Cross Friday - Stott on the Cross and Evil

One of my Christmas presents from my parents was John Stott's "Why I am a Christian" from my parents. Like pretty much anything by Stott, this is an absolute gem. In his chapter on the cross, he comments rightly that "In any balanced understanding of the cross, we shall confess Christ as saviour (atoning for our sins), as teacher (disclosig the character of God) and as victor (overcoming the powers of evil)", thereby disarming those who would seek to make those three facts about the cross stand against each other as opposing theories rather than complimenting facts.

After this, he comments on the fact that the cross has something to say about the problem of evil.

"Why am I a Christian? One reason is the cross of Christ. Indeed, I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross. It is the cross that gives God his credibility. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche (the nineteenth-century German philosopher) ridiculed as 'God on the cross'. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

In the course of my travels I have entered a number of Buddhist temples in different Asian countries. I have stood respectedfully before a statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, serene and silent, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each tim after a while I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged into God-forsaken darkness.

The crucified one is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us, duing in our place in order that we might be forgiven. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question-mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.

'The cross of Christ ... is God's only self-justification in such a world' as ours."
- John Stott, Why I am a Christian, pages 63-64

(The final line quotes P.T. Forsyth's "The Justification of God.")

Christmas and a learning disability home

I work with adults with severe learning disabilities, to the point where none of them can talk and only one of them can even speak vaguely (and even then doesn't really understand what she's saying). As you'll no doubt expect, this has been a very interesting experience. It's been quite thought provoking being around people who are a lot less powerful than me, who have relatively little that they can contribute to the world economically, and whose minds frankly just don't work properly. Several of them have been abandoned by their parents, and spent many of their years in a disabled home, meaning that they've also been significantly deprived relationally. They're as much people as you or I - but they don't seem to understand some things that to me seem very basic facts.

In fact, this experience led me to think about a number of things about what it means to be human, and what grace means, as I am around some of the most obvious examples of the brokenness of humanity. Although I don't think all of the residents are particularly unhappy (though a couple are), I would really hate to be like them. I would find it an enormous affront to my dignity to be fed by other people, to be showered by other people, and simply to be unable to think and learn in the way I can now. And that has a rather obvious application to Christmas.

In the incarnation, Jesus took on almost all of the weaknesses that my residents have, as he became a baby. Babies are something we have a category of how to relate to in our head, so we don't necessarily realise quite what that would have been like to experience. It would have been no less a weakness and an indignity than becoming one of my residents. Jesus chose not to use his attributes of omnipotence and onniscience - and instead chose to live out life with the limits not just of humanity, but of a human baby.

Not only did he live with the limits of a human baby, but of a broken human baby. The residents at my work are broken by the consequences of the fall and of sin in a rather obvious way - their learning disability. But while from our perspective that seems a particularly broken humanity, all human beings are very deeply broken. The effects of sin have gone deep into our minds and our souls. The fact that this has happened to all of us may immunise us from realising its severity, but it does not mean that it is not severe from God's point of view. Jesus did not sin, so he did not become a sinner, but he did become a human being that had been broken by sin - just by other people's sins, rather than His own. While for us, this might not seem like a huge thing, Jesus knew what humanity was really supposed to look like, and therefore saw our humanity was broken.

Jesus did more than this, though. He not only became a weak and limited baby, broken by human sin. He also did so from a position of unparalled greatness. Even if he had chosen to become greater than the greatest human being ever - think Superman-turned-immortal-world-emperor (without the Kryptonite weakness) - that would still be an enormous step downwards, something like me becoming a slug or a spider. Think what becoming a broken and weak human baby would be like.

People (includng myself) sometimes look upon a baby in a manger as something tame and cute. In fact, it is something at once quite disgusting, and quite amazing.

It shows how truly humble Jesus is to suffer such an indignity - as well as how passionate he was about the love of the glory of the Father who He did this for. It also shows us how greatly he loved human beings, that he would do this that they could become a church that lived in a peaceful and glorious loving relationship with Him.

And above all, it points towards the cross, where all of this is seen even more profoundly. Jesus' identification with our broken humanity reaches its greatest point and greatest awfulness and awesomeness, displaying the brokenness of humanity and the greatness of God all at once.

The Cross is our Theology

In an attempt to get this blog going again, I'm resolving to try to post every friday (I will call it "Cross Friday" in my keywords section) on some theological topic related to the cross. This may consist of my own reflection, or it may simply be a quote from someone else. I believe this will help me keep a focus upon the cross, which I believe will be helpful for me spiritually. I also believe that if I'm regularly posting anyway, I will be more likely to post at other times.

Since this is the first week, let us look at the importance of the cross.

In 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, we read:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

In this passage, we see knowing only "Jesus Christ and him crucified" contrasted with "lofty speech or wisdom." People sometimes misinterpret this passage to mean that we should not think about what we believe - asserting, for example, that irrational ideas are better than rational ones, or that it's better not to care about doctrinal issues other than ideas about salvation, or that it's saying that we should trust our experience over thought and wisdom...

On the contrary, this passage is not attacking thinking. It is making a statement about how and what we ought to think.

In the hellenistic culture the corinthians lived in, phrases like "lofty speech or wisdom" would have made people think immediately of greek philosophers. Philosophy literally means "love of wisdom," and by "wisdom" the corinthians would have automatically think (in a way that's lost on most 21st century readers) "the philosophers" - the specific philosophical schools that are popular at the time. This is also evident from the fact that it specifies "lofty speech or wisdom" - the philosophical schools taught "Rhetoric" as not just a subject, but often the most respected subject. So they were interested not just in specific ideas, but in how one argues those ideas. "Lofty speech" means more (or less) than just saying the right things - it means saying things in the right way. There were people in the ancient world who earnt a living by impressing audiences by wowing people by arguing powerfully for something one day, and then wowing them by arguing powerfully for the opposite thing the next day.

Paul, here, was defending the fact that he didn't look like these philosophers. He wasn't really trying to impress them with "lofty speech" or an appearance of "wisdom". He wasn't following the pagan "high-culture" that was around him, in order to gain a following. Instead, he was preaching "Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

That doesn't mean that all he was saying was "there was this bloke called Jesus, he was the Christ [ie the Messiah], and he was crucified." Rather, he's saying that his understanding of God - and thus of the whole of reality - is centered around and dependent upon God's revelation in Jesus Christ. All through the Pauline letters, we find Paul applying the truth about Jesus and the cross to all sorts of situations and questions. Indeed, we find that all through the New Testament. Paul goes on, straight after these verses, to insist that he does preach wisdom to those who are mature (not a wisdom of this age, but rather a wisdom of God.)

Paul isn't meaning that there's two separate things "Jesus Christ", as well as "him crucified" that he preaches - the two things are one. We can't see Jesus properly without the cross, because it was at the very heart of what Jesus was doing on earth - what Jesus was about - thus explaining its prominence in the New Testament. Equally, just "someone died and rose again" is pretty insignificant unless you know the person.

And out from this truth about Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, we learn all about God. We learn who God is, we learn how we relate to Him, and we learn how we ought to live as a result.

And that's why I've decided to begin "Cross Friday".

Found this interesting

J.K. Rowling speaks on the Christian themes of Harry Potter here - was an interesting piece.

My travels at Greenbelt!

I've just been to Greenbelt, a "Christian Arts Festival" of some sort or other. I just went, and this blog is a few thoughts off the back of it. I went with my liberal/anglo-catholic ish parents and my ickle sister.

To give a bit of background, Greenbelt is a seemingly formerly quite Schaefferian Christian festival. In accordance with the Schaefferian school of thought (or at least how it came to be in England, as I understand it - I wasn't alive in the 70's!), it emphasises Christian political action and a Christian approach to, and engagement with, the arts. It has, however, grown away from Schaeffer in the fact that it is no longer exclusively evangelical, and I would be very surprised to find a figure as conservative as Schaeffer himself teaching there.

It has, in fact, grown liberal to the point where there was a session arguing (very badly) that it doesn't really matter whether God exists for Christianity! There were evangelical teachers there, too - though none so conservative as someone like Schaeffer, or even - to my knowledge - someone as conservative as I (and I don't think I'm absurdly conservative theologically - though some may differ).

