God's Gender (& the Trinity)

I have been thinking a bit recently about God’s gender. I have some tentative thoughts. I do want to stress that they are tentative and may very well be completely wrong – do argue with me if necessary!

The Problem

Basically, we Christians know that both genders are made in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 reads:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

We also know that we use male gendered language (“He”, “Father”, “Son”) to talk of God. While the Bible does use female-style metaphors for God, it doesn’t talk about “Our mother in heaven”; nor does it ordinarily call God “she”. These two things appear to be in tension.

Some people attempt to get out of it by claiming that calling God “He” was the only real option in a patriarchal culture. However, this seems pretty weak. Plenty of patriarchal cultures in the ancient world had religions focused around one female god. I really don’t think that we should be seeking to replace biblical language about God with anything else.

If there’s anything at all we have no right to do, it’s to worship God in a way He hasn’t commanded or revealed himself to be. So I feel distinctly uncomfortable about calling God “she” without biblical support. But I feel much more uncomfortable about implying that men are especially made in the image of God – which is in effect saying that men are better than women; more divine and therefore more human.

In the case of two persons of the Trinity, the language is very explicitly male. God the “Father” is male; God the “Son” is male. In both case, they are “He”; things they own are “His”, etc.

The Holy Spirit is a bit vaguer – just as usual in the Bible (for whatever reason you might want to give.) Basically, the Bible normally – but not always – follows the rules of grammar when talking about the Spirit. Hebrew and Greek are a bit like most modern languages (e.g. German), where words have genders – so the word for “table” or “book” might be masculine of feminine – you might say “she” about a book rather than “it” and it doesn’t have anything really to do with – I understand that you get odd things like a “teacher” might be a masculine word, even if the specific teacher is a woman – it doesn’t have much to do with gender, even though the language is gendered.

In the Bible, the Spirit is normally dealt with according to the gender of the word “spirit” – in Hebrew, the word “spirit” is female; in Greek, it is neuter. Therefore, in general, the Spirit is talked of as “she” in the Old Testament, and “it” in the New Testament. However, that’s not universally the case; the Bible might adopt another word (e.g. “another counsellor” is masculine), and some parts of the New Testament break the laws of grammar to call the Spirit “He” rather than “it”, presumably because the Holy Spirit is not an “It”, He is a person. So in the Old Testament (where what is a reference to the Trinity is perhaps a bit vaguer anyway), the Spirit is a “she”; in the New Testament, the Spirit is an “it” or a “he”; but it’s unclear how much the “she” and the “it” are important, when it’s just the way the language works that they end up like that.

So we have three persons – two are identified as male, one is either identified as male or of “questionable gender” (!) – but this seems to be a blatant contradiction of any belief that women are equally the image of God. If women are equally the image of God, they must equally reflect God. If they equally reflect God, then God must be equally female to male.

I really hope at this stage, everyone sees my problem here. I hope you see why I don’t want to take the easy way out and either say “oh, male language about God is just culture” or say “yeah, God is more male than female” – I’m pretty sure both are unworkable, and both seem fundamentally wrong.

The Solution

I’m pretty darn confident that what I’ve said above is true – that there does appear to be a tension here… what I’m not so sure about is the solution. I do want to present a tentative solution, but please do feel free to blast me.

What I want to suggest as a solution is that God is presented in these male terms in scripture primarily because that is most appropriate to the way he relates to us. However, the relationships within God – I want to argue – are not entirely like that. The Father has “male-like” roles; the Son has “female-like” roles. (Obviously the relationships God has are not identical in any sense with human gender roles. Nonetheless, it .)

I believe that there are differences in gender in how human couples do, or should, relate. I’m not sure what the differences are – but I can’t see any way of saying they’re not there. Men take, or should take, one role; women another. There are different views about what this role is, and I don't want to get into that, but there is something there. There is something about the male-female relationship (at least within marriage) which is similar to relationships within God. I don’t want to claim that everything is similar, but that there is something that is similar.

