Kingdom Justice

There is a fairly common line of thought that Christians should be involved in 'social action', concerned for issues of justice for and wide. The need for a theological justification of this is rarely felt these days and when it is, it tends to be generally rather tiresomely produced by references to Amos and appeal to the 'goodness' of creation reaffirmed by the bodily resurrection of Christ.

Ho hum.

There seems to be something missing. Isn't there something fundamentally world-denying in Christ's kingdom teaching and actions? I couldn't dispute for a moment that Christ brought the good news to the downtrodden and powerless, but did he not equally deny his mother and brothers? And, to get to the meat of the matter, did he not instruct his disciples to take up their crosses, to lose their lives for the sake of the Gospel and, further, is that not precisely what he did himself?

So, here's my contention. Hear me through to the end. The Church is not called to bring justice to the world. Instead, or perhaps more precisely, the Church is called to give up all claim on this world in worshipful obedience to Christ and in order to love the world. In so doing, the Church is to call the world in its turn to give up its claim on this world in worshipful obedience to Christ and in acts of love for others.

In other words, I suppose this is an appeal for ethics to be considered as part discipleship in Christ.

The Parish System - Close, But No Cigar

I think there is a lot to be learnt from Milbank's criticism of fresh expressions for giving up on society and community and its relationship to God. But, not having read the new book - only Milbank's article from 2008 in Studies in Christian Ethics - my guess is that it doesn't go far enough for me.

Community and society does matter, and for that very reason the parish system presents a problem.

Society is socio-economically divided. Not a profoundly original comment, but when was the last time I found the church recognising this and working against it. Redistribution of parish share is just guilt money! Schools? Yep, ok. More guilt money and evidently ineffective on any significant level.

Up and down the country, parishes are divided along these lines. Even if we set aside the problem of evangelical gathered congregations, full of the like-minded middle-class, the parish system on its own simply christens social division. Rich people live, by and large, in prosperous areas. Poor people live in the housing they can afford. Some parishes do cross boundaries. Many do not.

What would it take for comparatively rich educative Christians to live with and contribute to the community of poorer neighbourhoods?

Perhaps you could say that the parish system isn't broken, but society is. As things stand though, it is too small a unit to effectively combat this.

What would it take for Christians to recognise this and for individuals and families to play their part in turning this upside down?

faith and evidence

A quick comment on the relationship of faith to evidence.

It's faith all the way. There does however, need to be an actual physical counterpart to the Gospel. This might be Christ's human body, a miracle or a community of compassion. None of these things can form part of a conclusive case for the truth of the Gospel, on their own or together. It is however right and proper (and necessary?) that they are there, even if it takes faith to recognise them.

God Reveals Himself

Barth argues (see below) that Calvin's basing the authority of Scripture in the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit is a way of ensuring and realising that God must reveal himself. Calvin does list what might be termed evidences for Scripture's inspiration (sorry for the lack of references) but these are not conclusive.

I'm sure there must be a wealth of literature on this subject, but I have a hunch even trying to ask the question 'what is this testimony' will only leave us going round in circles, attempting to securely pin down something which floats through our hands.

If this is the case then the multiplicity of Reformed confessions is inevitable and necessary because we have no way to arrive at a public and universal statement (as Barth argues the Augsburg confession was). Even our canon is arrived at by faith. The Church lives by faith all the way down ...

How is the word of God to be read?

The holy Scriptures are to be read with an high and reverent esteem of them; with a firm persuasion that they are the very Word of God, and that he only can enable us to understand them; with desire to know, believe, and obey the will of God revealed in them; with diligence, and attention to the matter and scope of them; with meditation, application, self-denial, and prayer.

Larger Westminster Catechism

Scripture alone ...

Not very anglican this, but hey.

In reading Barth's "Theology of the Reformed Confessions" it has been helpful to have the contrasting attitudes to public Church documents of the Catholics, Lutherans and the Reformed laid out with some of their consequences.

Barth is less than optimistic about the current likelihood of the Reformed Church of his day getting down to writing any new confession (The book consists of lectures from 1923) although he thinks any significantly reenvigorated Reformed Church should get round to this task.

The Scripture Principle is for Barth a defining idea characteristic of the Reformed. It occurs to me, however, that even this would need to be rethought in any new confession, not inorder to remove or undermine it but to preserve it.

Part of the problem I forsee is that when the appeal was made to Scripture during the Reformation, it was made with some implicit theological assumptions. Defining what these are is not easy. They would include, I think, a doctrine of God, his goodness and oneness, his history of care for Israel; a recognition of Scripture as set apart by God for his purposes; an understanding of humanity - that the authors of Scripture and its modern readers stand, fundamentally, in the same relationship to this one God. Although this probably risks opening up a can of worms, we could call these things a 'rule of faith'.

