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

On Psalm 119

I am preparing a sermon series on Psalm 119. And it's tougher than it looks!

Psalm 119: The Inexhaustible Word

119:9-16 The Word that Delights
119:90-96 The Word that Preserves
119:105-112 The Word that Guides

Pretty dull, huh?

any help?

On Suffering

Three friends of mine, Noel Debien, David Hohne, Andrew Sloane, speak on theodicy on the ABC, along with Carolyn Martin.

On Theological Idiosyncrasies

I am a Protestant. In principle and in practice, I am committed to the authority of scripture - wherever that may take me. That means living with some doctrinal and hermeneutical difficulties, perhaps - but there is a humility in saying that no system or institution is paramount here. In principle, I am open to being convinced that the Bible is saying something other than what I - and perhaps even a large swathe of Christians through history - thought it always had.

The christian academic/theologian is given the gift of time by the church - time to think and write and articulate the great truths of the Christian faith. Necessarily, he or she is given a certain freedom of inquiry - to follow where the scriptures may lead as much as possible without fear or favour. But he/she also exists and teaches within a community of context, to which he/she is responsible, and for whom practices and confessions have been framed in order to preserve true teaching from false.

So: consider this possibility: the theologian/biblical scholar becomes convinced in the course of his/her study that Scripture teaches something that doesn't seem to be reflected in the teaching and practices of the church to which he or she belongs. Romans 7 is really about the pre-Christian life (for example). Or, say, annihilationism is theologically and scripturally justified. Or, the Lord's Supper is a fellowship tea. (NB these are not necessarily positions I hold).

What, then to do?

I would like to think that a Protestant and Reformed mentality allows for the discussion of idiosyncratic positions, so long as there are held to be Scriptural. But (I this is the point of the post) they ought to be recognised as idiosyncratic by the holder of them. The teacher of an idiosyncratic point of view ought to have the integrity to admit to the idiosyncratic and untested nature of the position, until he or she can convince others.

Right?

Music in Church in the 21st Century: part 2 - 'if music be the food of love...'

In my previous post, I put forward the tentative thesis, disguised as someone else's, that 'folk' music was the best way to describe the form of music that ought to be found in churches. It is a particular expression of a theology of church of course. It is missional, in that adapts to local conditions; it is non-elite, in that it is accessible by the community without asking extraordinary skill or learning (thus reflecting the priesthood of all believers); it is open to being sanctified for its use by the Christian community.

Necessarily, some forms of music are going to be excluded from this because they are not aesthetically shaped to the purpose of singing together to God. While no particular form of music is commanded or sanctified in scripture, as we try to adapt different forms of music to use in Christian fellowship as expressions of common life we will soon realise that some styles are just so ill-suited they will never work.

In each age, certain musical styles offer themselves in different ways for adaption for use in church meetings. The traditional tunes that we find used in 'Be Thou My Vision' or 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God' are already deeply embedded in the history and culture of the community from which they emerged as an expression of commonality - the pride and security of togetherness is the note they immediately sound. These features really work for church music because of the overlap - Christians want to express precisely those feelings and truths about their God. The return of Celtic-sounding melodies in the music of Townend and Getty works because we associate that style of music with rousing fellow-feeling. If anything, the danger is that it is a little militaristic - they all sound like national anthems in the end!

In our day, the popular song is the form that we find ourselves most aping in our church music. The popular song is nicely fit for purpose when it comes to church music, too - but in a different way. I would want to argue that popular songs of the 20th century are all about love and desire. When we hear a popular song, we immediately associate it with this erotic theme. The singer is an individual singing about his or her longing or loss. That's the genre: when the Beatles play around with this genre and singing about Walruses and whathaveyou, we recognise that this stretching of the genre is taking place, and ride with it. The music of U2 is an interesting case of course: they express desire and love, but most often it isn't for another human being. It is often suggestive of a desire for God....

And this is quite apt. The Psalms give us this theme of longing and desire for God. We Christians recognise that the popular song is a ready-made vehicle for the expression of longing and desire for God, because we instantly think of this when we hear it.

However, this is where the pitfalls lie, too. Since the 1930s the popular song has revealed itself to be capable of quite complex and even profound expressions of grown-up and mature emotions. But it has also been the musical vehicle for short-cuts to emotional fruition. It has lent itself to cheesiness - to the trite, the cheap, the quick, and the disposable. It has a tendency to be an adolescent form of music for expressing adolescent experiences - challenging no-one about anything. It can be extremely limited as a mode.

And while the popular song expresses much of what we might want to say to God, it doesn't capture all of the gestures and attitudes that are available to us...