I mostly attended things related to third world poverty/climate change, since that's where I judged I'd learn most from the festival. For that reason, I very much doubt I have a proper hold on what the theology of the event was like overall.

Here were some thoughts I wanted to record for posterity, or rather think through enough to post some comments.

1) I thought a bit about truth/unity/grace/love and how they all fit together. It seems to me that there aren't too many people doing serious thought on this kind of thing. Most people seem to have a fairly unanalysed assumption either that we should be united with people (without really thinking through much the biblical importance of truth), or that we should not be united with people who differ with us on certain issues (without really thinking through the biblical importance of unity). The former seem to be much more common in popular circles (though less so among clergy etc) - and (probably because they're rarer), the latter seem to me to be more thought out (although sadly not so much as I would like.)

I think I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that much disagreement itself about organisational unity really actually undermines unity. (In saying that, I'm not saying that we don't need to have a debate, merely that the current way it is happening is harmful). In the New Testament, unity is primarily about unity of loving relationship. It seems that in much modern church circles, people who tend to want more organisational unity mostly do so in an arrogant, patronising, judgemental, and sometimes even downright offensive way (normally behind the backs of those who they're talking about) - thereby undermining any relationship of love.

Similarly, those who tend to want less organisational unity mostly talk in a very similar way about the other side (although less so, in my experience - which may well just simply be the outworking of being a minority today). I think unity of loving relationship is much much more valuable than closer bonds between organisations (which can only be of fairly insignificant importance) - and indeed is always of certain value, whereas organisational unity is more complex - and thus I would encourage my readers to evaluate their own heart and their own way of treating other people.

At the same time, I thought more about the fact that the situation is quite complex, and I would love to write a book on all the ins and outs of it! One thing I am increasingly confident of, though - the UCCF solution (ie the DB etc) to dealing with difficult theologies is the right one for CU's! They are definitely not the environment for difficult decisions like this to be resolved. CU's have both a limited remit, and leaders who are generally too young to be wise about these situations. It is not their responsibility to unite the church, and they don't have the wisdom to deal with false teaching, even in errors of other Christians (which the Bible actually takes very seriously - e.g. 1 Cor 3:13-15).

I hope I will come to some conclusions, and write a book on these issues one day (assuming someone good doesn't beat me to it!) For now, though, I would really urge readers of my blog to think seriously about these kinds of issues if they are ever going to be in any particular position to decide about them - and to really look at their bible, and not just the teaching they automatically side with (wherever on the 'spectrum' they are). Above all, I would ask my readers to seek to love those who disagree with them - and to do so without judging them for disagreeing with them. (But really, I suppose, I'm probably as guilty as anyone there, just blind to my own flaws. I hope my comments above are motivated by more than a judgemental spirit - and indeed would not post them if I thought that was all they were - but .)

2) John Smith is an AWESOME speaker! :) He was some aussie bloke who spoke on two things that I listened to - the idea of mcdonalisation of worship, and the environment. In reality, the first one - which I was expecting might be quite a dry conservative approach to worship - was about the idea that the forms should be modern, but that the church is worryingly close to making the substance like the modern world (he specifically talked about market ideology, though it goes for other things as well I think) as well as the form! Thought provoking, though I don't think he got nearly as nitty-gritty as I felt I would have liked.

He also spoke on Environmentalism and the trinity. I didn't care so much for this one, because I didn't quite get his gelling of the two together. He taught a good old doctrine of the social trinity, although there was little new there for me to chew on - but I'll cope, and it'd have been great for those who haven't spent a year obsessed with the ideas he was talking about. His envoromentalist teaching wasn't *great*, either.

3) I thought a bit about the left-wing stance of the festival as a whole. For those of you who don't know, I'm a member of the labour party, and am generally committed to supporting centre-left causes. I'm particularly committed to two of the key causes they were really pushing (reducing/ending third world poverty, and environmental issues.)

HOWEVER, I wasn't mad keen on the specific way that they were doing this. They seemed to not have much basis in theology or the gospel. I couldn't see much difference between this kind of protest, and the kind that could be achieved by a non-Christian.

I guess that serves as a challenge to many of us who are rightly committed to politics or poltical causes - to remember that we should be doing so out of a love of the God of Jesus Christ, and therefore . I know it served as a challenge to ME to try to further think through my approach to the poor etc in the light of Christian Truth.

(For what it's worth, Tim Chester is great on much of this - we had him talk on social action etc at Relay 2 and I loved him.

I really must read his Good News to the Poor and his Justice, Mercy, and Humility on that kind of thing.)

4) On a much less thoughtful note, I bumped into (name) a few times. Reminded me that she does seem like a really lovely person - genuinely warm and an interesting person, who cares a lot about the most important issues in the world. That's not particularly thoughtful, but I thought it might be a nice comment to mention in this note.

However, she did WALK OUT of a seminar on the poor in the third world. Tut tut tut (name), do you not care about poor people?

;P

5) Morna Hooker (a quite famous bible scholar) was good on the gospels. Some parts I disagreed with - particularly her minimising the historicity of many of the events - but she was very good on many elements, and consistently thought provoking (even where I don't agree, or don't think I agree). She was teaching on the beginnings of the gospels. First day she spoke on Mark, and mentioned, among other things, that is is basically a passion narrative with an extended introduction.....

6) .... I was sad to hear the next day a speaker state repetitively that the gospels are not passion narratives with extended introductions! I wanted to ask, "Which gospels are you reading?" The person was thinking this based upon the fact that we are supposed to imitate Christ, and (I suspect, from knowledge of related ideas, although I don't think she said this) an emphasis on the incarnation. The thing is, our imitation of Christ is supposed to be focused around the Christ of the Cross - the Cross should be central to our view of the Jesus that we imitate, hence Paul is always talking about morality connected to the cross (husbands, love your wives like Christ died for the church... be as humble as the Christ who came to earth to die... etc etc).

Very little of the gospels are about the things that we can imitate - aside from the passion, loads of it is taken up with healings (which we can't do), and teachings (which doesn't require an incarnation, just any wise person). Furthermore, the main argument in favour of the incarnation, contra Arius, etc, was "that which was not assumed cannot be redeemed" - that is, incarnation is logically dependent upon redemption, and therefore upon the cross. So of course there is value in the - but the speaker seemed to suggest (though I know not whether this was her intention) that this is *independent* of Him being the Christ of the Cross - which it is not.

As Martin Luther said, "The Cross is our Theology!"

7) Why are people so rude about politicians? One thing that particularly struck me was that thenever anyone said anything negative about a politician that was strongly worded, people would clap and cheer and generally make a lot of supportive noise. They wouldn't do the same if they said something positive that was equally strongly worded.

I was particularly shocked at this during a talk by Douglas Alexander (cabinet minister in charge of international development) - fine, support your causes, but why be so nasty? Cabinet Ministers have feelings, too. And they've (in this guys case, at least) also devoted their lives to understanding and promoting these kinds of causes that members of the public generally only support by condemning from their armchairs. (That's not to say I agree with labour policy on all issues by any means at all, but it is to say that I don't feel the need to be so rude about it, and to make an attempt to be balanced and not just whinge.)

I may well post some additional thoughts at a later date, but right now I have things to do, people to see!

Bore the wrath?

Penal Substitution has been criticised and defended avidly by a variety of people in the blogosphere and elsewhere recently. Sadly, it's descended to personal insults on both sides. I've noticed an extremely ungracious attitude on the part of a lot of the anti-PSA lot, and I suspect that the only reason I haven't noticed a similarly ungracious attitude on the pro-PSA lot may well simply be because I'm one of them and thus don't get personally hurt by any insults they throw, and thus remember fewer of them. To be honest, I strongly suspect that lots of people on both sides need to think about what they've done, and probably offer private and public repentance. And I strongly suspect that anyone on either side is looking at this and saying "yeah, the other side really need to do that", without really thinking about whether it applies to them personally.

I don't want to talk about that. Largely because I get inappropriately worked up about such things, and might well write ungraciously. In fact, I almost certainly would. I've got a real temper when it comes to these kinds of things. I've steered clear of commenting too much as this has come up for similar reasons.

But as the PSA riots have died down, I figured it might be appropriate for me to talk about some thoughts that have occured to me during this. I think controversies, if used properly, can be brilliant for helping the church refine her teaching, and indeed refine even correct doctrine. And I'd really like to offer some thoughts on how we ought to express penal substitution.

