Phill Sacre

Category: Personal

Miscellaneous ramblings about my personal life. Unfortunately, the most common entry on this blog. Also the most boring / useless. But hey, you never know…

  • Some thoughts on accountability

    Some thoughts on accountability

    I recently mentioned that I was changing the organisation that I use for people to give financially to support me. One of the things I said in that post was that for various reasons I don’t have a formal accountability structure for what I do. One of my friends got in touch with me and raised this as an issue, and I thought it was worth responding in full. Because it’s an issue which I’m sure other people will have, I thought it was worth writing about publicly.

    Over the last few years I’ve given a lot of thought to institutions and structures and their place in the life of the church. I’ve talked a lot about that on the podcast, and also I have written about them here in the context of safeguarding. However, I have never addressed the issue of accountability directly. If you’re familiar with my work over the last few years, none of this will be unfamiliar to you – however I do want to address the issue of accountability head-on.

    What is accountability?

    Let’s start with the obvious question first of all – what is accountability?

    Accountability is part of a system of checks and balances. Those who have power are held to account to ensure that they are using that power rightly. So, for example, democracy is a form of accountability: the government makes decisions to govern the people; they are held accountable by the people at the next election. (That’s the theory – of course, it doesn’t always work like that and books like The Accountability Deficit describe how accountability has gone astray over the last few years).

    Accountability is something which is seen as particularly important in Christian circles. Christians recognise that we as human beings are fallen and fallible, we are not only capable of acting unwisely but sinfully. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that our decisions are open to outside scrutiny.

    In Christian circles, accountability is probably used most often in two ways: (1) Ensuring that a pastor is accountable in his ministry and behaviour. There have been many high-profile failures involving a lack of accountability over the years, such as the pastor Mark Driscoll. (2) Ensuring that money is used wisely, e.g. if you give to a ministry you want to know that the money is being used for the purpose you intended it, and not being used for a luxury lifestyle.

    In recent years, these two things have often been accomplished by setting up a formal accountability structure. So, for example, a pastor might have several elders in the church who are given the authority to challenge him where necessary. Or financial accountability might be provided by ensuring that money is not handled by an individual but by a small group of people.

    Is accountability a Biblical requirement?

    If we are good Christian people, we need to ask the question: is accountability a Biblical requirement? For Christians, this is the only question that really matters and the answer should settle the matter. I believe the answer is ‘yes and no’. I know that isn’t very helpful – allow me to explain!

    On the one hand, as I have explored many times on this blog (for example in my post about conspiracy theorists), human beings are fallen and sinful. The prophet Jeremiah said about the human condition:

    The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

    Jeremiah 17:9

    Christians should, more than anybody else, be aware of the corruption of our hearts. We should be deeply mindful of the way that sin affects us, and in particular how sin can often flourish in darkness (Ephesians 5:12).

    At the same time, Christians need to recognise that the remedy for sin is the Holy Spirit. There are many passages we could look at, but let me pick but one:

    So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

    Galatians 5:16

    Paul says that those who are led by the Holy Spirit will not gratify sinful desires. Those who are godly will do godly things. That’s not to say that anyone is perfect, but rather that they are unlikely to do anything egregiously wrong – such as bully others, or commit fraud, and so on. Christian leaders, in particular, should display the fruits of a godly character (1 Timothy 3:1-7). The implication of Jesus’ teaching about a tree and its fruit (Matthew 7:18) is that healthy trees do not bear bad fruit.

    Ultimately, Christians should know that we are all accountable to God. We will all have to give an account of our lives to God – even for the empty words we have spoken (Matthew 12:36). By contrast, those who do not fear God and do not think of giving account to him are the ones who practise what is evil (Psalm 14).

    So, Christians should know the power of sin in their hearts – but also know the power of the Holy Spirit to change us and to enable us to walk in freedom. This is not some kind of pipe dream but the basic and straightforward teaching of the New Testament. Given this, what should Biblical accountability look like?

    What Biblical accountability looks like

    One of the things I don’t like about secular accountability is the culture of fear and suspicion it creates: everyone has to be accountable, because everyone is potentially a fraudster, or a bully, and the like. You can’t trust anyone. This is similar to what I’ve written before about safeguarding.

    I think Biblical accountability looks different. Biblical accountability means the most important matter is whether someone is walking with the Lord. You could say that the only form of Biblical accountability is spiritual accountability. The question is, is someone trusting in God? Are they regularly reading the Bible and praying? Are they bearing the fruit of the Spirit? If the answer to those questions is ‘yes’, then we should be prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt unless there is hard evidence to suggest otherwise.

    The truth is, I believe this is the only kind of accountability that we see described in the New Testament – and it should be the norm for churches. Christians are not meant to be (in fact, CANNOT be) isolated individuals, but part of the church. I often try to make this point in my videos on Understand the Bible. We in the Western world have become so atomised and individualistic, we need a complete mindset change.

    In general, I believe the church should be sufficient for accountability. In the church we should confess our sins to one another (James 5:16); encourage one another to do good (Hebrews 10:25); and generally love one another (2 Thessalonians 1:3) – among many other things the New Testament mentions. If we really love our brothers and sisters in Christ, we should be ready to correct them when they need correcting. No matter what, we should be encouraging them to put their faith and trust in the Lord day-by-day.

    Part of the reason I think we in the church are so obsessed with accountability, in its secular form at least, is because we simply don’t know what the church should be like. We just can’t envision how it could be different. The church today bears so little resemblance to the church of the New Testament:

    All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people.

    Acts 2:44-47

    I defy anyone to read that and say their church even comes close to how the early church was! Of course, those days were special – the church was in its infancy and needed a great blessing from God in order to survive and grow. At the same time, I think what we read in these verses is not some idealistic, totally unattainable version of church. Rather, it is something that we should be aspiring to. Part of the problem with the Western church at the moment is that it is content not to disturb the status quo, and we end up with churches with very little spiritual life. Don’t you find it hard to believe that churches can think a ten minute chat over a cup of coffee after a service is fulfilling what the New Testament calls “fellowship”?

    Don’t you find it hard to believe that churches can think a ten minute chat over a cup of coffee after a service is fulfilling what the New Testament calls “fellowship”?

    I should say, I am not saying here that churches should eschew all formal accountability structures of any kind. Rather, accountability should first and foremost be relational and spiritual – and it is precisely this kind of accountability which is lacking in the church at the moment.

