Gender and langauge

My recent article on Unleashed prompted some of the most inane commentary I have ever read. I really didn't think the article was that complicated, but the point seems to have eluded most of the commenters.

One person even chided me for using the feminine pronoun in this paragraph:

The scholar with this sort of claim - and believe me, they aren't modest about it - imagines herself sublimely objective in this, uniquely capable of divesting herself of all vestiges of her home culture and its variety of faith.

This was, she claimed, further evidence of Sydney Anglican misogyny. Because I had chosen the feminine pronoun to describe a generic person who I was viewing negatively, ergo, I am being chauvanistic. She said 'gender-neutrality' is the only way forward here.

I accept the diagnosis that gender-specific langauge is problematic and needs to be changed as far as possible, especially in cases where no specific gender is meant. Consistently to say 'he' when I mean 'a person' is not a pratice I wish to continue. I cannot fathom why people insist that their Bible translations continue to display a gender-specificity not found even in the original languages.

However, I don't think gender-neutrality is desirable or even possible. Human beings are gendered! Added to which, the gender-neutral options (h/she, they etc) are clunky. So, my solution - and it is certainly not my original solution - is to alternate 'he' and 'she'. That means that sometimes a 'she' will be a villain. Fair enough?

I have seen this practice in academic writing all over the world, though not universally.

I don't think this will work with 'Man' as a generic term, however. It is still the case that if you said 'Woman' when you meant 'Humankind' you would miscommunicate. And I note that Germaine Greer recently said 'mankind' on TV!

BTW, my absolute pet hate when in comes to prescriptive changes in linguistic usage is the word 'Godself' as the alternative to the reflexive pronoun 'Himself'. It makes me want to barf with the self-conscious holier-than-thou political correctness of it.

The Humanity of God - Karl Barth

What does it mean to speak of 'the humanity of God'? Barth says:

...it is bound to mean God's relation to and turning towards man. It signifies the God who speaks with man in his promise and command. It represents God's existence, intercession, and activity for man, the intercourse God holds with him, and the free grace in which He wills to be and is nothing other than the God of man.

In the nineteenth century, theology spoke rather of the divinity of man. This was disastrous for theology, as it was indeed for the whole culture. In response, the dialectical theology of the 1920s sought to recapture the deity of God - his abosolute otherness and strangeness to humankind. That is: 'God's independence and particular character, no only in relation to the natural but also to the spiritual cosmos; God's absolutely unique existence, might and initiative, above all, in His relation to man.'

If this is to be developed or revised, it is in no way the case that this God-ness of God is to be jettisoned. But Barth admits that it was still the case that in this return to God's deity there was the possibility that all human activity and even existence would be rendered void. What he needed to remember was that God's sovereignty is a matter of God's sovereign togetherness with man - grounded absolutely and utterly in God alone, but a togetherness with man nonetheless. It is precisely God's deity which, rightly understood, includes his humanity.

This is of course a Christological statement. Actually, if we had begun (says Barth) from Christology the problem would have been non-existent. In Christ man and God are not isolated from one another - we see man exalted and God humbled in this one Person. And Jesus Christ is the Revealer of them both - he tells us what, or who, God is, and he also declares what or who Man is. In the existence of Jesus Christ there is no doubt that the priority rests with the free action of God in his condescension. 'Superiority preceding subordination.'

BUT: God's freedom in Jesus Christ is his freedom for love. God's sovereignty is what it is in light of his love for people. 'God's deity is thus no prison in which He can exist only in and for Himself'. [This seems to be counter to the emphasis in some latter US New Calvinist thought, which pictures God as always utterly self-reflexively self-interested.] When we look at Jesus we can see that God's deity includes (therefore) his humanity. In God's deity there is enough room for communion with man. God does not exist without man - not because God has any need for man to be truly God, or because in any sense he exists merely for the human being, but becasue it is in fact the case that he chooses to be with man as his partner.

So: 'in this divinely free volition and election, in this sovereign decision... God is human.'

Imagine no religion

At ABC unleashed - my article.

