James K.A. Smith on evangelicalism

James Smith has an interesting, though I think debateable, post over at the Immanent Frame. He claims to be offering a theological reason why a sociological definition of evangelicalism should be prefered.

The argument amounts to:

1) theological definitions of evangelicalism can be too narrow (so, emphasise the division with Catholics).

2) theological definitions can be too broad (so, include Pentecostals). Smith talks of 'the demographic sleight of hand that enfolds Pentecostals, charismatics, and the explosion of “world Christianity” under the label “evangelical.” '

To which I say, 'well, perhaps, but neither of these constitutes an argument against the use of the term evangelical as a theological definition per se. If some people want to misuse the term then it is certainly worth discussing. But it just doesn't follow at all that the whole business of theological definition should be given up as a bad job. (This, by the way, is what Smith says is a 'theological argument' in favour of a sociological definition...)

Smith's suggestion is that 'evangelical should be seen to represent a tone. So, he says:

'evangelicalism represents a contingent style, a sort of accent within Christendom'. Yet, when he describes this accent or tone, Smith is (it seems to me) full of contempt for it:

It is a distinctly modern, post-Reformation configuration of Christian discipleship that engendered practices and institutions which closely mirrored the development of what Charles Taylor describes as “the modern social imaginary”—a focus on individual salvation, a valorization of the autonomy of the local congregation, an entrepreneurial spirit that fueled ambitious programs of church and parachurch expansion, a kind of Christian materialism that generated its own markets, and other distinctive features.

In effect, Smith denudes evangelicalism of its theology and reduces it to a set of practices... which is the way all sorts of post-liberals are reading doctrine/theology these days...and why so many young American Protestant thinkers have recently become Roman Catholics perhaps.

There's more to say, but enough for now.

Bernard of Clairvaux, on loving God

John Calvin's favourite twelfth century writer (and there weren't many on his list), Bernard of Clairvaux understood very well the fullness of what our love for God should be:


Admit that God deserves to be loved very much, yea, boundlessly, because He loved us first, He infinite and we nothing, loved us, miserable sinners, with a love so great and so free.

Theology as repentant humility...

Theology is an act of repentant humility…This act exists in the fact that in theology the Church seeks again and again to examine itself critically as it asks itself what it means and implies to be a Church among men…The Church, too, lives under the judgement of God, as does the world. So, it cannot be otherwise but that the Church must critically examine itself, not according to its own wishes and standards but according to the standard which is identical with its basis of existence which is God’s revelation, which, concretely, is the Holy Scriptures. It is this constant and ever-recurring necessity and demand for self-examination of the Church by the standard of the divine Word which is the peculiar function of theology in the Church.

Karl Barth, ‘Theology’ in God in Action (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1936), pp. 44f

Seitz, Barth and some notes on Blessing

From C. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture pp. 147-52

'Blessing is the language of God's address to humanity's forfeit.'In Genesis 1:28, blessing is tied up with expansion and spreading out.p. 148: '...whatever is marring God's creative intent, be it rebellion in the Garden, murder, evil human imagination, or projects for overextension and totalitarian unity, God is planning a different way forward, which he means to protect and superintend. Election is the means by which sinful creation receives the blessing originally intended for it, for all nations and people. Mission understood in OT terms, then, is the address of blessing to the deficit and forfeit brought about by rebellion in its many forms.'

p. 149: 'Blessing will come through election, and mission - God's word of blessing to the nations - will be the means by which God uses Israel to accomplish this in a special way vis-a-vis all peoples.'As von Rad notes, blessing concerns Abraham first, but then also includes those on the outside who adopt a definite attitude toward this blessing.God's blessing of Abram is a repeat of the charge to humanity in creation... it involves Abram getting what the race sought in tower building.... it also entails blessing for others.

p. 152 'If blessing is the means by which God restores and brings into proper relationship the families of the earth, it remains the case that he uses Israel for this purpose in ways neither Israel nor the nations fully comprehend. What is required of Israel is faith and obedience to the pronise, which constitutes its only ground of existence in the world. Obedience to this promise allows blessing to occur, but it does not ensure it.''for the church rightly to speak of 'mission'...it is necessary to comprehend the logic of key OT notions of blessing''Blessing' is drawing on God's goodness...and receiving it... it is the good God extending his goodness to the creation, filling the creation with his goodness...