    Secular accountability has its problems, too

    I think it’s worth making the point that secular accountability structures have their limitations. When I cast my mind back over the public failures of Christian leaders during the last few years, the problem has often been blamed on a lack of accountability. However, is that really the case?

    Accountability is not simply saying, in the words of Sergeant Wilson from Dad’s Army – “Are you sure that’s wise, sir?” Accountability needs people who are going to be firmer. Proper accountability requires love, wisdom, good judgement, and so on. To put it bluntly, good accountability requires people who are spiritually healthy. You can see this principle in action in just about every ‘accountability failure’.

    Earlier on I mentioned the example of Mark Driscoll. One of the problems at Mars Hill seemed to be a culture of intimidation and bullying. This is something which I’ve noticed in other leaders too, for example Mike Pilavachi and Jonathan Fletcher. When people did raise questions to the leadership, they were ignored. What failed – was it ‘accountability’, or was it a problem with the people involved? Were the people who were supposed to be keeping the leaders accountable spiritually healthy themselves?

    I suggest that a church with a leader who ignores Jesus’ clear teaching about servant leadership (Mark 10:43-44) has a very serious problem, in that they have not really understood the gospel message (Mark 10:45). If a church leader bullies and coerces, are they living in line with the gospel and displaying mature Christian character? And, if not, how did they get into the position of being a church leader in the first place? And – the million dollar question – would more of the secular kind of accountability really do anything in that situation? As I argued previously about safeguarding, what we need is more people who are spiritually healthy and godly. If we had that, accountability (and safeguarding) would take care of itself.

    One of the problems with formal accountability structures is that they can be gamed and abused. If someone is sinful in one area, they are more likely to be sinful in another area too. People who are inclined to bully or commit fraud, for example, are less likely to have scruples about lying. I can think of examples where accountability groups have existed, and yet someone has been doing something they shouldn’t – simply because they didn’t own up to the truth.

    In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a lie. Let me give you a couple of examples. Soul Action – a charity linked to Soul Survivor – donated £53,000 to a charity led by one of their trustees. This is a charity overseen by the charities commission, who have to publish annual accounts, who have a board of trustees. If you explore the links on that blog you’ll see that this is not the only strange thing about Soul Survivor finances. Unless someone has the bravery to step up and say “I think this is wrong”, all that accountability is worthless.

    Let me give one more example. Seeing as I’ve mentioned him before, Mark Driscoll has been in hot water several times:

    In March, World Magazine reported that Mars Hill Church spent at least $210,000 with a firm that sought to get Driscoll’s Real Marriage book on the New York Times best-seller list.

    Over $200,000 with a firm to get Driscoll’s book on the best-seller list. Do you think that was a good use of money? Do you think the people who gave to Mars Hill knew about it, and do you think they would have approved? But – here’s the thing – approval must have come from the church leadership. I’m sure it can’t have been Driscoll’s decision alone. Would more formal ‘accountability’ structures have helped in that situation?

    The point I’m trying to make here is that formal accountability is no guarantee of godliness. In fact, secular accountability structures often don’t work as intended because people find ways to get around them. If the leadership team of a church or an organisation have too much faith in a leader, they won’t challenge him or her – even if there are accountability structures in place.

    As I have said before, and I say again, the only thing that will ensure proper accountability is spiritual accountability.

    Accountability and me

    Let me bring this back to me and my situation. How does all of this apply to me?

    Firstly, let me talk about being theologically accountable in my online ministry – Sacred Musings and Understand the Bible. Something which is important is that both of these ministries are public. I don’t do anything behind closed doors. If I make a mistake or a theological error, it’s out there in public for someone to respond to. I hope that I don’t make any egregious errors, but there have been occasions where people have disagreed with me and I’ve been forced to either defend myself or change my mind.

    I hope that my ministry here is accountable to you, the reader – I do not desire to stand ‘six feet above contradiction’ but invite people to comment and air their views and disagreements, and people often do.

    I do appreciate that an online ministry is difficult to assess in the terms that I spoke about above: if you only know me through my videos / podcast, it may not be easy to see if I am bearing the fruit of the Spirit. You can’t see how I am with my wife and children, or friends, for example. But I hope that you can see at least to some degree how the Spirit is working in my life.

    Secondly, about being financially accountable. It is possible to give to Understand the Bible at the moment, although it is too small at the moment to require registration with the charities commission and publish accounts etc. (Most of the money has come from me). There may come a time when UTB grows and needs trustees, accounts, etc – but it’s nowhere near that stage just at the moment.

    The vast majority of what people give comes directly to me (see my previous update). I appreciate that we as a family don’t publish accounts, nor should we have to! I hope that people who want to give do it on the trust that we are not using the money for lots of foreign holidays, new cars, etc – but simply for the daily needs of life. I appreciate that there is a degree of trust involved – those who give have to believe that I am a trustworthy person and will use the money responsibly. At the same time, I hope that I am open and honest enough in my online content for people to see that I am someone who is trustworthy.

    Finally, I said earlier that the most important kind of accountability was spiritual accountability in the context of a church. Since we left our church last year, we have started a new church in our own home. Although things have started slowly they are slowly beginning to pick up. One thing which we have been deliberately trying to do is cultivating the kind of church which Acts 2 talks about. We are open and transparent with one another, we seek to share our lives (1 Thessalonians 2:8) and not just talk for five minutes over coffee after the service. I think it’s fair to say that, when it comes to spiritual accountability, I have more of it now than I have ever had before.

    Although there may be less formal accountability in terms of structures, there is certainly spiritual accountability – and that’s the kind which matters the most.

    Conclusion

    I do appreciate that giving your hard-earned money to someone else is a difficult thing to do at the best of times, especially to someone from the internet. At the same time, I hope that I have been able to provide you with some reassurance. There is no way of giving which is ‘risk free’, and there will always be people who are deceitful and con artists. But the Lord knows the truth, and at the of the day he is the only one person I am aiming to please:

    Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

    Romans 14:4

    I’m not saying “don’t judge me”! But rather, judge me not by formal accountability structures but whether I am sincerely trying to submit to and follow the Lord. He is the only one who is able to make any of us stand.

  • Important financial support update (Jan 2024)

    Important financial support update (Jan 2024)

    This update will be important for those of you who support me via Stewardship or Buy Me a Coffee.