Let the thing be what it is

Two questions to ask pastors:

1) Why is it that in wedding sermons these days almost no mention is made of marriage and that the wedding sermon is a naked attempt to sneak in an evangelistic talk to the pagan relatives? Isn't this almost entirely counterproduction AND an opportunity to reflect on scripture's teaching about marriage lost? And why does such a sermon have to go for 20+ minutes - it's a wedding for heaven's sake!

2) Why, on the one day of the year that non-church goers venture into a church building, that day when they come in the (it turns out) vain hope that they might get to sing some Christmas carols, do we insist on singing as few Christmas carols as possible? What the?

Lifted by Sam Allberry

A new book has just been published by IVP in the UK on a subject that will immediately interest any Christian.

It’s on the resurrection. It’s called Lifted, and it’s written by Sam Allberry, whom I got to know in Oxford. Sam has had a powerful ministry amongst undergraduates at Oxford University for a number years. And he knows how to cook Thai food like no-one else I know.

Sam hasn’t just written about the details though – about the eyewitnesses and the empty tomb and the appearances and so on. He tells us of how, as he started to consider the Bible’s teaching about the implications of the resurrection, whole new vistas opened up before him:

It has shed light on a Christian landscape that I’d spent so much time in without even realizing it. The contours, twists and turns that I’ve been navigating for years – sometimes with frustration, sometimes with exhilaration – are now more visible. I can now make sense of them in the light of this extraordinary doctrine. The truth and reality of the resurrection illuminates the detail of so much of our everyday Christian experience.

It’s a book about having a changed perspective, because we can see how things really are. That’s what the resurrection of Jesus gives us. This experience then drives the books four chapters: ‘Assurance’ ‘Hope’ ‘Transformation’ ‘Mission’.

I think the chapter I found most helpful was the one on hope:

The Bible speaks of hope as something we have. It is about looking forward to something that is certain. I have the hope of eternity with Christ. We still don’t control the thing for which we have hope, but God does and has promised eternity to us. There is no degree of risk or disappointment. This hope cannot be frustrated by anyone. Unlike all our other expressions of hope, this is hope that won’t disappoint us (as Paul says in Romans 5:5). It is guaranteed by God himself and bears his signature: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This sort of hope makes living possible, for it gives us a future. Part of what makes us human is the ability to consider the future. We can’t help but be conscious of it. And we need to be. We need to have a future which is, to some extent, sorted out. We need to have hope.

All Christian people need to know the great joy of living in the light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Sam has done us all a favour in writing such a engaging and readable book about such a vital subject. It is by turns amusing, moving, encouraging and profound. Truly, Sam helps us to look to a familiar horizon with fresh eyes. Lifted is a book that could easily form the centre of a discussion group, but any individual reader will be – well, ‘lifted’! – by what they find here.

Psalm 119:89-96 audio

Psalm 119:89-96

Psalm 119:9-16 audio

Psalm 119:9-16

5. Psalm 119:9-16

5. The beginning of an affair: learning to love the Bible
Can the words of this Psalm become our words? Can we see where he is coming from? We live in very different circumstances to this Psalmist – but we have the same God who speaks. For him ‘the word of God’ meant the Bible he had, which was the first five books of our Bible. But even from them he knew God as a God who promises and commands, a God whose word is powerful to create and powerful to redeem.

Of course we now know this reality in 3D – because we have in Jesus Christ the final and decisive and most glorious Word of God, whom the law and the prophets foretold. We know from him not only that God is holy and righteous, and takes our sin very seriously, but also that he is merciful and kind and will in him forgive us our sin and lead us into all kinds of acts of righteousness. When come to the word about Jesus Christ we find that God himself meets us there. And so even more than this nerdy Psalmist, we have reason to delight in the word of God!

So – how can we learn to love the Bible like this guy does?
1. We need to remember the remarkable benefits we have from this book. We have in it an insight into the mind of our creator. We have in it his means of telling us, turning us and tethering us to himself. We have no other lifeline than we find here in its pages, no better guidance. We can’t live on bread alone – but we need the word of God. And here we have it! How could we ignore it?