Karl Barth 'In all its otherness it is predestined to receive the divine good which has been revealed and communicated. This is what is ordained for man in the primal decision of the divine decree. the portion which God willed and chose for him was an ordination to blessedness. For to be able to attest the overflowing glory of the Creator is blessedness. God will man and elceted man with the promise of eternal life. Life as a witness to the overflowing glory of God is eternal life...' CD II/2 p. 169

But...
'Man was willed and chose by God with his limitations, as a creature which could and would do harm to God by the application, or rather the misuse, of its freedom. the danger-point of man's susceptibility to temptation, and the zero-point of his fall, were thus included in the divine decree.' II/2 p. 169

What need is there of theology?

…there is [among Biblical scholars] an unwillingness to accept the existence and the significance of theology as a discipline in its own right. One of several roots of this unwillingness is, perversely, the popular Protestant insistence on sola scriptura. When one has the Bible, what need is there for the subtleties and sophistries of theology?
Francis Watson, Text and Truth, p.4

Well, quite. I don't think it is a good understanding of sola scriptura that leads to this difficulty though...

More on the Second Chair

The Leading from the Second Chair book I was talking about lists three paradoxes of second chair leadership:

Subordinate-Leader - because assistant leaders are leaders, but also followers at the same time. There is responsibility given, but it is given according to set boundaries.

Deep-Wide - the assistant leader often has a specialty, but is often also called to be a utility player in the church organisation. And so, the assistant pastor has to be able to think in terms of his/her contribution to the whole church or organisation as well as develop his/her own patch. In fact, the demands of the whole might mean that the patch become overgrown or untended somewhat.

Contentment-Dreaming - the second chair leader can feel that their dreams are now continually being frustrated because they are subordinated to the dreams of another. And yet, without that freedom to dream, the second chair leader can become stale.

I wish the book had addressed some of the more tricky (and believe me, real, from what I hear) situations. How can the assistant minister help the senior minister who is underperforming, or depressed, or evidently lazy? What if he is treating the laity poorly? What about when you sense that the senior minister is feeling threatened? How can the second chair leader 'manage up'? To what degree is our obedience actually a spiritual discipline, as opposed to merely a matter of being an employee?

And, furthermore, how can senior ministers get the most out of their assistants? What does it take to lead a team of ministers? Why are we so bad at it? Who is actually good at it, and why?

Volf on divine violence

Here is Miroslav Volf, a pacifist himself, on why Christian nonviolence actually needs the vengeance of God to be coherent (not to mention Biblical):

My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone...Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. the thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban hom for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God's refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind...

Exclusion and Embrace, p. 204

Leading from the Second Chair

Now, as one who is returning to the task of preparing other for ministry, I was intrigued to read recently a book called Leading from the Second Chair. It was put into my hands by my friend Ed Vaughan from Crinken parish in Dublin.

It is a very annoying book in several ways. It uses Joseph as a kind of model 'second chair' leader, which is just an annoying way to use the Bible in my book. It is based on interviews with American ministers, who tend to give very sunny and pragmatic descriptions of their ministries.
But I think it really touches on an issue for many ministers I know of: and that is, working as the assistant or the second in charge is really tough, and it is increasingly hard to find a leader-assistant relationship that works really well (in my experience). And they do have some good (and not just practical) advice.

Why is this relationship so fraught? Is it the pride thing? Is that leaders expect to be popes-in-their-own-parishes? Are we unable to live out submission in practice? Is there too much expectation of independence? Is it because the model we have was worked out when assistants were regularly in their early 20s, whereas now assistant ministers are often 30+ (and would be getting increased responsibility in secular work?)

Personal testimonies warmly received, but be careful with names and identities please.

Psalm 133 - The sweet taste...

The idea of unity is guaranteed to produce nausea in the tummies of our secular neighbours. All their lives have been conditioned, like Pavlov’s salivating dogs, to pursue individualism at all costs; to celebrate differences rather than the similarities; to speak as “I” not as “we”. The jewel in the crown of western democratic liberalism is: the freedom of the individual - in ethics, in religion, in economics. And capitalism thrives in this environment, as the consumers individualise their requirements and every person becomes a niche market: left handed, left leaning Lebanese lesbians from Lilyfield; or gardening grand-dads from Gordon. Living in community with other people is a compromise, a necessary evil rather than a joy. Even in families, fragmentation is in evidence: the latest family cars have headphones and separate CD’s for each seat – so you can have the Wiggles in one seat and Wagner in another. How sweet our freedom! How pleasant! As Jean-Paul Sartre said “hell is other people”.