Music in Church in the 21st Century: my paper for TWIST

This Saturday I will be giving a seminar at TWIST, EMU Music's conference to be held at Angel Place in the city.

Here's my blurb:

The influence of popular music since the invention of mass recording is inescapable, even in the church. But has it always been for the good? Are there forms of music that are by their nature unsuitable for use in singing the praises of God? Should the church just make use of whatever it finds in the culture around it? (Have you noticed that church music now sounds like Coldplay?) Can, and should, new forms of music emerge from the corporate worship of the church? How will good theology influence music itself (and not just the words)? This seminar asks probing theological questions about the relationship between sacred and secular, traditional and hip.

And here's my thinking in draft form: churches have on the whole moved beyond the sacred/secular divide when it comes to styles of music. This means they have become 'post-aesthetic' - which means that they have decided that the style of music is only incidental to the business of singing in church.

Nowadays, most evangelical churches imagine themselves choosing a style of music on the basis of its cultural relevance. The right style of music, then, is the style that clicks best with the congregation of the day. Or something like that.

There are good theological instincts at work here. The Bible does not mandate a style of music, though it talks about music often and is operatically full of songs. People in the Bible are constantly singing! What is more, we recognise that the gospel does not come to us bound hard to a particular cultural expression - in fact, the missionary genius of Christianity is that it transcends cultural expressions. Church singing in Africa and church singing in Indonesia are going to be different - thank goodness.

Furthermore, a healthy doctrine of creation and a cursory glance at church history will show us that the church adapts forms of music to its uses rather than needing to invent them from scratch. So: today's beer hall song is tomorrow's Lutheran hymn; that familiar sea-shanty will be turned to use in the Methodist chapel. The creative process of course involves borrowing from the world around us.

But does this mean that church musicians are aesthetic relativists? I don't think it can mean this. We don't want to offer short-cuts here - ie, that the organ is a more sacred instrument than the electric guitar. That is just silly. No: what I mean is this. Without prescribing what the outcome is, I would expect that as music is pressed into the service of congregational singing and worship of God, it will be transformed as music. And this means that the church will continually be generating fresh styles as it puts the music it hears to holy purposes.

Which means that, while church musicians ought to be open to repeating what they hear around them, they ought also to be encouraged to innovate and develop their musical style as a reflection of what they are doing. Borrowing and transforming is one thing; aping is another.

How might this work out in practice? A preacher I greatly admire once said to me when I put the relativist/pragmatic argument forward that no, there was definitely a style for church music. He said it was 'folk music'. Now, I think there is something in this - though I am not quite sure what he meant by 'folk'! That is, a style of music that achieves a marriage between the words of praise and the use in congregational singing can never be arbitrary, though it may vary enormously over time and place. It will be 'folk', I guess, if it is in the service of the people. And it is no accident that Christians have been responsible for developing some highly original forms of music from asking 'what musical style best serves and edifies the people of God?' and 'what musical style best correlates with the words of scripture?'

Why the Philosophy of Education?

Well thanks to thoe who helped me with texts on Education.

Why was I asking? Part of working in a denominational seminary as a theologian is being available to help the denomination think theologically about some of its practices. I have had some involvement in a project on 'community' for Anglicare, the Anglican church's vast welfare arm.

One of other things we are involved in a major way of course is education. We have, in Sydney, 40 or more schools, many of which are less than 20 years old. Some of them are what you would call 'elite' private schools, but many of them are low fee-paying schools in the less-advantaged western suburbs of Sydney.

But there is no consistent thinking about what it means to be a Anglican educational institution. Or, at least, such thinking as there is is quite ad hoc. The 'Christian' component gets tacked on somewhat, by having chapel services or some such. I would guess that little sustained thought goes into thinking through the implications of theology for the curriculum, or the practice of discipline, for example. Or, to what degree do schools foster social inclusiveness.

On the other hand, the Christian schools model, insofar as it promotes a sectarian view of knowledge and of the Christian community, is not the way forward either. Furthermore, taking models from the US and trying to replicate them in Australia ignores the massive cultural and historical differences between us on the very issue of education. So - I will read Doug Wilson, for sure: he is ALWAYS interesting, perceptive, funny and ... well, eccentric. But what works in remote Idaho in the political context of Obama's America is not automatically transferrable to Oz.

So, what is needed is a bit of theological thinking about education which will help educational practioners do their job to the glory of God.

Thoughts anyone?

Theory of Education

Help me -

I need to compile a must-read reading list in the theory and philosophy of education. It ought to include classics as well as state-of-the-art works. And I am not interested in the tin-tacks of teaching: I need to get over education as a philosophy.

Any ideas?

Doubt - your experiences?

