken my heart to love hearing him speak through the bible, answer specific prayers and confound me with sovereign coincidence, all the rebellion and self-centredness I have to offer seems incredibly ugly. But that's not the point - we are ugly and warped without him, but he is a God who loves to give grace.

Theology has got to be about the living God - the God who might just pull the rug from under your feet - the God who might make a bush burst into flames before your eyes (forget the table: you're on the pitch...) - the God who might raise someone from the dead.

lighthouses and communities of light II

2008-09-22T08:44:00.002+02:00

Following my last post about church, I want to quote Tim Chester reflecting on the importance of churches being communities of light rather than big impressive lighthouses:

I was told while in the States of a church that has an annual budget for its Sunday morning meeting - which the staff refer to as ‘the show’ - of $1.5 million (£750,000). I don’t even want to do the maths on how may church planters in the India that would fund - it would be too depressing.

nuff said.

The God who chased me

2008-09-03T22:23:00.001+02:00

I've just been looking at Paul's conversion. It's moved me immensely.

Right at the beginning of the church, the disciples have been dispersed by persecution. In Acts, a villain gets introduced: Paul approved of Stephen's execution - Paul was ravaging the church, dragging Christians off to prison. (8:1-3).

But the villain is conquered by the appearance of the Lord Jesus. Jesus doesn't invite him to believe; he overwhelms and conquers Paul to bring him to faith, to command his allegiance. Three things moved me in particular about all this.

Firstly the sheer grace of it all. In 1 Cor 15:8, Paul calls himself a "miscarriage" (ektroma), because he is not worthy to be called an apostle, having persecuted the church. It's a terrible picture. Apparently that was a sort of insult. I guess Paul's saying "actually this shouldn't have happened - this sort of thing doesn't happen - I shouldn't even be alive. But Jesus called me. God chased me and gave me a glorious task." With this world of insult applied to himself, something of the Paul's conviction shines through. He stares you straight in the face and says: "My past is horrific - I'm not going to hide it. But Jesus met me." Sheer grace.

A second element in the story is the first contact Paul has with the church after his experience on the Damascus road. God speaks in a dream to a Christian called Ananias in Damascus and tells him to go and pray for the restoration of Paul's sight. Ananias hesistates because he knows Paul's reputation. But God tells Ananias that Paul is God's chosen instrument to take the gospel to the Gentiles. What moves me here is the first words which Ananias speaks to Paul. Paul has been sanctioning the killing of Christians and throwing men and women into jail. But Ananias enters the room, lays his hands on Paul to pray for him and speaks: "Brother Paul, the Lord Jesus has sent me..." Brother! That means: We are family. I love you as my own. You belong to us. The person who resists and fights and argues against everything Christian is turned around and enthralled by Jesus - taken over by Jesus. It's sheer grace, and God's family welcomes him.

This story of Paul's conversion becomes renowned among the churches. They heard, "He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." And they praised God because of it. (Gal 1:23f). The whole thing leads to praise and encouragement. And what an encouragement: God has purposes and he works wonders.

Sure, Emperor Nero didn't become a Christian, and the persecutions raged. It's not like a happy ending. Indeed, part of Ananias message to Paul is "how much he must suffer" in his task of carrying the gospel out. (Acts 9,16). God's ways remain inscrutable. But he has his purposes, and every now and then he gives us a glimpse of his work. He is chasing people. And that's why the story moves me. God is the God who chased me.

lighthouses and communities of light

2008-08-27T12:09:00.004+02:00

Reflecting on my summer placements of the last two years, I stumbled upon this video, an interview with Steve Timmis. If churches are expressions of Jesus' light in this world, then how should our churches be?

For more see the TCH values.

Inspiration and Incarnation

2008-04-28T23:29:00.003+02:00

I reviewed Peter Enns' book about the Old Testament a couple of years ago, and now he's been suspended from the college where he teaches because he's not "biblical" enough. It's striking that the loudest critics of his book are people who aren't involved in Old Testament Studies - Enns has simply been paying careful attention to the text, letting the text question our traditions!

this is abortion

2008-01-28T13:56:00.000+01:00

Because you can't pretend this isn't happening.

follow my leader

2008-01-10T13:35:00.000+01:00

This week I watched two films about leaders, and in a week I've got a modern church history exam. This combination got me thinking...