2. It is right to have habits and practices that embed the word of God into your life – that make it part of you. We are rightly afraid of a dry legalism that makes us think we are right with God just because we perform certain activities. Even reading the Bible can become like that. But that shouldn’t put us off – as human beings we need all the help we can get. We get tired, distracted and bored. Like anything else, reading the Bible takes practice – and practice makes it all better.

Thirty Nine Articles - new pieces

I have been blogging vigorously on the Thirty-Nine Articles - which explains some of the extended silences here.

Article 24

Article 25

Article 26

Article 27

Article 28

Article 29

Article 30

Article 31

Article 32

Article 33

Article 34

Article 35

4. Psalm 119:9-16

4. The Word in heart bursts out through delighted lips vs 13-16
So, in the second half of our passage today we see that the Psalmist can’t contain himself – his heart, filled with the word of God overflows onto his delighted lips. He puts the laws that come from the mouth of God into his own mouth, and recounts them, speaking them aloud to himself (vs 13). He ‘rejoices in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches’ (vs 14) – he’s like a lottery winner in his elation. As he reads and mediates, he rejoices and delights. And why wouldn’t he, knowing what these words contain – not condemnation, but life.

That word ‘meditate’ distracts us a bit, because we are used to associating it with the more Eastern practice of meditation, in which you are supposed to clear your mind of all words and thoughts and listen to the sound of one hand clapping (or whatever it is), or by humming a mantra, which is a meaningless sound like ‘Om’.
In Biblical faith, there is a place for solitary contemplation. But in the Bible, meditation is inescapably a verbal thing – it is always a matter of relating the Word of God, since that is how God chooses to relate to us. Its focus is the text and what it says. If God has revealed himself in words, then the way to know him and to be known by him is not to rid yourself of words – rather, it is to immerse yourself in them. If these words have a divine origin, then to know God is to know these words – and to know them deeply is to know God deeply.

And what our ancient poet does is to read these words aloud to himself. Truth be told, the practice of silent reading is a relatively recent one – about 1000 years old. Ancient libraries would have been very noisy places, because even reading to yourself was still reading aloud. But there’s something we miss by not reading aloud – when we read or sing or recite the words of God, the words in a sense become our words. These words are not magic formulas, or spells – but when we say them, even if only to ourselves, they are powerful and effective. These words can so possess us that they become our words.

New Moore site!

Hey, I shoulda said so a week or so back -

but Moore College has an exciting new very Newtowny website.

One of the absolute highlights is the 'featured resources' section - in which you can access mp3s of talks and sermons given at Moore over a period of 30 or 40 years or so. Look out for a lecture by Helmut Thielicke which should be popping up soon.

3. Psalm 119:9-16

3. The Word in the Heart has power to keep us walking in God’s way (vs 9-12)
And though he doesn’t make any mention of those events here in Psalm 119, that’s the background – that’s the God whose word it is he is celebrating. It’s a word of grace and power.

You can see that in these first few verses of today’s section – vs 9-12. He starts out here with a very important question: How can those who are young keep their way pure? This is not so much a question for the young person; but rather, it is the question you might ask as you see your life stretching before you: ‘how can I, over all those years ahead, preserve my life in purity and holiness? How can I, knowing the weakness of my own flesh and how vulnerable I am, hope to live God’s way?’
It’s a powerful question, isn’t it? The Psalmist knows how prone he is like all of us to ‘stray from your commands’. Keeping ourselves from sin isn’t within our human power. Have you ever considered how impossible it is to stop ourselves from the ingrained habits of a lifetime? To give away our instinctive tendency to tell lies; or to master our anger; or to stop our habit of tearing others down?

And so, he says ‘I seek you with all my heart…’ (vs 10). But he knows, too, that he can only do that as the word is hidden in his heart (vs 11). It is only as he takes God’s word on board that he is enabled to know what it is to not sin against God – to live the way he is supposed to. Allowing the word of God to inhabit him is exactly the way to keep his ways pure.