Or, to put it another way, of the following persons:

A. God the Father
B. God the Son
C. Male Humans
D. Female Humans

A is “male” in relation to B; C is male in relation to D. Both C and D are “female” in relation to A and B. Whatever this metaphorically “female” quality of relationship is, BCD have it in relation to A, C&D have it in relation to B, and D has it in relation to C. Similarly, metaphorical “maleness” is possessed by A in relation to BCD, B in relation to CD, and C in relation to D.

This has nothing to do with ontological greatness. A and B are ontologically equal with one another; as are C and D. In other words, they’re equal in being. However, A and B are both ontologically superior to C and D. This “maleness” and “femaleness,” whatever it is, has nothing to do with how great one is; the fact that A/B are greater than C/D is because of something else entirely.

According to this, God is both male and female within himself, but it makes sense why the Bible always uses male language (“He”, “Son”, etc) to talk about Him – He is acting that way in relation to us.

There is some biblical evidence for this. In the Old Testament, there are a few figures who we find out in the New Testament are OT revelations of Jesus. One is “the word” - who is neuter, per grammar. Another is “Wisdom” – who is portrayed in Proverbs as a woman in whom God (the Father) delights, etc.

We also see what seems to me to be a pretty explicit exposition of this in 1 Corinthians 11:3 – “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”

Head is obviously not meant to be taken literally here (as in, it is not a physical head). It’s not used often in Greek as a metaphor, but when it is it can mean several things – it might mean what we might metaphorically use “head” for (i.e. in charge), or it might mean head as in something like “source”, or something having a certain kind of preeminence. Each of those options would have interesting consequences for how one would define the gender roles, but I don’t want to make claims about which one is right. The only point I would like to make is that this passage pretty explicitly says that A is "head" of B, B is head of C, and C is head of D – as I have argued above.

However, I do propose this tentatively as a more widespread way of understanding God’s gender, and would be very eager to be contradicted and argued with so that I can think through this better.

Thought's on Tom Wright:

I am currently reading Tom Wright's book, "Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision", and have just come across something which has greatly intrigued me. Throughout the book, Wright is basically asserting that protestantism, especially the Calvinist tradition (which I identify with), has misunderstood justification - what we basically believe is "getting there", but needs a few correctives from Wright. One of the main issues he has with us is the idea of "imputed righteousness" - of us receiving the righteousness of Christ.

The thing I'm confused about is that he seems to affirm what I mean by imputed righteousness. On page 134, Wright writes of Jesus:

2: He has become for us 'righteousness': that is, God vindicated him, like a judge in a lawcourt finding in favour of one who has previously appeared condemned, when he raised him from the dead. God vindicated him as his own son, the Israel-in-person, the Messiah, anticipating at Easter the final vindication of all God's people in their resurrection from the dead. Those who are 'in Christ' share this status, being vindicated already in advance of that final vindication. (In other words, it is not the case that Paul is suggesting here that Jesus Christ has perfectly obeyed the moral law and thus possesses in himself 'moral righteousness' - that would be to change the meaning of the word entirely at this point - which can then be 'credited' to those who are 'in him'. Jesus was not a legalist! That was not why God gave the law in the first place.)

Which sounds almost exactly the same as what I've always meant by imputed righteousness (there are a few differences from my theology there, but not about the meaning of "imputed", but about how Jesus acquired the righteousness we get, and justification's relationship with final judgement.)

However, he later clarifies that this (and three other points he makes in this list:

In othger words: a wonderful summary of a great deal of Paul's theology - but not a ringing endorsement of the Reformed doctrine of 'imputed righteousness.'

My question is this: Who is it that misunderstands the reformed doctrine of imputed righteousness - Wright, or me?

Chapter 2 draft 1

This is a Wordle image of the second chapter of my book, which I wanted to share with you:

"Make the cross your theology, and test everything by it" - Mike Reeves

Firstly, Revd. Dr. Mike Reeves (UCCF theology advisor, and probably the best bible teacher I've ever heard) has given three excellent talks on the cross, which I've found online would warmly commend to anyone - especially the first and last one, although the middle one isn't bad.

Secondly, Dave Bish has posted two interesting posts on the dangers of emotionalism and dry intellectualism, and the relation of each of them to actually living a life of faith. Well worth a read.

