If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. – Hebrews 10:26-27
A few days ago, the Evangelical Alliance UK (EAUK) discontinued the membership of the Oasis Trust. The reason was, according to the press release, due to “a campaign to change the Church’s historic view on human sexuality” (a campaign fronted by Steve Chalke, whom I blogged about when this issue first came up and again recently). The reaction to this move has been huge and polarised: some people, such as myself, think the EAUK made a good move: in an acceptance of same-sex relationships, I believe Chalke has made a clear step away from a traditional evangelical understanding of the authority of Scripture. On the other hand, many have commented that it’s incredibly sad for the EAUK to be dividing on this issue when Christians who hold the same understanding of Scripture can legitimately disagree on this (see Gillan’s post over at the God and Politics blog for a good articulation of this view).
The main criticism people are making of the EAUK is that they are being divisive around a secondary issue. It’s a bit like baptism: some evangelicals believe it’s OK to baptise infants, others think you can only baptise someone when they’re old enough to make their own confession of faith. Insisting upon conformity on this issue is to exclude a large number of evangelicals, and is spreading discord and division needlessly.
Now I don’t want to talk about the EAUK’s response to the issue per se, but instead talk about the nature of sexuality as a ‘secondary issue’: personally I don’t think this is an issue that Christians can disagree over. This is partly because I think the Bible couldn’t be clearer on this issue, but also because I think we cannot just agree to disagree on matters of sin – particularly when it’s concerning something as serious as sexuality. (more…)
It seems that David Cameron can’t say or do anything right when it comes to faith. Either he’s not Christian enough, or too Christian, or gets faith involved in politics, or doesn’t get faith involved in politics – he seems to receive criticism from all quarters. Most recently, he’s been criticised in a letter to the Telegraph for calling the UK a ‘Christian Country’. According to the letter:
Apart from in the narrow constitutional sense that we continue to have an established Church, Britain is not a “Christian country”. Repeated surveys, polls and studies show that most of us as individuals are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities.
Frankly I think this is an exaggeration when, in the last UK Census – which is surely by definition the most comprehensive survey of them all – 59.3% of the population voluntarily put ‘Christian’ on the form. Not only that, but the established Church is not simply ‘bolted on‘to a secular state: it has legal recognition (the relation of canons of the Church of England and the Law, for example), Bishops sit in the House of Lords – whether you like it or not, the Church has a role in the fabric of the country at the highest levels. That role may be diminishing, but it is still there. It is not merely a ‘narrow constitutional sense’.
However, aside from that, there is another historical angle on this – which would be true even if the Church of England were to completely disappear, and Christianity became a minority religion.
I’ve just finished reading “Christianity and Liberalism” by J Gresham Machen. It was written nearly a century ago (1923) but it’s still an excellent book. He argues throughout the book (and, to my mind, demonstrates conclusively) that Liberalism – in the sense of liberal Christianity – is actually a different religion to Christianity. Given the age of the book it’s not surprising to find that some of the liberal beliefs he criticises are less relevant to the Liberalism of today. However, I think the points he makes about Christianity are very insightful – in particular I appreciated the first chapter on doctrine. It would be well worth investing your time in the book.
So why do I write about it here? Well, reading the book got me thinking about the church today – in particular, the Church of England after the Pilling Report and the House of Bishops pastoral letter. Many people in the church who believe in same-sex marriage are questioning why they are essentially being forced to adopt a different position on this. Why is it that they are being held to a standard which they do not personally believe in?
If you’ve been watching ‘Rev’, you’ll have seen the episode a few weeks ago where Adam Smallbone (the vicar) struggles with this issue – how to deal with the church’s official position on this even though he doesn’t actually believe in it.
One thing which struck me – which I touched on last year – is that the question goes far deeper than beliefs about sexuality. The problem is fundamentally about the nature of the church. Is the church held together because it is an institution and nothing more? In other words, would it make sense for there to be Buddhists, Muslims and people of other faiths within the Church of England – simply because they were within the institution? Or, is there something doctrinally – i.e. some common beliefs – which unite the church?
