Phill Sacre

Category: Christian

Anything I write about the Christian faith.

  • God’s Image and Women Bishops

    A few days ago I had a leaflet in my pigeon-hole at college entitled “Male & Female in God’s Image“. It was published by Reform, and (strangely enough) written by my placement supervisor. (He didn’t specifically give it to me, by the way; it was given to all students at Oak Hill).

    The main claim in the leaflet is that if we accept women bishops, then we will damage our understanding of the Trinity. This is what the leaflet says:

    Genesis 1:27 does not teach the sameness of men and women. In fact the asymmetry of the words used point to the differentiation in the Triune God which in turn lies at the basis of the differentiation between men and women.

    But if our society views men and women as having no significant differences and this is then pursued as an axiomatic principle within the Christian community, it is inevitable that our view of the nature of God will change.

    So, what we see is the asymmetry between male and female relationships being a sort of picture of the asymmetry in the Godhead. He goes on:
    (more…)

  • Some adverts are controversial. Get over it.

    Once again, it falls to me to leap into the quagmire of misinformation and correct it with my iron sword of reason and moderation. (Everyone should have a sword of reason and moderation. They’re all rage these days.)

    In case you hadn’t heard, a bus advert has been banned: a group called Core Issues Trust, together with Anglican Mainstream, tried to put an advert on some London buses. Before I say what the advert was, you might want to make sure you’re sitting comfortably and have plenty of air around, maybe a nice cup of tea, because it will shock and dismay you to the very core of your being. Well, maybe not that extreme.

    The advert was (are you sure you’re sitting down?): “Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it.”

    Wow. Are you shocked and dismayed? Well, apparently good old Boris was – dismayed enough to ban the ads in the name of intolerance (one source quoted him as saying he was ‘intolerant of intolerance’, not sure how that works logically but there we go.)

    Anyway, now it’s looking like Core Issues Trust want to sue for the ads being pulled. And, unsurprisingly, many people have been making remarks (on Twitter, where else? I honestly don’t know what we did as a civilisation before outrage could be widely spread in 140 characters or less) about how it would be nice if Christians cared about issues that actually mattered, such as poverty, healing the sick – the usual stuff.

    There are just so many things wrong with all this, it’s staggering.

    (more…)

  • Reverse Missionaries

    Over the past few weeks, we’ve been watching a mini-series on the BBC called “Reverse Missionaries”. Unfortunately it seems to have disappeared from the iPlayer, but the basic premise was that three people from countries which were influenced by British missionaries (Jamaica, Malawi, and India) have returned to the places where those respective missionaries were from to try and return the favour. So, for example, in the second episode a pastor from Blantyre in Malawi returned to Blantyre in Scotland, to a church which was struggling, and tried to engage with the local community in the same way that David Livingstone (who was from Blantyre in Glasgow) did in Malawi.

    Anyway, I have to say that I found the whole series very encouraging. Each of the churches that the reverse missionaries came to I think were ‘evangelical’ theologically, but in most cases had perhaps lost some of the desire for evangelism. In each case, the numbers at the church had dropped off significantly and there were very few young people there.

    What the reverse missionaries did was go out into the community, meet people, and bring them into the church community. I think my favourite was the first episode, where a Jamaican pastor came to a small town in Gloucestershire and by the end of the two weeks had managed to get a football team going, brought in a few new people to the church, and generally made an impact!

    Obviously, all of the reverse missionaries were not very British – I think I (and probably most British people) would generally not be very confident with going up to someone in the street and talking to them cold. But what struck me was that, in general, people were actually very receptive.

