Phill Sacre

Category: Christian

Anything I write about the Christian faith.

  • Creation / Evolution 6: Putting it together…

    This is the final post in my mini-series on “Creation, Evolution and Evangelicalism.” In my last post I looked at what the ground rules would be for interpretation. So in this, the last post on the subject, I will give you the answer you’ve all been waiting for: all your questions about Genesis, Paul, Creation and Evolution will fall away and you will never have to wonder about it again! … I wish. Part of the frustration with a topic like this is that I don’t think there is a clear answer, a clear synergy.

    That’s the main reason why I’ve been somewhat putting off writing this post – because I can’t really give “an answer”. However, I think there are some interesting things I’ve learnt along the way, which I will share with you.

    At some stage in the future I will consolidate all these posts into one, hopefully iron out some of the unevenness which naturally arises from blog posts (well, my blog posts anyway). But for now, here we go…

    Who was Adam?

    There are a variety of explanations, some of which I think are more valid than others.

    One explanation which in some ways is very attractive is that of ‘federal headship’. This is the view Denis Alexander explains in his book. He posits the view that God chose a pair of neolithic farmers (a man and a woman) to be ‘federal heads’ for all of humanity. They then sinned, and that then became the sin which Paul refers to in e.g. Romans 5. This view is attractive because it would fit in well with evolutionary history as far as we know, it would seem to explain about Adam and Eve being farmers at the approximate time period that the Bible seems to indicate they were around, and would seem to fit with God ‘choosing’ people (e.g. God chooses Abraham, God chooses Israel etc.) Under this view, Paul’s reference would not be to Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all mankind in a biological sense, but in a representative sense.

    Such a view might also shed some light on Genesis 6:1-4: It’s an interesting exercise to read that passage in the light of this theory, the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men” … but then, it’s a very difficult passage to interpret any way you look at it. It would also seem to solve the perennial problem “where did Cain get his wife?”, although there are – again – all sorts of options on that subject for every view of origins.

    I’ve heard that Alister McGrath is a proponent of a view like this, although I haven’t been able to find any hard evidence so I’m willing to stand up to correction on that one.

    Of course, there are problems with this view, for example: it seems to do damage to a doctrine of original sin, and leaves unsatisfied the question of what happened to all the other neolithic people.

    Another view is to place the creation of Adam way back approx. 150,000 – 200,000 years ago, to the first hominid pair. Although this would be much earlier than the traditional dating of Adam and Eve, if the Biblical chronology would allow a much longer period of time during Genesis 1-11 it would seem to gel more neatly. Apparently Hebrew genealogies don’t function in the same way that we might write a genealogy, they picked out key people and allowed for the possibility of gaps – of course, 150,000 years is a lot of gaps but then Genesis 1-11 is unique.

    One suggestion which Henri Blocher made is that the reason for the slow development over the course of time after the initial Adam was to do with the fall – i.e. the fall impacted negatively the development of mankind.

    Conclusion

    I think it’s difficult to be proscriptive about the question of origins when there is so much that is still unknown. One thing I’ve been encouraged by is that a lot of the people I’ve read who are conservative theologically also take the question and science of evolution seriously: as such, people like C. John Collins, Henri Blocher and Tim Keller all seem to believe in evolution even if it’s not 100% clear how we fit it all together theologically. (I’ll link to some of the relevant books below).

    What I’d like to conclude with is a quote from Henri Blocher’s essay in ‘Darwin, Creation and the Fall’:

    We should not be embarrassed to conclude with uncertainty: it is a mark of a mature faith, properly based on adequate evidence and serenely bearing the tensions of a pilgrim’s progress by faith, not sight. Free from a neurotic need for certainty on every matter, we trust the trustworthy Creator and Redeemer.