I think most people would agree that it wouldn’t make sense to have people of any religion within the Church of England – because the CofE is a Christian church. It is united around the gospel, around the Bible, around the historic Christian confessions of faith. What Machen would argue, however, is that Liberalism does not fall under that: Liberalism is a different religion from Christianity.
Why is this significant regarding the CofE’s current situation? Because over the past few years the Church has basically brushed this question under the carpet. It has, to put it bluntly, ignored the question of what the Church of England actually is. This is no longer possible – the question must be confronted. Is the Church of England a Christian church in any meaningful sense? And if it is, what implications does that have?
If the Church of England is to remain a Christian church, I believe it has some serious decisions to make over the next few years: what do its historic confessions of faith actually mean, and what does it mean to be part of the church now? We cannot be inclusive at any cost. The Pilling Report, I hope, will expose these kinds of questions – difficult though they may be – and force us to make some uncomfortable decisions.
“You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” – Matthew 22:29
I’ve come across a lot of people recently who seem to pit Jesus against the Bible. It seems like this is a growing trend. People say things like, “Jesus is the only Word of God. The Bible was written by human authors and it might be wrong” – that kind of thing. The point is: we can trust in Jesus, because he was God and is therefore infallible. We can’t trust completely in the Bible, because it was written by humans and therefore fallible.
I don’t see how this works logically: how do we know what Jesus said and did? Well, it’s written down here in… oh.
OK, that was a cheap shot. But I think there are nonetheless good reasons for not pitting the Bible against Jesus:
Jesus himself doesn’t. He constantly says “It is written”. For example, when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4 he responds by saying “It is written…” and quoting from the Old Testament.
Jesus sees himself as the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, e.g. Mark 14:49 “The Scriptures must be fulfilled”. Jesus begins his ministry in Luke 4:21, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 18:31, “everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.” Why do I say this? Jesus assumes that what is written about him in the Old Testament is actually accurate.
Jesus says things like “Scripture cannot be set aside” (John 10:35).
Jesus uses the Old Testament to teach people about himself – Luke 24:27 “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
Finally, as I quoted at the beginning of this post, Jesus claims that a cause of error is not knowing the Scriptures. Jesus responds to the Sadducees by making an argument which is based on a particular verse in the Old Testament. The problem is often not which bits of Scripture to believe or not – the problem is usually that we don’t understand Scripture well enough.
It seems to me that Jesus himself was comfortable using Scripture and relying on it as the Word of God – and I think this is an attitude which is supported by the rest of the New Testament, e.g. 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is God-breathed”, or 2 Peter 1:21 “prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Or look at the book of Hebrews, as I have blogged about before.
There is another more subtle way in which people like to pit Jesus against the Bible: reading all Scripture through the “Jesus Lens”. Andrew Wilson nails it in his blog “The Jesus Lens, or the Jesus Tea-Strainer?“:
In his [Steve Chalke’s] view, the Bible should be read through “the Jesus lens”, that is to say, in the light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus. I agree. But he then goes on to argue that this enables us, and in fact requires us, to correct all sorts of things that the texts actually say, particularly those which involve wrath, death and sexual ethics
Now this is in some respects a difficult area because we do need to read the Bible ‘Christologically’, i.e. read the whole Bible as pointing to Christ. But, as Andrew Wilson points out, that doesn’t mean using Jesus as a kind of ‘tea strainer’ where we block out all the bits we don’t like because Jesus “obviously wouldn’t have done that”. I’m sure this is a caricature, but nonetheless I think this kind of attitude is very popular: “Jesus showed us the way of love and inclusiveness; therefore we need to be loving and inclusive”.
As you might imagine, this is applied a lot to the current debates about sexuality within the church: “What would Jesus have done with a same-sex couple?” The implication being that Jesus was loving and inclusive and would have accepted people as they were.
The problem is – I don’t think this is the Jesus I see in the gospels. Of course he was loving and inclusive – but not to the exclusion of caring about sin. Jesus’ love is not ‘fluffy kittens and rainbows’ kind of love. Jesus did not come to abolish the Scriptures, but fulfil them. How is it that God can be merciful and wrathful at the same time? Look to Jesus’ death on the cross, where he bore the punishment for our sins. How is it that a holy God can be inclusive of sinners? Look to Jesus’ death on the cross.