    There are a couple of things I took from watching the series:

    1. The gospel is the answer to what people are looking for. This is something which I knew on an intellectual level, but it’s great to see it actually happening in the real world. The first episode showed someone hurting; he needed to know that there was a purpose in his suffering and a promise of release. The second episode showed a woman who had lost her husband; she needed to know the promise of resurrection and eternal life. The third episode showed a divided community; what they needed to know was “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
    2. The things that the reverse missionaries did were not magical, or only doable by an elite few – all they did was care for people, and try to reach out to them with the message of the good news. Now clearly they were gifted with people, which is something I’m not, but at the same time reaching out to people with the message of the good news isn’t rocket science. Sure, there will be different ways of doing it depending on context, but the important thing is not to become insular. I think the churches featured had all become somewhat inward looking, and that’s the worst thing that can happen to a church.

    In general, in the midst of what’s been going on with secular society, HOTS and the like – it’s nice to be reminded (in an understated, unassuming way) that the good news is still good news, and that God is still working.

  • Love Lustres at Calvary

    Easter Saturday is a slightly odd day, I find. It falls in between Good Friday, which is a very sombre day looking at the cross, and Easter Sunday which is joyfully looking at the resurrection. I find it’s not really a special day but it’s not a normal day either.

    Given that I didn’t post anything up on Good Friday, and given that I won’t be around to post something up tomorrow, I thought I might post up a prayer from “The Valley of Vision”, a collection of puritan prayers. This is one which was given to us as part of a chapel communion service last term, and I find it very helpful.

    My Father,

    Enlarge my heart, warm my affections, open my lips, supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres at Calvary.’

    There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy Son, made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me;
    There the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow;
    There thy infinite attributes were magnified, and infinite atonement was made;
    There infinite punishment was due, and infinite punishment was endured.

    Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
    cast off that I might be brought in,
    trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend,
    surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best,
    stripped that I might be clothed,
    wounded that I might be healed,
    athirst that I might drink,
    tormented that I might be comforted,
    made a shame that I might inherit glory,
    entered darkness that I might have eternal light.

    My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
    groaned that I might have endless song,
    endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
    bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,
    bowed his head that I might uplift mine,
    experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,
    closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,
    expired that I might for ever live.

    O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightest spare me,
    All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;
    Help me to adore thee by lips and life.
    O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
    my every step buoyant with delight,
    as I see my enemies crushed,
    Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
    sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
    hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.
    Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross,
    mighty to subdue, comfort and save.”

  • What it means to follow Jesus: Sermon on Mark 8:31-38

    This is the text of a sermon I preached yesterday morning at at the 9:00 communion service at St Thomas’ Kidsgrove. It was the last day of their ‘week of events’ or mission which I mentioned in my post last week. (The week went well, by the way, thanks for asking.)

    The passage is Mark 8:31-38, which it would be helpful to read before reading the sermon! And so, without further ado…

    In the news, we’re often hearing of the results of this survey or that survey that’s been conducted, particularly with regards to the issue of faith. A few weeks ago, the well-known atheist Richard Dawkins announced the results of a survey he had commissioned on attitudes to Christianity in the UK. When he announced the results, he said – and I quote: “it is clear that faith is a spent force in the UK.”

    That was his interpretation of the data. But not everyone sees it like that. One thing, for example, which he seems to miss, was that it seems to indicate at least a quarter of the population agree with the statement, “Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind.”

    I wonder what kind of answers I would get if I went round Kidsgrove today and asked people who they think Jesus was. I wonder what they would say to the question, what does that mean? What does it mean for Jesus to be the Son of God? Well, the passage we’re looking at today deals with the issue of what it means. Just before our section, in verse 30, Peter says to Jesus “You are the Christ.” Peter recognised that Jesus was the King the Israelites had been expecting, whose coming had been prophesied in the Old Testament. From this point onwards in Mark’s gospel, the question becomes: “What does it mean for Jesus to be King?”

    Why did Jesus need to die?

    Notice that the very first thing Jesus teaches them, in verse 31, is that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected … and that he must be killed.” This is Jesus teaching them about what it means for him to be King: Not that he will suffer, but that he must. It’s part of his mission.

