Phill Sacre

Category: Christian

Anything I write about the Christian faith.

  • The Spirituality of Deal or No Deal

    Over the past week or two, I’ve been watching “Deal or No Deal”. It’s not a show I’ve ever watched before, but given that our former next-door-neighbour has been on it, I thought I’d watch to see her on TV. If you’re not familiar with the show, then I’m not going to explain it here – watch an episode online and you’ll get the gist of it within about two minutes. One of the things that’s fascinating about the show (at least to me) is the spiritual or religious element to it.

    You may be thinking, “Spirituality? In Deal or No Deal? How ridiculous!” But let me outline what I’m talking about:

    • There are several ‘superstitions’ in the programme, for example: “The curse of the newbie” – the newest contestant to join the programme is thought to usually have red (high) numbers, so they rarely get chosen. I’ve also seen things like everybody holding hands – as in a seance.
    • More than that, the way the whole show is put together has an air of superstition about it. When someone gets a run of red numbers, people virtually pray for a blue (low) number. The way Noel narrates the show, and the way the contestants talk, the thinking seems to be try really hard and get a blue number. Although ultimately they know they can’t control it, they seem to believe that there is some kind of transcendent destiny about what numbers they pick: if you try hard enough, fate will reward you with a better score.
    • Speaking of reward, the way Noel Edmonds talks about the final amount is entirely geared around getting people to continue. I’ve heard the phrase “life changing amount of money” frequently. Contestants have to have a list of things they want to accomplish if they want to go on the show. In other words, the prize money is seen as something to improve people’s lives: it’s not just money – it’s money with the power to make your life better, and fulfil your dreams.
    • Finally, on more than one occasion Noel Edmonds has called those visiting  (i.e. the audience) ‘pilgrims’.

    So, let’s put this all together. On Deal or No Deal, contestants try to make the right choices / do the right things, in order to manipulate something transcendent / supernatural (i.e. fate), in order to accomplish ‘paradise’ – or at least, (some of) their goals in life. Does that sound at all familiar? That is the message which Deal or No Deal is implicitly sending out, even if it’s not explicit.

    What’s so tragic and yet so depressingly predictable about Deal or No Deal is the way the contestants seem to universally buy into this kind of thinking, even if the boxes are completely random and the contestants have absolutely no control over which they pick. These people seem to think that if they can just manage to choose the right boxes, they’ll get the highest amount of money and their lives will change forever. (If you listen carefully to what Noel Edmonds says, he strongly encourages this way of thinking). What’s sad about this to me is that it’s ‘religion’ all over.

    Religion says, “if you do this well enough you’ll be acceptable to God, and he will bless you”. Look at any religion you like, except for Christianity, and that’s the message that you get: try hard enough, appease the gods, and you will get ‘success’ (however you define it). The point is, it’s all down to your effort. You try hard enough, you obey the rules to a high enough standard, and you get rewarded. It’s like a cosmic vending machine – put the right good deeds into the coin slot, and blessings come out at the bottom. I think that’s not far away from the message of Deal or No Deal.

    This is not what Christians believe. What Deal or No Deal offers is what the Bible calls idolatry – belief in a false god. The show encourages belief in some kind of fate or chance – something which, as we see time and again, is no god at all.

    By contrast, the Christian God is the God who created the universe, the God who does not demand obedience of us for us to be acceptable to Him but freely gives forgiveness and bestows blessing out of love. He is the only the only one who can make a difference. As He says in Isaiah 44:

    I am the Lord,
        the Maker of all things,
        who stretches out the heavens,
        who spreads out the earth by myself,
    who foils the signs of false prophets
        and makes fools of diviners,
    who overthrows the learning of the wise
        and turns it into nonsense,
    who carries out the words of his servants
        and fulfils the predictions of his messengers

    God is the only one who is able to do what he promises. Nothing else is worth believing in.

    I came across this quote from John Stott earlier today, which I thought would be worth quoting here:

    There are many ‘Jesuses’ on offer in the world’s religious supermarket , and many of them are false Christs, distorted Christs, and caricatures … if we want to grow into maturity in Christ, we need a vision of the authentic Jesus . . . Away with our petty, pygmy, puny Jesuses . . . if that is how we think of Christ, no wonder immaturities persist . . . nothing is more important for mature Christian discipleship than a fresh, clear, true vision of the authentic Jesus.’ (John Stott, in a sermon preached in Oak Hill Chapel 2003)

    What Deal or No Deal offers is a distortion of Christ and what he offers. Deal promises fulfilment, happiness, a change of life – but will disappoint in all three areas. Deal enslaves people to money and to the potential that it brings; Christ brings freedom. Christ offers life in all its fulness – and he is the only one who is able to do what he promises. The Deal or No Deal gospel is one which is not worth believing in.