    Helpful Books

    Here are a few of the books which I’ve found helpful:

    • In the Beginning by Henri Blocher – scientifically a bit out of date, but theologically right on the money.
    • Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? by C. John Collins – I found this book really helpful, surveying the relevant literature and Bible passages, as well as surveying some of the models of understanding Adam and Eve in the light of science. Doesn’t draw any firm conclusions but helpful to think some things through.
    • Darwin, Creation and the Fall – a collection of various essays by several different authors, specifically about the problem of the Fall with respect to evolution. I found Blocher’s essay, once again, very helpful – although there were also a number of other helpful essays.
    • Creation or Evolution: Do we Have to Choose? by Denis Alexander – I’m not sure about this theologically, but it’s well worth reading and contains lots of good info about the science.
    • Should Christians Embrace Evolution? by Norman C. Nevin (ed) – the answer of this book is basically “no”; it was written as a response to Denis Alexander’s book. I found this book a bit uneven – I agreed with some of what was said, but I often think the authors went a bit too far in their critique of theistic evolution. That said, it’s still worth a read.
    • Reclaiming Genesis by Melvin Tinker – in the introduction of the book, Melvin explains why Christians shouldn’t see the Bible as being in conflict with evolution. He then goes through and delivers expositions of Genesis 1-12 which are brilliant. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really talk about Adam and Eve and how we should understand them in the light of Paul – but if you want a good exposition of Genesis 1-12 this is good to go for.

  • The Jeffrey John Fiasco

    I know that just about the world and his dog has been commenting on this recently, and I’m late to the party anyway, but I just wanted to add my two cents. I heard last week that Jeffrey John was reported to be thinking of suing the Church for discrimination.

    Now this was galling to me last week, but what pushed me to actually blog about it (I know, BLOGGING about it, can you believe!) was a lecture we had today on 1 Timothy 3.

    Let me try and explain: it’s nothing to do with Jeffrey John’s sexuality, or at least – it’s only indirectly related.

    The point is that he is wanting to sue the church for discrimination in not making him a bishop. Two things need to be said:

    1. Bringing lawsuits against believers in this manner is, I believe, prohibited by 1 Corinthians 6. What message does it send out to the world, let alone to the church?
    2. It seems to me that Dr John, by (contemplating) bringing this lawsuit, is denying the fact that there are people in the church who would be at all opposed to his appointment. In other words, hang the unity of the body of Christ – I want to be appointed a bishop. This leads onto the third thing.
    3. What’s the big deal about not being appointed a Bishop? Can one not serve God by being a dean? (To be honest I don’t really like the fact that he’s even a Dean but that’s another matter). The point is, he seems to be displaying a level of ambition which would make me question his motive for becoming a bishop. This is where 1 Timothy 3 comes in: apparently the word translated ‘sets his heart’ in the NIV in v1 has the meaning of over-ambition. The question is, does Jeffrey John want the office of Bishop, or the service?

    On that last point, the lecturer this morning quoted John Chrysostom. I can’t find the exact quote, but this seems relevant:

    That we may have glory with men, we lose ourselves with God. What profit in such honor? How self-evident its nothingness is! When you covet the episcopal rank, put in the other scale, the account to be rendered after this life. Weigh against it, the happiness of a life free from toil, take into account the different measure of the punishment. I mean, that even if you have sinned, but in your own person merely, you will have no such great punishment, nothing like it: but if you have sinned as bishop, you are lost. (Source)

    It seems to me that anyone who desires the post of a Bishop that much, to the point of suing the church about it, is not really Bishop material.

  • Inerrancy, Augustine and UCCF

    One of the problems with blogging is that of history. What do you do if you blog about something, then a while later change your mind on that subject? I’m contemplating such a problem right now. You see, in the past I’ve blogged about the UCCF Doctrinal Basis. Specifically, I didn’t like one of the points relating to Biblical infallibility. Well, I think the majority of the problems I had at the time have been resolved, and I’d like to share why I now think differently. [The original blog post has been deleted; apologies, but it was getting too many hits from Google without this post being read!]

    So, first of all, a couple of terms: Inerrancy – this is the belief that something is functionally without error. So, for example, I could say the statement “2 + 2 = 4” is inerrant. Infallibility, however, is different. It means that something is without the possibility of error. So it’s actually stronger than saying something is inerrant. The ‘infallible’ claim is one which UCCF applied to the Bible in their Doctrinal Basis.