The reason all these things become significant is because of the treatment of Scripture during the Enlightenment and beyond. The appeal to go back to the Scriptures of any new confessional movement is potentially thwarted by the recognition that modern readers (reading without some of the above assumptions) have returned to the Scriptures generally speaking they have found only a plurality of voices, confusion and moral ambiguity.

So, in conclusion, is it possible to hold onto a simple Scripture principle? If it is possible to ennumerate the theological assumptions of the Reformers and would we want to share them? Either way, what would be ours and from where would we get them? From Scripture?

Now, perhaps I could be accused at this point by a wagging finger, the person behind which would complain that these readers are simply unrepentant sinners, not reliant on divine grace, etc. and that the answer to our hermeneutical question is one of 'prayerful' reading. The irony is, such a position contains within itself innumerable theological understandings and indeed relationships to God. I think piety is an essential element of any answer here, but the very idea brings with it the question 'what kind of piety?' and 'who is this God I am worshipping?'.

I would like to find a way of laying out these tensions and questions in a stable manner ... or, at least, if the instability is fundamental to the task, be in a position to recognise this to be the case.

The Other Side of the Coin ...

In fairness, apart from the unnecessary dismissal of everyone to the left, right and behind him, this is not that bad! I appreciate the attempt to nuance our view of Scripture from a recognition of its historical origin and theological relation to Christ. I'm still unconvinced that the dramatical model is either particularly new or helps us with any of the 'difficult' issues.

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=334

I suppose it would be interesting to hear some interaction from those who would disagree with Wright on his position on homosexual practice ... and whether his ideas on Biblical authority move the discussion on at all.

Theology or History?

"What matters for our purposes in the present book is the ground of Paul's argument, since unlike him we are not presupposing Jesus' resurrection and building on it a theology of Christian hope, but examining his theology of Christian hope in order to understand more precisely what he thought had happened to Jesus."

N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003), p. 315. My italics.

An infelicitous phrase? A valid academic exercise ...

Healing of the Heart

What is the point or goal of psychological healing? Is the answer, perhaps, to relieve distress or alternatively to make 'whole'? What constitutes as the 'norm' or the acceptable state to which we aim to bring people who are in need in of healing? Further, who is it that is in need of healing? Perhaps we should not assume we know this. When we attempt to heal, are we actually trying to bring people to our state of being? Might we ourselves be in need of healing? How can we answer these questions as Christians, and when we do so what will be the relationship of God, and particularly the Holy Spirit to these processes of healing?

The created purpose of humans is to love God and neighbour. This might not seem the obvious place to start. Much ink is spilt on disputed questions about what it means for humans to exist in the image of God. I would say this, however: focussing on an inherent God given dignity of humans - in effect using the imago dei as a cipher for human rights - risks obscuring that the nature of God, in whose image we are made, is finally revealed in Christ and Christ tells us in word and deed to love God and love neighbour as he, God, has loved us. The created and ultimate purpose of humans is to love God and neighbour.

People need healing when an aspect of their lives impedes their freedom to love God and neighbour as he has loved us. Consider addiction. The addicted person is not free to love God and neighbour as he or she ought. The individual feeds their addiction before they can interact with the world. If the addiction is concealed, because society looks down upon it, then the individual lives with a lie and is at least in part unable to fully reciprocate relationships. One might argue that the purpose of healing is to alleviate suffering. It is, without a doubt, true that our freedom to love our neighbour should result in our actually loving our neighbour and working to remove distress. But is this the ultimate end for Christians? A life of painlessness is not a Christian ideal.

One consequence of this idea is that medical healing now appears to have a different character to psychological healing. It is not the case that those with broken bones, or indeed cancer, are unable to love God or neighbour even if illness may well make practical demonstrations of love impossible.

An advantage of viewing people as loving agents is that we cease to view anyone as completely healed or, to put it another way, as having arrived at a position in which grace is no longer necessary. Human beings are not so much returned to a state of health, as faced with the ongoing need day by day to surmount obstacles which impede their freedom to love.

Two questions remain for me at the current time. These are how the above relates to the work of the Holy Spirit and to eschatology.

I shall start with eschatology. The resurrection reveals the relativity of all human health! Although this may not be the most helpful term, it may be useful to think of all healing as having the character of sign. The purpose of using this term is not to undermine the significance of the healing of affliction, but to recognise all such healing can only be understood as temporary or partial when viewed from the perspective of the whole world and in the shadow of mortality. Healing, then, points us to the greater transformation which Christians wait for at Christ's return. If we forget about eschatology we risk being disillusioned at the scale of suffering in the world.

