A few thoughts on the EMA and Conservative Evangelical Subculture

I’ve just spent three days at the EMA – Evangelical Ministry Assembly, organised by the Proclamation Trust. I very much enjoyed my time – it was wonderful and refreshing to be out of regular ministry for a few days, and to take some time to receive some encouraging Biblical input.

However – I did have one or two thoughts about the conference. I’ve been to Proc Trust conferences before (including the EMA, a few years ago back in 2015) but this was the first time that I’ve actually felt uncomfortable. I have struggled about whether to make my feelings known – it’s very difficult for criticism to come over in the right spirit on the internet, plus I know how hard the people who run the EMA work, and how much it is appreciated. In a sense, any criticism here is going to be unfair.

So why am I writing? On the final day of the conference, there was a panel discussion talking about the situation regarding Jonathan Fletcher (more on that later). One of the things to come out of that discussion was Johnny Juckes saying they needed to listen to various different voices to identify blind spots – which convinced me that it was right for me to write something.

Here, then, as concisely as I can, are three reasons why I felt uncomfortable.

1. Class

It has become something of a cliche that conservative evangelicalism has a problem with class – although, to be fair, this is a problem which is shared by a lot of the UK church. The particular problem with conservative evangelicals, however, is that the leadership seems (to me, as an ‘outsider’ in these kind of circles) to be predominantly public school / Oxbridge educated. It really struck me this week how many of the people up front probably fitted that description. Of course it’s not possible to tell whether someone has been to a public school, but two of the speakers did make reference to studying at Cambridge.

Maybe I’ve spent too long in Clacton, or maybe it’s because I’ve been thinking about this kind of issue due to Brexit (the divide it has exposed in society e.g. David Goodhart’s book The Road to Somewhere). There is a divide in society which is definitely there in politics – Goodhart does a good job at showing how politics has benefitted one particular class (which he calls the ‘anywheres’) at the expense of another. But it’s a shame when a Christian conference or organisation seems to display something of that same division.

One of the passages quoted approvingly at the conference (on the second day – I can’t remember quite in which context) was this:

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

1 Corinthians 1:26-29

Paul here makes the point that most of the Corinthian believers were not wise, influential, or of noble birth by human standards when they came to Christ. In fact, Paul explicitly makes the point that God goes out of his way to choose the weak and lowly things of this world to shame the strong.

With this in mind – why is it that the EMA main stage seemed to be dominated by people who, superficially at least, could in the world’s eyes pass as wise, influential, and of noble birth?

This is not to say they shouldn’t have been there: I often think of the Countess of Huntingdon when I read those verses – she used to say she was saved by an ‘m’: Paul says not many, instead of not any! Clearly God has a purpose for people at all levels of society, privileged background or not. But it seems to me that there is something wrong when there is a majority from a more privileged background.

There were some things which (to my mind) were notable by their absence: people from the BAME community. People with regional accents. People who minister in small towns rather than university towns. People who minister in small ‘ordinary’ churches rather than big ones – more on that in a moment.

Now, let me be clear – I’m sure there is no intentional bias against anyone! But I think these things so often happen unintentionally because appointments are made, people are invited to speak, on the basis of relationships – and, often, the people you know are people who are similar to you with a similar background – i.e. known from Iwerne camps, or university missions, etc.

I’m not accusing the Proc Trust of doing anything wrong, per se, but maybe there are steps that could be taken to increase the diversity of those invited to lead.

2. Success

This ties in with the first point. Many of those invited to lead sessions were from large and ‘successful’ churches. I say successful in quotes because, of course, success in God’s eyes is different from success in the world’s eyes. A small church may be more successful in God’s eyes than a large church, so long as it is preaching the gospel faithfully.

I think this point came home to me when Vaughan Roberts was leading a session on preaching Hebrews. He was talking about the length of time that he takes to prepare a sermon – he said that he usually booked out Fridays, for example, but before that would spent a couple of 2-3 hour blocks of time working on it. By contrast, when I was a curate, I once took a day to prepare a sermon and my training incumbent at the time told me to enjoy that luxury while I could! He found it a real struggle to carve out sermon preparation time.