This fear of community arises from a very real fear that the individual may be squashed by the bulldozer of conformity; that social institutions and bureaucracies may process us according to generalisations and expediencies; that power in human hands may be coercive or even abusive; that the bullies may rule the playground. There is something theological about this point – ultimately the oneness of God is held to be at the root of totalitarian or repressive forms of social order.

But cast off God as a source of unity and you will replace it with another. One of the ironies of western culture is that the more we claim to be free the more we are enslaved. This truth was beautifully captured in that moment from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, when Brian looks out of his window at the masses of his followers and says “ you are all individuals” and they reply as one “Yes- we are all individuals”. If you have ever been to a high school on mufti day, you will know what I mean: released from the shackles of uniform, the students all turn up dressed exactly the same – all bare midriffs (girls) & baggy jeans (boys). How sweet and good our freedom!

This is not the vision of Psalm 133. One of that famous series of Psalms called the Songs of Ascents – the songs of '”goings up” – it celebrates the meeting together of the people of God on the Summit of God’s holy hill. This little haiku of a Psalm is an extra ordinary outburst of joy at the presence of others. It is delicious when the family of God lives together as one – it is one of the best things in life!

In fact, it is so good, it is like……..it is like………..

Well, the Psalmist produces two of the more bizarre similes, of the oil and of the dew. They are a pair of strikingly sensual and liquid images, aren’t they? And they invite us to contemplate just exactly HOW they are like the sweet unity of brothers and sisters.

What about the precious oil? Vs 2 unfolds in a away that reflects the slow trickling of oil itself, from the head to the beard on to the collar. The fragrant sweet oil of priestly anointing was poured on the head of Aaron back in Exodus, when Moses lovingly prepared the Tabernacle and the set up of the cult of sacrifice. Commentators argue about whether it is the beard or the oil that flows down over the collar – but that doesn’t matter a great deal, really. The point is that it is a picture of richness & delight.

Vs 3 compares the togetherness of the brothers and sisters to the den of Hermon. Hermon is a mountain in lush Syria that is covered daily in heavy dew. But this dew of Hermon is falling here on the hills of Zion – hundreds of kilometres to the south. How can this occur, the dew of fertile Hermon watering the arid slopes of Zion? Only by the blessing of God could it happen; only by grace flowing down from the Lord could there be an overflow of life together, “life forevermore” in the presence of God himself.

The two images have in common a verbal idea; a motion downwards: the word yrd is repeated – the oil is flowing down, down, down; the dew is flowing down, dropping gently from the sky. The blessing of God – that beautiful delicious unity, that preciousness togetherness – flows down from the Lord himself. It’s fluid, isn’t it? The anointing of he priest symbolises God’s determination to live with his people…who have now a means to live with him. The enriching dew is God’s blessing on the place he meets his people. As Shakespeare said of mercy “it droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven.” The song of going up is really a song of coming down. Sweet life together is only possible because of the coming down of God into the midst of his people – they share an address. It is a miracle of the first order.

This flowing down of God’s blessing of life together we experience not in the cult or the temple or the Aaronic priesthood, but by the coming of the Holy Spirit. This spirit is poured into us in order to unite us, as Christ’s body, as the temple of the Holy Spirit. As Ephesians 4 puts it: “There is one body and one Spirit, just you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in all”.

It is a far cry from the splendid isolation of modern life. The family of God is constituted from on high and brings delight, deeply involved with one another.

But can we say that our experiences of life together is sweet? Do we know the sheer pleasure in life with each other expressed in this psalm?

If not, it could be because we try to impose visions of our making on the community of God’s people. It could be that our ideals are not his, at all. It could be that we want a unity of our ascending and not of God’s descending. It could be that we haven’t understood life together as a great blessing of God himself, a great realisation of his real presence among us by his spirit dropping down on us from above. It could be because we have not entered into common life with other Christians as thankful recipients but as demanders.