  • Sermon: John the Baptist – Herald (Luke 3:1-6)

    This evening, I preached my first sermon at St John’s. My first post-ordination sermon! To be honest it didn’t feel any different to preaching before ordination – it’s simply a great privilege to bring God’s word to God’s people. The passage was Luke 3:1-6, part of a series on John the Baptist.

    Unfortunately no audio is available, but you can download the PDF version. Given that I don’t preach from a full script what I actually said will be slightly different, but there you go.

    I hope to be updating this blog soon with how things have been going over the past few weeks too!

  • The Victim Triangle and ‘Accepting’ Evangelicals

    In a class at college recently, we looked at something called the “Victim Triangle”, or the Karpman Drama Triangle as it is more properly called. It’s a fascinating concept, partly because it’s so simple, and partly because once you’ve read about it you literally see it everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere, but almost everywhere: it’s incredibly common.

    So, what is this triangle? Essentially it’s a tool for analysing human interactions and relationships: there are three ‘roles’, and each party plays a particular role in the interaction. As you can see in the image on the right, these roles are: Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer.

    Now, why do I use the word ‘role’ here? It’s significant, because playing a role doesn’t necessarily mean that you actually are that role. In other words, one party may play the role of Victim without necessarily being a victim. Alternatively, one party may be an actual victim but by casting themselves in the ‘role’ of Victim it has a totalising effect: everything about them becomes an aspect of being victimised. And, of course, if one party assumes the role of Victim – it means there must be a Persecutor.

    The whole thing is complicated because one party can play multiple roles across interactions – they can move between being a Victim to a Persecutor to a Rescuer and back again across interactions. It’s fascinating. Mike Ovey’s article “Victim chic? The rhetoric of victimhood” analyses the idea of being a ‘victim’ in much more detail – it’s well worth reading and would give a lot more background to this post.

    What I’d like you to do, before we continue, is just to stop and think for a second: does this triangle of Victim – Persecutor – Rescuer ring any bells in your experience? Using it as an analytical tool, can you think of any examples where this kind of thing happens in family life, or at work, or even in society at large?

    I can think of several examples. I’d like to talk about just one of them.

    One group which I’ve heard mentioned a lot recently is Accepting Evangelicals. This is what they say about themselves on their website:

    Accepting Evangelicals is a open network of Evangelical Christians who believe the time has come to move towards the acceptance of faithful, loving same-sex partnerships at every level of church life, and the development of a positive Christian ethic for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

    So the key word there is accepting. They accept LGBT Christians, they are inclusive, they are open towards them. These are good things – who wouldn’t want to be accepting, or inclusive? Another similar group on Twitter call themselves ‘Diverse Church‘ – diverse, that’s a good thing, right?

    But take a step back for a moment: what’s the logical implication of calling yourself ‘accepting’? That some people are not accepting. That some people are non-inclusive. That some people are against diversity.

    Let’s think about this in terms of the Victim triangle. Who is the Victim? In this case it’s the LGBT community. Accepting Evangelicals becomes the Rescuer, and the Persecutor… well, that’s me (and others like me). Ouch. That hurts, because I vigorously deny the charge that I am ‘non-accepting’. People who are conservative on matters of sexual ethics are not ‘non-accepting’. It’s just a completely different perspective.

    Last month I wrote about why Evangelicals can’t simply “agree to disagree” about matters of sexuality. I think this is another reason why it’s not possible – the ‘accepting’ rhetoric essentially defines the ‘other side’ as being in the wrong before you even get to the specifics.

    In the Victim Triangle, there is a connection between Victim and Rescuer: In order for a party to assume the role of Rescuer, there needs to be a Victim. Victim and Rescuer are united against a common enemy, the Persecutor. The Rescuer and Victim enjoy some kind of non-accountability, because they are by definition the ‘good guys’ – they are inclusive. They are accepting. They are saintly, they include people like Jesus would have done. The Persecutors, those non-inclusive, non-accepting, LGBT-hating people are the ‘bad guys’.

    Now, let me be clear: I am massively exaggerating. I’m pretty sure no-one in the ‘accepting’ or ‘inclusive’ camp would actually think that, or put it in anything like those terms. However, what the Victim Triangle has made me more aware of is how we often define ourselves unconsciously using those roles. It is very important for us to be careful in how we choose to label ourselves, because once someone is identified as a Persecutor (or Victim, or Rescuer) it can colour everything else they say.