The Holy Spirit is the bringer of life. Life is freedom. Christians have received the Spirit of God. It was the Spirit of God who brings them and sustains them in union with Christ and so brings them into new life. It is on the basis of this Spirit established life and freedom from a past life of sin that the Christian is urged to live in step with the Spirit, that is to seek to love God and neighbour with fewer impediments. The freedom of the Spirit is not an immediate emotional or relational healing with God or neighbour. It involves the granting of the knowledge - indeed only partially appreciated - that God has loved the individual and it involves the inviting of the loved to embark on a transformation of their love toward God and neighbour. It will be appropriate for Christians to use all the God-given means of grace at their disposal in order to enjoy this transformation. These will include worship and the use of the sacraments, loving and being loved in the community of the church, the practice of 'disciplines' and also the hearing of God's word as it informs us of the basis and on going necessity of all of these things, that is God himself.

Pride and Faith

But it is the essence of ignorance to attach importance to that which it does not understand. Human vanity is so constituted that it stiffens before difficulties. The more an object conceals itself from our eyes, the greater the effort we make to seize it, because it pricks our pride, it excites our curiosity and it appears interesting. In fighting for his God everyone, in fact, fights only for the interests of his own vanity, which, of all the passions produced by the mal-organization of society, is the quickest to take offense, and the most capable of committing the greatest follies.

Percy Byssche Shelley

Men and the Church (3)

Musing further, it occurs to me that it may be helpful to be able to distinguish between sex and gender in this discussion.

The biological fact of the distinct sexes is affirmed as part of God's creation in Genesis. We can make a distinction between this and gender, by understanding gender as an "individual's self-conception as being male or female, as distinguished from actual biological sex". Disagreements will often arise amongst Christians with regard to what degree or in what way the fact of our sex brings with it, in the light of revelation, moral imperatives concerning our gender.

Scripture affirms the distinct sexes. Does it demand we form particular ideas of gender?

In making this distinction, it seems all the more difficult not to address passages such as Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11. Are there any other passages which need to be addressed?

Men and the Church (2)

Here is some qualification on the earlier post.

Firstly, the Church is incredibly varied and I can only speak for my experience of the Western (largely evangelical) and British angle of things.

Secondly, I began the earlier post by arguing that conventional masculinity could be said to have been dramatically called into question by the Lordship of Christ. While this may be true, this hasn't stopped males dominating the hierarchy (?!) of the Church for most of its history. The Church in the West has adapted with the prevailing feminist trend in the last forty years and begun to recognise its lack of openness to the fullness of the gifts possessed by women. This has surely brought with it a criticism of the apparently failing (dropping Church attendances and influence on society) male dominated Church. Certainly, from a Reformed perspective, the male who leads through the preaching of the Word does look ... anachronistic. The Church today certainly does not (I'm not arguing it should) think this is sufficient.

So it is better to point out, I think, that the idea of Christ as someone who radically criticises conventional ideas about the place and role of men in society, is a relatively modern one. This is not to say that this criticism is not there in Christ and his work, and that it is purely a modern invention, but that our particular understanding of it and emphasis on it, has come with the modern reassessment of gender outside and inside the Church. To put it simply (thanks Jake), we were patriarchal and this must continue to be regretted; we're now experiencing a matriarchal response; is it possible now to encourage the Church to gain a more balanced position?

Men and the Church

Men were in charge, with occasional exceptions, in the times of the Bible. That is, they were the chief protagonists in culture and politics. They formed governments, raised taxes, executed justice and waged wars. I'm sure a more attractive picture of their activities could be given, and I'm sure that women had a more significant influence than I imply, but anyway ...

Insofar as Jesus' teaching, and the significance of his resurrection and revelation as Lord, calls into question the ultimate significance of all human rulership, and achievement, then Jesus could be said to be criticising forms of masculinity. Feminists rejoice.

But, this risks leaving men broken, criticised and undermined and without a positive ideal. What does it mean to be men? What is good about masculinity? Is it really the case that masculinity must be universally repented of?!

Behind this questioning is an awareness of a trend in the UK of a lack of men in Church. It's possible that at least part of the reason for this is because the Church is embarrassed by masculinity. This may reflect wider 'educated' society which, to be be blunt, views football, 'lads mags' and beer as Neanderthal. Would it be any surprise if our educated laity and clergy wondered equally what on earth masculinity was for?