The truth is that many pastors are feeling the heat right now. From my own networks I know a lot of Anglican clergy are struggling under a heavy workload – I can think of one vicar in a nearby town who is a part-time chaplain, part-time minister of a parish with three churches. Additionally, the country is growing increasingly secular, and ministry can be a real slog with very little to show for it. Here in our parish we have seen little numerical growth – people have joined and come to Christ (praise God), but the number of people joining has largely been offset by the number who have died or moved away. Sometimes it feels like a matter of running full pelt just to stay where you are! I’m sure many ministers across the country feel like this.

So, what’s the problem? As in the first point I made, ultimately it comes down to diversity: what is being held up as a model? Is a church where the lead pastor has enough free time to spend many hours working on a sermon being held up as the ideal? Most of those given a platform in the EMA were from churches with large staff teams.

Where were the voices of ordinary pastors? Where were those who represented the majority of those in the audience? Do we want to send out the message that you’re only qualified to speak at a preacher’s conference if you have a ‘successful’ (in worldly terms) ministry?

Again – just to be clear – I don’t think this is at all intentional. Of course the Proc Trust want to invite people who are well-known, who are going to preach and speak well. And, of course, it is those who have ‘bigger’ ministries who can afford the time in the first place to prepare for a conference. And those who have ‘successful’ ministries shouldn’t be penalised for that reason! That would be just as big a mistake as choosing them for that reason.

However, I wonder if there is anything which could be done to make the conference better reflect the conviction that the key is Biblical faithfulness rather than popularity. (And, of course, this is a charge that could be levelled at many different Christian conferences – not just conservative evangelical ones!)

3. Theology

This is the area which I’ve been most hesitant to include. Nonetheless, I think it is important and linked to what has gone before. God has given us a whole church for a reason, and I think diversity is important in order to understand our own blind spots. This is why it’s important to listen to those in the church who are different from us. When that doesn’t happen, it can become a bit of a ‘bubble’ where we are unable to see flaws in our own thinking.

One of the ways I think evangelical churches (including, and perhaps especially, conservative evangelical churches) subtly distort the gospel is by portraying the Christian life like this: it’s all about avoiding sin.

It’s a bit like one of those car-racing video games – every time you see a pothole or an obstacle coming, you have to move so you don’t hit it. I think we often unconsciously visualise the Christian life in this way: we live our lives day-to-day, trying our hardest to avoid sinning, and asking God for forgiveness when we fail and the help not to sin again. I call this view ‘almost the gospel’ – it’s so close, and yet not quite there. You could probably live your whole Christian life with this view, and in fact I think many people do. I spent the majority of my Christian life up until 2-3 years ago with something like this view. It has become so deeply ingrained it’s simply the air we breathe: we don’t even notice we are doing it. Over the past few years I’ve gradually become aware of it, largely around what I’ve been thinking about with my other website Friend Zone.

And, interestingly, this is how it ties in with what happened with Jonathan Fletcher. On the final day of the conference, instead of the second session there was an announcement about what happened with Jonathan Fletcher (you can read the transcript online here). After that announcement, there was a panel discussion about safeguarding and how we should respond to these events.

One of the panel said in closing that we should be much more careful in the future – for example by a man not counselling a woman one-to-one. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that this would have had absolutely no bearing on the issues with Jonathan Fletcher (what happened with him was exclusively with other men), this sounds very much like the Billy Graham rule – which, strangely enough, had been mentioned from the front the day before by Hugh Palmer in his pen sketch of Billy Graham. I’ve written about the Billy Graham rule before, the summary being this: we are to love others, not to avoid them out of fear of sin.

There were a group of people in the New Testament who saw purity as a problem, and who saw the solution to that problem in putting up additional laws to ring-fence God’s laws. “We’ll make sure we never, ever cross God’s law by creating a new law which stops us even getting near breaking God’s law”. They were called the Pharisees, and you may recall Jesus didn’t have many kind words for them. Their fault was in thinking that you could create righteousness through observance of rules, when in fact all the additional rules created is a lack of love.