    Before going any further, just a quick point on the ‘as originally given’ clause: obviously we don’t have the original copy of the Bible. That said, what with the number of manuscripts and so on we can be pretty sure what we’re reading is close to the original. This is in line with The Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, an interdenominational evangelical document produced in the 70s.

    So, that said, there was something I found particularly helpful in my understanding of inerrancy. I think the main problem I’d had before was that I didn’t understand the concept properly: I thought of inerrancy in a pretty wooden kind of way, e.g. if you believed in inerrancy you had to believe that every single word of the gospels was literally true, and verbatim. In other words, if Jesus is reported to have said two different things in two different gospels, this would mean one gospel was in error – and thus inerrancy fails.

    Now what I’ve found particularly helpful on this is studying Augustine. In our church history module at college we’ve been looking at a variety of early church writings, and last week we were looking at some of their writings on Scripture (i.e. what their view of Scripture was). I found Augustine very helpful when thinking about this topic of inerrancy. Here’s a quote from Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels, II. xii. 29 (he’s talking about the difference between what John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:11 and John 1:27)

    But further, if, when he spoke of the shoes of the Lord, John meant nothing more than to convey the idea of His supremacy and his own lowliness, then, whichever of the two sayings may have actually been uttered by him, whether that regarding the unloosing of the latchet of the shoes, or that respecting the bearing of the shoes, the self-same sense is still correctly preserved by any writer who, while making mention of the shoes in words of his own, has expressed at the same time the same idea of lowliness, and thus has not made any departure from the real mind [of the person of whom he writes]. It is therefore a useful principle, and one particularly worthy of being borne in mind, when we are speaking of the concord of the evangelists, that there is no divergence [to be supposed] from truth, even when they introduce some saying different from what was actually uttered by the person concerning whom the narrative is given, provided that, notwithstanding this, they set forth as his mind precisely what is also so conveyed by that one among them who reproduces the words as they were literally spoken. For thus we learn the salutary lesson, that our aim should be nothing else than to ascertain what is the mind and intention of the person who speaks.

    I’m sorry if that’s a bit hard to digest! – basically Augustine is saying what is important is the last bit – the mind and intention of the person who speaks. Essentially this is the way we are to understand inerrancy: not in the sense of ‘every word ascribed to Jesus must have been verbatim spoken by him’ but we can affirm what is said is nonetheless truth.

    Our lecturer made the point that human communication doesn’t work in that over-literal way, and that inerrancy works within that framework of human communication.

    I found this a very helpful way of looking at inerrancy, particularly when it comes to the gospels. I admit that the real issue here was what I was understanding inerrancy to be, so perhaps this will help someone else!

  • Creation / Evolution 5 – Ground Rules for interpretation

    This is part five in my (not-so-mini) series on “Creation, Evolution and Evangelicalism”. I’ve talked in previous posts (see that post for all the links) about why I think that so-called “Creationism”, more properly known as Young Earth Creationism or YEC for short, is not a sufficient explanation to account for both the Biblical and scientific data. Well, I’ve now done my assignment and the relevant reading for it and I think I’m in a position to at least move on slightly!

    In my previous post I looked at Genesis 1 and how we might understand that from an old-earth and, I believe, a Biblical perspective. We now come to looking at the rest of the Bible, specifically, what do we do with the question of Adam and Eve? What do we do with the fall? Now I should say at the outset that anything I say here is not going to be anything other than tentative. The long and the short of it is, at the end of the day we just don’t know exactly what happened.

    That said, I think there are a few points which we need to agree on before moving towards any kind of resolution.

    (more…)

  • Sermon: Matthew 3:13-4:11 – “A New Israel and a New Adam”

    Tonight I preached a sermon at my placement church on Matthew 3:13-4:11. I don’t know whether it was recorded, I don’t know whether they have the facility to record there, so I’ve decided to upload the sermon as a PDF: you can download it below. That’s an approximation of what I said, by the way – I decided to preach from notes rather than a full script this time. (It seems to be working as well, my memory seems to be improving in that respect. It seems that you actually have to practice to improve your communication skills, who’d have thought it…)

    Matt 3v13-4v11 SermonDownload

    I had some positive comments on it after the service, so that was positive. I felt a bit more nervous about preaching there than I have done previously, probably because I didn’t really know people so well. When I was preaching at Fordham I did at least know most of the people in the congregation. Still, preaching to a group of people who I don’t know is something I will need to get used to, so it’s not bad to have some experience in that respect.