Jesus never excuses sin. He never says “Forget about it” when it comes to sin. If anything, he takes the Law and sets the standards even higher (I was struck by this when reading through Matthew recently – especially the Sermon on the Mount).
Of course Jesus is inclusive and accepting, but he is inclusive and accepting of those who come to him knowing that they need to be healed, knowing that they are sinners who are worthy of God’s judgement but instead will receive mercy, knowing that they need to turn to him in repentance and faith and intend to lead a new life in his power.
I’d like to finish by quoting Revelation 19, where we see this magnificent description of Jesus as the all-conquering Word of God. I think this is something we would all do well to reflect on – Jesus is not all inclusive and love, he is the just judge who will return to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end:
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron sceptre.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
I’ve noticed recently there seems to be a trend amongst many Christians who would claim the Bible as their authority of endorsing same-sex relationships. The other day, for example, I was reading about Matthew Vines’ book God and the Gay Christian. Last year, Steve Chalke came out in favour of same-sex marriage, and there have been others.
I don’t want to deal with the Biblical case for or against same-sex relationships here (I’ve talked a little bit about it before), but I just want to pose a few questions which people who like to talk about the Biblical case for same-sex relationships don’t talk about very much (or at least, not as far as I can see). These are all aspects of the gospel which I think are pretty key to what it means to be a Christian, although none are directly linked to sexuality. (more…)
… or indeed, irrational? Last week I read a very interesting interview with the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga called Is Atheism Irrational? I’d recommend reading it – particularly the last section at the end, which I found fascinating.
It’s to do with the belief in naturalism or materialism – i.e. the belief that the natural world is all there is. Nothing exists apart from the natural world, which obviously rules out God or supernatural beings etc.
One of the points that Plantinga makes is based on viewing our brains as purely the products of naturalistic evolution.
The example that he uses is his belief that there is a beer in the fridge. If naturalistic evolution is true, all a belief is is a set of neurophysiological properties, irrespective of whatever the content of that belief actually is. So, the fact that he goes to the fridge to get the beer could have been caused by any ‘belief’ with those same physiological properties. If evolution is true, our ‘beliefs’ don’t have to correspond to the real world as long as they actually work and help us to survive.
He goes on to say:
Evolution will select for belief-producing processes that produce beliefs with adaptive neurophysiological properties, but not for belief-producing processes that produce true beliefs. Given materialism and evolution, any particular belief is as likely to be false as true.
I find that fascinating. You should read the whole interview for more though – it’s not very long.
On a related note, the other thing which I find interesting about a purely naturalist worldview is that it leads “naturally” (ha ha ha) to something called causal closure. Because nature is all there is, everything which happens has to have had a natural cause. In other words – the universe proceeds pretty much like clockwork, including the things that you and I do. The idea is, if you had godlike knowledge of all the physical forces and atoms and so on – you could predict exactly what would happen throughout the universe at any given time. Our brains are not outside of nature; they are physical objects too – subject to the same laws of nature as the rest of the universe. Why should they be any different?
This has some interesting consequences:
As Plantinga said – can we really call any belief ‘rational’ or not, given that it’s merely a product of physical processes which, if we could understand and map completely, we could predict?
It destroys the idea of individual / personal agents. I may think I’m an individual, but actually I’m only the process of forces beyond my control – the universe simply working out its laws of physics. Someone I know who had a degree in philosophy told me that in philosophy these days it’s becoming popular to talk about everything with an impersonal agency.
It seems interesting to me that what seems to be happening in philosophy these days is so far divorced from the thinking of many of the most vocal atheists of the day. I wonder if there is some cognitive dissonance going on – these are not trivial objections but I don’t think you would hear the likes of Dawkins giving them time of day. Their own personal experience seems to trump the logical consequence of the worldview they advocate.
I’ve said many times here before, the Christian worldview is the only one which makes any kind of coherent sense of the world as we experience it.