    The short version of this post is that I will be closing my Stewardship account and moving to GiveSendGo. I will also be recommending people to use GiveSendGo instead of Buy Me a Coffee. If you support me via Stewardship, you will need to change to GiveSendGo. If you support via BMAC, I recommend that you switch to GiveSendGo but I’ll keep the account on BMAC so the choice is yours. If you’d like to know why, keep reading, or skip down to the bottom for what this means for you.

    Moving away from Stewardship

    At the start of 2019, I was still a curate and had a stipend from the Church of England. That ended in February 2019, and from then on I have been self-supporting. This is largely thanks to the generosity of people who appreciate what I do and give self-sacrificially their own hard-earned money to support me. (Thank you so much!) For the last few years I have used an organisation called Stewardship. They are a Christian organisation, and they facilitate the fundraising. One very useful thing they do is to claim back gift aid on any donations, making the value of the donation that much greater than it would be otherwise.

    One of the features of Stewardship is that they vet everyone who receives donations – they check that you are working for a bona fide organisation, or – if you are working for yourself – that you have an accountability group. This gives donors confidence that the money they are giving is not being used to fund holidays in the Bahamas, or something like that! This is also partly to satisfy HMRC, who I think need to ensure that the Gift Aid money they are giving back is being used appropriately.

    Stewardship have done a good job for us over the last few years and I can’t fault them. However, I believe the time has come for me to move away from Stewardship. There are several reasons for this, but the thing which precipitated my decision was receiving an email from them the other day saying they needed to update my account in order to continue with them. In particular, they need to fulfil their requirement to HMRC to make sure that the Gift Aid money I am receiving is being used well, and so they need to re-check my circumstances / support group etc. This made me realise that my circumstances have changed a fair bit since 2019, and I don’t think I can in good conscience continue with them:

    • When I signed up in 2019, I was spending about three days per week working for a church. Although it was unpaid we made a formal agreement, so I did have a written working agreement with the vicar. Of course, that somewhat went out of the window during lockdown but then so did everything! Nonetheless, up until last year I had a formal relationship with an ‘official’ organisation. It’s now nearly a year since we left the church, so of course that aspect of things has changed substantially.
    • My work now is much more ‘freelance’. I still spend plenty of time on Understand the Bible, but I also do the Sacred Musings podcast as well as lead our house church. It would be very hard to get a support group together for all three things. I did have a group for Understand the Bible, however that’s fallen by the wayside over the last year for various reasons. Part of the problem is being able to find people I can trust – I don’t think there are many people who would want to support me in Sacred Musings, for example, and that did come up as an issue from time to time in our meetings. I just don’t think there are many people who share my vision at the moment, so it’s hard to find people who I can trust to be accountable to! I do have friends who I can and do talk to, but I don’t have a formal arrangement (and neither, at this stage, do I think I need one).
    • Stewardship wanted to know if I needed to do safeguarding and check that I had completed the appropriate training. Given my views on safeguarding, this is another red flag for me.

    In summary, it feels to me that Stewardship are far too much ‘in the system’ – not least because of their relationship with HMRC. If I’m honest, I’m a bit worried that at any moment someone could write to them and say “do you know that Phill Sacre, who is being funded via Stewardship, is promoting conspiracy theories on the internet?” – and they would drop me. I also feel more and more uncomfortable taking money from the government, even via Gift Aid. Therefore, I have decided to move from Stewardship to GiveSendGo.

    Moving to GiveSendGo

    GiveSendGo are a crowdfunding company a bit like GoFundMe. The Triggernometry podcast has recently been featuring adverts for GiveSendGo, and the most important headline is that they are dedicated to free speech: you may remember the Canadian Truckers protest from a year or two back, when truckers in Canada were protesting against the vaccine mandates. They were using GoFundMe to raise money, but GFM decided to drop them and were even for a while going to give the money to other charities they deemed worthy. Fortunately they relented and returned the money. Even more fortunately, GiveSendGo stepped in! This is what they had to say at the time:

    As a free speech crowdfunding platform, we believe you have the right to raise money for what you believe in and donate to who you want to support. We treat you like the adults you are. It’s not our job to control what you do with your hard-earned money.

    Isn’t that incredible! A few years ago this kind of thing would have been normal, but sadly today this is rare. I feel that I can trust GiveSendGo to fundraise, without worrying about someone complaining to them that I’m saying things on the internet that other people don’t like. Plus, I’d really like to support them – I think free-speech organisations should be promoted and supported. So I think it’s a win-win situation.

    Another thing I didn’t realise about GiveSendGo is that they are a Christian organisation. They are explicit about this on their front page, where they say:

    Raise money to share hope. Money is temporary Jesus is eternal. Give both and watch the world be changed.

    Isn’t that amazing? They not only believe in freedom and free speech, but they also believe in Jesus and the gospel! I feel like I can have confidence in them as an organisation.

    The only downside about them is that they can’t collect Gift Aid, which – as I have already said – I don’t mind too much about: I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with taking money from the government. I would rather take the financial hit and not be beholden to the government.

    What this means for you

    If you give via Stewardship: Please cancel your giving with Stewardship and set it up via GiveSendGo. I will be writing to Stewardship to ask them to close my account, but I won’t do this immediately – but hopefully it will be closed by the end of next month (February 2024) – so if you could do this sooner rather than later, that would be really helpful.

    If you give via Buy Me a Coffee: there are few people who give regularly via BMAC. From now on I will not be recommending BMAC but directing people to GiveSendGo instead. You don’t need to do anything – I’ll keep my BMAC account open – but if you would like to please cancel your gift on BMAC and move to GSG instead. I think GSG take a slightly smaller cut than BMAC, plus I would like to support GSG as much as possible.

    If you would like to start supporting me where you haven’t before, please use GiveSendGo.

    All that remains is for me to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all of you who have supported me in lots of different ways. Since 2019 I have learned the value of what Jesus says in Matthew 6:

    But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

    Matthew 6:33

    I hope that you know you are playing a part in God’s provision for me and my family, and I pray that the Lord blesses you for your generosity. Thanks so much, and thank you for reading this.

  • The Emperor has no clothes

    When I was a child I learned Hans Christian Andersen’s short story, The Emperor’s New Clothes. A couple of weeks ago I was at the library with Lydia and came across a children’s version of the story, and we read it together. Lydia really enjoyed it – and I did too. And it struck me once again how wise and prescient the story is for our troubled times.

    Today, for example, the BBC carried a news story: Ruth Davidson announces she is pregnant. Ruth Davidson is the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, a prominent LGBT figure, and is in a same-sex relationship with Jen Wilson.