Love can only come from God, we need to look to him and the power of the Holy Spirit – not to human rules. The real irony is, rules actually lead to the kind of thing which happened with Jonathan Fletcher: if you divorce God’s rules from his goodness, you’ll never obey him joyfully. This is a lesson I particularly learned from Sinclair Ferguson’s book The Whole Christ. Jesus came to give us life to the full, and living life in his ways is the best kind of life it’s possible to live. How does David describe the Law of the Lord? “Sweeter than honey” (Psalm 19:10). David is not exaggerating. I have come to believe that what he says is absolutely true – the law of the Lord is sweeter than any of the filthy, polluting effects of sin – however attractive Satan may make it appear to us.

If we see God’s laws as morally righteous but not intrinsically good for us, then our obedience to them will only be half-hearted. Maybe we will even try to get as close to breaking them as possible without actually breaking them. We must come to obey from our hearts, knowing that God is supremely a good law-giver, with our best interests at heart. The Lord knows what is best, because he is the Lord, our maker: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go” (Isaiah 48:17).

All this is not to say that human guidelines have no place – but rather that they should be just that, guidelines. Making a rule of anything beyond the rules God has actually given us is missing the point. This is exactly the point that Jesus is making in the Sermon on the Mount. God asks a deeper obedience of us than rules – adding extra rules to God’s rules will not increase our obedience!

And – ultimately – we should obey God from love, rather than from fear. One seminar at the conference was how to grow as a young preacher. I was left at the end of that session feeling a bit negative, thinking about my sin, idolatry, and all the things that can go wrong! Whereas my experience has been over the last five years that despite my hopeless inadequacy and sinfulness in every way, yet God has been immensely faithful. I have seen some wonderful answers to prayer in my own life and God working through me in ways I couldn’t imagine before. Yes, we need to be concerned for our own sin, but we need to have a greater picture of the God who is capable of transforming us and using us despite our failings.

Let me finish by quoting a couple of things from books I’ve read recently which I think are relevant. The first is from C.S. Lewis’ sermon The Weight of Glory, which I blogged about on Friend Zone recently:

If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.

Although Lewis preached this sermon in 1941, almost 80 years on I think it has continuing relevance for the church today. We in the early 21st century needs to hear these words: the Christian life is about love, as Lewis observed, not simply self-denial. Although I doubt that many Christians today would say that unselfishness was the highest virtue, I think we often live as if that were the case. Our lives betray our beliefs.

The second quote is from Francis Schaeffer, whose writings I have recently discovered to be a treasure-trove. This is from his book True Spirituality, which I blogged about on Friend Zone recently (again; I’m sorry for promoting things I’ve written! I’ve just been thinking about this issue a lot lately.)

The Christian’s call is to believe right doctrine; true doctrine: the doctrine of the Scripture. But it is not just a matter of stating right doctrine, though that is so important. Neither is it merely to be that which can be explained by natural talent, or character, or energy … Preaching the Gospel without the Holy Spirit is to miss the entire point of the command of Jesus Christ for our era… Whatever is not an exhibition that God exists misses the whole point of the Christian’s life now on this earth. According to the Bible, we are to be living a supernatural life now, in this present existence in a way we shall never be able to do again through all eternity. We are called upon to live a supernatural life now, by faith.

Again, I think Schaeffer could be speaking to the church today. The church is not supposed to be doing “that which can be explained by natural talent, or character, or energy” (does that hark back a little to what I said about success?) – but rather to be an exhibition of God’s existence. In other words, the church shouldn’t look just like the world in accomplishing things through its own strength. The church should be unlike the world in accomplishing things which it could only accomplish through God’s power working in us.

Of course, I don’t doubt that all those involved with the Proc Trust / EMA believe this. But we know as Christians that our beliefs don’t always match up with our actions. (And, to be fair – exactly the same criticism could be made of many churches and church traditions. This is absolutely not a problem confined to the conservative evangelical world.)

Although more could be said, I think I have gone on long enough. You can refer to the links I’ve put to my further thoughts on this matter! I will close with Paul’s words to the Corinthians, after he talks about pleading with God to take away his ‘thorn in the flesh’:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:8-10

These verses have become very precious to me over the last few years. I pray that the Lord may teach me, a weak sinner, and all of those who belong to him in his church how to depend on him more deeply at all times, to know deeply that apart from Christ we can do nothing.