    This is how Mike Ovey concludes his essay on victimhood:

    …we must beware entering the Triangle in any role, Persecutor and Rescuer as well as Victim. This would be true of our individual relations, spouses, family members, friends, fellow-believers and so forth, and our collective relations. It is enticing to be a Rescuer, yet fraught with temptation to collude with soi-disant Victims to create real but unacknowledged victims. Perhaps we should analyse the chic Victims of the day with more care, rather than rushing in self-congratulation to be their Rescuers. Perhaps, too, evangelicals should be a little more suspicious of attempts to enlist us within the Triangle as Persecutors, as the proponents of homophobia and Islamophobia, amongst others, have so successfully done. For such depictions of evangelicals as Persecutors tends ultimately to silence them, thereby silencing the Gospel they preach. And the real losers there would be the very groups claiming to be Victims.

    The last thing I would want to do is silence someone by casting them as a Persecutor. I know I have a temptation in my own heart to cast myself as Victim – perhaps that’s part of the human condition – and a Rescuer is always an attractive proposition. But a Persecutor? No-one wants to be cast as one of those. Let’s see if dialogue is possible without the casting of roles at all.

  • Review: Simply God

    As I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog, over the past academic year I’ve been studying a course on the Doctrine of God. It’s no exaggeration to say that it’s one of the best courses I’ve done at college: the doctrine of God is fundamental to theology – it affects pretty much everything else (what else is theology if not about God, in order to relate us to him?). And it’s been a real privilege to look into how the great theologians of the past (such as Augustine and Aquinas) have understood the doctrine of God, and how they went about doing theology – their careful methodology is a real treat given much of what passes for theology on the internet these days.

    And it’s not just an intellectual thing – I’ve found my faith enlivened as we have considered together what it means for God to be God. My mind has been stretched as we’ve thought about God’s simplicity (theological term, not simplicity as you may know it… hence the title of the book), omniscience, omnipotence, eternality and so on. In short, I’ve discovered to be true what Spurgeon once said about God:

    Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead.

    Given all that, I can warmly and heartily recommend “Simply God” to you: Peter Sanlon was until recently a tutor at college and taught the Doctrine of God course which I’ve been doing this year. As such, much of the contents of this book are similar to what I’ve been learning at college – if you wanted one book to read instead of doing the course, you couldn’t do much better than this one. Let me highlight a few aspects of the book I found particularly helpful. (more…)

  • God’s Existence and Kalam

    This academic year, I’ve been taking a class on the Doctrine of God. Last week we were studying God’s eternity, and as part of that we looked at the Kalam Cosmological Argument (William Lane Craig’s formulation of it – that link goes through to his website, where you can watch a short video on the Kalam which is actually quite good. He didn’t come up with the original argument himself, but he did extend it).

    The argument itself is pretty simple. It goes like this:

    1. Everything that began to exist has a cause of its existence
    2. The Universe began to exist
    3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.
    4. Causes are either:
      1. Impersonal (without a will) – a previous physical state of affairs which ‘produces’ the new state of affairs. or…
      2. Personal (a will produces the new state of affairs)
    5. So: The universe is either caused by a 4a) or 4b) cause.
    6. But: 4a) causes are not available to cause the universe because by definition there is no previous physical state of affairs.
    7. Further: This personal cause is – in relation to the universe: Transcendent, incorporeal, omniscient and omnipotent.

    (more…)

  • Sexuality: can’t Evangelicals just agree to disagree?

    If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. – Hebrews 10:26-27

    A few days ago, the Evangelical Alliance UK (EAUK) discontinued the membership of the Oasis Trust. The reason was, according to the press release, due to “a campaign to change the Church’s historic view on human sexuality” (a campaign fronted by Steve Chalke, whom I blogged about when this issue first came up and again recently). The reaction to this move has been huge and polarised: some people, such as myself, think the EAUK made a good move: in an acceptance of same-sex relationships, I believe Chalke has made a clear step away from a traditional evangelical understanding of the authority of Scripture. On the other hand, many have commented that it’s incredibly sad for the EAUK to be dividing on this issue when Christians who hold the same understanding of Scripture can legitimately disagree on this (see Gillan’s post over at the God and Politics blog for a good articulation of this view).

    The main criticism people are making of the EAUK is that they are being divisive around a secondary issue. It’s a bit like baptism: some evangelicals believe it’s OK to baptise infants, others think you can only baptise someone when they’re old enough to make their own confession of faith. Insisting upon conformity on this issue is to exclude a large number of evangelicals, and is spreading discord and division needlessly.