But the main thing I wanted to post on was the cross, as you might guess from the title. I had an interesting conversation the other friday with (name), (name), and (name), about Steve Chalke and penal substitution. I don't actually remember much of what the conversation was about - it was in a very loud place. However, it has made me think a lot recently, as I've realised I've been reading far too little on the subject past few months, so I've started trying to correct that.

That, combined with the fact that it is good friday, have reminded me that I have not updated this blog for ages, even for "Cross Friday". Initially that was because my computer became all broken and busted - since then it is simply because I have largely forgotten.

Anyway, I figured good friday might be a good day to buck the trend.

Just the quote in the title makes me think. For example, one particular thing I've been thinking about - I just heard that I've been accepted onto a Christian internship in parliament, and I am thinking - what does the cross say to my political views? (This article raises some interesting questions on evangelical christian politics, well worth reading.)

So basically, that post said very little, but managed to link to lots of good stuff. Which is nice.

Cross Friday - Justificiation

Apologies once more for the lateness of this post - I fear this may become a running pattern. One of the downsides of knowing people is that they sometimes wish to do things with you on fridays, leading to this being postponed. I met up with old housemates last friday and this got postponed in the process.

This week I wanted to have a little think about justification. No doubt most, if not all, of my readers, will be familiar with the idea that Jesus was justly punished in our place, for our sins, so that God could be both just in dealing with our sins properly, and also merciful in not holding us accountable for our sins. I expect that in a future week I'll look at that properly, and respond to a few of the more obvious objections.

But one outcome of this is part of justification. Justification is often described as God treating us "just as if I never sinned" - the beggining of that phrase being similar to the beginning of "justification." It's God's forgiveness of our sins and treating us as if they were not there.

This is gloriously true, but it's not the whole truth. The greek "justify" is literally a verb form of "righteous", meaning something like "righteousify", i.e. "declare righteous" or "make righteous". In our culture, "righteous" sounds a bit stuck up - perhaps "declare to be good" or "make morally good" gives us a better feel of what it should "feel" like. But the basic point is this - "justify" means not just "forget about the sins", but also "treat you like you've done something".

The bible is clear that in our baptism, we are baptised into Jesus' death and resurrection. As a result of this - we're drawn into the relationship within the heart of God. We share in Christ's death, and thus our punishment is taken and our sins forgiven. But what's more than this - we share in Christ's obedience to death - as well as his other righteous acts - and thus we share in Christ's positive righteousness, and the new life which comes through his resurrection.

That fact makes me realise one thing - it should excite me a whole lot more than it actually does.

Cross Friday - Packer on Penal Substitution as a "model"

In What did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution, J.I. Packer's magisterial lecture/booklet on Penal Substitution (the doctrine that Jesus died for our sins), Packer says the following about penal substitution as a model ("model", for Packer, is something that communicates truth about God - but remembers that it cannot communicate the whole truth - and which Packer states is basically the only way we can talk about any aspect of God):

It will by now be clear that those who affirm penal substitution offer this model not as an explanatory analysis of what lay 'behind' Christ's atoning death in the way that the laws of heat provide an explanatory analysis of what lies 'behind' the boiling of a kettle, but rather as a pointer directing attention to various fundamental features of the mystery - that is, according to our earlier definition, the transcendent and not-wholly-comprehensible divine reality - of Christ's atoning death itself, as the New Testament writers declare it. Most prominent among these features are the mysterious divine love which was its source, and of which it is the measure (cf. Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:8-10; John 15:13); the mysterious necessity for it, evident from Paul's witness in Romans 8:32 that God did not spare his Son, but gave him up to death for us, which shows that, he being he, he could not have saved us at any less cost to himself; the mysterious solidarity in virtue of which Christ could be 'made sin' by the imputing to him of our answerability, and could die for our sins in our place, and we could be 'made righteous' before God through faith by the virtue of his obedience (cf. Rom. 5:17-19, 3 Cor 5:21 [sic]); and the mysterious mode of union whereby, without any diminution of our individuality as persons, or his, Christ and we are 'in' each other in such a sense that already we have passed with him through death into risen life. Recognition of these mysteries causes no embarrassment, nor need it; sicne the cross is undeniably central in the New Testament witness to God's work, it was only to be expected that more dimensions of mystery would be found clustered here than anywhere. (Indeed, there are more than we listed; for a full statement, the tri-unity of the loving God, the incarnation itself, and God's predestining the free acts of his enemies, would also have to come in.) To the question, what does the cross mean in God's plan for man's good, a biblical answer is ready to hand, but when we ask how these things can be we find ourself facing mystery at every point.