So what does ‘hiding the word of God in his heart’ mean? It means more than knowing the right answers to a Bible quiz. Now, I am a minister’s son – and so I grew up with a pretty good grasp of who was who and what was what in the text of the Bible. I could win the Christian Studies prize no trouble. But having the word in your mind is not the same as having it in your heart. Your heart is a way of speaking about your desires and intentions: the things you want and long for. And so: hiding the word of God in your heart means letting that word not just into your head but into your very being.

But there’s something we need to add to this picture. Notice that even though he is active in learning, it is God who he wants to teach him (vs 12). In the Bible, God’s word is the means by which he does things. How does he create the world, after all? We hear in Hebrews that the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It’s dynamic. A friend of mine explains it by saying that God’s word tells us, but it also turns us and tethers us. That is: it isn’t just that we hear information about God when he speaks to us. In his word, we actually encounter him – and he himself works on us as we read it, changing us to be more like him and binding us to himself.

It’s powerful, this word. And you can begin to see why this guy loves it so much: because it isn’t of rules that he can’t ever keep. In these words he finds the power to keep him walking God’s way.

2. Psalm 119:9-16

2. This guy really loves the word of God
For the guy who wrote Psalm 119, there is no question about what really cooks his breakfast: it is the word of God. It isn’t just that he likes it: he is fascinated by it.

For one thing, he keeps telling us quite explicitly how he delights in the law of God throughout his Psalm – in verse 16, 24, 35, 47, 70, 77, 92, 143, 174.

But that’s not all – a closer look at this Psalm shows that is a lovingly-constructed love song to the word of God. It’s a long song, too – the longest single chapter in the Bible. But being so long doesn’t mean that the details have been rushed. It is like a carefully-made tapestry, with stitching so fine that you don’t notice it at first. But look more closely and you can see the care and the fine handiwork that has woven the pieces together with expert needlework.

For one thing, the Psalm is an acrostic poem – which is to say that each little section of about eight lines begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in alphabetical order. You can see that from the way it is printed in the pew Bibles. This week we are going to focus on the second of those sections, the ‘B’ section. What’s more – and this is something that would take a very skilled translator to get into English – each verse of each section begins with the corresponding letter. So it sounds a guess a little like those Dr Seuss alphabet books, but not as child-like as that.

But another thing about this poem is that the Psalmist has got eight special words that he plays with all through the Psalm. And they are ‘word’ Words – words that have to do with the word.
So: law, statutes, precepts, decrees, commands, laws, word, and promise.

In each verse at least one of these words appears ¬– so you can see that in today’s section, which is titled ‘Beth’ after Hebrew letter for B, each verse has one of the 'word' words. And what is even more clever – in almost every section, he manages to use all eight of the ‘word’ words. He shuffles through the whole deck of them each time. It’s like a pattern of colours repeating over and over.

It’s a virtuoso performance, in a kind of obsessive compulsive way. But it isn’t just a case of him being a complete smarty pants. There is a tender care for his workmanship here. This guy really, really loves the word of God – he is fascinated by it. And he doesn’t just tell us that – he shows it to us in the way he has constructed his love song to the word. He wants us to slow down and take it in.

I have to admit though, that I have always been a little put off by his enthusiasm. I never really ‘got’ it. What is he seeing that I am not seeing?

I think it is the word English word ‘law’ that has put me off, and probably seems strange to us all. What do you think of when you think of ‘laws’? I think of parking police and school principals and rugby referees. For us, laws are the frames around our lives. They define our limits.

But the word ‘law’ in the Bible has a far richer and more positive meaning. It doesn’t just mean ‘the rules’. It means the whole record of God’s dealings with his people – seeking them out to make them a people. For this writer, he would have especially thought of the time of the Exodus, when God brought the Israelites out of Egypt and led them into the Promised Land, even though they were at that time a nation of slaves. Then he took them to Mount Sinai and gave them his law – how they were to respond to him and to live as his people. He called them to obey him because he had saved them. These words are words of grace.