Comments

17 responses to “A few thoughts on the EMA and Conservative Evangelical Subculture”

  1. Tim Dossor avatar
    Tim Dossor

    Phill, just a quick thank you for this gracious and helpful article. Not everyone would discuss these points in such a godly way – so thank you! I was a curate in Ipswich, so good to see someone from nearby (across the Orwell/Stour), though I’m now in Oxford. I was someone who grew up and was on the staff of Iwerne Holidays, so have much to learn and find these reflections helpful. May God bless your work in Clacton. Tim

    1. Hi Tim, thanks for your kind comment and I’m glad you found this helpful and the tone in particular – which is something that doesn’t always come over well on the internet.

      My Dad lives in Ipswich actually so I know it quite well – although not very familiar with the Anglican scene as he is part of a Baptist church.

      Many thanks again for this and your other comment, so glad you found it helpful,

      Phill

  2. Irene Petrou avatar
    Irene Petrou

    Spending all my life in low church evangelicalism since I was 4 years old (much like yours) my research has made clear that one of the things that has occurred in our modern culture is that we have split apart Jesus’ summation of the OT commandments ‘To Love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind, heart and to love your neighbour has yourself’. This is no utopian ideal, this is God’s way. We have split this command, and ignored the second. In a lot of ways it is due to our inherent philosophical culture where we have replaced the principle of grace with the principle of reason. As long as we say the ‘right sounding doctrine’ it is okay. Let me be blunt and unpopular in what I give as examples: ‘He/she has an issue with sex or same sex attraction or somewhat (you get my drift), but as long as he/she does not sin, he/she can stay as as they are.) Now these issues are complex, and I am not intending on being trite (so forgive me), but these issues don’t happen in a vacuum. But we evangelicals act like they do. If we love God and love others, we should want to ‘sort ourselves out’ instead of sticking on labels. It isn’t about the outward change or appearance, it is what is happening in the heart. The part only God can see.

    Another issue as an outsider to your country is how the class system hits you in the face. Sometimes it is a BIG punch. Students of history know where it comes from. I am putting this in a simple way. It would go further back to ancient times, when Kings were made. But let’s start with the feudal system and move to the British empire especially as it was mixed in with the Enlightenment idea of progress. The practice was to keep the aristocracy in leadership, and when there money went, to include the upward wealthy (after all they now had money) running the country and empire. They did this buy funnelling the youth of the establishment straight into leadership. Through exclusive public schools and then Oxbridge and the like. Your current government still ‘suffers’ from this in your country.

    Now let’s add C20th century evangelicalism into this mix. Os Guinness for example (a friend of mine has just published their PhD that mentions this in terms of Youth ministry in my city and country), argues that the best way to spread the evangelical gospel is to catch the best and brightest from leading schools and institutions early, by concentrating on them, as they will be the leaders of institutions and governments and church. Sound familiar to you? It established an elitism that continues in various guises. Some obvious, and some not. But inherent and ingrained in low church evangelicals in some manner of practice.

    Let’s go back to Jesus summation: Current conservative evangelicalism seeks to embrace the first. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and neglects the second, love your neighbour as one self. The second was left and alienated to the social

    Jesus’ summation is both, not one or the other. It is both. Embracing both, is not a utopian ideal, it is God’s way.

    Please don’t think me trite. It is far for me to reply to any blog post. But I am seek, tired and exhausted of all this. We have been following the world, not God. Yes, my reply does not do justice and does not cover every angle. I could say more. But I will end with. ‘God Please have mercy on us!’

  3. Irene Petrou avatar
    Irene Petrou

    I meant to write: ‘the second was alienated and left to the social gospel. Jesus’ summation is both, not one or the other, BUT BOTH.

    1. Hi Irene, thanks for your comment. It’s interesting to hear your perspective as someone coming from another country, and I agree with much of what you say.

      I think I would go further and say that it’s not just the second commandment which is neglected. I think for some conservative evangelicals, love of God can become an intellectual exercise (subscribing to right doctrines) – which is not really love for God. I suppose you could say it’s stopping at loving God with all your mind – but not the heart, soul, and strength as well.

      For me, I think I’ve only begun to really know the truth of verses like Psalm 34:8-9 outside of typical conservative evangelical circles:

      “Taste and see that the Lord is good;
      blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
      Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
      for those who fear him lack nothing.”