    Here’s the thing. How many of the news articles or people responding on Twitter mention the blindingly obvious thing: two women (or two men) cannot, you know, have a baby. Not without some external help. (I should add, I don’t want to pick on Ruth Davidson – it was the same when Tom Daley and Dustin Lance announced some months ago they were ‘having a baby’).

    How many of the news outlets even mention the fact that this child will have a father who it doesn’t know? The baby is not even born yet, and already it is doomed to be born into a fatherless environment.

    Near the end of Andersen’s story, he says:

    So off went the Emperor in procession under his splendid canopy. Everyone in the streets and the windows said, “Oh, how fine are the Emperor’s new clothes! Don’t they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!” Nobody would confess that he couldn’t see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.

    I suspect that no-one is pointing out the bleedin’ obvious here because we have, as a society, collectively bought into the lie that two men or two women can have a baby.  It’s seen as a mark of being modern, intelligent and progressive – rather than those backwards, bigoted, anti-LGBT folk, who still take the common-sense view that making a baby needs a father and mother.

    The reason why this matters, and the reason why I can’t simply stay silent on this issue, is best explained by reading some stories of people who were brought into the world via anonymous third-party reproduction. For example, this one:

    Anyway, there is so much I want to know, and no easy way I can ever find that information out, and it’s NOT FAIR. What do you look like? Do you have medical conditions I should be worried about? Do I have biological siblings? What’s your family history? Do you have a bunch of weird allergies, like me, or did I just lose the genetic lottery? What kind of things do you like? What do you do for work? What are your passions? What are your fears? Do you struggle with mental health issues like me? Who ARE you, and how much of who I am is from you?

    Dear provider-of-my-genetic- materials;

    I don’t want your money, I don’t need your love, I don’t need you to raise me. I just want to know who you are, and want to ask you so many questions.

    Reading the stories is heartbreaking. How many children have to be brought into the world in this way, how many of them will have stories just like this one, full of questions, even crying out for the love of a father or mother who they were separated from before they were conceived?

    Andersen ends the story:

    “But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child said.

    “Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?” said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, “He hasn’t anything on. A child says he hasn’t anything on.”

    “But he hasn’t got anything on!” the whole town cried out at last.

    So often children are the ones who speak the obvious truth –  it’s the adults who hold back in fear.

    One way or the other, I hope it won’t be too long before we as a society realise the emperor has no clothes.

  • Sermons available

    St Paul Preaching
    Raphael: St Paul Preaching in Athens (1515)

    I have decided to try and record sermons I preach, and these will be available on the sermons page. I won’t make a new post each time I upload one, but I may refer to them from time to time!
    I’ve just uploaded a sermon I preached this morning on Luke 17:20-37 from our Wednesday Worshippers – about the Kingdom of God.

  • Worship Guitar for everyone else

    Update: as predicted in this post, the YouTube channel was short-lived. But, I did end up starting another YouTube channel, which ended up with Understand the Bible, so I guess every cloud… anyway, don’t go looking for Worship Guitar for Everyone Else – it’s not there any more!

    A few weeks ago I had a really crazy idea about starting a YouTube channel about playing guitar. To be quite honest I thought I was mad, and dismissed the idea. But over the past few weeks I haven’t been able to dismiss it very easily, and I wonder whether this is perhaps God’s way of prodding me to do it.

    So, without further ado, this is my new (possibly short-lived) project. I’d explain it here, but I thought it’s just as easy to actually show the video where I talk about it.

    I apologise in advance for annoying facial tics etc, I tried to keep it to a minimum but it’s been a long day! I just wanted to get something out there. Do let me know what you think – you can comment on the YouTube video or contact me directly.

    https://youtu.be/6ibdytdlPkc

  • Some thoughts on "The Poor"

    I’ve been thinking a bit recently about “The Poor” (apologies for the quote marks, I’ll explain why in a minute). Clacton, where I’ve been for the last three years, is not a rich area – according to the Church Urban Fund, the parish of Great Clacton ranks 892 out of 12,599 parishes nationally for deprivation. This is something which I’ve been mulling over for a while. Then, the other night I watched Professor Green: Living in Poverty, which was looking at the issue of child poverty in the UK (it’s worth watching, by the way). And today, I read that Philip North, Bishop of Burnley, has criticised the Church of England for abandoning the poor.

    I don’t pretend to have any special insights into “The Poor”, but I offer here a few thoughts which I hope might prove useful to some.

    “The Poor” are not an alien species

    A month or two ago I got round to thinking about being in a more deprived area, and wondered – of the people I know round here, who are “The Poor”? And it made me realise two things: (1) I probably know people who would come under that label (people don’t usually talk much about their finances, of course); (2) they are not different to me.

    People sometimes talk about “The Poor” as if they are other, as if they are different, as if there is a class of people called “The Poor” and they are on that side and we are on this side. We all know, of course, that the reality is much more complicated with shades of grey (the government have started using a Multiple Deprivation Index, for example, which takes into account seven different factors). But I think it’s easy to talk about “The Poor” as if they aren’t us, which is silly, because the poor are ‘us’. This is why I started out putting “The Poor” in scare quotes – because this is how I think it gets talked about a lot of the time.

    I don’t think it’s wrong to talk about “The Poor” – Jesus did – but it’s important to remember to always have in mind that the reality is somewhat more complicated.

    Housing is really important

    One of the things that struck me about the Professor Green programme was that housing is really important. If the place where you live is secure, then you can cope with a lot. (There was another programme recently called “The Week the Landlords Moved In” which showed something similar).

    When I was growing up, my Dad became the pastor of a small independent church in a Suffolk town. Although I didn’t really know much about it at the time, he was receiving a very low wage – far less than the national average. In fact, my Mum told me years later that sometimes she didn’t know where the next meal was coming from – she had to count every penny and make the most of everything. However, I always had what I needed (clothes, food, etc) – we never went without the essentials as a family. And I think the biggest reason for that is my parents did actually own the house.

    People talk about a housing crisis in the UK, and unfortunately it’s those in the lowest income bracket who suffer the most because of it.

    Family / marriage is really important

    Another thing that struck me about the Professor Green programme is that of the three families he talked to, in two of them the Dad had abandoned them and in the other (as far as I could tell) the parents were not married. It’s not really surprising – when a family breaks down and splits up, it becomes very hard to manage. How can a single Mum be expected to bring up three children and work to earn enough money to support them?