Punished in our place
Scripture says that upon Jesus "was the punishment that made us whole" (Isaiah 53:5), that in Jesus, God "condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3). It's clear that Jesus took the punishment that we deserve.

What's more, it's clear that this was done to fulfill God's justice - it was "so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:26). God didn't unjustly punish Jesus in our place, but he did it in accordance with his own just nature - in order

So I'm all for the doctrine of penal substitution - that, because of his great love for us, God punished Jesus for our sins, so that he might be just in his justification of us.

What I'm not quite so keen on is it's expression in terms of 'wrath'.

Wrath
Scripture is very clear that God is a God of wrath. Tonnes of the old testament expresses God's wrath, and the fact of it is very much present in the New Testament. Paul builds much of his case in Romans upon the statement at the very beginning of the argument (just after the introduction has finished) - "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." (Romans 1:18). He then spends the next two chapters explaining that this is the case against all men for all have sinned, and then explains that justification is possible because Jesus' death propitiated ("turned aside") his wrath, and fulfilled God's justice (3:25-26).

Wrath doesn't sound like a very nice term. What it basically means is anger - but in a more "biblical" sounding way, thus implying for many say that it's greater, or nastier, or whatever - depending upon people's preconceptions. ("Wrath" is probably a term that's more likely than anger to "turn off" people who aren't familiar with it, because it ties in with unhelpful stereotypes about biblical teaching. That's one reason I'm not dead keen on saying "Jesus bore our wrath".)

So God has anger. One thing evangelicals are united upon saying is that this anger is thoroughly just. We human beings might well get carried away with our anger, take it out irrationality, but God never does. His anger is always the completely rational emotional consequence of his justice. God's anger is his rational justice made passionate!

Now, when people say that Jesus bore our wrath, they don't mean that Jesus took any anger we might feel, and felt it himself. Nor do they mean that instead of God being angry with us, Jesus felt angry, - that the anger was a fluid that moved away from God, so he wasn't angry anymore. Either of those might be a more literal interpretation of the phrase "bore our wrath" or "bore the wrath of God", but they're also both, a) not what people mean, and b) disgustingly absurd.

What people do mean is that a) God justly punished and judged Jesus in our place, and b) as he did so, he felt and expressed (an entirely rational) anger towards Jesus.

I believe a passionately. But I'm pretty ambivalent towards saying b.

Did God feel angry towards Jesus?
Firstly, I'm uncomfortable about saying b on occasions when I'm talking to people who aren't quite familar with the various doctrines of divine wrath, Penal substitution, etc, because if you're not familiar, it sounds much more unpalatable than talking about justice. It sounds repulsive initially, and plays into a lot of caricatures of penal substitution - caricatures like lovelessness, or the idea that on the cross God is "venting" his anger - a bit like someone refusing to take their anger out on the person they're angry with, so instead they take it out on their door/cat/child. Aside from myself in the past, I know of at least one specific example of someone not having any trouble with PSA, until it was expressed in terms of wrath. I suspect there are many others. So simply in the interests of clarity, I'd suggest expressing PSA in terms of "justice" rather than "wrath", until one has the time to express the latter term better.

But more than that, I have issues with teaching on God's anger being felt towards Jesus. I'm not aware of any occasion where the bible explicitly talks of God's emotions towards Jesus on the cross as being anything like anger. (Please correct me if I'm wrong here, though!) Its dominant way of talking about it is certainly justice, condemnation, etc, with wrath not really making an entrance. This ought to convince us at the very least that the dominant way we ought to talk about it, barring cultural differences that make it harder to communicate, is through that kind of terminology.

But more than that... if the bible doesn't speak of God's emotions towards Jesus on the cross being anything like anger, what liberty do we have to do so? We can, I suppose, assume that God had some kind of emotional response to the guilt of sin being in the flesh of Jesus to be condemned - although even there we have to be cautious when assuming things about God that revelation doesn't speak of. But I very much doubt that that emotional response was exactly the same as his emotional response to an unjustified sinner. I imagine His emotional response was a lot more complex than our formulations allow, and I don't want to make statements about what that means until I actually have good grounds for thinking that I know!

I just want to remain a lot more agnostic about what exactly God felt towards Jesus when he was on that cross - at least, until I'm shown that God has revealed something of what He felt.

Trinity series

Over at my friend Dan Hames' blog, he has just written a series of trinity - in other words, typing up the notes from Mike Reeves' talks on the subject at Word Alive. I'll link to them for convenience. I think Mike's talks on the subject are brilliant - a really great fairly entry level account of the subject, which is actually really relevant and important to Christianity. How can who God is not be important?

Trinity 1
Trinity 2
Trinity 3
Trinity 4

I heartily recommend them for your reading pleasure. (I also have the CD's of the original talks to borrow, if anyone wants them.)

Why I'm voting Labour on Thursday in Selly Oak

Well, I doubt too many of you will be massively surprised to discover that I'm planning on voting labour on thursday the 3rd of May. I am, after all, a member of the labour party. What I think might be more interesting is why I plan on doing so - which is partly explained by why I'm a member of the labour party.

Roughly there are three things that motivate people to vote for a particular party in an election - firstly, there's their opinion about national politics - secondly, there's the strength of local parties - and thirdly, there's the strength of the individual candidates. I'll go through them one by one.

National politics

One reason why people often choose to vote is because of national politics. I think that the way this is done is often unhelpful, and that is especially the case in this election, but people often do.

Local elections are often used to 'punish' parties for short term things, even by people who expect to vote for that party in the long term. That's a particularly foolish thing to do at present - we expect a new labour leader within weeks of Blair standing down, and this leader will likely make changes - but in general I think the facts of political campaigning mean that it's not that helpful. Thing is, local councillors are in many ways the 'skeleton' of a local party base - losing it means losing a significant part of local campaigning and thus damages a parties electoral chances long term (well... long term in terms of politics, anyway, where time I feel passes quicker than it often does in other spheres). Similarly, gaining councillors can contribute towards the skeleton of a local party base, giving the party political advantage in the long term. So if one is to vote on the basis of national politics, one should vote on the basis of long term politics, and not just use it as a chance to give a party a kicking even though actually you prefer them to the opposition.

I believe in the values of the labour party, and I believe that we're the best party to lead the country towards .

Long term, for the forseeable future we're looking to a party almost certainly led by Gordon Brown, who is generally agreed to have been a success as chancellor (George Osborne - Tory shadow Chancellor - has given a lot of helpful quotes about how great he is, referring to "Labour's success on macroeconomic policy", and saying of Gordon Brown's reforms that "we must recognise that these developments have improved the macroeconomic management of the UK economy." The tories try to argue against this within parliament or to the generally economically illiterate public, but he makes these kinds of statements when addressing the business community - where he would lose his credibility otherwise.) He's reduced long term unemployment by three quarters, he's introduced tax credits for those who are least well off, he's introduced the minimum wage...

In all these ways, Gordon Brown has shown a great commitment to what is certainly by a long long way the most important political issue in the bible - the issue of poverty, which to my mind outweighs the sum total of all other political issues. Poverty is mentioned more in the bible than prayer. In todays political climate, like in most, poverty should be our number one concern.

But Gordon Brown hasn't just been interested in poverty in Britain. He's widely recognised as someone who cares very deeply about global poverty - I've seen even Ken Clarke (former tory chancellor, who is brilliant at being a straight talker - aside from party and policies, I love him) acknowledge this. Global poverty matters a whole lot more than national poverty, and I don't think many people will question making that our number one concern. Here's what Kofi Annan (ex UN secretary general) has written about him in an introduction to a book of his speeches:

Gordon Brown is one of a small group of political leaders who first embraced the notion that our current generation has the power and the know-how to overcome world poverty. Over the past decade, he has used his influence to place the case for development firmly on the agenda of the developed world. He has been a source of innovation and ideas for new forms of international development cooperation. He has been a driving force in making things happen, showing how the international community can deliver on promises, from debt relief to the genuine scaling-up of development assistance. And he has done this at a make-or-break time for the Millenium Development Goals - and for the world's poor.