    People sometimes have this view of Jesus of a weak character, someone who is blown around by the winds of chance, and someone who ends up being killed because he manages to annoy the wrong people. But that’s not at all how the Bible sees it. Jesus says that his death is part and parcel of his mission.

    In fact, when Peter takes Jesus aside to take him to task, in verse 33 Jesus rebukes him because he does not “have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Jesus says that it is the plan of God himself that Peter is opposing.

    But all this raises a question: why was it so necessary for Jesus to die? One of the clearest answers to that question comes in the Old Testament, from Isaiah 53. This is a prophecy, written 500 years before Jesus came, about what he would come to do. Verses 5-6 say,

    But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
    the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.

    We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to his own way;
    and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

    The Bible says we have all gone astray like sheep. We have all rejected the God who made us, and done wrong against him. But, in His mercy, God provided a sacrifice of himself: Jesus, the Son of God, took all the punishment and the penalty of our sin for us on the cross, so that through his death all who believe in Him may obtain forgiveness and salvation.

    1 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The problem is that none of us are righteous in God’s eyes. But, because of Jesus becoming sin for us, anyone who repents and believes in him can be considered righteous in God’s eyes.

    Peter

    So this necessity for Jesus’ death puts Peter’s rebuke into sharp relief. And this provokes a question in my mind: Why does Peter, who knew Jesus well, who only a few verses before had declared him to be the Christ, reject what Jesus says about having to die?

    I think the answer is, at the time the Jewish people were living under Roman authority. They had been conquered by the Roman Empire, and they absolutely hated it. They had read the prophecies of the Old Testament, and they were expecting a Messiah figure like David to arise, a warrior king who would lead them in fighting against the Romans and throw off the shackles of oppression.

    When Peter declared that Jesus was the Christ, what he had in mind was someone who was going to fulfil this image he had of the warrior king. But Jesus says, no – that’s not right. As we’ve already seen, his mission was to die. Peter’s expectation of what it meant to be the Messiah was wrong, it needed to be fixed.

    Peter is an example for us: he is someone who spent a lot of time with Jesus. He was one of the disciples; he knew Jesus personally. And yet, he still got it wrong when it came to Jesus telling them that he needed to die. He didn’t realise what Jesus’ mission was all about. He didn’t realise what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. This is our challenge: Peter called himself a follower of Jesus, and yet he still managed to get things wrong. It’s like that with us.

    Although we no longer have an expectation of Jesus as a warrior king, a lot of people today seem to think of Jesus as a great moral teacher – which he certainly was! But if that’s where our understanding of Jesus begins and ends, following him will basically mean trying to be a good person and do good things. But that’s not what Jesus says it means to be his follower.

    Following Jesus

    After Jesus rebukes Peter, he calls everybody around him and teaches them what it actually means to follow him. Jesus says, v34, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Now at this point I think our culture gets in the way of understanding this fully. I’m sure most if not all of us are familiar with the expression “having a cross to bear”, or something similar, meaning “a heavy burden of responsibility or a problem that they alone must cope with.”

    That’s not the cross that Jesus was talking about here. If you saw someone carrying a cross in first-century Jerusalem, you knew that they were heading out to die. Jesus already knew what kind of a death He was going to face. What Jesus is saying is that to be a follower of Him means taking up your cross and following him out to die.

    But what does that mean? Jesus didn’t intend for all his disciples to go out and be crucified with Him! What does it mean to follow Him to His death?

    The apostle Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

    Notice that expression ‘crucified with Christ’. Paul knew what it meant to take up his cross and follow Jesus. It didn’t mean a physical death, it meant a spiritual death: it meant dying to the part of him which was in opposition to Christ, and instead living “by faith in the Son of God”. Did you notice Jesus says in our passage, “deny yourself, take up your cross…” We need to deny ourselves because our nature is to go against what God wants!

    But if we are crucified with Christ, it’s a complete change of direction: we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of our lives, and by faith we live a new life to please Him in the knowledge that we have been forgiven.