    I talked a little about this in my last post, but it should be deeply troubling to all of us that marriage is becoming exclusively a preserve of the wealthy. I did a little (and very non-scientific) experiment recently: when we were visiting my Dad, we took our daughter to the local park. It’s in a fairly nice middle-class kind of area. I made a point of looking around to see how many people were wearing wedding rings – lots of them were. Most of the parents were not that young – i.e. probably waited a few years to get married and then have kids. In contrast, in Clacton, the picture is very different – lots of younger parents, not very many of them married. This is backed up by the research – according to the Marriage Foundation:

    There’s a growing Marriage Gap: 87 per cent of high earners (over £43,000) marry; only 24 per cent of low earners (under £16,000) marry. The rich get married (and stay together); the poor don’t.

    Family breakdown causes huge problems, particularly for those on the lowest incomes. I’d suggest that if the government (and the church) want to do something for the poor, they could do a lot worse than promoting marriage.

    Mental health and isolation

    Two other issues which I noticed in the Professor Green programme. Firstly, mental health: all three of the families involved had someone who suffered from some sort of mental health issue and was unable to work. Mental health is becoming a massive issue – which is why the young royals (William, Kate and Harry) came up with the Heads Together campaign.

    Secondly, all of the families involved seemed to be suffering in isolation: I didn’t see many friends or family members helping out. This could, of course, simply be a matter of what they filmed / included – but it did strike me that none of them seemed to have anyone they could really call on for help. (And isolation probably doesn’t help with the mental health, either).

    “Good news to the poor”

    What can we say about this from a Christian perspective? According to Luke’s gospel, when Jesus began his public ministry in Nazareth, he quoted this passage from the prophet Isaiah:

    ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
        because he has anointed me
        to proclaim good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
        and recovery of sight for the blind,
    to set the oppressed free,
         to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

    Jesus applied these words to himself, as the one who was anointed by God. But in what sense does Jesus proclaim ‘good news to the poor’?

    Some people say that Christians should seek to serve the poor by transforming unjust structures in society – by calling on the government to build more houses, by creating more jobs, by giving out food and money to those in need etc. I’m sure all these are good things.

    But what the Bible says our root problem is, fundamentally, is not unjust structures in society or lack of money but sin. The sin which separates us from God, the sin that separates us from our neighbour.

    This is what came home to me as I was watching the Professor Green programme. Sin – failing to do what God wants us to do – was at the root of pretty much everything. Think about family breakdown: God has designed family life in a particular way, and yet we think that we know better and decide to improve on it. Sure, those women whose partners walked away from them weren’t can’t be blamed for their other halves walking out – but at some point in the past they had to decide to get together with them, to have children, etc. This is not trying to blame the victim, but simply to say that our choices have consequences.

    Housing is also affected by family breakdown: if a family no longer lives together, two houses are going to be required rather than one. In the programme I mentioned about landlords, one woman said that she and her ex-husband were home owners – until they split up.

    What about isolation? I was struck afresh recently by how the New Testament never envisions an isolated Christian. In other words, in the Bible, Christians are always part of the church – never separated from it. Christians are called to meet and share their lives together. In an ideal church – and no church is even close to ideal, but some are closer than others – people’s needs should be looked after and everyone loved and cared for. Jesus famously said: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). In those programmes, I often wondered what it would have been like if the people featured were actually part of a church family.

    And finally – mental health. What does sin have to do with mental health? I think it has a lot to do with mental health. I don’t think that God takes all our problems away (physical or mental) in this life, but I think things are often more bearable when walking with God and walking in His ways. Augustine said in a prayer in his Confessions, “O Lord, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless above all things until they find their rest in you.” When we are living in right relationship with our creator, when we are living in accordance with the ways He has given us to live – these things are a big deal and make a huge difference.

    The best news is, of course, that Jesus died for our sins: Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. Jesus sends His Spirit to us now, one who will walk with us and transform us day by day. We have hope, we have joy, we have the “life to the full” (John 10:10). Christians have been adopted as children of their loving heavenly father, and can trust that all things work together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

    This is why the gospel is good news for the poor: because the poor have the same problem as anyone – only, perhaps, the problems for the less well-off are more acutely felt because they don’t have the resources to be able to escape the consequences of sin so easily.

    Which brings me to my last point.

    We are all “The Poor”

    Back where I started out: “The Poor” are not different – in fact, in God’s eyes, we are all “The Poor”. Jesus once wrote to the church in Laodicea:

    You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so that you can see.

    This particular church thought they were rich because they had material wealth – but they were poor towards God. They were poor in spirit – but they didn’t realise it! When Jesus began the beatitudes “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), he meant people who realised their own spiritual poverty before God. Why are they blessed? Because those who recognise their own poverty are able to receive from God’s riches.

    Recently at church we sang James Seddon’s hymn “Go Forth and Tell”, and was struck by the verse:

    Go forth and tell where still the darkness lies;
    in wealth or want, the sinner surely dies:
    give us, O Lord, concern of heart and mind,
    a love like yours which cares for all mankind.

    “In wealth or want, the sinner surely dies”. This is absolutely true. Whether someone is a millionaire or doesn’t have a penny to put to their name – in God’s eyes both are equally sinful, equally poor, equally needing the gospel. The only question for both is: will you accept your spiritual poverty and come to the Lord Jesus, who proclaims good news to the poor?

  • Let's fix education and the country

    Let’s fix education and the country in one blog post. Simple, right?

    Oh, hold on a moment. Not simple. That’s the one. Still, it’s a subject worth thinking about. Over the past few weeks I’ve had a couple of thoughts about what might improve education (and, over time, the country). I know that education isn’t always the answer, but it does make a difference and it’s important to think about what we teach children.

    I hope that my two suggestions here are worthwhile and make good sense, however I welcome any feedback / comments / suggestions.

    Idea 1: Political philosophy

    “Political philosophy” makes it sound a bit grander than it really is. What I’m getting at is – teach children what the differences are between different political parties. For example, what drives the Conservative party, and how does that differ from the Labour party?

    I was talking to a friend the other day about this, and both of us (who’d been through the education system about ten years apart) said that we had never really had any teaching at all on different political parties / ideologies. It’s taken me to the age of 33 to begin to understand the different political parties and where they’re coming from. Surely it would have been helpful to have some info when I was at school?