It goes without saying, therefore, that the speeches of Gordon Brown are vivid testimony to a rare combination of vision, commitment, and action. He was among the first to champion the need for an additional $50 billion a year in overseas development assistance. He has fought tirelessly - and sometimes single-handedly - for debt relief, including on multicultural debt owed to international financial institutions. He was the first finance minister to back the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He championed the use of public guarantees to raise market finance for development. And he was instrumental in creating the pilot International Finance Facility (IFF) for immunisation.

A staunch but not uncritical ally of the United Nations, Gordon Brown is playing a leading role in my High-level Panel on UN System-wide Coherence, charged with exploring ways to make the UN family work more effectively around the world in the areas of development, humanitarian asistance and the environment. And through the UK's $15-billion commitment to ensure universal primary education by 2015, he is yet again demonstrating why it matters to men, women and children in poor countries that finance ministers in rich ones care about development. Because of him, more children are being immunised, more families are escaping poverty and more people have access to safe drinking water. In short, he has been a finance minister who has also spoken and acted like a development minister, and all the world is richer for it.

A number of people are likely to consider him bad because of the UK's role in Iraq, which they were against. I'd argue against that kind of thought, for a number of reasons. Firstly, although I do think Iraq has turned out very bad, I don't think it was remotely clear cut at the time. All developed countries believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (even members of his own government and military, actually, it still seems!) - even if one of Tony Blair's aides 'sexed up' the evidence to back up the claim. Blair's gone in a few weeks, and no-one has associated Brown with that decision. Pretty much nobody expected Iraq to turn out as bad as it has, and for several years after the invasion Iraqi polls showed a majority of Iraqi's supporting the invasion on humanitarian grounds - granted, that's now changed with the unexpected deterioration of the event, but it shows how bad Iraq was and how it seemed like a sensible thing to do at the time. Remember the partying in the streets? The consequences of Iraq have been politically useful for the enemies of our party, but it's not as clear cut as opposition parties would make out. Even the Tories supported it! And the lib dems, the only party to oppose it, are just crazy (... I would say loony, but the Monster Raving Loony party have in the past complained when people used that term of them, as they consider it offensive to be compared with the Lib Dems - which is fair enough, really!)

Furthermore, it's also probable that Gordon was much more cautious than Blair on that issue, and was only convinced of the need to go to war quite late - at the "eleventh hour". It might be that, had the cabinet been made up differently (ie by people he had chosen), he would have been convinced otherwise.

It's become fashionable to bash Labour, and whatever party is in power is always going to get a lot of kicking from the media, but we've done lots of great things - our biggest mistake, Iraq, was one very easily made given the facts as they were known at the time - and on the most important current issue of global poverty, any labour government - particularly a brown led one - will be streets ahead of any opposition.

City-wide politics

Another is the nature of local politics in a particular city. Now, here, I think the ground is less clear-cut than in either of the other sections. Local parties are very different to national parties, have very different policies to them (because policy at a local level is so different), and vary hugely from year to year. At present, I really have no idea as to which local party would do a better job running birmingham at present. The current ruling tory-lib dem coalition have done a lot of good things in many policy areas, but I'm convinced that as a Christian I should be supporting certain policy areas - particularly concerning helping the disadvantaged - to the exclusion to other, more common priorities in the world of politics. And I'm aware

However - the tory-lib dem alliance is so far ahead both in numbers of councillors (I believe the ruling coalition have 41+33=74 councillors, to our 44) and in electoral intent (ie people intend to vote against us because they're angry with us), that there's virtually no chance of us winning back on a local level for some years yet, by which time who knows what will happen anyway? The council, and the city, will have changed a large amount in that time.

The local candidate

Lastly, I think one of the best reasons to vote labour is our local candidate, verses the other local candidates. The tories are a virtual nonentity in selly oak - it's a fight between Labour and the Lib Dems. All three of the current councillors are Lib Dem, but our candidate - David Williams - has served two terms in the past and thus has experience. He seems to me to be streets ahead of anyone else in the local party, as far as I know them, and certainly a whole lot better than the current lib dems.

In terms of political ideology, he's probably quite a bit more left wing and old labour than this Brownite (it's really odd being addressed as "comrade" by him in letters!), but none of what I see as the destructive aspects of that form of ideology should be remotely under his remit. What will be, though, is acting as a leader and representative for the local community, and in this he is significantly better than the current liberal democrats. In fact, he cares so much about this that he's been politically active in representing the community in issues where the liberal democrats haven't - despite the fact that the lib dems get paid to do it, and he doesn't! He's very much a community man who will work hard to represent the selly oak community and who I thoroughly believe can do it.

Behold my new blog!

Behold, the new site of my blog is here! How very exciting!

[Later note: Most of the posts which were earlier than this were originally hosted on another blog, which I shut down due to not having the money to host it. They were moved over here all at once. However, due to moving all at once, they appear to all date from the same time - the time they were moved. In fact, they mostly dated from several months before this.]

Interesting fact: the builder STOLE MY KEY. Or something like that. It's really annoying.

Other than that, no real news. Would post some thoughts but I have stuff to do today (like ring up the builder lots of times to tell him to return my key.)

comment about idiots in last post…

…was largely in jest. I am sure intelligent people signed that petition as well. Still think they’re utterly wrong to do so, but hey.

Petition

Not sure I really think the 10 downing street petitions site is a good idea, but nonetheless they’ve got this petition up, supporting the CU’s in their current troubles with SU’s and that stuff, which is worth signing. If the site is gonna be used by idiots who want to stop very sensible proposals about how to deal with traffic, then it may as well be used to support something sensible as well!

I am still alive!

December 11th, 2006

Sorry for lack of updates, am really rather lazy these days. I’m kind of out of steam after the term, and what’s more a really lengthy series of posts (6000 words in all, I reckon, by the time they’re finished) is brewing, which will hopefully be released into the wild (or rather onto my blog) at some point in the near future. So stay tuned for an exciting set of posts on God - ie his character and the trinity, primarily concerning the issues with which I disagree with one John Piper, what with them being my key interests, and the place where what I passionately believe is correct is most challenged in reformed evangelicalism these days. So not only will you find out about the trinity and God’s character, you’ll also work out why I’m not a fan of Piper! Most surely worth the wait (and lack of updates!)

Anyway, fare thee well.

[Note, I later moved blogs, and as the series was written on the other blog, it was deleted when I moved, before I had a chance to finish it. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to saving it to another location before the other blog was lost.]

RTSF Evangelistic Lecture

November 21st, 2006

Hey my little poopytarts,

Excitingly enough, RTSF are running an evangelistic lecture tomorrow, entitled “Jesus of Nazareth: Merely Miracle Maker or Model Man? Implications for Christianity Today” - we’re inviting a local anglican clergyman with a PhD in biblical studies to speak on the above topic, aimed primarily at non-Christian theology students. Anyone reading this is welcome to come (Arts building lecture room 2, 1pm), but primarily I wanted to post this because I would very much like for you guys to pray about it. Due to our room booking being confirmed late (ie today or yesterday - not sure, RTSF student leader sorted that side of things), the publicity was kind of messed up. Thus I’m kind of worried about whether or not anyone will turn up, which would be all annoying for numerous reasons - not least that I want this to go well because we want RTSFers to be behind future events of this nature. So I’d really ask you guys to pray!

Back from houseparty…

November 20th, 2006

Well, I got back from CU houseparty - an awesome weekend, most certainly. Highlights include:

* Not falling asleep at all in any talks, seminars, etc - although I did come VERY close in one of Andy Weatherlys main talks, but the semi-sleep that I was drifting off into energised me sufficiently to return to full-awakeness. A close call! (I did also, I think, sleep briefly in the coach on the way back.)
* Spending some time getting to know some people a bit better.
* Seeing my old housemate, Tom Pickett, who now lives in Cardiff but came to cook what with being an ex exec member and all.
* Having done the seminar (my half of which, BTW, didn’t go great I didn’t think, because I had tried to fit too much in, and hadn’t had enough time to think through properly what I wanted to do and structure exactly - I’d had the prep time but not the time thinking about it as I did other stuff, and the nature of the thing meant I had to do limited application because Matt was doing that later - which did seem to make it irrelevent, which it wasn’t. It didn’t go awful, either, I didn’t think, mind.)
* Having a couple of useful theology chats on the saturday night. Went to bed at 4:30ish - about half an hour after my optimal houseparty sleeping time.
* Watching Tom Howey give the most awesome introduction to our new amp, “Jennifer Jane”.