In our enthusiasm we may create conformities that we have nothing to do with the fellowship created by the Gospel. We may impose cultural or generational or gendered expectations on the people of God that are entirely our own. We may demand that people be unified to our programme, agree with our views to the minutest degree and conform to our plans for them. This is not the flowing down unity of Psalm 133; or of Ephesians 4. We forget that the whole basis for our unity is not a human category that we all belong to o a human work, some demographic we have in common, but Christ: as I am one with Christ and you are one with Christ so are we one with each other. And the basis for that is of course as forgiven sinners: that is really the thing we have in common.

Let us make our passion to pursue the gentleness and forbearance that enhances unity.

What issues threaten your oneness in Christ? Perhaps that is something only you can answer. However, some of the issues that are common in churches are:
1 – disagreements about the aesthetics of church, from the music to the colour of the carpet. These matters we have to handle with great care and mutual generosity because they arouse such passions. And yet they are actually relatively unimportant.
2 – disappointment at church not meeting your needs. This may be a genuine feeling of hurt at the way other people or even the minister have behaved; or it might reflect real feelings of spiritual dryness that aren’t being met in the church community. We need to be careful about these feelings: they can be real and powerful, but it is worth asking – are our expectations wrong? Are we expecting to meet more than a group of forgiven sinners?
3 – feelings of spiritual inferiority. Sometimes it feels as if the other people at church are streets ahead of me spiritually: their bible knowledge is amazing, they actually do a quiet time, they are serene and patient. And yet once again we need to remember we are united as forgiven sinners who have been reconciled to the father in Jesus. Even the most apparently spiritual person is only that.

But how delicious is the taste of unity among brothers & sisters!

How great it is to receive prayerful support & encouragement. How sweet it is to be appreciated as a contributing to the community, How beautiful it is to receive a freezer full of meals when your baby is born. How pleasant to be able to kick around issues in an atmosphere of trust. How sweet to know that I can receive help when I need it from a fellow believer without condescension. How great to know that others want me to succeed in serving God. How wonderful to sing like we do, together. How beautiful to share meals together. How great to know that God has rescued other sinners as well. These things come to us flowing down from above: they are unity that is a gift from God.

The Sola Panel | How new will the new creation be?

I have been participating in an interesting (I think) discussion on 2 Peter 3 and eschatology over at the Sola Panel, found here:

The Sola Panel How new will the new creation be?


Two features of discussion are frustrating: on the one hand, the use of Tom Wright as a bogey man (though the original poster says he didn't intend this, this is certainly how some of the posters have run with it) - 'if Tom Wright believes it, it must be suspicious'. This is no way to have a serious discussion about an important issue.
On the other hand, I think at one point we reached a consensus that discontinuity/continuity are a false alternative, and that the proper biblical/theological picture is both of a destructive judgement and a remarkable renewal - but then people kept on insisting that no, there is NO continuity between this creation and the new creation. This despite all the other texts (Rom 8, Col 1 and others) that do teach continuity. AND in spite of a raft of conservative commentators who see that 2 Peter 3 is not utterly discontinuous (Bauckham, et al). I am not quite sure what is at stake...though for me I think that utterly discontinuous view leads to a denigration of the created order and a rather Gnostic eschatology against which orthodox Christianity has always fought...
See what you think.

On Rowan Williams...

I notice that Wipf and Stock have listed On Rowan Williams on their forthcoming titles list

http://wipfandstock.com/forthcoming_titles

This is a book edited by Matheson Russell from the University of Auckland and which contains essays by Ben Myers, Andrew Cameron, Greg Clarke, Byron Smith, Matheson Russell and me, among others. Oliver O'Donovan has kindly penned a foreward!

Unconditional Love?

You hear it often said that God loves us unconditionally. I guess people are trying to tie the idea of grace into God's love. And also to remind themselves that our own unloveliness is no obstacle to the love of God.

It seems to me that this is a really inadequate way to describe the love of God. The two characteristics of God's love as we encounter in the OT are his steadfastness on the one hand and his jealousy on the other. How can the two be reconciled? Well, Hosea 11 picks up some of the apparent tension in the heart of God - how can I keep loving you? how can I give you up? The two lines meet of course on the cross - where God shows that it possible for himself both to love steadfastly AND jealously. He maintains the detemined purity and sanctity of his love AND makes it possible for himself not to withdraw his own love. He reveals his own self-consistency as a lover.

I would rather say: God's love is conditional, but God meets the conditions..