This is England tells the story of 12-year-old misfit Shaun who finally finds acceptance from a skinhead gang in the north of England, at the beginning of the 80s. Apart from a trip down memory-lane (80s games, music, sweets, fashion) the story is about how the gang takes a turn for the worse when a charismatic ex-convict Combo turns up again after his stint in jail. Under his leadership, the young kids get mixed up in the National Front scene.

Combo isn't just nasty. He's jealous, disappointed, heart-broken, fatherless - in one sense, you can see straight through him. Yet through his bullying tirades he gains the support of some young kids who don't know much better, and they end up on the brink of a world of racist violence.

Bobby came to me highly recommended, and I pass the recommendation on. A ridiculously star-studded cast play 22 characters entwined in events surrounding the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, all staying in the same grand hotel. The characters are well-developed in a short space of time, each character giving insight into the different milieus and culture at the end of the sixties in America. Robert F. Kennedy plays himself in TV speeches and press coverage of the election campaign. What makes the story so tragic, is that you get the impression that he was a great man. In a day and age of vitriolic cynicism, this must sound incredibly naive, but the things he was saying, and the way he was saying them just seemed incredibly right. "America should a country known for its selflessness." That, I thought to myself, is leadership. And then this man gets gunned down.

Part of my modern church history module has included an analysis of “das Dritte Reich” and the way my college reacted. Sometimes in Christian circles a picture is painted that the “bad liberal” people follow the crowd, whereas the “faithful conservative” people swim against the current of the trends in society. However, the truth is far more complex. The front page of a “good, conservative” Christian Alcoholics Anonymous journal from the 1930s carried a full-size photograph of Hitler with the headline: “He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke…” and goes on to talk about why Christians should support the “Führer” who reads the bible and prays. Hitler talked privately with his close circle of supporters about his plans to eradicate the church… but he played the part and so most Christians thought, “Here is finally someone who stands up for traditional morals,” not recognising the direction of his home and foreign policy. "Here's a leader with Christian values - we should vote for him."

Choosing a leader is more complex than the headlines make it out to be. "One-issue" voting is temptingly simple, but is it wise? It makes you think: What will historians say about our society in 100 years time? Where are our blind spots? What do we casually ignore?

In this regard: God bless America!

beautiful people

2008-01-01T19:27:00.000+01:00

The gospel makes people more attractive. This doesn't mean something ridiculous like "Christians are always amazingly attractive" - some people who have called themselves Christians have said/done/encouraged evil things like killing muslims, killing jews, killing other-flavoured Christians. But that's not my point. I said that the gospel makes people more attractive - the story of Jesus, the message, the teaching, makes people more attractive. Not: people who are Christians are amazing, wonderful people. First of all, they were not. If they are now, then it's because they have been made beautiful. Sure they've listened to the teaching, but it's the teaching that has the pzazz, and not the listener. And the bible talks about God's words/God's voice / God's Spirit opening deaf ears to be able to hear. Being made whole by God is "extra nos" outside us - HE does the healing - HE makes ugly things beautiful.

Here's an example from my friend Andy of a Kurdish man being made beautiful by the gospel.

God is alive

2007-12-04T21:17:00.000+01:00

... I've just been reflecting upon the fact that in the last few posts I've been wittering on about church details and inner-christian discussions.

Over the last few days I have been struck by how important it is to say the most simple things - that the most simple things are the things which make the biggest difference to my life. One of these things is:

God is alive.

In the days of Richard Dawkins making ridiculous attempts to make Christians poo in their pants by writing books saying that "it is almost certain that God does not exist", I stand as a witness to say: he IS there. God is a living God - that means he "writes" our lives - he is there, in control, he's wise and good. Faith is the only way to live.

The summer is over - part 2

2007-11-01T19:12:00.000+01:00

I promised a second part of my reflections upon my summer in Sheffield. Meanwhile many other things are on my mind but the discipline of summarising and ordering my thoughts is usually worthwhile. The topics I want to talk about are sacrificial living and pastoral care.