Oh, yeah, and we got told some stuff about God, too…

Off to houseparty…

November 17th, 2006

Off to likely my second favourite thing in the year…

Any prayer anyone would like to do for houseparty, particularly spiritual growth and for the first years to feel a part of CU and get to know people and generally be integrated into it.

Anyone want a fight?

Writing houseparty seminar…

November 16th, 2006

Hey guys…

I is currently attempting to write my half of a seminar for our CU houseparty this weekend, and was hoping that you guys might pray for me as I do it. For various reasons to do with agreeing on the content to go in, it hasn’t really been possible for us to prepare much (beyond reading, in my case) until this week, so I’m quite behind in terms of the actual content, and yet I need a pretty advanced complete draft by midday tomorrow (thurs), which is gonna be a struggle, but possible. We’re doing a seminar on worship, my half being a brief biblical overview - obviously focusing on certain bits (esp the role of Jesus) given the fact that I have only have half an hour (or under if you take into account the fact that beginnings and endings always take a bit too long). I think I have sufficient background knowledge (given that I can reference books as I write, at least), but it’s going to take some effort to turn that into a teachable form, a process which I’m really at most half way through at the moment! So yeah, prayer is good!

The wisdom of Mike…

November 11th, 2006

Just been on a trip to national RTSF exec, in other words me and three (normally four) students getting in a room with Melinda to feed back to her about how RTSF nationally could improve and what’s going good ATM. The following day, Mike Reeves came up to teach and chat. Other than discovering the fact that Piper actually recommends no one reads more than one of his books because they’re all the same (a fact which I suspect significantly mellows my criticism of him, even if I still think Pipers key points that he always repeats again and again are wrong and damaging). We had some great teaching from Mike on the trinity (basically on how the social analogy is better than the mental analogy, which he’s slowly convincing me on, although I still have a few questions and am loving thinking through trinity - I hope I shall soon post a third post in this so-called blog series on trinity). He said a few interesting and profound things, including:

“Calvin fancies Augustine”

He then commented that, were you to go to the pub to discuss trinity with great thinkers on the subject…

“Augustine’s the guy you beat up on the way home”.

All in all, a good weekend (and I had at least those two comments to write in my notes!)

Got what I think is a great definition of the trinity from him (I must have heard it before, but it sounded particularly helpful this time - his talk, even though I’d heard it before, was so much more convincing now that I’ve read around the subject) - “God is Father, Son, and Spirit loving each other.”

While there may be more to the unity than this, this - properly understood in terms of the nature of personhood (ie that persons cannot exist in a vacuum but require relationship to exist or have any kind of identity) and of God (ie that He is even more personal than the rest of us) is actually a very intense and profound unity. I guess because we’re so individualistic and suchlike in our culture, we don’t really understand the unity that exists between human persons in relationship (e.g. in Marriage we become one flesh - which the Bible uses as a key analogy to the trinity, probably in Gen 1:27 but definitely in 1 Cor 11:3; in the church we are called to become one as Jesus is one with the Father, John 17:21) - basically, that unity in someone who has that person-ness even greater than us must be even greater than any unity that we have, even though we degrade our own unity.

So, yeah, Eastern orthodoxy rocks on the trinity. They get a lot of other stuff wrong, mind. It’s just such a shame that evangelicalism has adopted so much the western doctrine of the trinity, although I suppose it was inevitable geographically.

Lists of four

November 8th, 2006

Four jobs you’ve had in your life

1. Relay worker
2. Mowing the lawn at church for £20 a month.
3. Being a student.
4. Being unemployed.

Four jobs you wish you had

1. Chancellor of the Exchequor
2. CU staff worker
3. RTSF Staff Worker
4. Pope

(Note: I assumed Vicar doesn’t count, what with it being my actual intention.)
Four movies you can watch over and over again

1.
2.
3.
4.

(Note: I’m not a big fan of movies.)

Four cities you have lived in

1. Cambridge
2. Peterborough
3. Birmingham
4. Neighbours
Four TV shows you love to watch.

1. The West Wing
2. Question Time
3. Doctor Who
4. Scrubs

Four places you’ve been on vacation/travelled to

1. Latvia
2. France
3. Scotland
4. Germany

(Note: I would include Wales too, where I have spent more time than in Latvia, were it not for the fact that really it’s a part of England.)

Four websites you visit daily

1. Wikipedia.
2. Facebook
3. This site (and from it normally all of the blogs I link to)
4. BBC News Politics Section

Four of your favourite foods

1. Jacket Potato with butter, cheese and beans (and the cheese on first) from Cafe Go in brum uni main campus!
2. Burger King Cheeseburgers
3. Cake.
4. Anything involving chocolate (including… chocolate!)
Four things you won’t eat

1. Pizza
2. Curry
3. Pasta
4. Most other foods, really.

Four things you wish you could eat right now

1. choclate fingers (because I just read anna’s and it made me want one)
2. Vitamin C tablet (but I already had one today so can’t!)
3. Cake!
4. Anything involving chocolate!

Four things in your bedroom

1. Mess.
2. Mess.
3. Books.
4. Mess.

Four things you wish you had in your bedroom

1. Barth’s church dogmatics
2. Lots of money
3. A photograph of my parents.
4. Space without mess

Four things I’m wearing right now
1. Underpants.
2. T-Shirt.
3.
4.

(Sorry if that’s too much information, I didn’t want to lie!)

Four people you’d really love to have dinner with
1. John Piper
2. John Stott
3. John Wesley
4. John Calvin

(Note: Calvin may have been replaced with either Luther or Augustine if they had had better first names, but the other three would be the same. I suppose Gordon would come in after the six of them, not that I love him any less!)

Four things I’m thinking right now

1. I need to pee.
2. I want to watch scrubs.
3. I wonder if housegroup is still on downstairs.
4. Where are my keys. Oh, over there on the hook that I always keep my keys on.
Four of your favourite things/people

1. Jesus
2. Family
3. Various friends
4. Gordon

Four people I tag

1.
2.
3.
4.
(Note: I took a note out of Rosemarys book and decided that I don’t like forcing people to do my bidding!)

Groan!

November 4th, 2006

My landlady, on receiving my former rent cheques, decided not to bank them until a few days ago. That wouldn’t have caused any big problems, if I had given them recently, but she receieved some of them weeks ago, and some of them months ago. It also wouldn’t have caused problems had she warned me that she was about to bank them at this entirely random time, and given me time to ensure that the money was in my account. Thus, when she finally decided to bank them, there was not actually enough money in my account. This cost me £76 in bank fees because two of them bounced. Then, on discovering that two of them bounced, she decided to try again to bank them. Again, this cost me another £76 in bank fees. When the problem is that I don’t have enough money to put that money in their account, that’s quite a significant problem.
Thus, I have no money in my account until I receive a gift from my church, and I’ve only chased them up recently because it was only recently that it occured to me that the combination of my landlady hadn’t banked any of my cheques and thus I’d have to pay them all in one go at some random time, and there being no evidence (despite my queries) that my church was in the process of paying me the money they promised, was quite a damaging combination.

Thus I really don’t have a clue how I’m going to eat for the next few days - or maybe weeks, depending on how soon St Johns get their act together. And thus I’d really covet the prayers of anyone reading this.

A thing what happened

October 31st, 2006

Just finishing off a post that I might post fairly soon, and it occured to me that I could post this little story. I’m in a rather silly little mood so don’t take my comments following overly seriously.

Once upon a time, in the Ievins household, when John Fricis Ievins was back from University, John Fricis Ievins and my father and my mother were sitting around a table, having a conversation in which my parents were alleging that their absurd liberal doctrines are actually worth listening to or something. (Note: I actually like my parents, and I think they are genuine Christians who genuinely seek to follow the Jesus of the scriptures, blablablah, boring disclaimer). Basically, we were having a conversation about gay bishops, and it went something like this.

Dad: I don’t mind anyone in a committed loving relationship becoming a bishop, whether they’re in a committed loving relationship with another man, or whether they’re in a committed loving relationship with a goat.
Mum: I don’t see how anyone could possibly be sexually attracted to a goat.
Dad: I see your point, they do have rather stupid beards.