      Thanks for your comment, I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

      Phill

  4. Irene Petrou avatar
    Irene Petrou

    Sorry, I made a few typos in the initial reply. I was writing on the ipad and spell check took over, but some of it was just me, not correcting spell check when it did!

    I meant to say: “I am sick, tired and exhausted of all of this!” If it was up to me, I would get rid of all the ‘establishment/reformed’ parachurch groups and committees all together, on top of many other things. But that is just idealism on my part.

    Yes, I don’t disagree with you at all. I tried to express this by saying that current evangelicalism ‘seeks to embrace the first’. Not that they actually embrace it theologically well!!

    I think for a lot of current evangelicalism (my context too), that it is cerebral. In my research I talk about how one of the biggest effects of the Enlightenment was the new libertarianism thought that emerged that influenced Protestant thought. This eventuated in a false dichotomy to emerge that split apart ‘Knowledge and Reason and Experience and Practice’, something the modern western theological, Christian and church practice continues to struggles with today.

    Essentially, we replaced a theological theocentric principle of ‘grace’ with a ‘theocentric’ principle of reason. In evangelicalism we have eroded important doctrines, like the classical doctrine of original sin. I say this not in the sense of ‘avoiding sin or temptation to the frailties of the flesh and mind’ but saying that the human mind and this means the Christian mind itself is sinfully corrupt. The Enlightenment ethos led to a less pessimistic view of the human condition, which continues today.

    So I definitely do not disagree with you.

    I came upon your post because a friend of mine in your country made mention the bigger names of Jonathan Fletcher, and since than posthumously Ravi Zacharias has fallen. Prior to this there was Steve Timmis. It has left one holding there breath for ‘what/who next…’ Of course there are those from the US context too.

    As I said, I rarely reply on posts if at all.

    Most people in evangelical churches these days, even the BIG ones, don’t really know what they believe in, outside of ‘I am saved by grace’. We have eroded down so much doctrine in church practice it is deplorable and shameful.

    The Enlightenment era introduced to us the ‘celebrity preachers/evangelists’ in the C18th century and this is still a a big part of C21st evangelicalism. I am not condoning this, I am just pointing something out in the sense that we need to understand our context.

    The problem is we think we ‘think theologically’ when many of us don’t, so we end up jumping on the next bandwagon that comes along in the name gospel, without really thinking at all.

    1. Hi Irene,

      Yes I agree with everything you say here.

      In particular I think you’re right about eroding the doctrine of original sin. I think the modern evangelical world has reduced its understanding of the gospel to “forgiveness”, i.e. God forgives us when we sin. Which is definitely not the traditional Reformed understanding of sin and grace!

      I also am very much with you on eroding doctrine. This is why I started up my other site, Understand the Bible, because I think too many people simply don’t understand the Christian faith and how it fits together. Sadly even a lot of evangelical churches have focussed on “biblical preaching” to the exclusion of anything else, such as catechism.

      May I ask which country you are writing from, out of interest?

      Thank you for commenting!

      Phill

  5. Irene Petrou avatar
    Irene Petrou

    Corrections:

    I think for a lot of current evangelicalisms (my context too), doing and living theology is cerebral. In my research I talk about how one of the biggest effects of the Enlightenment was the new libertarian thought that emerged and influenced Protestant thought. This eventuated in a false dichotomy to occur that split apart ‘Knowledge and Reason and Experience and Practice’. This is something the modern western theology still struggles with. That is, Christian and Church Practice still struggles with it today.

    Essentially, we replaced a theological theocentric principle of ‘grace’ with a ‘anthropocentric’ or human centred principle of reason that came out of Enlightenment libertarian thought.

  6. Hi Phill,

    I am Australian! Apologies if I was being blunt. The issues are common all over for ‘reformed’ evangelicals. In the UK scene, there is a deep connection to Sydney evangelicalism, which itself is undergoing change. In what direction, I don’t know. It is true that enrolments in evangelical Theological/bible colleges are at one of their lowest points where I come from (at least that is what they say here) and hear it is similarly the case in your country. I do realise that there are different types of evangelical churches in the UK. I have been to north, I have been to Northern Ireland, I have been to the south of your country. Due to friends, I have been to Baptist, FIEC, low church reformed CoE, charismatic evangelical CoE. So I have some taste of the UK evangelical scene.