    I don’t know if you’ve ever seen anyone baptised as an adult, but baptism itself presents a graphical picture of this. When the person is baptised, they go down under the water. This symbolises death to the old life, the life lived against Christ. When they come back up out of the water, this symbolises the birth of the new life, the life which is lived with Christ as Lord in order to please Him.

    Now, you might be sitting there thinking, “that’s all very well, but how can a follower of Jesus completely share in Christ’s death? Surely no-one can be totally transformed like that?”

    This is true. That is exactly the point: no-one can live a life which is completely transformed. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Just because we aren’t yet totally transformed, just because we don’t 100% love God and don’t love our neighbour as ourselves, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do those things with God’s help.

    And Jesus acknowledges this. If you look at the parallel passage in Luke’s gospel, Luke 9:23, Jesus actually says that taking up our cross is something that his followers need to do daily. It’s not something which we do once and then never have to do again. He is saying, if you are his follower you will make mistakes, you will fall down. But keep persevering and He will help you. This is why Christians take communion together regularly: it’s to remind each other that we need to keep coming back to the cross, keep reminding each other of the forgiveness that we find there, and keep promising to deny ourselves and take up our cross. This is the way of salvation.

    The Way of Life

    So we have heard something of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But the key question now becomes: why should we be followers of Jesus? Why is it so necessary, given that following Him seems to be so hard?

    Well, in Mark 8:35-39 Jesus gives the reason why it’s so important for us to follow him. In verse 35 he says, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” It is true that sharing in Christ’s death is like losing your life: we have to deny ourselves, deny (some of) the things that we want to do, and live life to please God, not ourselves.

    I don’t know whether this is still the case, but a few years ago in school, if someone was working very hard and being a bit of a swot, we might say to them “get a life!” The implication being that they weren’t really living life if they were reading books and doing homework all the time. And I think sometimes that is how we perceive the Christian life to be: not sleeping with lots of people? Get a life! Not going out getting drunk at the weekends? Get a life! Life is out there to be lived – get out there and please yourself!

    But what Jesus says here is that people who lose life for him and for the gospel will actually find it. Living a life with Jesus as Lord is the most amount of life that it is possible to have. Jesus says in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

    But there’s more! Notice back in verse 31 how Jesus says that after three days he will rise again. Those who would follow Jesus, who deny themselves, who take up their cross, will ultimately join in his resurrection. The apostle Paul says, in Romans 6:5, “If we have been united with [Jesus] like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” A life lived for Jesus and the gospel is the most amount of life you can have, not only in this life, but in the life to come.

    In the long run, anything we have needed to give up in this life to follow Jesus will be nothing compared to the gain we will receive by being with him forever.

    But there is another side to this. Notice what Jesus says in verse 36: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” If you decide not to follow Jesus, then nothing will be able to save you. Jesus says it doesn’t matter if you gain everything in the whole world! If you have ten private helicopters, if you have more money than Bill Gates, if you give millions to charity, if you have a perfect family – all of this you could have, but lose the most important thing: your soul.

    In verse 38, Jesus says: “All who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.” If Jesus is ashamed of us on that day, he will say: “away from me, I never knew you”. That leads to everlasting death and judgement. But if we have taken up our cross and followed him to the end, he will say “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

    Following Jesus means denying ourselves and acknowledging Christ as Lord over our lives. But it means being on the way of life. No other way that we can take will lead us to life, either in this life or in the one to come.

  • New Scientist: “The God Issue”

    Yesterday Mrs Phil bought me a copy of the latest New Scientist magazine,  “The God Issue”, because it looked interesting. I’ve had a chance to read through it now – or at least the relevant articles – and I thought I’d post up a quick review.

    Know Your Enemy

    The introduction, ‘Know your enemy’, starts off promisingly:

    Children are born primed to see god at work all around them and don’t need to be indoctrinated to believe in him.