What more can I say?

Why… why… why?

October 28th, 2006

I went to my first ever Labour Party meeting today, which aside from being all exciting and suchlike, was also thought provoking. That was largely because I discovered that one of the four young people, and certainly the loudest, was everyones favourite ex guild president, Richard Angell, who disaffiliated BUECU and seized our funds, prevented the National Blood Service from having a stall at freshers fair - by their estimates, thereby depriving them of 150 new donors, many of whom would continue to give blood for the rest of their lives - and suggested that the Guild throw a party upon the death of Margaret Thatcher.

This was thought provoking for two reasons - firstly, it shocked me by how prejudiced I have been against him - he’s made some decisions that were blatantly wrong, but heck - so have we all - and it’s shocking that I got an impression of him that was anything other than “positive with some flaws” (or ”a sinner like the rest of us”) despite having never met him or followed really any news about him beyond a few controversies.

The other thing, though, that provoked thought (well a third thing is that there seemed to be few if any evangelicals - heck, any Christians - there other than me) was that people were so pro the various pieces of gay rights legislation that came in. Technically, this kind of thought would ordinarily go on my politics blog, but I’d rather post it here because I want feedback from evangelicals.

Basically, I’m utterly confused about why gay rights legislation of the kind that we’ve seen over the past few years from the correct party while we’ve been in power, seem to have been opposed by evangelicals. A group like say the Christian Institute regards its role to be to fight for political issues on which the bible is clear, but not other issues. Forgive me for being really stupid, but I don’t think the bible even addresses the question of whether homosexuals should be allowed to enter the military (a subject on which the Christian Institute has firm beliefs), but it has hundreds of texts discussing poverty - something the Christian Institute seems to have absolutely no interest in whatsoever. I can’t see why evangelicals should oppose civil partnerships - giving legal rights to partners who would be sleeping with them anyway to inherit property etc sounds like a thoroughly good idea. So I guess I have three Questions:

1: Is there really this broad consensus in evangelicalism that these policies are on the whole morally wrong? (I’m not addressing say the incoming anti-discrimination bill, which in some forms could well cause a crisis of conscience for many of us and make us criminals - I oppose some possible forms of that definitely.)
2: If so, why?

[Later edit: Please note that I actually have an A-Level in Mathematics]

It seems to me at the outset that I can see sociological and anthropological causes (related to ideas about boundary markers, for example) for this consensus, if it actually exists, but no valid biblical or theological ones.

Thanks for the tip!

October 25th, 2006

I’m doing a talk/seminar type thing on Penal Substitution tomorrow (or rather today) at RTSF. Was rather shocked, when looking through the feedback that my sgaff worker gave me re the content of my draft that, after reading a 7 page draft by me, she felt the need to inform me that Penal Substitution is in the bible.

Oh dear.

Worship in the NT

October 21st, 2006

Spent a few hours today getting together a list of all the words translated as worship or praise in the Bible, as research for a seminar myself and Crouchy are doing at houseparty. Was pretty shocked at the result concerning worship; since charismatics tend to emphasise worship as meaning praise almost to the exclusion of any idea of whole-life worship, while conservatives tend to say that the new testament only uses it to mean the kind of worshipping with our whole lives, I assumed that as so often in controversies of this kind, the truth is somewhere in the middle - one side corrupts a truth, so the other side decide it would be a good idea to corrupt a truth in the opposite way. I think that’s possibly what’s happened in this case, but definitely not in this respect - it seems to me that the charismatics, in this *specific* issue, are almost entirely right.

There are two key word groups translated as worship in the NT - latrevo (or that’s how I’d pronounce it - I was taught a rare way of pronouncing and then didn’t remember much of how to correctly pronounce greek anyway after about the second week of greek, 3 years ago) and proskyneo. (The Seboo word group and the word theskeia are also used, but are both rare enough to be discounted, and don’t have anything that contradicts what I’m about to say, anyway.)

Latrevo (the word group has strongs numbers 2999, 3000, 3008, 3009 - and never translated as worship but still related are 3010 and 3011) has the primary meaning of ‘I serve’, and only secondarily means worship. It sometimes seems to mean worship in terms of whole life worship, and sometimes in terms of individual or corporate praise (if I can use that as an alternative term for “non-whole-life worship” and ignore what the greek words mean.) It can mean praise or service, or a grey area between the two, but I think it is erroneous to suggest that that ambivalence can at all support the suggestion that the new testament reinterprets worship in terms of the accomplished work of Christ to say that - and I think that simply because “I serve” is the primary meaning, and “I worship” the secondary - in other words, it seems the origins of the word would indicate that the idea of it being worship is a reinterpretation of what serving means, rather than vice versa. That’s based upon my general ideas and remembrances about what I know about the word and what scholars have said about it, though - I have to state that I haven’t looked into the usage of the word outside of the NT and whether that would support that.

The other word group often translated as worship in the NT is proskyneo, “I worship” (strongs numbers 4352, 4353). From a quick glance at the various texts it quotes (not all of them (but a hefty chunk), and few of which I’ve looked into in depth in the past, none specifically now but those which I did in the past I can remember), it seems pretty clear to me that it doesn’t ever really carry the idea of “worshipping God in your whole life”, ie in all your actions or whatever (in any of the ones I’ve looked at, so likely in them all). It seems to be a lot closer to personal or communal devotions and the like.

Where on earth did this idea of worship in the NT not really meaning praise come from? The only idea I can think of is it’s a response the commonly implied charismatic notion that God is especially close when we worship (or even sometimes when we worship, ie those occaisions which involve strong emotions). That’s plainly contrary to the NT but closer to the OT from my perception (but I’ve not looked into it) - not because (like many liberals seem to assume) the NT reveals that contrary to the OT God was after all the God of the philosophers all along, but rather because of the greatness of Christ that is revealed in the NT - we are spiritually “in Christ” all the time!

(Note: There are passages in the NT which make it clear that OT patterns of worship are fulfilled in the work of Christ, and consequently in us offering ourselves as whole units in Christ, but they don’t really dominate the meaning of the term at all, and IIRC I think they’re all latrevo anyway. Also IIRC they’re all related to specific OT patterns of worship through sacrifice being fulfilled in Christ, not all specific kinds of worship.)

Expect further comments from me on this in the future, since I’m doing a seminar on it, will want to check my results more carefully, and will hopefully be challenged on my conclusions by other people, in that I really hope there is more of a case for the common conservative POV than there seems to be.



Other interesting news: My dad has taken up reading my blog. Hi Dad! It’s brilliant, isn’t it?

Also: I’ve been ill the past few days, so my housemate gave me today a card, some tissues, and some of the dairy milk bubbly chocolate bars that I love but haven’t really been able to find recently. I was well touched - I’m living with some lovely people this year. I’m glad I worked out at word alive that I liked them, because otherwise who knows which losers I’d be with right now!

And: This whole relay lark is getting better and better, apart from my illness and thus inability to really do anything past few days. Melinda is great, theology students are great, people I’m working with are great, and studying and teaching the scriptures pointing to Jesus is… well, what’s a word for great that’s even better than great?

I love labour!

October 11th, 2006

Well, today I finally took a step I have been seriously considering for many moons now, motivated by a desire to get more stuck into non-Christian activities and a strong belief that politics is important and should be closer to that of the labour party (I posted on why I support New Labour on my politics blog a while back), I decided to join the Labour Party. Controversial as this may seem to many, I think my party (!) has on the whole had a good run in government, and I hope for it to have much longer. Over the past year or so (when I wouldn’t have known the difference between parliament and government, probably), I’ve been increasingly of the opinion that politics is sufficiently important that Christians should make much more of an effort to be involved - to think through and study the whole range of political questions, and how Christianity should impact them, and to get stuck in. So, if you’re a Christian reading this, I demand you go out and join a party yourselves - especially if it is the correct one!

In other news, I have recently discovered that a badger has been pretending to me - the imposter. A general warning to everyone who reads this blog - if you come across anyone with black and white stripes claiming to be the ever-wise Theology John (ooh that reminds me - Screech described me today as a great theologian), they are almost certainly lying.

Oh and I really loved relay training day today - really enjoyed getting to know the brum relay girls better on the train etc, and it was also good to spend some time with everyone that I haven’t seen since forum/last team day. I hope future ones are as good.