    Now I don’t want to talk about the EAUK’s response to the issue per se, but instead talk about the nature of sexuality as a ‘secondary issue’: personally I don’t think this is an issue that Christians can disagree over. This is partly because I think the Bible couldn’t be clearer on this issue, but also because I think we cannot just agree to disagree on matters of sin – particularly when it’s concerning something as serious as sexuality. (more…)

  • The Trouble with Rev…

    I have mixed feelings about the third series of BBC Rev, which finished last night. On the one hand, it made great TV: it’s a good story, well written, genuine characters, some touching and funny moments, and generally very watchable. It also – as the previous series have done – brought to the small screen some important themes, such as forgiveness and even the cross.

    And yet, despite all that, I found this series even more difficult to watch than the previous two – and not just because it dealt with some pretty bleak themes. I concluded my review of series two by saying: “Adam Smallbone doesn’t have any good news.” I still think that, and even more so this series: Adam apparently has a very strong sense of vocation, of his calling to be a priest – but he doesn’t seem to have much else apart from that. He seems to have very little idea about what he is actually there to do apart from be a kind of social worker in a dog collar. His faith seems to make very little difference in his life – witness his outbursts that I wrote about last time, again in this series. The third episode (with the artist) I actually found painful to watch – Adam’s outburst at the end would probably have been grounds for instant dismissal in secular jobs. And the way Adam treats people – particularly the way he treats Nigel (the curate) towards the end – is also painful.

    I think the problems I have with the series can be summed up in two scenes:

    (more…)
  • David Cameron and the ‘Christian Country’

    David Cameron and the ‘Christian Country’

    It seems that David Cameron can’t say or do anything right when it comes to faith. Either he’s not Christian enough, or too Christian, or gets faith involved in politics, or doesn’t get faith involved in politics – he seems to receive criticism from all quarters. Most recently, he’s been criticised in a letter to the Telegraph for calling the UK a ‘Christian Country’. According to the letter:

    Apart from in the narrow constitutional sense that we continue to have an established Church, Britain is not a “Christian country”. Repeated surveys, polls and studies show that most of us as individuals are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities.

    Frankly I think this is an exaggeration when, in the last UK Census – which is surely by definition the most comprehensive survey of them all – 59.3% of the population voluntarily put ‘Christian’ on the form. Not only that, but the established Church is not simply ‘bolted on‘ to a secular state: it has legal recognition (the relation of canons of the Church of England and the Law, for example), Bishops sit in the House of Lords – whether you like it or not, the Church has a role in the fabric of the country at the highest levels. That role may be diminishing, but it is still there. It is not merely a ‘narrow constitutional sense’.

    However, aside from that, there is another historical angle on this – which would be true even if the Church of England were to completely disappear, and Christianity became a minority religion.

    (more…)

  • Liberalism and the Church

    I’ve just finished reading “Christianity and Liberalism” by J Gresham Machen. It was written nearly a century ago (1923) but it’s still an excellent book. He argues throughout the book (and, to my mind, demonstrates conclusively) that Liberalism – in the sense of liberal Christianity – is actually a different religion to Christianity. Given the age of the book it’s not surprising to find that some of the liberal beliefs he criticises are less relevant to the Liberalism of today. However, I think the points he makes about Christianity are very insightful – in particular I appreciated the first chapter on doctrine. It would be well worth investing your time in the book.

    So why do I write about it here? Well, reading the book got me thinking about the church today – in particular, the Church of England after the Pilling Report and the House of Bishops pastoral letter. Many people in the church who believe in same-sex marriage are questioning why they are essentially being forced to adopt a different position on this. Why is it that they are being held to a standard which they do not personally believe in?

    If you’ve been watching ‘Rev’, you’ll have seen the episode a few weeks ago where Adam Smallbone (the vicar) struggles with this issue – how to deal with the church’s official position on this even though he doesn’t actually believe in it.

    One thing which struck me – which I touched on last year – is that the question goes far deeper than beliefs about sexuality. The problem is fundamentally about the nature of the church. Is the church held together because it is an institution and nothing more? In other words, would it make sense for there to be Buddhists, Muslims and people of other faiths within the Church of England – simply because they were within the institution? Or, is there something doctrinally – i.e. some common beliefs – which unite the church?

    I think most people would agree that it wouldn’t make sense to have people of any religion within the Church of England – because the CofE is a Christian church. It is united around the gospel, around the Bible, around the historic Christian confessions of faith. What Machen would argue, however, is that Liberalism does not fall under that: Liberalism is a different religion from Christianity.

    Why is this significant regarding the CofE’s current situation? Because over the past few years the Church has basically brushed this question under the carpet. It has, to put it bluntly, ignored the question of what the Church of England actually is. This is no longer possible – the question must be confronted. Is the Church of England a Christian church in any meaningful sense? And if it is, what implications does that have?