    This is interesting information. But we’ll come onto that a bit later on.

    This is not an apologia for god. Religious claims still wither under rational scrutiny and deserve no special place in public life … [But] religion is deeply etched in human nature and cannot be dismissed as a product of ignorance, indoctrination or stupidity.

    Ah. Religious claims still ‘wither under rational scrutiny’? That’s a bold claim to make given that many scientists are, in fact, Christian – see, for example, Wikipedia’s list of Christian thinkers in science. Alienating some of your readership is not a smart move in any magazine, and in this particular case it seems like unnecessary sniping. Also, one logical conclusion of children naturally predisposed to believe in ‘god’ is that there is a possibility that ‘god’ might exist – a possibility which seems to escape every writer throughout the magazine.

    Still, it is good to see that atheists are coming round to the idea that religion is not a product of ignorance, indoctrination or stupidity: hopefully this will signal the beginning of the end for the Dawkins school of atheism, which seems to hold that every religious person is hopelessly deluded.

    (more…)

  • Gay Marriage and other lighthearted topics

    Honestly. It feels like the news has gone a bit crazy recently, what with the ASA ruling that God cannot heal people, then the whole fracas about ‘militant secularism’, and now this: people going a bit crazy over whether the definition of marriage should be changed to include same-sex marriages.

    It seemed to kick off a few days ago when Keith O’Brien wrote an article entitled, “We cannot afford to defend this madness“. After that, the atheist brigade on Twitter seemed to go mad; I saw a number of comments along the lines of “he believes in <x> (e.g. sky fairies) and yet he doesn’t believe in gay marriage”, etc. Most of what I saw written went way beyond what he actually said and ended up in ad hominem attacks or more general attacks on Christianity.

    I don’t want to defend O’Brien’s piece because I don’t agree with all of it; although I do agree that redefining marriage would be a bad thing: the idea that marriage is between one man and one woman is an orthodox Christian belief.

    That said, I do want to make a couple of points about people’s responses, one of which will seem oddly familiar if you’ve been reading my blog of late.

    Firstly, the people who seem to be most vocal in their criticism of O’Brien (and the like) seem to be taking a ‘moral high ground’ position by claiming that it’s obviously right for marriage to be extended to homosexual couples. I would like to pose the challenge (similarly to my previous post on secularism): to what are you appealing when saying that one thing is more moral than another?

    Secondly, I got thinking about marriage (as one does), and why it’s defined like it is. What is the point of marriage? Is it strictly a civil thing, or is there some deeper meaning to it? Why, indeed, does the government have to get involved in pronouncing people man and wife?

    In fact, why should the government really be legislating on any kind of sexual activity (beyond, perhaps, sexual activity with minors and incest)? Come to think about it, why should polygamous marriages be disallowed?

    It seems to me that the legal definition of marriage makes a few (generally Christian) assumptions about what is right and wrong in terms of sexual behaviour. If we start changing one of those assumptions, we may as well reconsider the others. Once again, it seems that secularism may well lead us down a path here where I don’t think we want to go.

    Finally, Peter Ould has blogged some very good questions on “Gender Neutral Marriage” which I would recommend reading to get an idea of the scope of the issues.

    This whole move by the government smacks of “Yes Prime Minister” – doing something to prove that the government is trendy and not the ‘old Tories’, rather than actually doing something because they’ve thought it through and believe in the principles.

  • Post-script to Secularism

    My last post has generated a fair bit of controversy – I don’t think I’ve ever made a blog post which has attracted so many comments!

    I’d just like to write a very brief postscript to that with a link to a blog post about after-birth abortion: two doctors have written in the Journal of Medical Ethics a paper entitled: “After-Birth Abortion: Why should the baby live?” This is part of the abstract:

    the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

    In other words, once a baby has been born, it should be possible to kill it as it does not yet have any moral status as a person.