Oh… my… life…

October 8th, 2006

On facebook, I came across this photograph of my brother, which I decided to replicate despite not asking for his permission, on the grounds that I wanted to…






















Personally, I think attention seeking is bad.

Read this or I’ll beat u up!

October 6th, 2006

Over at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, they’ve posted an article on blogs and subsequent thoughts for the nature of the church. Very valid points raised.

Darnit! :(

October 3rd, 2006

Realised that I owe about £200, which means that I can spend less of my own money on relay and need to raise more support.

John Sad. :’(

(Note, I’m not all that distraught about it, just a tad irritated.)

Disagreements

October 2nd, 2006

Bish Dave Bish has written a couple of blog posts on youthful passions (ie the tendency - particularly among the young, and I would suggest also among young men - to unhelpfully argue on doctrinal matters etc) and controversy. Firstly, if you haven’t read them already, go read them, they’re well worth it (especially if you’re a fellow reformed young man and thus almost certainly don’t have this aspect of your life properly sorted.)

I think the need to compulsively correct things all the time is part of what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 7:1-5:

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Obviously, this passage is primarily about judging other peoples actions, rather than their theology, but it’s clearly not solely about that, for two reasons - firstly, you can’t really seperate actions from theology, and secondly the passage seems fairly clearly to imply some level of intellectual content in the last two verses (in that it involves people seeing clearly enough to be able to correct others). Obviously, the theology is primarily one that is directly concerned with specific actions, but that’s kind of inevitable given the Jewish context.

I guess one thing that this passage drives home for me is that a major part of the solution to youthful passions and controversy etc is simply to try hard to remember that I am a fallen human being, absolutely full of mistakes in theology for various motivations (to accomodate my sinfulness, to disagree with what’s popular/mainstream and thus make me feel that my uniqueness validates the godliness of my opinions or something). As Cromwell said “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

It made me think of one of the main things that my three years of theological study has led me to conclude. One major thing I realised as I began to study theology is that there isn’t a single theologian in history, other than those who are relatively recent (past couple hundred years maybe) and of the kind of theology that I’ve been influenced by, that doesn’t disagree with me on something that I believe quite strongly. Thing is, if everyone in history - other than those whose background is similar enough to me to make them blind in the same ways that I am - made big errors, then surely I can assume that I make big errors in my theology that I don’t know about.

I think that once you realise that someone else may possibly be right, or if not right, may well have spotted some flaw in your position that’ll help you to think through it better, it’s a whole lot easier to deal with controversy better. In some ways, having studied theology makes me more inclined to unhelpful debates/arguments than I was before (particularly given that I do actually know and understand more than the majority of people I talk to, which in some cases is something that’s hard), but I think in most ways it’s helped me realise that I haven’t got it all sorted, there’s a lot of question marks and I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past and may make them again, and I appreciate how other people hold different opinions as well. So I guess one solution is simply to read people you disagree with, and try hard to listen to them.

Obviously, there are some issues which are so important that controversy is, sadly, necessary. I’m not entirely sure how to tell the difference between that and another, but I think the best suggestion I heard was a speaker who suggested that all heresy etc was rooted in saying to Jesus “Yeah, Jesus, you’re quite good, you’re quite great, you’ve done some good stuff”, rather than “Jesus, you’re the epitome of good; you’re the absolute greatest there’s ever been or ever possible to be; all good stuff that’s ever been done is ultimately from you”. But that would be applied to a range of doctrinal positions. I think I’ll likely develop that idea in a later post.

The Trinity, part 1

September 28th, 2006

So, I’ve been thinking a fair bit about the trinity this week. Some of you have no doubt guessed that, since a) I’ve been doing core study on the trinity this week, and b) my elective is on how the doctrine of the trinity should affect our understanding of God’s attributes of character (especially glory-seeking) and is beginning by me looking into the doctrine of trinity in depth. But anyway, I figured it would be good for me to post my thoughts on the trinity at this stage, partly in order to force me to think through what I am saying. I feel it is worth stating at the outset that many of these are my preliminary thoughts may well be altered as I study in more depth.

My first thought is a conviction that has been growing in me but was majorly clarified by King Mike Reeves, namely that the habit of most theologians of writing their theologies of God and his attributes and then mentioning at the end, almost as an aside, ”Oh, yeah, BTW, God is also a trinity”, is pretty stupid. After listening to Mike talk on it and Melinda reiterate his thoughts, nothing made more sense actually - it’s entirely logical that the way God relates to God must be at the core of his being and thus of how we should understand Him, and the Bible certainly seems to support that, too - again and again the Bible talks about the love of the Father and Son for one another, and their relationship. And yet virtually all western people who have any thoughts on God’s attributes (including me - though I hope my elective will help to change that) relegate this to a footnote in their theology, or if not a footnote at least not a key controlling principle in their doctrine of God. Why? I think I agree with Mike here… because of our cultural and philosophical background, we don’t really like the trinity, we basically want a monad, so we minimise the threeness of God and try to pretend that He is just one - while paying lip-service to the three.

More thoughts to follow…

Tag… I’m it!

September 24th, 2006

So, JB was all like ‘I’ll tag Theology John with this quiz meme “because he’ll be jealous of Screech otherwise”, so I is thus now tagged! Behold, my answers to the questions:

Why do you blog? I’d like to say that it’s because I feel I have something to offer to encourage and edify the church, and perhaps that is part of the reason, but mostly I think it’s because if I don’t, Screech will say he has won!

How long have you been blogging? Well this blog has only existed for less than a month (apart from the worthless first post), but I have had former blogs which have been moderately well-updated for approximately a year.

Self Portrait.

(Isn’t my artwork beautiful?)







Why do readers read your blog? I dunno - probably a combination of having nothing better to do, curiosity, the fact that I do sometimes make helpful comments, and the fact that I tend to do a lot of stupid/odd things that turn out to be amusing when I tell people about them.

What was the last search phrase someone used to find your site? I have no idea - I suspect that people who find my blog tend to find it via links from other relayers or cusw’s, or from my personal recommendation in my email sig or msn tagline.

Which of the entries gets unjustly too little attention? Can’t think of any, really - to be honest, have been surprised that most of my posts have got so much attention, when I haven’t really been around enough to have built a following!

Your current favourite blog? Wow, that’s a hard one… it would probably be Rosemary’s, since she comes out with some particularly helpful/thoughtful things on a regular basis - even if she is a piperite. The medal would probably go to Ali Joy Young, former RTSF relay worker, for her helpful thoughts combined with much hilarity etc, were it not for the fact that she isn’t blogging at the minute.

Which blog did you read most recently? Well that would probably be Alison Joy Young’s, in order to insert the link for the above question (and discovering that she is actually now blogging once more - how very exciting!)

Which feeds do you subscribe to? None! Probably should tho, would save time.

Which 4 blogs are you tagging with this meme and why? Wow, that is a hard question, since all the other brummie Relay/CUSW’s have already been tagged, so I’ll have to be a bit more creative. How’s about:

1) My housemate Matt Crouch - because he ought to post SOMETHING to that blog of his to keep up with myself and Screech

2) Ed, ‘cos I’d be fascinated to see how something less seriously theological would occur on his blog.

3) Alison Joy Young, even though she doesn’t read my blog (so far as I know) and thus will probably never read this - partly because she’d respond in quite amusing ways, and partly because I want her to post more, darnit!

4) Dan Hames, because he’s really funny and I’m sure he’d make me laugh with some of his answers.

Right, I’m off to disagree with John Piper, toidle-poip.

Random events

September 23rd, 2006

OK, over past week and a half of being a relay worker I have:

* Read really amazing stuff (Packer’s essay on penal substitution, Romans 9-11 several times)
* Read worthwhile stuff that isn’t quite as awesome (one-to-one by Sophie De Witt)
* Read pointless stuff (i.e. my core study on ‘why study theology’ - I was already convinced, actually!)
* Been for two days of team days (which were great - I was somewhat knackered which added to my natural quietness in such circumstances, but everyone there was great, and I enjoyed it massively.)
* Met the leaders of the brum RTSF group and had worthwhile and enjoyable (for me, at least) discussions about many subjects.
* Met my staff worker, Melinda Hendry, for my first ever supervision, which I found just awesome.