1. 119:9-16 The Word that Delights: Why the Word of God can make your heart sing

1. Do you love the Bible?
Do you love the Bible? I mean really love it? Do you delight in it?
I am not sure I know how would answer that question myself. I believe the Bible. I study it. I think it is true, and authoritative. I even think that in it, God speaks to us – it is his written Word.

But love it?

That sounds a bit too nerdy – a bit too much like saying to your maths teacher that you love your maths text book. Or writing a letter to the Department of the Treasury saying how much you enjoy paying your taxes this year - and thanks so much for the opportunity.
I don’t know what you delight it – it might be that you delight in your children, or your spouse, or in your work, or in your passion for a sport or hobby. Or it might be that your heart sings when you remember a certain possession you own – a car or a house, perhaps, or even something much less expensive than that.

To love something, we know, means that your instinctive attention is given to it. When your delight is in something you don’t need to think about it – you are drawn to it. The thing you delight in is almost a part of you. People who know you know that this is your delight because it shapes your waking moments. Your direction in life is governed by what your love is. It’s your whole being that is taken over by it.

My grandfather’s great passion was for golf. He was a printer by trade, but that was not the thing in which he delighted so much as the time he could spend on the golf course. He quite liked his grandchildren, too, and enjoyed them – but really, it was golf. I remember his joy when he was able to play golf again without pain after he had a hip replacement, and I caddied for him as he won the C grade championship at his club at aged 76. You could see the delight on his face.

But to have that kind of pleasure in the Bible? That feels a little intense, doesn’t it?

Help my unbelief...

1. Introduction: To those whose patron saint is Thomas...
Wherever there has been belief, there has also been doubt. And yet Christians are often ashamed to admit to doubts and have difficulty articulating the nature of their doubts. Because faith itself is personal (and not merely propositional), the sting of doubt is in the way it attacks us personally. This book will address doubt as a spiritual condition, rather than particular doubts. In doing so, we will also need to consider what faith itself is, and how a Christian may claim assurance.
Part One
Reasons for Doubt? An Anatomy of the 21st Century Soul
2. I Can’t Trust Myself
Much Christian doubting comes not from doubting God but from doubting one’s self. If my heart is infinitely self-deceiving, then how can I believe that I have faith? How can I trust that I trust, if part of what I believe is my essential untrustworthiness? The journey into the interior world of the self does not leave us feeling very confident either. Although it is a very contemporary problem in many ways, we introduce Augustine of Hippo here as a fellow traveler when it comes to self-mistrust. His own journey into the centre of the self stands as a warning and an encouragement to those of us who doubt ourselves.
3. Numb
Feeling nothing towards God – even while still affirming the truths of the Christian faith – is a form of doubt which many Christians experience. It is a disbelief in God’s ongoing action in the world. Do I still have faith if I feel nothing?
4. What is Truth?
In an age of far too much information, how can we know what is true anymore? If people interpret the Bible so differently, then what chance have we got of getting it right?
5. My Enemies Surround Me
Many of the Psalms cry out to God from the situation of being attacked by enemies. In the contemporary West, this feeling of being surrounded is still there and still potential lethal for faith, though the nature of the attack is very different?
6. Because it hurts
Will my faith survive a terrible episode of grief and suffering? Will suffering make it all seem impossible? Is suffering proof of my lack of faith?
7. Is Doubt Sinful?
Perhaps we dignify doubt by giving it a kind of aura of authenticity. While it is certainly the case that some doubts are just due to the fact that we worship an invisible God, it is possible for doubt to be a kind of wilful refusal to acknowledge the truth about God. James, Jesus’ brother, seems quite clear on the detrimental effects of doubt. How can we know our doubt is sinful in fact?

Part Two
Believing Again
9. Learning to Walk Again
A period of doubt can be crippling for the Christian. How can I find my feet again? What directions are there for getting back on track?
10. Hearing
Faith itself is not so much a matter of seeing but of hearing – hearing especially the promises of God. The ears, as Luther said, are the organ of the Christian.
11. Waiting
The Christian life consists of a lot of waiting – and yet waiting is one of the things we fear to do most of all. It sounds so passive. And yet Christian waiting is an extremely active business.
12. Getting the Feeling Back
While experience is not the ground of Christian assurance in my knowing that the gospel is for me ought there not be some growing affection for God?
13. Worth Believing In?
Ultimately, what at issue in doubt is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom we are called to have faith. Is he trustworthy, good and powerful to save?