    This is what I don’t understand: the government expect us to vote – but we don’t get given any information to help us make that choice. In my case, I started out simply by voting for who my parents voted for, because I didn’t know any better. What would have helped a lot is some understanding of the ‘big picture’ of where the different parties were coming from – election leaflets will often focus on one or two issues, but that doesn’t really give you much of a picture of where they’re coming from.

    We live in tough times, politically – there is a huge amount of division in the country. If younger people were encouraged to think for themselves about politics, rather than simply sharing memes on social media, I think this would help a lot with understanding ‘the other side’.

    One of the interesting things about the last election was that younger folk mostly voted for Labour – the older the voter, the more likely to vote Conservative. I’m sure there are many reasons for this, but one reason is likely the use of social media. If I based my voting decision purely on the memes I saw on Facebook, I’d probably have voted Labour too.

    All parties want to attract younger voters. I think a good start would be to encourage young people to understand the difference between political philosophies and make an educated decision, rather than simply relying on messages that get sent out on social media (which are, shall we say… not very balanced). In retrospect, I would have really valued this at school – why not make it part of the curriculum? I feel this would be a good start at helping people who are on different sides of the political spectrum understand each other a bit better. Facebook tends to divide – why not use the schools system to bring together?

    Idea 2: Marriage and family

    At the moment schools / the government seem willing to bend over backwards to help a small minority of people (transgender / ‘genderfluid’), while at the same time being unwilling to help a huge number of young people who are affected by family breakdown.

    If you don’t think that family breakdown is a huge issue, have a read through the Marriage Foundation website.

    Some of their key facts:

    • If current trends remain as they are, any child born today in the UK has only a 50/50 chance of being with both their birth parents by the age of 15.
    • Cohabiting parents make up 19 per cent of all couples with dependent children, but account for half of all family breakdown.
    • Nearly all parents (93 per cent) who stay together until their children reach 15 are married.
    • Parents who are married before they have a child are far more likely to stay together.

    And the list goes on.

    The point is, it is beyond question that marriage brings with it many benefits – to individuals, to children, to society. And yet, when I was at school at least (and I don’t know what the experience of other people is) – we weren’t really told any of this.

    We were taught a little about the biology of sex, we were taught about reproduction – but we weren’t taught about marriage. It was simply assumed that we’d learn about it from elsewhere.

    I appreciate that the government is in a bit of a bind here, because every time the promotion of marriage is mentioned (it gets talked about from time to time) some people get very angry. Many people don’t like the implied criticism of their life choices, which is understandable. But the statistics are clear for all to see. The facts do not change just because some people find them inconvenient.

    My suggestion would be simply to teach this to young people without bias: let them look at the statistics for themselves, let them analyse what the marriage foundation (and others) have to say – let them think critically about it.

    When I was a teenager, and it seems still today, ‘received wisdom’ (i.e. what everyone else is doing) is – you get together with someone, sleep with them, move in with them, have kids, and then – and only then – if you’re really committed, you get married. I think this is basically the wrong way round, demonstrably so, and perhaps if a few more children were exposed to this kind of thinking it might help them to make better – or at least more informed – choices.

    So, those are my two suggestions for sorting the country out. It all boils down to letting kids analyse and think critically about issues without fear of getting the ‘wrong’ answer. Give them the information they need. Maybe, just maybe, it might help a little to bridge some of the gaps which have opened up in our society.

  • Is Pentecost a reversal of Babel?

     I am writing this on Pentecost Sunday, where the church remembers the coming of the Holy Spirit on the early church (recorded in the Bible in Acts 2:1-13). One of the significant aspects of this story is that the apostles were enabled to speak in other languages – as verse 4 says, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” The commentators on this passage often refer to Genesis 11 – the Tower of Babel incident, where the languages of the people were confused and people spread out over the earth. It is often said that Pentecost is a reversal  of the curse of the Tower of Babel. At Babel the languages of the people were confused, at Pentecost people the Spirit enables people to break the language barrier. Simple.

    … or is it?

    I’m not sure it’s quite that simple. This interpretation would imply that languages and differences between cultures were sinful and a result of the curse – but I don’t think this is the case. Let’s take a closer look.

    Putting the Tower of Babel into context

    In Genesis 10, just before the Tower of Babel incident, we have the so-called ‘Table of Nations’ – an account of what happened to the descendants of Noah. The last two verses of that chapter – just before the Babel account – say this:

    31 These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.
    32 These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

    So, prior to the Babel incident, Genesis is already talking about clans, languages, territories, and nations. This suggests to me that the dividing up of humanity into nations is not a result of the Babel incident, but something which God intended to happen as mankind filled the earth and subdued it (Gen 1:28). The idea is that God didn’t want humanity simply to sit around in one place and stick together, but to fill the whole earth – and cultural expressions were simply a part of that plan, including language. Diversity in this way is something which brings God glory.

    So what was going on at Babel?

    Good question. I think a close reading of the Babel text actually agrees with this interpretation.

    The passage starts: “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.” It’s interesting that it starts in this way, given that we’ve just had the Table of Nations which talks about different languages! But we’ll shelve that for now. The people moved eastward and then: “they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’”

    This is interesting for two reasons: (1) they wanted to make a name for themselves; (2) they wanted to avoid being scattered over the whole earth. Why do you think the people wanted to avoid being scattered? I believe this is because ‘scattering’ is what God wanted them to do, as we’ve just seen. The people’s sin was wanting to stick together rather than carry out God’s plan – to spread out and diversify across the earth.

    When the Lord comes down and confuses their language, the end of the incident is described: “From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” So God scatters them, despite the intentions of the people. God’s will prevails, even though the people are against it.

    This is what I think, then, is going on in this passage:

    • God designed mankind to spread over the whole earth. Cultural differences and diversity are a right and good part of God’s plan in creation.
    • In the Tower of Babel, mankind decided to unite together and make a name for itself out of pride rather than scattering as God intended. The sin of Babel was mankind coming together for the wrong reasons and the wrong ends.
    • God therefore confuses the language (something which would have happened anyway if the people had been obeying God), and the people scatter as he intended.

    So – the Babel incident is God’s way of ensuring that mankind did what He originally intended, and spread across the earth. Seen this way, the curse of Babel is not that the languages were confused – rather, God confused in the languages in order to accomplish His purposes.

    I think this fits best with our experience – I love seeing Christians from other cultures worshipping God in their own ways. Of course, in every culture there will be elements that deny the gospel – all cultures bear the mark of the Fall – but in many ways each one contributes something unique to displaying the wisdom, power and glory of God.