Being Loved - not as easy as it sounds...

How do we respond to the love of God? Well, to modify Baz Luhrmann:

The greatest thing you'll ever learn/ is to be loved and just love in return.

At this point we make it far to complicated. It is very hard to just accept the love we are offered; we always feel like we should be giving something back. Or worse, we cannot put aside our pride.
Ephesians 5 is interesting here: if Christ takes the husbandly role of sacrificial love, what role is the church to take? She is to take the wifely role of submission: which is not much more than allowing yourself to be loved. This might be harder than we think. We have to surrender ourselves to him.

I was talking to a female friend of mine who asked me: "is it hard to relate to this as a guy, because I reckon it'd be heaps easier as a chick [her word!] to desire these kind of attributes?" It was a really good question. We are dealing in stereotypes of course, but males on the whole do find help hard to accept, let alone love; especially when there is such an imbalance in a relationship like there is with God. We like to feel we are independent, or at least contributing.
But a response to the God who dies to love you requires us setting aside our futile, petty male (or female) independence, and allowing Christ to husband us. It may seem frustratingly passive. But we need this husband more than we can ever know. Let him love you.

Bible Teaching?

Off on holidays for a couple of weeks tomorrow - here is something to be getting on with.

I was speaking with a prominent English conservative evangelical not so long ago, and we were talking about preaching. He had a gripe: the phrase 'bible teaching' (and the idea of 'bible churches', too). It has crept into the evangelical vocabulary to describe what used to be called 'preaching'. A church is great, we will say, because 'the bible teaching is excellent'. But, he said, the vocab change is significant: it represents a shift to a more cognitive, flat and explanatory style of discourse. The hearers will not be exhorted or edified so much as 'taught'. What's more, and perhaps more seriously, we talk less of preaching Christ, but of teaching the Bible. A subtle but significant difference perhaps?

Is this vocabulary to be encouraged, or is the English preacher right?

Notes on the nature and significance of community as a theological concept

Humankind was created for communion, but is everywhere divided. [1]

The human individual is, as a matter of theological datum and observable fact, made for sociality and collaboration with others in the world. ‘Community’ is a term that recognizes this unquenchable aspiration amongst people. In community with others we hold things in common rather than in private: sharing is the heartbeat of community. In community, things are communicated between two or more people.

This may of course mean material things. But community also involves the sharing of a common understanding of the significance of shared things.[2] An example is the sharing of food: in human communities the eating of meals is not merely functional, but given a representative function as well – who I eat with, and what, and when mean something. What is more, communities share in, or aspire to share in, an identity – a shared self-understanding. Various signs and ceremonies and practices mediate this self-understanding to the individuals within a community. They facilitate recognition of other members of the community.

There is then, for human community the necessity of effective communication of this identity - of ascribing significance to our shared possessions. The narration of our shared history, on the one hand, and the creation of works of art, on the other, combine to make a community a tradition that can be passed on. In this way, human community can feel itself secured somewhat against the ravages of time and the inevitability of death.

Again, this description is a matter of anthropological observation and of the way in which the Pentateuch describes the proper development of a particular human community. Community is a good that human beings need for their proper flourishing as individuals. In Scripture, however, the ideal human community is not just human. The Lord himself intends to live in community with people – to make for himself a people with whom he will dwell. Adam and Eve live with God in the garden.

Such might be a description of ‘community’ in a state of innocence. But Christian theology cannot be happy with this description as it stands. We have already hinted that another function of community is that of protection and security. As Scripture narrates it, human beings huddle together because humanity is vulnerable to nature; and because they need protection from other human beings. If there is a good in community, then it needs to be secured. There are other communities whose significations and representations may cut across the path of mine. Each community is a community among other possibly competing, possibly threatening communities. The protection of the city wall is needed – or, more effectively, the creation of a self-understanding which means that membership in community X means hatred of community Y. If I am Tutsi, I am not Hutu.