Sacrificial living
Something that impressed me about the Christians I met in Sheffield was their principled, thought-through approach to life. Principled sounds boring and strict, but I don’t mean that. In this case it means: if it’s important that people become disciples of Jesus (the principle) then this should determine the way I live. In practice this means: I am sacrificially loving, I am welcoming, I put others first.
In our day and age, self-denial is seen to be something psychologically unhealthy – we think of an old woman who has thanklessly laboured all her life but is filled with grudging fury because of all the life she’s missed out on. It’s the opposite of freedom – a person chained by bitterness.
In contrast to this we see the life of Jesus. He celebrated parties and ate with people and had compassion on them and got angry with them – yet all of his life was lived in obedience and his mission determined the way he lived. “Look at his life, look at his way of living… Can you still say the holy life is a small, narrow one? Do you believe he was just an apology of a man… because he did not do the various things that men claim are ‘life’ in the real sense today?” (M. Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ (Crossway 2002), p.322).
A person who denies himself is an expression of humanity at its most rich and beautiful. The key issue in all this is that the self-denial does not lead to bitterness. That’s what makes the difference. Self-denial is only truly healthy and good when it comes from faith – faith in God’s sovereign care and goodness. In the security of the knowledge of God’s love, it’s possible to love others.
Examples of this abounded in Sheffield – particularly striking was a group of young graduates who had committed themselves to living on a housing estate with a bad reputation for the sake of the progress of the gospel. Instead of living in a trendy graduate area and socialising exclusively with doctors and teachers, they go to the local pub and are building relationships with people completely different to themselves – all things to all people, in order that they may win some. I was fascinated by the sacrifices individuals had made. The only thing that will keep them going and make them joyful is trust in God’s sovereign care. And that leads to my next point…

Pastoral care
Pastoral care can be understood in all sorts of ways, but most often one associates a counselling session. The concept comes from the idea that God as a good shepherd uses his people to shepherd his people. Pastoral care is therefore much more than counselling sessions. It’s about how the people of God are to be encouraged, comforted, corrected, helped and rebuked in their everyday lives so that they persevere and trust in God's sovereign care. A quick glance towards 2 Tim 3:16 and Rom 15:6 make it crystal clear that pastoral care is in its essence a ministry of the word. This doesn’t mean that in every situation we are to quote a bible verse. It means that caring for people’s souls, to write in a very old-fashioned way, is about sensitively and skilfully applying God’s word to people’s lives. What impressed me at TCH was the emphasis on the sinfulness of our hearts and misplaced faith as the root of emotional and spiritual problems. As a result the remedy is speaking the truth in love to one another and calling to repentance. This struck me as being very biblical, and very different to what I see in popular German evangelical media.
In this brand of evangelicalism, the idea of pastoral care being a word ministry is honoured and applied. The difference is the goal and content of pastoral care. I have often heard the phrase “you are valuable”. The key problem and diagnosis is seen to be low self-esteem. If someone has anorexia, the problem is low self-esteem; they should learn to love themselves as they are. If someone is depressed, the problem is low self-esteem: one should emphasise all the good characteristics they possess. “God is proud of you,” says the evangelist, “just as you are!”
It’s at this point that I pull on the emergency brake handle and say: “I wanna get off!” That ain’t the gospel. The gospel doesn’t tell us that really, deep within our hearts, we’re valuable. The gospel tells us that really, deep within us, we’re sinful, but that God has decided to love sinners, running towards them to welcome them back, giving them a huge hug, putting a ring on their finger (signifying: you belong to me!) and sitting down to eat a feast with them. The love is undeserved – the news of God’s love doesn’t make me think “oh, I can’t be that bad, God loves me” but rather “God loves me – he is sooooooo merciful!”

The goal of pastoral care is not to get someone to start believing “I am valuable.” Rather the aim is to magnify God – he is valuable, wonderfully merciful. He loves the unlovely. And that's good news - that's the kind of love which inspires sacrificial living.

Next time: Spirituality

the summer is over - Part 1

2007-09-10T17:42:00.000+02:00

After a spell of radio silence, I am going to tell some of the tale of my big long summer. As I write, the new semester has just begun, which means many classes have laid the emphasis upon syllabus-reading. The syllabus-reading has revealed many interesting topics; this semester will be great.

On Saturday 1st September, my sister Hannah married Adam. It was a wonderful day; the church reverberated with singing and band-sounds, the bride and groom were stunning, the weather dry, the reception full of friends and family. I think they make a great couple. Someone put it very nicely: they seem to energise those around them.

The preceding week included our 2nd wedding anniversary. We celebrated with a couple of days staying next to the river Rhein, enjoying good food, fresh drizzly air and a concert with pieces by (slightly tormented) composers played by (incredibly serious) Russians. Our new flat (better value, closer to college) is great, especially due to the thought-through shelf strategy. I love well thought-through shelving.

Prior to all this, I spent six weeks in Sheffield with "The Crowded House" (TCH). This summer I was (happily) obliged to do a six week placement to get some experience of church life and expand my horizon. Having read Tim Chester's book "Good news for the poor", heard Steve Timmis speak and read some of their articles online, I was excited about seeing their values in action. TCH is a network of churches committed to small church and church-planting. If you don't know anything about them, the best start is to read their values.