    1. No problem! I don’t think you were being blunt. I think a few people from my theological college trained with Sydney Anglicans and had a connection there. So there are lots of points of similarity. Thanks for commenting!

  7. I meant colleges were at lowest enrolments rather than points. Thanks for listening. Blessings

  8. A S MacDonald avatar
    A S MacDonald

    Phill – I appreciate what you say. Having listened to sermons in Evangelical churches for the last 50 years, I began to notice the different flavour of the teaching coming from this invisible grouping of ex ‘public schoolboys’ from the elite schools. I do have a certain immunity to what many public schoolboys say, having been educated at a good, solid, Edinburgh state school. (We certainly learn about different kinds of school in Edinburgh and what kind of ‘bluster’, ‘authority’ and ‘smoothness’ not to take seriously or believe!!). Perhaps we could all do with a bit more of the scepticism of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, who ‘rarely believed too readily what people told her’! I think believers (certainly the kind of ‘meek’ believer of whom God approves, according to the Psalms) not only recognise their Shepherd’s voice but become sensitive to things that sound quite like their Shepherd, but are not.

    I think you are quite right that some of these men are adding (for their own purposes) all kinds of ‘protective’ laws to the Gospel (and to the Old Covenant law) reinterpreting (and mis-translating?) to fit their oppressive and slightly twisted view of perfection (= pressurised sinlessness – according to their detailed definition of sin – and pressurised personal evangelism). They seem to think ‘other people’, though not themselves, can’t handle God’s grace, but would use it to have their cake and eat it, living licencenciously. The Epistles say we should encourage one another in the future hope we have – carrying each other’s burdens in a spirit of caring that is characterised even as ‘tender’. You certainly don’t come out of their church services feeling encouraged or cared for. To me, their sermons often seem like tactics to create dependence and the need for their approval – and thus bring people under their control. Is that not the behaviour of a classical narcissist? This also suggests to me that, in spite of ‘talking the talk’ about theological orthodoxy, some of them may not really have grasped the Gospel themselves! Primary loyalty to school, class and ‘leadership’ is naturally going to lead to other delusions. To stop their congregations spotting this, they end up ‘trumpeting their own humility’!!

    You mention the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. Have you noticed that they had THREE characteristics we might recognise: 1) they heaped religious burdens on ordinary folk, 2) they came through an elitist education system with a sense of entitlement to rule, and 3) when challenged, they closed ranks rather than acknowledge the truth!

    Like you, I have found antidotes to all this in CS Lewis (including the essay/sermon you mentioned) and Francis Schaeffer (plus other L’Abri leaders such as Wim Rietkerk – who pointed out that the Bible does NOT say we are ALL to be evangelists, but simply to be ready to give an explanation of our hope, if asked!). However, I think my own faith was mainly strengthened by the writings of theologian Henri Blocher. For now I personally keep going by writing sermons to myself, based on the readings in Book of Common Prayer.

    1. Hello there, thank you for your thought provoking comment. Lots to think about and I was particularly struck by your comments about narcissism and pharisaism. There’s far more pharisaism in the church today than we like to admit.

      I like Henri Blocher – I haven’t read many of his works, I have his book on Original Sin and I have also read a couple of pieces that he did about creation which were very helpful. Is there any particular work that you would recommend?

      I was listening earlier to the interview between John Anderson and Peter Jensen – former Archbishop of Sydney (now retired), and it struck me how Peter Jensen is a very gracious and humble man, characteristics which I would not always use to describe conservative evangelical leaders. The UK conservative evangelical scene does seem to have its own culture and blind spots, which is why it’s so important to have those voices – as well as others like Schaeffer – to help us.

      Thank you for commenting and I’m so glad it was helpful,

      Phill

  9. A S MacDonald avatar
    A S MacDonald

    ‘Gracious and humble’ is indeed what we should be looking for (with wisdom to discern false claimed humility!)