Eternity magazine

You may not have seen Eternity magazine yet.

But I think they are doing a really good job - the second issue is an improvement on the first, and the first was good. It's a freebie - just go to the website and you can order it for your church anywhere in Oz.

In this month's issue, I have written an article about God and laughter.

Movember

Two articles

Is Scripture Clear? Ten Ideas on the Clarity of Scripture is over at Anglican Media.

Peace for our time?, my piece on the end of Communism, is now at ABC Unleashed.

Church order

Article 34 of the Thirty-Nine Articles (Of the Traditions of the Church) reads thus:

It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly alike; for at all times they have been diverse, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word.

So - there is here envisaged a liturgical flexibility. Modifications can and should be made for the customs of the place. Christians do not meet according to a rigidly fixed pattern, or aping the historical dress and customs of a time gone by. But the principle is normative, not regulative: that is, freedom is allowed insofar as it is constrained by God's word, rather than it being dictated lock stock and barrel by it. Indeed, the last sentence of the article is this:

Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying.

So: have confirmation, or don't have confirmation (for example).

But the middle section of the article reads:

Whosoever through his private judgement willingly and purposely doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly that other may fear to do the like, as he that offendeth against common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the magistrate, and woundeth the conscience of the weak brethren.

That is: even though there is a freedom for individual national churches to change the style (for want of a better word) of their services - and indeed they ought to do so - it is also most definitely NOT a matter of private judgement. It is not a matter of the local clergy varying the practices without authorisation and/or consultation. Why is that? Because of the weak consciences of the faithful and because the authority so set up is undermined by the practice.

Notice that, while on the one hand there is not a whiff that the agreed liturgical practice is soteriologically significant, or that it can't be varied or even radically changed, this is not in tension with the importance of maintaining church order. In a lot of discussions about church practices that I hear, this subtlety is not expressed. Church order is the way in which each church or fellowship of churches puts into practice the kind of teaching we receive from Paul in 1 Corinthians 8-14. It does not substitute for that teaching: it expresses it, for ''God is not a God of chaos but of peace." The church's observance of ordered corporate worship is a reflection of the character of God himself. (Ordered doesn't mean 'formal', by the way, or not relaxed, or inauthentic. It just means that things are done in the meeting are consistent with the purpose of mutual edification.)

Note that that the sacraments are practiced is certainly not optional as far as the Articles are concerned - because these were rites not instituted by man's authority, but by the Lord (see Articles 25-31). It is hard to see how anyone could possibly argue that the sacraments themselves are optional, or merely 'helpful', and remain Anglican in any meaningful sense. But how the sacraments might be practiced may indeed be varied on the condition that this is not a matter of private judgement - because of the kind of troubling disorder that reflects badly on the God whose name we seek to honour. (I hasten to add that the Articles certainly don't make this a free for all. Those practices which communicate an essentially Roman Catholic view of the Supper it does not endorse: elevating the host, carrying it about and so on. All of these are flagrantly ignored in much Anglican practice I have to say. The history of the Oxford movement involved, bizarrely, a good deal of disregard for church order in the name of ... church order.)

Let me summarise: you can have an agreed on church order, and take that order seriously, without suggesting that observance of that order is somehow a matter of salvation, or a work that we think accrues some kind of merit for us. And you shouldn't just break from church order just because it suits you, without proper regard for the fellowship of churches in which you operate. And churches should be innovate and liberating in allowing various ways in which order can be expressed, too.

Right?

On Psalm 119 modified

Ok, how's this:

Psalm 119: The Inexhaustible Word: Why the Word of God has Everything You Need fo Joy, Safety and Direction

119:9-16 The Word that Delights: Why the Word of God can make your heart sing
119:90-96 The Word that Preserves: How the Word of God can save your life
119:105-112 The Word that Guides: How the Word of God can shape your destiny