    Now, this sounds like very shaky ground to me. The blog post I linked to above makes the point that once you allow for abortion, any lines you draw in the sand are essentially arbitrary. When I was writing my blog post last week, I just suggested that a secular society might lead us in a direction we didn’t want to go. I’m wondering whether this is a concrete example of what one of those directions might be.

  • Secular Society: A Good Thing?

    I’ve been thinking a bit about the whole ‘militant secularism’ thing recently. If you’ve missed what’s happened, you must have been living under a rock. Or, paying no attention to the news. Either way, there’s been a whole lotta bloggin’ going on about it! This is the news article which kicked it off, although also see my post on healing and the ASA. Also you can read Baroness Warsi’s comments which I think really kicked off usage of the phrase ‘militant secularism’ in the past week or two.

    What I’d like to talk about today is secularism itself: it’s often portrayed as a ‘neutral ground’ where those of all faiths and none can come together and make a stable society where people’s personal beliefs can stay out of the way. Just leave your religious beliefs at home, and there’ll be no problems.

    The problem with that is that I don’t see secularism as ‘neutral ground’: secularism is a belief system too. What I mean by that is, the implicit idea behind secularism is that it’s possible to rightly govern, administer justice, and act ethically without a religious reference point. In other words, in this country at least, essentially secularism is equal to atheism.

    The problem with that – with respect to the governance of this (or any) country, is that I think theism in general and Christianity in particular provides the only sound, rational foundation for any kind of ethical system. As such, what the secularists or atheists want to claim – that the country would be better off if we dispensed with the religious element in leadership – is simply not true.

    Let me try and explain: in atheism, you don’t have many options for morality. I’ve heard a few different explanations, including reading an interview with Richard Dawkins the other day when he explains that morality comes from the cultural ‘Zeitgeist‘ (his word) – in other words, what people think is right and wrong at the time. But the general principle is that there is nothing objectively right and wrong – in other words, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ are simply labels which we have almost arbitrarily come to define in a certain way. That definition may well change in the future.

    So to take an example, in some Islamic countries I understand a woman may be stoned to death if she is caught in adultery. Is that a moral or an immoral action? It seems to be the cultural ‘Zeitgeist’; it’s the law of the land – the punishment is not hidden. In other words, I can’t see how an atheist could say, with all integrity, that that was a wrong or immoral action. Now if that’s not an immoral action… what’s to stop the same thing happening in this country (UK)?

    Similarly, in this country: for a long period of time (c. 8-900 years), kings and rulers have been under the same law as everyone else. In other words, all are treated equally according to the law (in theory, at least). Why should that be so? The original reason given was Genesis 1:27 – everyone is created in the image of God, and therefore everyone deserves to be treated equally. This isn’t an obvious idea – just look at the history books, look around at the world, to see that this is not so.

    I believe that something underpins morality, and that something is the Christian God. There are no two ways about it.

    This is what Dorothy L. Sayers saw clearly in her essay ‘Creed or Chaos?‘ (originally from 1940, the reference to Germany is to the Nazi party):

    We on our side have been trying for several centuries to uphold a particular standard of ethical values which derives from Christian dogma, while gradually dispensing with the very dogma which is the sole rational foundation for those values. The rulers of Germany have seen quite clearly that dogma and ethics are inextricably bound together. Having renounced the dogma, they have renounced the ethics as well—and from their point of view they are perfectly right. They have adopted an entirely different dogma, whose ethical scheme has no value for peace or truth, mercy or justice, faith or freedom; and they see no reason why they should practise a set of virtues incompatible with their dogma.

    If you reduce morals to things you can rationalise – well, you can rationalise just about anything. A secular society could well lead us down a direction we don’t want to go.

    This is where I want to draw back to the issue of militant secularism. Now I don’t agree with Baroness Warsi that we are facing ‘militant’ secularism (Although I do think there are a number of strident voices which want to get rid of any religious influence in the public square whatsoever, which may have muddied the waters). What is more worrying to me is ‘secularism creep’ to coin a phrase. In other words, more and more, secularism is becoming the ‘default’ position without it ever being democratically introduced.