    Henri Blocher has not written many books that have been translated into English (He is French – actually half French, half Dutch). I like the way he always gives Scripture itself the final casting vote and the way he discusses all the common interpretations on a subject but is willing to evaluate them and commit himself to one, or provide a new alternative. His book that proved a great liberation for me in my faith was ‘In the Beginning’ – a study of the early chapters of Genesis focussing on what the text originally meant, further illuminated by the rest of scripture. The other book of his I like best is ‘Evil and the Cross’ – discussing the beginning and end of evil and mans’ historical attempts, and the church’s historical attempts, to explain it. It also strongly signals Christ’s victory over evil and our own sure hope. He has also written a short book ‘Songs of the Servant’, about the 4 ‘servant songs’ in Isaiah, and a more recent book called ‘Faith and Reason’. What I like about Henri Blocher’s books is that (unlike many modern books which subtly undermine faith with various hidden agendas) they are scholarly in a way that is deliberately designed to provide great support and encouragement for the faith of ordinary people.
    I always think one of the keys to strengthening and supporting faith is to get the beginning and the end right (the whole meta-narrative). Hence I love Henri Blocher’s book about Genesis and also Michael Wilcock’s book about Revelation. They both explain things AND warm the heart! They are, I think, trustworthy, honest and faithful to Christ.

    One thing I didn’t mention about my experience of many of today’s evangelical leaders is that they seem to want to turn us into regimented clones, with no real sense of individual difference. They are ignoring (deliberately ignoring?) Paul’s admonition that, with regard to our individual spiritual progress we should compare ourselves only with ourselves! (Galations 6v3-5). (At the risk of criticising anyone’s hero, I partly trace this back to John Wesley and his views on perfection!!).

    1. Thank you for those recommendations – I have read ‘In the Beginning’, which I too found very helpful. I’ll look up the books I haven’t read yet.

      I agree about what you say on supporting faith. It’s good to have writers who build up rather than simply impart information. I like J.I. Packer – I was struck when re-reading ‘Knowing God’ recently how he says many of the things which I feel need to be said. (He was also a fan of Francis Schaeffer!) I also like Sinclair Ferguson. I think they are all writers who really ‘get it’ when it comes to the kind of things we’ve been talking about.

      The gospel, the true gospel, brings us to life as individuals. That’s the wonderful thing about it. A distorted gospel will turn us into clones. You might be right about Wesley.

      Thanks again for commenting!

      Phill

  10. Heather avatar

    Hey, Phil

    I really appreciate this article. I come from rural farming community in Ireland so the English church class system was so strange when I Moved over!

    The only thing I wonder tho is on point 2 on prep time. To use an example, My dad was a minister of a joint charge, rural church, with no staff and no teaching elders, so he had to preach 3 times on Sunday plus mid weeks every week, plus be part of that culture of churches where the minister is expected to visit his entire congregation in their homes. He worked flat out, but he always carved out 2 of his mornings and one afternoon every week for sermon prep.
    Since then I’ve been part of two large and one medium sized churches with multiple staff, and in reflection, as I compare work loads and expectations, I don’t see load so much bigger or smaller, just different.
    So I wonder if part of it is discipline as well as happening to have staff to support the time? Surely if the minister believes the preaching bit of his job to be Maybe the most important in the Health of his church, he needs to make the time.. even if it means saying no to other things.
    I don’t say that lightly cos I know dad annoyed people occasionally or felt he let them down, or the thing he had to sacrifice was family time (which is an issue too I know), but I just hear busyness used as an excuse in churches of all sizes and staff teams of all sizes. When actually the issue is maybe more discipline and time management and being able to say ‘no’.

    (Conversely, the medium church I was part of has crumbled in the past year due a lot, I believe, because the vicar didn’t priortise prep time and his sermons suffered, along with him, his staff, and those in the pews)

    Just a thought tho, and really appreciate the rest of what you said, and even more so, the tone.

    1. Hi Heather, thanks for your thoughtful comment and it’s always good to have another perspective!

      I didn’t really mean to come across as being down on sermon prep time in general. Obviously everyone will have a different amount of time which is necessary. And it is important to carve out the time. At the same time, I think I was trying to get at a particular attitude in conservative evangelical circles where doing the intellectual work / prep time is the most important thing. The more I preach, the more I realise it’s a spiritual exercise. What is far more important than the time I spend in commentaries etc is actually having a living relationship with the Lord. This is a message which I don’t think comes across very clearly in Proc Trust circles.

      I’m hoping to return to this topic in due course anyway. Thanks for your comment!

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