    How does this affect Pentecost?

    Under this reading, Pentecost is not so much a simple reversal of the curse of Babel. We’ve seen this from Genesis, but there are a few reasons within the text of Acts 2 which lead us to this conclusion:

    • The passage makes clear that it is “God-fearing Jews” who heard the apostles speaking in their own languages. The curse of Babel (if that is indeed the right phrase) was something which applied to everyone.
    • People heard the apostles speaking in their own languages. It wasn’t the case that they could all understand one language, on the contrary, the Spirit gave the apostles the ability to speak in different tongues.

    If we look further afield throughout the New Testament, we shouldn’t forget the wonderful vision of 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 before the Lamb.” Instead of these ethnic / linguistic differences being obliterated, they are apparently still there at the end. They of course do not cause any division, but God’s glory is shown not in conformity but in the diversity of all the nations worshipping him in the unique ways that they can bring.
    When Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”, he doesn’t mean these differences are obliterated – rather that they don’t matter any more, because unity is not in race, language or culture but in Christ Jesus.

    How should we understand Pentecost?

    This is, of course, the million dollar question. Something that struck me today as we were hearing the readings again is that mankind at the Tower of Babel did two things wrong: (1) they tried to create unity by earthly means; (2) they tried to use that unity to deny God. At Pentecost, however, (1) unity is created by heavenly means – unity-in-diversity; (2) that unity is used for God’s purposes. Pentecost is God’s answer to Babel, of sorts – but not a reversal of the curse.

  • Responding to false teaching: Lessons from 2 Peter

    I’ve noticed a disturbing trend amongst evangelicals recently. I encountered it most recently in this blog post by Baptist minister and theologian Steve Holmes. This is how he puts it (you’ll have to read the full blog for the whole context):

    No, I know Megan and Bill, I know that they call people to believe in Jesus. They are leading people on the highway to heaven (even if I presently think that they are fairly seriously wrong on at least one aspect of the nature of that highway).’
    …
    Sola fide. I have to stand on that. Because the Blood flowed where I walk, and where we all walk. One perfect sacrifice, complete, once for all, offered for all the world, offering renewal to all who will put their faith in Him. And if that means me, in all my failures and confusions, then it also means my friends who affirm same-sex marriage, in all their failures and confusions. If my faithful and affirming friends have no hope of salvation, then nor do I.

    Steve puts it well, and I believe it’s an increasingly popular perspective. The argument seems to be that although traditional marriage is the correct interpretation of the Bible, other people teaching that same-sex marriage is right is not a really serious business. It’s not a salvation issue, certainly. So although Bob may believe strongly that the Bible teaches marriage is between a man and a woman, he doesn’t think Alice – who teaches that marriage is between two people regardless of gender – is not saved.

    Personally I believe this is a disturbing trend, as I said at the beginning. I’ve already outlined on this blog why I believe evangelicals cannot agree to disagree on this issue, and I stand by what I said back then. But I’d like to add to that a little. Not long ago I worked through the book of 2 Peter with Peter H. Davids’ Pillar commentary. I’d like to share a few insights from 2 Peter which might help shed some additional light on this issue.

    2 Peter is written in response to false teaching and false teachers. It seems that false teachers were teaching that the final judgement was not coming – perhaps it had already happened – and therefore there was no need to live a holy and righteous life. Because there was no final judgement to look forward to, there was no need to worry about restraining our sinful desires now.

    Let’s take a quick tour of the letter to analyse what Peter is saying.

    3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (Chapter 1)

    God has given those who believe “everything we need for a godly life”. What does that look like? It is to “participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires”. Participating in the divine nature is a strange phrase. I believe it means ethically – participating in the divine nature by increasing in goodness and love (Peter talks about God’s goodness in v3), in contrast with the corruption and evil desires in the world.

    So the purpose of the Christian life is to add goodness, knowledge, self-control etc. (vv5-7) to faith, so that Christians will not be “ineffective and unproductive”. But, we are warned, “whoever does not have them is short-sighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.”

    So – a cleansing from past sin does not give us licence to sin in the future. Here, as we see in many places in the Bible, salvation by grace does not mean freedom to indulge our sinful desires. One of my go-to passages about grace and right living is Titus 2:11-14: “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions…” The Hebrews 10 passage I referred to in my post about why we can’t agree to disagree also takes the same line: wilfully continuing to sin after receiving knowledge of the truth means all we have to expect from God is “raging fire that will consume the enemies of God”.

    Peter continues in chapter 2:

    But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them – bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

    There were “false prophets” among the people of Israel – you can read about them in Ezekiel 13, for example. What did they do? They led the people astray – they said “peace, when there is no peace”. They prophesied out of their own imaginations. In particular, they led the people to worship false gods and did not see violations of God’s ethical commandments as being a problem. Peter says that, as there were false prophets then, there are false teachers “among you”. These were the people who denied the final judgement, who denied the need to live self-controlled and upright lives – and Peter says “their destruction has not been sleeping”. It’s possible that these false teachers even claimed that the Lord was ‘sleeping’ – that they would not receive the recompense for their wrongdoing. But Peter turns the tables and says that it is their destruction which has not been sleeping. What does he mean?

    …if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.

    To hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgement – this is what Peter is talking about. And this is “especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh” – those who indulge in their sinful desires rather than restraining them.

    The chapter finishes:

    17 These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. 18 For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity – for ‘people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.’ 20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

    For such people – false teachers – “blackest darkness is reserved for them”. Why? They “entice” people escaping from the world back into sin (echoes of Jesus’ words in Mark 9:42?). Note that he uses the phrase “lustful desires of the flesh” – quite possibly having in mind sexual sin, it was as common back then as it is now. Sin is slavery (John 8:34), but if the Son sets us free then we shall be free indeed. To turn to Christ is to turn away from sin, to repent of evil desires and be freed from them. Yes, we know that anyone who claims to be without sin deceives themselves (1 John 1) – but sin is not a cause for celebration, but rather mortification and turning to Christ. These false teachers promise freedom but deliver slavery – just as Satan does. It shows who they are really working for (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

    The worst thing about this passage is, I believe, that false teachers are leading people to hell. I think this is the implication of Peter’s words here – that it is actually worse for people who have begun to turn away from sin, only to be misled by a false teacher and turn their backs on the way of righteousness.