    If the Church of England is to remain a Christian church, I believe it has some serious decisions to make over the next few years: what do its historic confessions of faith actually mean, and what does it mean to be part of the church now? We cannot be inclusive at any cost. The Pilling Report, I hope, will expose these kinds of questions – difficult though they may be – and force us to make some uncomfortable decisions.

  • Jesus vs the Bible

    “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” – Matthew 22:29

    I’ve come across a lot of people recently who seem to pit Jesus against the Bible. It seems like this is a growing trend. People say things like, “Jesus is the only Word of God. The Bible was written by human authors and it might be wrong” – that kind of thing. The point is: we can trust in Jesus, because he was God and is therefore infallible. We can’t trust completely in the Bible, because it was written by humans and therefore fallible.

    I don’t see how this works logically: how do we know what Jesus said and did? Well, it’s written down here in… oh.

    OK, that was a cheap shot. But I think there are nonetheless good reasons for not pitting the Bible against Jesus:

    • Jesus himself doesn’t. He constantly says “It is written”. For example, when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4 he responds by saying “It is written…” and quoting from the Old Testament.
    • Jesus sees himself as the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, e.g. Mark 14:49 “The Scriptures must be fulfilled”. Jesus begins his ministry in Luke 4:21, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 18:31, “everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.” Why do I say this? Jesus assumes that what is written about him in the Old Testament is actually accurate.
    • Jesus says things like “Scripture cannot be set aside” (John 10:35).
    • Jesus uses the Old Testament to teach people about himself – Luke 24:27 “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
    • Finally, as I quoted at the beginning of this post, Jesus claims that a cause of error is not knowing the Scriptures. Jesus responds to the Sadducees by making an argument which is based on a particular verse in the Old Testament. The problem is often not which bits of Scripture to believe or not – the problem is usually that we don’t understand Scripture well enough.

    It seems to me that Jesus himself was comfortable using Scripture and relying on it as the Word of God – and I think this is an attitude which is supported by the rest of the New Testament, e.g. 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is God-breathed”, or 2 Peter 1:21 “prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Or look at the book of Hebrews, as I have blogged about before.

    There is another more subtle way in which people like to pit Jesus against the Bible: reading all Scripture through the “Jesus Lens”. Andrew Wilson nails it in his blog “The Jesus Lens, or the Jesus Tea-Strainer?“:

    In his [Steve Chalke’s] view, the Bible should be read through “the Jesus lens”, that is to say, in the light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus. I agree. But he then goes on to argue that this enables us, and in fact requires us, to correct all sorts of things that the texts actually say, particularly those which involve wrath, death and sexual ethics

    Now this is in some respects a difficult area because we do need to read the Bible ‘Christologically’, i.e. read the whole Bible as pointing to Christ. But, as Andrew Wilson points out, that doesn’t mean using Jesus as a kind of ‘tea strainer’ where we block out all the bits we don’t like because Jesus “obviously wouldn’t have done that”. I’m sure this is a caricature, but nonetheless I think this kind of attitude is very popular: “Jesus showed us the way of love and inclusiveness; therefore we need to be loving and inclusive”.

    As you might imagine, this is applied a lot to the current debates about sexuality within the church: “What would Jesus have done with a same-sex couple?” The implication being that Jesus was loving and inclusive and would have accepted people as they were.

    The problem is – I don’t think this is the Jesus I see in the gospels. Of course he was loving and inclusive – but not to the exclusion of caring about sin. Jesus’ love is not ‘fluffy kittens and rainbows’ kind of love. Jesus did not come to abolish the Scriptures, but fulfil them. How is it that God can be merciful and wrathful at the same time? Look to Jesus’ death on the cross, where he bore the punishment for our sins. How is it that a holy God can be inclusive of sinners? Look to Jesus’ death on the cross.

    Jesus never excuses sin. He never says “Forget about it” when it comes to sin. If anything, he takes the Law and sets the standards even higher (I was struck by this when reading through Matthew recently – especially the Sermon on the Mount).

    Of course Jesus is inclusive and accepting, but he is inclusive and accepting of those who come to him knowing that they need to be healed, knowing that they are sinners who are worthy of God’s judgement but instead will receive mercy, knowing that they need to turn to him in repentance and faith and intend to lead a new life in his power.

    I’d like to finish by quoting Revelation 19, where we see this magnificent description of Jesus as the all-conquering Word of God. I think this is something we would all do well to reflect on – Jesus is not all inclusive and love, he is the just judge who will return to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end:

    I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron sceptre.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

    King of Kings and Lord of Lords.