    Next week I’m preaching in chapel – it’s only a “Monday Meditation” (where basically the goal is to do as little talking as possible and get everyone to meditate while saying ‘Ommmm…’) but it’s still a pretty daunting prospect preaching to a bunch of people who are all studying theology and  training to work in Christian ministry. People who have, for the most part, probably got more experience and learning under their belt than I have. Still, hey ho, experience is experience.

    Hope you enjoy the sermon, if you read it. Let me know what you think.

  • Rev: The Rev-iew

    Rev-iew. Rev review. Did you see what I did there? Hahahaha!

    *ahem* Sorry.

    The BBC series ‘Rev’ finished its second series on Tuesday with a Christmas special (although, as the character Nigel pointed out in the show, technically it’s not Christmas until Christmas day: it’s ‘Advent’ until then…) The series as a whole was well written, witty, and very moving in places. It also had some real moments of warmth between the characters – they were believable and I felt myself rooting for them. Essentially, the show was everything I think a sitcom ought to be.

    But… but… there was something about the series which annoyed me. It irked me. It got under my skin and made me feel somewhat uncomfortable watching it. That element was there in the last series (see my review of series one on Crossring), but seems to have developed in this series. I’m not entirely sure why that is – possibly because I now am actually training to basically do Adam Smallbone’s [the vicar in Rev] job, it puts what Adam does into sharper focus. I’ve been thinking a lot about what my ministry would look like in the future, and comparing it with Adam’s it seems there are things missing from his ministry which I would like there to be in mine.

    Last week, I attended an ordinand’s evening put on by Chelmsford Diocese (an ordinand is someone who is training to be ordained but isn’t yet). I got into a discussion with the Archdeacon of Southend about Rev – I said that I thought it was clear that the show was written by someone who didn’t really believe, because I didn’t feel like God was really working. The Archdeacon very much disagreed. His view was that Adam being there at the end, still pressing on as a vicar, meant that God was working: I think the Archdeacon saw a lot of churches like those in Rev, and basically Rev was much more of a documentary than a comedy! I’ve been reflecting on this over the past week, and I think my thoughts are now a little bit more clear.

    I’m not entirely sure I can put into words exactly what I feel, but I think it boils down to the fact that neither Adam’s life or his ministry are characterised by the gospel. Let me try to explain what I mean by that.

    Firstly, Adam’s life: I think the writer took so much trouble to paint a picture of Adam as an ordinary person that he just comes across as someone who is no different at all from ‘the world’, in Biblical language. The Bible often makes a distinction between those who follow Christ and ‘the world’ – see, for example, John 17 (e.g. v14 ‘I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.’)

    Adam, on the other hand, smokes, drinks, and has outbursts like the one he has at church in the Christmas episode. I just feel a bit uncomfortable with that – although vicars are Christians like everyone else, sinners like everyone else, I would have just liked to see his life a bit more characterised by the gospel. As Paul puts it ‘… I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received’ (Ephesians 4:1). I’m not entirely sure I saw the holiness in Adam which I would like to see in any Christian, and particularly a minister of religion.

    I do recognise, by the way, that vicars are people and have flaws, a characteristic of being human. I suppose the problem is at no point does he really seem to acknowledge that and confess that it is only by God’s grace that he can continue.

    Any kind of Christian ministry is hard, and being a vicar especially can be tough, but his life just doesn’t seem to be characterised by the joy that comes of knowing God’s grace.

    Which brings me to the second point – the fact that his ministry is not characterised by the gospel. He seems to have very little idea of what he is actually there for – what his role is all about. He says in Episode 5 “What is charity? … that’s giving alms, but I feel like I’m called upon to do more.” The thing is, I believe the ‘more’ he is called upon to do is to bring people into contact with the living God.