The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. – G.K. Chesterton: “Orthodoxy”
I read an article about a month ago called “Two Cheers for Human Rights“. It was published on 27th December so I was probably still too full of turkey and Christmas Pud to really digest it properly (did you see what I did there?!) Anyway, the article makes interesting reading – especially if you’re a fan of human rights (and who isn’t in the UK?)
I thought it might be worth quoting from the article. The writer, John Gray, is an atheist (as far as I can tell) but he has some worthwhile observations about the nature of human rights. (more…)
According to the news today, the “Sunday Assembly” has split. For those of you who don’t know, the Sunday Assembly is a church-style service, only it’s run by atheists. This is the vision from their website*:
The Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation that celebrate life. Our motto: live better, help often, wonder more. Our mission: to help everyone find and fulfill their full potential. Our vision: a godless congregation in every town, city and village that wants one.
Lots of ink was spilled over this when the assembly first started – I didn’t contribute at the time, but having heard this news I have a few thoughts. In particular, I do wonder whether an atheistic assembly is destined for failure.
Recently, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey warned that the Church of England was in danger of dying out within a generation. (Synod has responded by “voting to set up a committee” – oh, how Anglican… at the same time, positive that the church is actively looking towards evangelism.)
It seems to me that with this along with the Pilling Report shortly to be published as well as the move towards women bishops, the Church of England stands at something of a crossroads. The church faces the question: what is it that the Church of England is all about?
This is a quote from the article I mentioned above:
Archbishop Sentamu told the Synod: “Compared with evangelism everything else is like rearranging furniture when the house is on fire.
“Tragically too often that is what we are doing – reorganising the structures, arguing over words and phrases, while the people of England are left floundering amid meaningless anxiety and despair.”
I think he’s hit the nail bang on the head. “Rearranging furniture when the house is on fire” – exactly what I think is going on with the Pilling Report and, to a lesser extent, women bishops (see my previous post on last year’s women bishops vote for some more thoughts on that matter).
I believe there are two competing narratives at play here. One is saying, “We’re losing numbers. Quick! – let’s get with the times. Culture is changing, let’s change with it. Let’s bring in women bishops, let’s bring in gay marriage – that will halt the decline and reverse the trend. People will flood back into church if it’s relevant to them.” That’s one narrative, a narrative which the Episcopal Church USA seems to have adopted.
The other narrative is more like this: “We’re losing numbers. Quick! – we need to get back to what the church is all about, preaching the gospel. Offering salvation to sinners: Evangelism and the ministry of God’s word to his world – that’s the only thing which can halt the decline and bring people back into church”. In other words, basically what Archbishop John Sentamu said to General Synod.
Judging by what’s happening to the Episcopal Church, it’s pretty clear that the first route will lead to the Church of England’s ultimate demise. That doesn’t bode well.
But I prefer to see this more positively. I think this is a time for the Church of England to take stock: what is it we’re here for? What is the Church’s mission? The church has Five marks of mission, the first of which is: “To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom.” I hope and pray that the Church of England will rediscover its identity as an organisation which proclaims the good news of the Kingdom, and any furniture rearranging in the future can take a back seat.
In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V), the American Psychiatric Association (APA) drew a very distinct line between pedophilia and pedophilic disorder. Pedophilia refers to a sexual orientation or profession of sexual preference devoid of consummation, whereas pedophilic disorder is defined as a compulsion and is used in reference to individuals who act on their sexuality.
I’m just not quite sure what to make of it at the moment. Here we have a particular sexual desire – an ‘orientation’ – being seen as acceptable, whereas acting on this particular orientation is not. (Edit: this article (see comments) indicates that the article is based on a misunderstanding and is not actually the case. However, given the article in the next paragraph, I think this post still applies, if only as more of a hypothetical – there are certainly those who would wish to change paedophilia to an orientation and it has been discussed in official circles.)
What’s even more interesting is another article on Paedophilia from earlier this year: it suggests that the ‘harm’ aspect of Paedophilia – which I would imagine most if not all people would see as proscribing any kind of paedophilic behaviour – is actually more gray and complex than you might think.
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