    We’ve ended up in a situation where religion is marginalised in the public square, almost without anyone ever agreeing that’s a good thing – it’s just happened because of inertia and people believing that ‘secularism is neutral’.

    What I’m hoping is that all this will provoke some kind of debate about the role of religion, Christianity and secularism in our society. If the people want secularism that’s fine, that’s democracy for you – but I’d rather people were aware of what they were agreeing to rather than it just creeping in by stealth.

  • The Bible, Healing, and the ASA

    Last week, the ASA seemed to end up ruling that you can’t claim that God heals people. This is in response to a flyer on the HOTS Bath area website (HOTS = Healing On The Streets). For the whole story of why the complaint was made, check out this blog post (written by the person who originally made the complaint).

    Now, I’m not really going to go into the details of the ASA ruling. I think it’s a bit heavy-handed, to be honest. My main reason for thinking that is they’ve basically outlawed claiming that God can heal – not that he will heal. This seems a bit bizarre to me: clearly a God who is incapable of healing anyone is not a God who is worth believing in. I think the question of ‘evidence’ is just a red herring, given that these claims are not on the same level as someone who (for example) claims that homeopathy can prevent malaria. They’re not trying to usurp medical authority, or stop people using the ordinary methods of healing. If the ASA make no provision for religious claims at all, then ‘the law is an ass’.

    Still, that’s all I want to say about that topic, though – I want to deal more with the issue of healing from a theological perspective. I just wanted to pose the question: “What does God say about healing?” And, more specifically in this case, what does God say about the kind of healing which HOTS speak about?

    I think the Bible is clear that healing can and does happen. There are many miracles of Jesus’ healing recorded, and the book of James doesn’t mince its words: “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.” (James 5:14-15, NIV translation).

    It seems pretty unequivocal, doesn’t it? Although this may not be a helpful translated of the original – the Greek verb used is sōzō, which means to save or heal (In the more literal ESV translation, it is rendered as ‘saved’). In this case, it could refer to physical healing or it could refer to spiritual salvation. Perhaps both.

    There’s an intriguing story in Matthew 13:53-58 about Jesus going back to his home town. Matthew adds a little comment: “he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” What’s going on here? Is Jesus unable to heal them because he’s run out of power? Not quite. I think what’s happening is not that Jesus couldn’t heal people – but that healing them would have been pointless: John’s gospel consistently uses the word ‘signs’ of Jesus’ miracles. Miracles aren’t just there in a vacuum, they point to something: they point to Jesus being the Christ, the redeemer, the saviour. The people of Nazareth were hardened against Jesus, unable to accept that he was the Christ – and as such, healing them would have produced no fruit in that regard.

    Jesus performing miracles without people believing in him would have been inconsistent with his mission. This is an extract of the New Bible Dictionary article on ‘Signs’, which puts it far more eloquently than I could:

    The real significance of the miracles of Jesus is that they point forward to Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, to the transformation brought by the new age of the Spirit, and thus lead to a faith in Jesus the (crucified) Christ, the (risen) Son of God. … Consequently a faith based or nurtured exclusively on signs, rather than on the reality to which they point, is immature and at grave risk. Mature faith rejoices in what signs it perceives, but does not depend on them.

    The significance of that, with respect to HOTS, is that it seems to me HOTS are offering ‘healing’ on its own, without any other stuff about believing in Jesus. And I’m just not sure that’s a Biblical model of healing.

    God can, and does, heal. But I think any healing promised apart from faith in the risen Christ is on shaky ground. I’m sure God does use it nonetheless – perhaps some people are healed and then convicted that it was God who healed them and then go on to believe.

    But I think it’s important to remember that there is a kind of healing which is more important than physical healing: the healing of a broken relationship with God. Physical healing is good, but only inasmuch as it points us to the risen Saviour.