I guess basically that’s roughly what I’ve been doing.

Oh, and in response to my blog, some bloke I’ve never met before today made a joke about my search for a simple explanation of double predestination! I didn’t realise quite how absurd that post much have been before then!

Good post :)

September 21st, 2006

Came across UCCF Staff Steffy B’s blog today, which I thought seemed great - full of lots of really funny insanity, and some quite helpful wise comments thrown in. Was pleased particularly by this post about our response to suffering and how it’s legitimate to even question and argue with God - something I think the church has lost out from not doing of late. Psalms of lament are the most common form of psalm, after all. We need to learn to be honest with God, even about feeling rubbish.

Will probably post something more substantial fairly soon, possibly give you an actual update on how my first week and a bit of relay work has gone!

The ‘horrible decree’…

September 17th, 2006

Was recently having a conversation with a dudette who is very close to me. I was on the comp reading reviews of Piper’s commentary on Romans 9, and she decided to look up the chapter in the Bible. I asked her what she thought, she concluded she didn’t like it. We ended up having a lengthy conversation about justice, sin, and double predestination (esp reprobation), during which I was also on the computer and thus probably did not pay anything like enough attention to her - as I realised when I turned around and saw tears in her eyes. A little comforting her, and asking about what she was getting upset about, clarifying that I wasn’t going to judge her, she eventually said something to the effect of:

“I’ve always half believed and half not believed - I’ve wanted to believe because without God everythings meaningless, but now I also don’t want to believe because if there is a God, it sounds like he’s mean and nasty and evil.” Comforted and chatted, maybe helped a bit, and gave her a copy of Christianity Explored (most relavent basic book that I have lying around - it discusses sin, but can anyone think of a better book of a similar-ish level that might cover double predestination at all?)

Really made me think. From my reading of the bible, it seems that double predestination is true. That we are sinners deserving of death, temporary hell, and then annihilation, definitely is (save that some people might say everlasting hell rather than temporary hell + annihilation). But if I think about it - I really can see that such things might sound evil, especially when I don’t explain them VERY well to people who aren’t already familiar enough with my understanding of human nature, theology, etc, to not have it take some effort (perhaps too much) to hold all such data in ones head.

Anyone have any words of wisdom of how to explain reprobation etc to non-Christians or Christians who have their doubts and issues (well, that’s pretty much all of us, but I mean surface level doubts and issues in particular)?

I really welcome any words of wisdom from other people - this is something I’ve readlly struggled with explaining in the past when talking to people who aren’t committed evangelical Christians (or very well read in such things).

Some things wot I said…

September 13th, 2006

Was chatting to my housemates recently about how silly it was that I could get involved so much church, religious, and suchlike stuff to the exclusion of anything else… then went on to complain “at this rate, my entire life will be dominated by Christianity.” Then paused as I realised what I said, and laughed when I realised that my housemates knew what I meant to say.

Other words of wisdom from me include: “Jesus is the best way to God,” and “Jesus isn’t alive anymore.”

Y’see, this is why I don’t say too much.

Really exciting post!

September 12th, 2006

A while ago, Screech commented on my subtitle, “Explaining the exciting world of relay”, that my blog was neither exciting nor explaining.

Shut up Screech.

The cross

September 12th, 2006

Just thinking vaguely about the cross. We just had a conversation about Fusion in our house (I’ve spend probably about half of my waking hours since returning to brum sitting in the same chair in my living room with my laptop on my lap with my housemates in the room, chatting about stuff and watching TV and me and screech playing with our blogs), and it made me think about the centrality of the cross.

Luther said “the cross is our theology”, and it seems clear that it belongs at the absolute center of our understanding of God (and thus the whole realm of creation). One cannot understand anything without understanding who God is; God reveals himself primarily through Jesus, and the key to understanding Jesus is to understand his death on the cross - that’s what the New Testament keeps on talking about all the time.

A lot of Christian organisations tend to have the culture that the cross is for non-Christians, even if they wouldn’t say that. That’s wrong, and very damaging… but I wonder whether it’s partly a reaction against an oversimplistic approach to teaching the cross in some churches.

My feeling in some churches is that they simply try to get across simply the fact that “God propitiated his wrath on the cross” again and again, rather than apply more deeply the cross in the way the New Testament does. Instead of just repeating that fact (though I do think it’s so important we need to remember it and the wonder of the grace revealed there etc all the time), I think we ought to regularly preach how the cross fits into the Christian life and the world - “Jesus died out of love to propitiate God’s wrath - that shows us how much God loves us, and completely deals with our sin and makes us worthy of God by God’s grace, which should be the source of our self esteem” or “Jesus died to propitiate God’s wrath against sin - this should help us realise how terrible sin is and help us resist temptation” or “Jesus died to propitiate God’s wrath, remake humanity, and restore the whole creation to it’s pre-fall state and indeed a greater state - therefore we should work on climate change.”

There’s a few examples of how that kind of teaching might work in practise. It obviously was limited by the single sentence nature - it didn’t offer me much chance to work through how our theology of the cross might be more complex and than a single sentence, or the theology of other stuff might be more complex, but you get what I mean.

It’s a whole lot harder for people to take seriously as helpful constant cross-preaching when it doesn’t make connections with the whole of reality - so perhaps at least part of the solution to people dis-emphasising the cross is simply to talk more about the cross in a better way. Leading aside that the kind of teaching about is all through the bible - say Paul using the cross as an illustration for all sorts of topics of his teaching.

Relay1/Forum

September 11th, 2006

Having just come back from relay1 and forum, I figured I would post some random thoughts and news.

Firstly, I figured I’d let you know how great I found it. First few days were well tiring - both due to lacking sleep and having to spend lots of energy taking in lots of input and talking to people I don’t know - and thus I found myself in a bad mood at about the 2 day mark. However, this quickly resided - I got to know some people fairly better which is always cool, met some really cool people who I began to feel much more comfortable with.



Highlights of the two weeks:-

* Mike Reeves, RTSF co-ordinator, giving a talk on the cross.
* Getting to know the midlands relay team (me, Frithy, Screech, Anna B., Caz, Kat, and Chris) all to some extent - all of them seem really cool as far as I know them.
* My fellowship group being a really awesome group of people.
* There being all sorts of awesome new relay workers around who did not come under either of the categories mentioned above.
* Spending a bit of (tho not much in most cases) time with people that I always knew well enough to know were cool and thus kinda wished I knew better, but never actually did (eg. Tor, Screech, Kimber)
* Having some lovely chats with my staff worker, Melinda Hendry. She seems absolutely awesome!
* Meeting Rosemary Grier, who I expect I will turn out to be a really interesting person to discuss stuff with (even if, in Chris’s words, she “whooped me” in debate!)
* Just being amazed at the awesome centrality of the cross for the whole of human existance and our understanding of all that is.
* Picking up the phrase “the cross is our theology” from Luther via Mike, which just encapsulates so much truth that the church needs to hear, and thus which I am now able to repeat endlessly to hopefully get across.

(NOTE: I have realised that I have described lots and lots of people as really cool/awesome, etc, above. I’ve been thinking recently about the fact that doing that about too many people devalues the meaning of the word, but I think in this case it was actually suitable and true - I just praise God for so many of the people that I met while away!)

I was really challenged by two things - firstly, the centrality of cross, which i’ve mentioned a bit above and may well post something later on, but also the crucial importance of prayer, and how much the western church plays it down.

I remember one of the guys in the small group I led at forum, when I asked him what role he was in the CU, he responded to the effect of “oh, just prayer” - which really does I think reflect badly on the state of the church that that position can be seen as insignificant or unimportant. Prayer secretary is a very important position on exec - in fact, it is the most important position on exec. Without prayer, nothing else in the whole CU could be done. If we never evangelised, we could still to some extent grow in godliness, although that would be much weaker. If we never taught, we could still to some extent grow in godliness and evangelise - although both would be much weaker. In either case, we could do a little to spread the kingdom - albeit only a little. But without prayer, we are nothing - God can act without prayer, but he normally chooses not to. It has been said that “prayer is the first thing, and the second thing, and the third thing”. But tragically, the bloke in my small group seemed under the impression that it was quite possibly the last thing.

No wonder the UK church is lacking if we have attitudes like that floating around. We must all emphasise prayer more and more.