I am conducting some research into why Christians - and ex-Christians - doubt. And what helped them through it, if anything did. I'd love to have some personal testimonies here ... though doubt has some features that are common in every experience, because it is so personal doubt is very different for different folks. Things one person just lives with, the next person finds crippling.

Please feel to go anonymous if that helps.

My article on Christopher Hitchens at the SMH

It's on the online opinion section (not the print bit). It isn't a knock down or anything, but...

Feel free to join the discussion there!

Hi everyone, Here's a link to my podcast: http://thecommonroom.podOmatic.com See you there! - - Michael

Hmm ... Jensen thinks again

In my Doctrine 2 lecture today I said something like this:

Some have decided, given the plethora of reconstructions of the life of Jesus, that there is no way to access the real Jesus, no knowing the truth about his human life. Albert Schweitzer wrote in 1906, after reviewing a century of scholarship that the best we could hope for in Jesus is a subjective experience of one unknown:

[Then I quoted Schweitzer himself]:

He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the task which He has to fulfil for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.

A.Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, p.401

Well, as two students pointed out, this is not entirely a fair representation of Schweitzer's view. Schweitzer, with some confidence that the NT documents represent some contact with a 1st century reality, represented Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet of the Kingdom of God whose prophecies came to naught because of his death. The strangeness that Schweitzer speaks of is as much Jesus's weirdness in relation to our modern world - ie, he isn't after all a liberal white Frenchman (sorry Ernst Renan). My emphasis on his unknownness as a historical unreachability is, true, more characteristic of Bultmann's position.

So: got me. However, I wouldn't want to concede everything. And I have read Schweitzer (yes, Doug! though not recently...). Schweitzer concludes indeed that Jesus cannot be known by historical research but instead by the kind of Christ-mysticism proffered (he said) by Paul. Jesus' words - his ethical teaching - are what makes him transcend times and places.

My 'Open Letter to Nathan Rees' in the SMH

This weeks Anglican Media column, entitled An Open Letter to Nathan Rees has been picked up as an item of interest by the Sydney Morning Herald. Which is funny, since they rejected it in the first place!

In part, the piece was a response to the way I had heard even Christians scoffing about Nathan and his cronies. There's plenty to scoff about, but to pray for civic leaders is a recognition of who we really think is in charge...

A Lecture I gave on Torture at UNSW

Download Audio

Reading for Doctrine Two - some suggestions

Theology is a subject that requires reading – not just of lecture notes or text books but reading of stimulating and challenging theological works.

Every evangelical theological student (that means you!) MUST read J.I. Packer’s seminal article ‘What did the Cross Achieve – The Logic of Penal Substitution’. You can find it online at http://www.the-highway.com/cross_Packer.html and in other places too. The article is gold not only for what Packer says about the cross, but for what he says about theological method.

Closely followed in this are two great evangelical works - The Cross of Christ by John Stott, and The Death of Christ by James Denney. Pierced for our Transgressions, the recent book by Ovey, Jeffers and Sach, is worth a read, though it has its limitations (very minimal reference to the gospels, for example). For a better defence of penal substitution, Steven Holmes’ The Wondrous Cross is the benchmark in my view. There is also Paul Molnar’s book Incarnation and Resurrection - I haven’t read it, but it looks good! :-)

Of the classic works on the work of Christ in the Christian tradition, Athanasius’ On the Incarnation of the Word, written when he was 21, is the standout. Anselm’s Why God Became Man? is the pinnacle of medieval theological thinking about the work of Christ. Calvin’s treatment in Book II of the Institutes is the first real exposition of penal substitution in the tradition. In the 17th century, John Owen’s The Death of Death is the supreme example of a Protestant account. B.B. Warfield’s book The Person and Work of Christ shouldn’t be overlooked. In the 20th century, Jurgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God and Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Jesus: God and Man are the two most sophisticated works from a German point of view and they do not overlook contemporary difficulties brought about by historical and ethical thinking since the Enlightenment. For a Roman Catholic account, Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Mysterium Paschale is good value. Colin Gunton’s The Actuality of Atonement is a very stimulating, if not entirely satisfying book. On the reformed end of things, John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied will get your pulses racing.

Don’t be shy about dipping into great works of systematic theology – all of which will have to say something about the cross. Use the indexes! Check out Francis Turretin, Charles Hodge and Herman Bavinck, for examples of classic reformed accounts. You ought to purchase one of these as a resource for your ministry. Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics IV.1 can’t be ignored though – even if you only dip in and get your toes wet.

Lastly, I think everyone should read John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus. Usually it comes up under ‘Ethics’ – but it is a very challenging exploration of the significance for today of the Biblical Jesus in social, political and spiritual terms.