My hope would be that there may be faithful ways of expressing and living the gospel which don't simply critique masculinity but offer an aspirational model of it. It's tempting to define at this stage what that masculinity is, and then to look for affirmation of those qualities in Scripture. We should probably start further back, however, and trust that Scripture and therefore God will reveal to us what we need, not assume we know what we need and look to God to supply it.

Two small metaphors for theology and some pastoral implications ...

Doctrine is not a cathedral, but rather a mud hut built on solid foundations.

Theology is notes, made in the margin of Scripture.

Paradoxically as it may seem, ministry is not about constructing a coherent belief system from sacred texts and presenting it to a congregation or the world. Instead, ministry is always firstly about divine action, in the past and in the present. We have our role, and it is important, but it is God who reveals himself. Our role is to correct ourselves and each other by pointing each other back to the source of grace.

Hermeneutics and Theology

During the last century, the question of hermeneutics arose to be persistently important.

A change in time and a change in culture, causes the question to be raised as to whether what was said then can be used without some form of transposition or, more in the form above, can come to us directly as a prophetic word of God. Does the Word of God require a prophetic interpreter?

Two issues spring to my mind which have demanded that the question of hermeneutics be dealt with: mythology and ethics.

The problem of mythology forms in more than one way. Firstly, are myths signs of a truth? Are they political code for instance, as in Caird. Or, secondly, with Bultmann, are they disproved - impossible to believe in - with the development of modern understandings of the natural world. With Caird, the language must be deciphered, and then it is presumably a further question of finding analogies with that addressed in the Bible. With Bultmann, the spiritual entities must be deleted and and the focus must remain firmly on the challenges being addressed to the human. It was Barth's simple assertion that Jesus Christ is risen which I found most helpful. If this is true, all our understandings must be reorganized in the light which this sheds. So it is entirely possible that mythological language operated politically, but that neither means that all people thought this or that angelic language, for instance, is entirely exhausted by political referents. Bultmann's problem should not be as easily dismissed as it often is, but it is still the case that statement of Christ's resurrection must change all our perceptions of reality if we are to be faithful to anything like its full significance.

There are many issues when we turn to ethics, of course, which have made Christians ask whether they can take the Bible at face value; war, gender and sexuality, slavery, to name but a few. In the case of homosexuality, for instance, many Christians have read the negative portions of Scripture, understood their plain sense, and yet not understood the reason or the purpose for them. Then, they have then been open to suggestions that the Biblical authors simply knew no better and that they were a product of their age. It has also be argued, perhaps a little more sympathetically, that the Biblical age was not aware of the committed and monogamous forms of homosexual relationship which we know today. Those responses to these entirely valid questions, which seem to me to have been most successful, have not explained have not isolated abstract principles from the Biblical text and found analogous circumstances to apply them to today. Instead, they have brought out from the rest of the Biblical material two things. Firstly, have come definitions of humanity which challenge are own. This is important because it was apparently new understandings of human identity which made the Biblical injunctions appear outmoded. Secondly, they have set the Biblical injunctions in a wider canonical context, including a canonical view of human identity, thus changing their appearance. No longer do they appear arbitrary, and possibly prejudiced. They are revealed as part of a far wider word of hope to humanity.

In both cases of mythology and ethics, Scriptural authority is held onto by returning to Scripture and discovering a reality there which relativises that which had formerly caused the Biblical texts to seem impossible. It all seems to be a question of who can pull the rug out from under whose feet.

The problem of hermeneutics is that it risks introducing a philosophical filter between us and the Word of God. Granted that the problem of differing circumstances always must still be addressed, what is required is a theological 'filter', or perhaps better, a prism, rather than a philosophical one. And, if theological, this too must be derived from Scripture.

Strange how we go round in circles:

The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about thew true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

Westminster Confession of Faith 1.9

Galatians 1:1-2 contd.

"To the churches of Galatia"

Paul, an apostle sent from God, to bear witness to the resurrected Christ writes to the churches of Galatia. Does this make this text something relative, something contingent, something old and distant?

Our context has changed. We are not the Galatians. Our culture has changed. How can we know that Paul would say the same thing to us? This is an excuse. Yes, we must listen to the world around us. We must love and care, as Christ teaches us. But we must not succumb! God will transform us. We must not dare to suggest that we must transform him.

No. God is unchanged. Humanity is unchanged. Christ is still raised and through the apostle calls people to follow him.

God has chosen a particular time and place in which to reveal himself. This cannot be for us a problem. This must be a joy and a blessing. We stand in the same relationship to this God as Paul's first readers. How can we know this? Only by hearing the Word of God.