    False teaching is that serious. It simply cannot be tolerated in a church, a denomination, or any Christian organisation.

    Peter closes out the letter by looking forward to the day of the Lord, which will “come like a thief” – unexpectedly. What does that mean for believers?

    11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

    Peter closes off his argument: because there will be a day of judgement, because there will be a day of wrath, because there is darkness reserved for the unrighteous – we ought to live “holy and godly lives”. God is not mocked. We look forward to the day when righteousness will dwell in the new heaven and earth. We look forward to the day when we will be righteous, and see the Lord face to face. We yearn for the day when sin is no more.

    How can those who long for such a day continue to live in sin in the present? It’s impossible! Romans 6:1ff – we have died to sin, how is it possible to continue in it?

    And, if this is the case, how can those in the church – thinking particularly about the Church of England but applicable more broadly – stand by and do nothing when the CofE is openly contemplating changes its teaching on matters of marriage?

    I appreciate this post has gone on a bit (about 1600 words at this point!) but I’d just like to offer a few more brief reasons why I believe sexuality in particular isn’t something which we can disagree on.

    • I have rarely, if ever, encountered someone who is orthodox on everything except the nature of marriage. This could be because in order to affirm same-sex marriage you have to twist the Bible virtually out of all recognition (as I try to explain here). Interpreting the Bible wrongly in one area will lead to interpreting it wrongly in others – especially on a serious and core doctrine such as marriage.
    • As John Stott pointed out in The Cross of Christ, “sin is not a regrettable lapse from conventional standards. Its essence is hostility towards God.” Sin is not something which God simply shrugs his shoulder about – it is something which Jesus Christ needed to die for to bear the wrath we deserve. To continue in sin wilfully is not simply being wrong or mistaken – it is an act of aggression against God. If same-sex sexual activity is a consequence of our idolatry (Romans 1), then I think this is applicable in particular. God cannot simply overlook such hostility towards him.
    • Bible teachers should be held to a higher standard – James 3:1. Someone who holds the wrong opinion on marriage ‘in the pews’ is less of a danger than false teachers, who can mislead many. This is why I believe that the apostles were so hot on false teaching, and why I believe we must be today. So someone ‘in the pews’, so to speak, might hold the wrong opinion on same-sex marriage – but at least they are not misleading many others. I believe it is appropriate to instruct them gently (2 Timothy 2:25-26). But those who are responsible under God for shepherding Christ’s flock which he bought with his own blood will be held to account. When the day of the Lord comes, I don’t want anyone’s blood on my hands (Acts 20:26-27).

  • Hell and the church's mission

    If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where

    “‘the worms that eat them do not die,
    and the fire is not quenched.’

    Mark 9:43-48

    In one of our curate training days last year, we spent some time thinking about the church’s mission. What should we be spending our time doing? We had three speakers from different traditions come to talk to us, and we actually had quite an interesting discussion. One of the things which came up was – is the church’s mission simply proclaiming the gospel, or is it wider? To put the question a more practical way – does the church’s mission include practical help for people (such as food banks etc.)?

    Unusually for a curate’s session we had a frank exchange of views and actually opened our Bibles and had something of a theological discussion. It seems that this is a pretty divisive issue amongst Christians: what should we as a church be doing with our time?

    Over the past few months I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about hell, and I wonder whether it may actually help the discussion about the church’s mission.

    Hell is not something that we spend very much time discussing – in most Christian circles, and especially within the Church of England. I’ve been on quite a few CofE training things over the past few years, and I don’t think I’ve heard hell mentioned a single time (apart from occasionally in the hymns that we sing). What’s interesting, though, is reading the gospels through: Jesus talks about hell more than anybody. The passage I started with is a case in point. Jesus consistently warns people about the dangers of hell – in this passage, saying that it is better to go through life maimed but be rid of sin than to have your limbs intact but go into hell for eternity.

    This has particularly struck me about the church’s mission because the church is the only institution in the world which really has eternity in mind. Many charities exist which care about people’s needs in this life. Only the church cares about their eternal future.

    This is what Jesus is getting at in Luke 12:

    I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

    Jesus is saying that our lives should ultimately be controlled by the fear of Him who holds eternity in His hands. Not in the sense of being scared of God, but an appropriate reverence for Him. Jesus is now the one who holds the keys of death and Hades (Revelation 1:18). There is nothing, no hardship, no suffering, no bad thing in this life which will compare with an eternity in hell.

    And that puts the church’s mission into perspective: food banks are a good thing. Looking after the poor and needy is a good thing. Of course they are. But, ultimately, if we give someone a piece of bread but don’t tell them about Jesus the bread of life then we haven’t really done anything to help that person. Jesus loved people, but he loved people enough to warn them about their eternal destiny.

    This isn’t to say that the church should immediately stop doing anything which isn’t directly related to preaching the gospel! But what a church does should ultimately be controlled not by limiting its vision to temporal needs but by eternal needs. A church must always be reaching out – churches which do not reach out will die – but a church must always be reaching out with the message of reconciliation. This is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20:

    All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

    The ministry which God gave to the apostles, and through them to the church today, is the message of reconciliation: being reconciled with God.

    I believe that if the church keeps a Biblical understanding of the gospel – including hell – it will enable a healthy view of its ministry and outreach. If we forget that the gospel is all about salvation, we’ll focus our energies on trying to love people in the here and now. But if we keep our understanding of the gospel, that will control all that we do.

    Let me finish with an example. At our church here in Clacton, we run a lunch cafe every Friday. The food is relatively cheap – it’s not run for profit, it simply runs to help the local community to get a decent meal at a good price. It is very much a community service – we do it because we love our community. At the same time – our aim with the cafe is not simply to provide people with food: it’s a good place to build relationships with people in the community, to advertise church events, and so on. In short, it is a part of the whole mission of the church – the ministry of reconciliation. We pray regularly for the cafe and ask for God to use it – and He has.

    It’s similar with the soup run. Our church helps out with the soup run in Clacton, and – again – this is done both to help out the community, and also to get to know people, have conversations with them, and talk a little about Jesus. Apparently we’ve given out quite a few Bibles over the past few years.

    To see the world in the light of eternity gives the church an appropriate perspective on ‘doing good’ and helps to maintain an evangelistic edge.

    As a footnote, I found Melvin Tinker’s book Salt, Light and Cities on Hills very helpful when it came to thinking through mission – he talks about the passages often debated in these discussions and I appreciated his conclusions.