    He just seems to have a very vague, generalised picture of his ministry as doing things which are basically Christian – such as visiting the sick, conducting church services, helping people practically – without anything which would give those things some weight. For example, in Episode 3 his friend Joan – an elderly lady – asks him if God will forgive her for some of the bad things she’s done. All he says is, “I think God will forgive you.” Sure, but on what basis? Why does God forgive? Is there anything that Joan needs to do?! I want him to answer those questions too!

    In Episode 4 he is asked the question by one of the school children, “Do Muslims go to heaven?” And he says, “Yes, if they follow the five pillars of Islam.” Now I don’t want to get into the question of what happens to people who are from other religions, but I don’t know whether that would be an acceptable answer. If he honestly believes that people from other religions all go to their heaven, what is he doing there as a vicar? What is his role? It just seems that being a vicar in a Christian church demands we take the claims of Christ’s uniqueness seriously (e.g. John 14:6, “no one comes to the Father except through me”). If anyone goes to heaven it is because of God’s grace displayed in Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection.

    Essentially Adam’s work becomes reduced to going around trying to be a helpful person and offering a few platitudes here and there to do with God when people are feeling down. But they’re OK really – everyone will be saved in the end, except for perhaps a few really nasty people who don’t deserve it. I wouldn’t say that Adam was a universalist (i.e. believes that everyone will be saved) but practically speaking he seems to have no real motivation for evangelism.

    Now the problem with all this is that I do realise there are different ways of looking at ‘Rev’ (see, for example, Grace and Truth in Rev – thanks @simonlucas). And, of course, it is ‘only a sitcom’… but it is apparently more based on real life than I imagined – viz my conversation with the Archdeacon.

    The key thing is that when I look round the world and see people like those portrayed in Rev – ordinary people, ordinary lives – it seems to me (from my reading of Scripture) that their greatest needs are not physical but spiritual: they need to be brought into the Kingdom of God, and have their lives touched by the gospel. This is what I will strive for in any future ministry I will be involved with. And I just don’t see that happening in Rev: Adam Smallbone doesn’t have any good news.

  • Christmas Carols

    I was originally intending to write a little light-hearted ‘review’ of some Christmas Carol lyrics here, but somewhat ran out of steam. Instead, I just wanted to post one or two thoughts about the Christmas Carols which many people (in this country at least) sing year on year. We’ve been to a carol service this evening at Christ Church, Cockfosters which was absolutely packed out – I think this goes to show that the popularity of the carol service is enduring and isn’t going to go away any time soon!

    I was struck as we sang ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ – not a carol I’m a massive fan of (it goes on a bit…) – but one of the verses is:

    Not in that poor lowly stable,
    with the oxen standing round,
    we shall see him; but in heaven,
    set at God’s right hand on high;
    when like stars his children crowned,
    all in white shall wait around.

    What struck me anew1 was the last line, the clear allusion to Revelation 7: “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands … These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

    As Richard James (vicar of Christ Church) said in his talk this evening, the Cross hangs over the stable: you can’t have one without the other. It just struck me in a new way that Christ’s incarnation is the most wondrous thing that’s ever happened – the fact that he came down, incarnate as ‘flesh’ – as a man – but that in dying and rising again he defeated death, and in the words of Te Deum ‘opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers’.

    I think, particularly in evangelical circles, we’re too keen to brush over the sheer wonder of it all. At Christmas we rightly sing and praise God for the fact that he came as an ordinary human baby, and yet – in the words of ‘Hark the Herald Ages Sing’ ‘Veiled in flesh the Godhead see’: Christ Jesus – the image of the invisible God, by whom and for whom all things were created – there as a baby, helpless in his mother’s arms. I think perhaps in theological circles it’s easy to say those words without ever stepping back and thinking … “wow. this is absolutely mind-blowing.” And yet, this man died on a cross for us and for our salvation.

    This Christmas I’ve been struck by Emmanuel ‘God With Us’ – this is something I’m going to be reflecting on over the next few days and weeks. How amazing it is that God was incarnate among us. How incredible it is that he died for us, and how awesome that one day those who trust in him will be with him, washed in the blood of the lamb, singing ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb’. Soli deo gloria.