In this letter we receive a concrete sign of the love of our God. It is consistent with his nature. This God did merely talk or encourage or wish, but acted and concretely. He did not consider it beneath him to enter this world in Jesus Christ and to walk and die under our curse.

Galatians 1:1-2

"Paul an apostle".

Paul is an apostle. He is not, for us, a human leader. He is not self appointed. He is sent from God. And this God is not to be identifed with any of out own ideas or preconceptions or hopes or traditions. This God, the Father, is revealed through Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God in relation to the Father. This God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Any interpretation of this letter which does not begin and end with the fact that God the Father and the risen Christ, Son of God, is approaching us through his appointed emissary, is in relation to this God and his Church, effectively meaningless.

Paul is not writing as a fallible human, fearing the questioning of his authority because of conflict with Peter. He may be such a human, but his writing cannot be reduced to this. This letter is not a witness to a local dispute in a religious group which took place long ago. It is the Word of God.

Nor is the relevance of this text to be restricted to analagous situations in our comtemporary situation. In fact, this text is not relevant. This text does not meet our need. This text tranforms all our expectations, fears and hopes.

This means that all our expectations must be checked. All our hopes and fears cannot control or restrict that which Paul brings to us. Paul brings to us the one who sets us free from the present evil age. If our age is evil, we too are evil and can at no point claim to be free of its influence. Evil affects ethics yes, but also epistemology. God himself must come from out side of us and our culture. Through this text our need and its solution is revealed.

Neuroscience and the Transcendence of God

I was just musing about neuroscience and the transcendence of God, as you do.

I don't know if this argument is helpful, I think it occurred to me because I had an arminian Philosophy of Religion tutor who always insisted that human freedom always entailed a limitation on God. This seemed an odd position because, from a scientific point of view freedom looked rather illusory anyway ...

Anyway, IF one accepts that the human spirit or soul is not merely reducible to the physical elements upon which it appears to reside, IF one accepts that a materialistic account is not sufficient to give a full account of what it is to be human ...

THEN if one also accepts that God is creator ex nihilo and has thus created humans, body and soul, then it seems one has accepted that one knows of one being who is able to do what we cannot with physicality, create human freedom and life and soul. It seems that God must therefore be transcendent and not simply limited to acting in the predictable manner science expects.

One could act extra qualifications - is past creation of freedom different from present governance of creation - but I still think that there is a point here.

Why is the Canon the Canon?

Three possible responses:

1) Because its teaching is consonant with X where X might be Jesus' teaching, or the Church's teaching.

2) An historical answer: this is the Canon because of these historical events.

3) Because it is that by which we measure our proclamation.

The first rather undermines our idea of a canon in that it measures the Canon by something else, thereby revealing that the Canon is not the Canon.

The second, historical, approach offers insight into how the Canon operates as canon within the Church.

The third approach is not really an answer, but it does serve to focus us on the use of Canon in authorizing and controlling the Church's belief and witness. It helps preserve us from the first approach, which may ultimately drive us to seeking foundations for the Canon in more general methods of inquiry which have nothing to do with the Canon and the use of which may result in a controlling of the content of the Canon.

And yet, the first approach does remind us that the Word is the Word in a derivative sense. It is the Word of God as Witness to God's self-revelation in Christ. Such a recognition reminds us that the Canon's function is to be used in that self-revelation. Attempts to use the Canon for some other use, for instance as historical source, are different tasks and not to be confused with the self-revelation of God.

... "This overall narrative character of the canon, together with its designation as Word of God suggests that the canon might plausibly be construed as a story which has God as its "author". It is a story in which real events and persons are depicted in a way that discloses their relationship to God and to God's purposes; a story that finally involves and relates all persons and events, and which, as it is told and heard in the power of God's Spirit, becomes the vehicle of God's own definite self-disclosure. God is not only the author of this story but its chief character as well; so that as the story unfolds we come to understand who God is. And because God is not only the character but also the author, the story's disclosure is God's self-disclosure. We become aquainted with God as the one who is behind the story and within it."

- Charles M. Wood, The Formation of Christian Understanding, 2nd edn
(Trinity Intl. Press: 1993; repr. Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 2000)

Divine Accommodation

Two questions:

1) Why is Accommodation not a form of untruth?

2) If Accommodation occurs, why can we talk about it? Or perhaps, what are we doing in our talking about it, suggesting that God is not really as he says he is? Is this not a refusal to believe what God has given us to believe about Him?


Recent reading: Paul Helm, 'Faith, Atonement and Time' in Paul Helm, John Calvin's Ideas (Oxford, OUP:2004).