What is more, the self-communication and self-representation of a community may strengthen its bonds, and appear to benefit its members, but actually be deeply hubristic. Protection gives way to pretension. Without God, a community, whether as small as a family or as large as a nation, may develop the illusion of its own totality and sufficiency. It may come to believe in its own transcendence, and in its own destiny. The besetting sin of communities is, then, idolatry. The story of Babel (Gen 11) is offered as a restraint against just this sort of over-weening pride: the Lord scatters the people and confuses their languages in order to restrain the possibility of an idolatrous belief in the power of human community. The will make a ‘name’ for themselves, and thereby not recognise the name of the Lord from whom true authority stems. Thus, the plurality of communities is both a protection of humans from their own power-hunger and an ongoing question against the promise of human community to fulfill human longings.
In the Biblical narrative we see both God’s judgement on human communities and his determination to redeem human beings in community (Gen 12).[3] The election of Israel was both a choice for them over against the nations that surrounded them, and a sign of God’s determination to bless all the families of the earth. The torah was intended to insure that the character and actions of God were at the heart of Israel’s communal life, just as it was absent from the other nations.

The gospel of Jesus Christ marks the formation of a new community whose shared ‘possession’ is Christ himself. Unlike other human communities, this one is not marked by fear but rather love; by peace, not enmity; and by fellowship, not competition for scarce resources. In the new community, quite remarkably, a plurality of identities is included without being at the same time dissolved. Thus, though I am a citizen of the heavenly kingdom, my identity as an Australian is not erased. However, it is certainly relativised, and even transformed. I can be, in Christ, Australian in a new way, and understand Australian-ness as it might be expressed in service of the divine ruler. In particular, the coming of Christ signifies the breaking down of barriers between peoples (Eph 2), such that communities need no longer be understood as mutually exclusive of one another. Here is then the possibility of unity without the dissolution of plurality.
The gathering of this new community is for the purpose of extending God’s blessing to all peoples. Not only are the disciples of Christ called to follow after him: they are also sent by him into the world. They are not to creep unobserved into the corners of the world; Christ rather calls them to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations, ‘in Jerusalem, Samaria and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8) – which activity is most certainly for the public sphere and for the public good.[4] The churches thus are rightly addressed by Peter as a diaspora (1 Peter 1:1-2): they are a scattered gathering, with a shared task of the further gathering and building of God’s community throughout the earth.

Christians are certainly enjoined to preserve and uphold the communities in which they find themselves, insofar as they are in the business of restraining and punishing wickedness and rewarding good (Rom 13). They are to honour and uphold rule insofar as it administers God’s justice. In the NT, this especially refers to retributive justice; but may fairly also be applied to the challenges of distributive justice. But Christians also continue to witness to the immodesty of the claims of human communities, by reminding human communities of the ultimacy of God’s rule in Christ. A true secularity (that is, an understanding of the divine authorization but not the divine right of forms of human power) is needed in order to break the idolatrous self-deception of communities as absolute and self-sufficient. As we have been suggesting all along, ‘community’ alone is an insufficient term to describe a good, because community itself may be perverse or idolatrous, or serve perverse and idolatrous ends. A criminal gang might provide its members with a remarkable degree of fellowship, but still be obviously a corruption or misuse of community. While human sociality is needed for human flourishing, there are forms of sociality which are in themselves destructive.

We recognize that in the late-modern world, the chief problem for many people is exclusion from the goods offered by human community. The individualism which is so characteristic of the age has resulted in the disconnection of many people from the forms of human community that they need in order to flourish. If community means sharing, it is precisely the case that some individuals are unwilling or unable to share in what is common that is most problematic – anti-human, even. However, it is also the case that access to a human community is not, in and of itself, sufficient to meet the human need.


Michael P Jensen
July, 2008





[1] W.T.Cavanaugh, “The City – Beyond secular parodies”, in John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward, Radical Orthodoxy : A New Theology, Radical Orthodoxy Series. (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 182.
[2] For this and much of what follows, see Oliver O'Donovan, Common Objects of Love : Moral Reflection and the Shaping of Community : The 2001 Stob Lectures (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2002)..
[3] not as community, but in community, note: community remains the means by which God redeems individuals.
[4] Hence the NT language of ‘light/salt of the world’, or the ‘royal priesthood’ of the church.

Anonymous comments...

Apologies for the loss of my blogging mojo of late... can't explain it. Must be the warm weather here in England...

Is there ever a case for making commenting anonymously on blogs/discussion boards and the like?

I admit, I have done it once or twice. But, as a rule, I think it is something a Christian person would not do. I think I am committed to the view that words attach to persons, and detached from them they lose their truth - or, at least, the reader of those words loses the opportunity to evaluate the truth of the words by the character and actions of the writer. Words are of their nature personal, and by anonymity become depersonalised, and unanswerable - a status no human word should really have.