An interesting quote - and one which I want to think more about. Anyone agree/disagree and want to give reasons?

(Also, note that due to taking too long this post is not on late friday night, but very early on saturday!)

The Cross displays God's Humility

I was quite busy on Friday with my parents coming up and other stuff that perhaps I will blog about later when I feel more like it, so I didn't post this then. However, it had been ready. I want to look at the supreme humility of Jesus revealed on the cross, and begin to look at some of its implications.

At the cross, we see the supreme humility of Jesus. Philippians 2:5-8 shows us the enormous humility that Jesus showed in going to the cross. In order to save us from our sins, He abandoned His rightful glory in heaven, and became a human being. In becoming human, He accepted all that that means, and died - and died in one of the most humiliating ways imaginable. For a greek, crucifixion was terrible because it was something that only serious criminals had to face (and even then, not always, e.g. Roman citizens were exempt). For a Jew, it was even worse, because the Old Testament says that someone who hangs on a tree is cursed by God (which Jesus was - as no doubt we'll explore in the future).

The cross displays Jesus' humility. Of that I have no doubt. This means a number of things.

1. Jesus places our good above his dignity. Philippians 2:5-8, where Jesus humbles himself by becoming man and going to the cross, is used to show that we should share the mind of Jesus. In what respect should we share the mind of Jesus? In that we should "do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:3-4)
2. Jesus states in John that he does not seek his own glory (John 8:50). The cross is the most visible example of this. Jesus shows that He loves us and His father above his comfort and glory.
   
3. Equally, though (and here is an awesome paradox), while the cross is the place where Jesus' humility and lack of concern for His glory is most shown, it is also the place where His glory - the greatness of who He is - is most profoundly shown (at least for those who God has revealed it to.) We read this in John 17:1, where Jesus prays that as his hour (of crucifixion) comes, God would glorify Him. This would appear to contradict the above point, were it not for the fact that Jesus goes on to explain that this is only so that "the Son may glorify you", the Father. Jesus does not seek His glory for its own sake, but He does seek it out of love for the Father.
4. This has interesting consequences for our understanding of the glory-seeking of God the Father. The role of the Son is to reveal the Father, and we can know nothing of Him without looking through the Son. The Son is the exact imprint of the Father's nature (Hebrews 1:3), so presumably the Father is like the Son in this respect. However, scripture refers to the Father seeking His own glory. The Father could do so for any number of reasons, of which I can see two which seem to both be at least part of the truth, together.
1. One reason could be that He seeks the good of the church, and this is true, but cannot be the whole truth, as (for example) Ezekiel 36 contains statements that God does things not for the sake of Israel, but for the sake of His name - ie his glory.
   
2. Another could be that he is seeking the Son's glory out of love - this is certainly part of the reason, and is certainly true, and is my preferred main explanation for this. I'll blog later on exactly how strongly we can biblically talk about it, as I would like to comment on this post and subsequent discussion - and hopefully will do at some point. Am, however, unusually busy at the minute. One thing I would say, though, is that it is clear both that the Father seeks the glory of the Son (e.g. John 8:50), and that the structure of trinitarian relationships with the world mean that we cannot glorify the Son other than by glorifying the Father through the Son - we can't really do it in any other way.
   
5. One thing that is clear, though, is that whatever reason there is for the Father seeking His own glory, it is compatible with His fundamental humilty and love. The Father is reflected fully, wholly, and gloriously in the Son - and therefore is like Him in His humility and love.
   

By the way, I am trying to make my blogposts sound less like theological treatises. Although I often think about these topics a lot before I write them, I don't edit them so thoroughly that I'd want them to be seen as of the quality of theological treatises. I'd also like them to be readable - unlike far too many theological tomes.

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!