    1 I think the reason it struck me anew was that the verse is different in Mission Praise, looks like it’s been altered from the original.

  • Creation / Evolution 4 – Genesis 1

    This is the fourth instalment of my mini-series “Creation, Evolution, and Evangelicalism”. Note that the series is still technically on hold, I just wanted to expand on a couple of things I mentioned in previous posts, namely to do with Genesis chapter 1. All clear? Good! 😉

    But first, a clarification: I mentioned in a previous post that I had problems with ‘creationism’. I probably should have been clearer in this post but the particular version of creationism which I have a problem with is ‘young earth creationism’ (which for brevity I shall refer to as YEC from now on): obviously, all Christians are “Creationists” in the sense that we believe God created the world and “the fulness thereof” (a phrase which Mike Ovey is particularly fond of, from the King James version of Psalm 24:1). However, what I am arguing for is that being a ‘creationist’ does not conflict with being an ‘evolutionist’, in the sense that one can believe both in the creative acts of God and the biological process of evolution.

    The second thing I’d like to clarify is that I’m not necessarily arguing for evolution in the sense that “I’m a scientist and I believe this to be true”. I think my point is more general, that I believe science and Christianity should never be in conflict: that we can accept what science to be saying, provided that it doesn’t come loaded with any metaphysical connotations (i.e. I don’t believe evolutionism is required by science, despite what people like Dawkins would have you believe. Evolution is a scientific model / biological process, it has no concerns with God.) In other words, if scientists come up with a better theory than evolution (or a more refined version) in the future, I’d be happy to go with that.

    That turned out to be a slightly longer clarification than I intended, sorry! – but anyway, what I’d like to talk about in this post is something which is contested by the aforementioned Creationists. I touched on this in my previous post on creationism but I’d like to expand on it now: how are Christians to read Genesis 1?

    (more…)

  • Jehovah’s Witnesses and ‘Sola Scriptura’

    Sola Scriptura was a term that the reformers – such as Martin Luther – used to determine what they believed about scripture: it means ‘by Scripture alone’ – the doctrine that the Bible contains everything necessary for salvation, in contrast with the Roman Catholic understanding of tradition. Essentially, as I understand it, Roman Catholics understand Scripture and Tradition as two independent strands which contain the same truth. Anyway, how does this all relate to the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

    Well, recently Mrs Phil and myself have had a few conversations with them. One of the things which they have said in response to our appealing to church history is, “Why do you appeal to church history when you have the Bible?” In other words, they believe that their understanding of the Bible is correct, and there’s no need to look back as to how it’s been understood historically by the church. (In fact, they believe that the church fell into apostasy after the time of the apostles, so they can’t trust what the early church said.)

    The reason I’m mentioning all this is because it’s a topic we looked at in our Doctrine lecture yesterday. Why is it that we can’t just say that we have the Bible and forget about traditional understandings of scripture?

    The reason is partly because by putting faith in the Bible, you are putting faith in the people who compiled it. Now, I’m not saying here that the Bible was compiled in the sense that a bunch of people sat down in a room one time over a cup of tea and decided which books to put in the Bible out of hundreds of options. I don’t want to go into that discussion now! But the early church did seek to authenticate the books which we now have as part of the New Testament.

    Anyone who sees the Bible as authoritative – as the Jehovah’s Witnesses are claiming to do – are implicitly putting faith in the early church for the purposes of the New Testament canon. It becomes a very difficult thing, therefore, for them to claim that the early church were apostate – BUT they were right on with the Biblical canon.

    I’d never thought of this before, but it struck me yesterday. I put it up here as an awkward question to ask if you are ever involved in dialogue with the Jehovah’s Witnesses 🙂

  • Creation / Evolution series on hold

    Just wanted to write a quick post to say that my series on Creation and Evolution is on hold at the moment – just started a new course today on the Old Testament, which – amongst other things – looks at the issues around Genesis. There is also a reading list around the subject which I’d quite like to get into before blogging again on the subject, particularly given that I think most people’s objections to evolution and the like would be theological.

    So, I probably won’t be finishing my mini-series until early next year. Just a heads up in case you were holding your breath for it! 🙂