I reflected upon all I experienced this summer and came up with a few things which have been impressed upon me and which I hope will stimulate thought for those who are used to a more traditional European church:

Small church
Hebrews 3:12-13 says “See to it, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart. Encourage one another daily, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” In short: By encouraging one another we are keeping each other’s hearts soft. This presumes that we are able to see each other’s hearts and to speak truth to each other. In a big church, this may still happen, but the sheer size of the congregation makes it much less likely to happen. It can only happen when people know each other, have a relationship of sorts with each other. In a big church where name badges would be needed to know the people's names, discipleship may just be limited to a sermon. If a church is to be making disciples properly, it has to be living as a “small church”.

Home church
Many churches have "home groups" which meet regularly to study the bible midweek to try and do just this. So what's different about TCH? I would answer by saying that there is a qualitative difference because the home group is seen as a church in its own right, with the conviction: sitting on sofas, fold-up chairs and piano stools, with a mug of tea in hand: "This is church." Many have asked me if these small churches meet with others at larger gatherings. The answer depends on the church. All have some sort of connection with the TCH network, and with a network prayer meeting. Some have a connection with another local home church. Other fledgling churches have stronger links with the "mother" church which birthed them. It's interesting to consider why people ask me the question. Is there sometimes the sense in which such a small church isn't quite "proper"? Is that church missing something?

The New Testament would seem to disagree. Each gathering of Christians is, in its own right, "the body of Christ". Not merely "a part of it". Each Christian is part of the body. When Christians gather, however few, Christ is fully present. In Corinth, it appears that the smaller house churches came together in larger gatherings. But in the metropolis Rome, there seems to be no indication of this. It all depends on the situation - but no small church is deficient by nature of its size.

Missional church
But why home church and not just home groups? I have a lot of time for home groups - they really seem to help the church function well as a network of people in relationships rather than an event or meeting you go to. Yet TCH has not chosen this route of merely emphasising "cell groups". Why?

TCH doesn't merely emphasise small church because small church is great. You can't understand TCH without understanding that it's a missional network. They don't want to organise Christians dissatisfied with traditional church into small churches, rather to evangelise their town and be a blessing to the communities in which they are based. Their ideas are, with a strong emphasis on God's sovereignty, strategic.

Firstly, TCH lays emphasis on "mission through community". God's design for the church is for it to be an attractive, counter-cultural, loving, merciful network of people in relationship with each other - people will know we belong to Jesus when we love each other. Grace is then not merely a doctrine, but what you see happening when Christians forgive each other. "Jesus is Lord" is what you discern from the lives of Christians, before you begin to read it in the bible. Mission is less event and more hanging-out, being normal - mission happens when Christians rub shoulders with non-Christians. Having small churches means people are exposed to Christian community rather than Christian events. Having church at home means the setting of church is something much more familiar. On Friday people from church might watch a DVD together, on Sunday they will eat and talk about the bible.

Secondly, if God gives growth, home churches are incredibly flexible and multipliable. When a big church wants to plant a congregation, then the accountant gets a phone call: "We need the pastor's salary, perhaps a youth worker too. The building should be welcoming and attractive to postmodern people, so let's get a good architect. We need some funds to get the mission of the church going. How much are we looking at?" A small home church whose living room is getting full doesn't need paid elders to plant, just some new envisioned leaders and another family who can open their home for church gatherings.

Homes and lives
One of the things that has struck me about the idea of small church is that if the paradigm shift from big church to small church is to take place, then a simultaneous paradigm shift has to take place in regard to how we view our homes and the concept of “visiting”.

My parents love telling the anecdote of how one of us children announced upon our grandparents’ arrival that “we knew you were coming, because Mum and Dad got the vacuum out”. Now there’s nothing wrong with cleaning up a bit before people come to visit, or keeping things generally tidy, for that matter. But if the “arrival” of our church family for a “visit” causes stress, then something is amiss. In TCH there’s a saying: what we’d do as a family, we do as church; what we wouldn’t do as family, we don’t do as church.” Churches in the TCH network consist of people generally living near to each other, so people can be in and out of each other’s houses. When the church family are gathered, they feel at home – they are not guests – they would make a pot of tea, finishing the washing up while you are putting your toddler to bed.

TCH is about small churches with a clear missional vision to impact the communities around them.

... in Part 2 ... sacrificial living, pastoral care, spirituality ...