The same would hold for writing anonymous letters: what is the case for ever writing one? What circumstances would justify it? How does anonymity transform it as a speech-act?

The counter argument would be that anonymous comment allows the vulnerable and the fearful to have a voice where they might not have. But even so, I would call these exceptional circumstances.

Boosters or knockers?

As Charles Taylor puts it, there are those critics of contemporary culture who cast themselves in the role of 'knockers' - ie, they have a gloomy outlook on the contemporary world and chart a decline in moral standards since the 1960s. The opposite outlook belongs to the 'boosters', who are characteristically more optimistic about the progress of humanity in the current era.

Now, it is customary for evangelical preachers to be 'knockers': they will, without fail, offer a social analysis that is very negative. In trying to contrast the biblical view to the current world view, they characteristically talk about the decline in standards, about modern individualism and so on. The contemporary world is cast as one in which something valuable has been lost.

Like Taylor, I want to say that things are more complicated than either the boosters or the knockers realise. Sociologically, I think it is inaccurate to be either optimistic or pessimistic. I think standards have changed to some degree - and in some ways definitely for the better (contrary to what you hear from evangelical pulpits).

Theologically, I want to say that human beings have not become MORE evil in recent decades - the pre 1960s past was not a golden era of human morality and we would be greatly mistaken to read it as such, or to portray the gospel as a nostalgic hankering after a society that never existed anyhow. It is right to try and discern what the particular evils of our times are: but not to see them as charting a decline necessarily.

There's more to say, but - I'd love to hear what you think.

Genesis 12:1-3
Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

What does 'blessing' mean? It contrasts so obviously with 'luck', which is the usual channel by which expect to receive good things. Blessing indicates that God is the source of good things. But it is also an act of speaking, not merely showering good things upon the person. A blessing is a promissory note, or, perhaps, an invocation of the goodness of God. It is something said, as well as something done.

Blessing all the families of the earth is the point of God's election of Abram. His purpose in selecting is to include; though this is not without its exclusionary impact either. In this key passage, Abram is singled out not only for blessing but that he might 'be a blessing', through the making great of his name. The greatness of his name seems to be part of the blessing, but also the means by which the blessing goes out to ... well, whom? God will 'bless those who bless him'. Reactions to Abraham as the holder of the divine promise and the bearer of the divine favour are a signal of how it may go for a person vis a vis the Lord.

But here, already, is an apparent tension between the universal scope of the blessing to be introduced through Abram, and the fact that not all will accept it. Through Abram, all of the families of the earth will be blessed. But, there will indeed be some who curse him, who God will curse in turn. This is, of course, a part of the blessing to Abram - his protection and vindication against his enemies. The blessing is not without its cursing: it is universal, but not all-inclusive.

Gafcon and stuff

Well, GAFCON certainly got the internet buzzing with rage and outrage.

I have been pretty disappointed with Tom Wright's responses though. They are full of cheap shots, over -heated rhetoric and unsubstantiated accusations about the motives of those responsible. It is pretty clear that for him, the real villains of the piece are the conservative evangelicals in England, backed by the Archbishop of Sydney apparently, who don't share his optimistic view of the state of the CofE. He implies that the real motive for the whole thing is a sinister power agenda. So, his message is: we don't want GAFCON in England, we don't need it. The situation here (the UK) is not the same (he argues) as in the USA. The group pushing for this is very small, he keeps saying. So, why is he so worried?

I am curious as to why he takes such an isolationist view all of sudden. Surely, if there is such a thing as the Anglican Communion, the problem in the American church necessarily involves the UK church. At present, he argues, the CofE is not a church that has authorised unscriptural practices - granted. But is he so naive as to think that this agenda will not be pursued with full vigour in the next few years? Is the day when the CofE will most certainly authorise unscriptural sexual ethics really so far away?

And if you read John Richardson's report of Peter Jensen's speech in London, you will get the feeling that Tom has got the wrong end of the pineapple. Are we talking about the same speech? The one that says:

You have to find English solutions to English problems. This is not a ‘Cargo Cult’ where the Americans are going to bring the solution.


Andrew Goddard, on the other hand, seems much more measured and reasonable.

Sydney's a long way away...

...from Newcastle, Northern Ireland!