Speaking off the cuff, John Milbank gave a very interesting and compelling account of his own theological programme, or agenda. It was polemical and aggressive in tone, to say the least!
The great insight of Radical Orthodoxy is the claim that there is no such thing as the secular. Milbank pointed to the fading away of sociology as a discipline as vindication of his own book in particular. He mentioned Benedict XVI's Regendsberg address as evidence of his own influence! Which is to say, the claim that the Pope made that faith and reason integrated is the best, nay only defence against the arrogance of reason unfettered and the lunacy of pure fideism. What both he and the pope agree on is that there is the need for a 'mediating metaphysics'.
1. Achievements. Milbank claimed that RO is one of the most influential and significant movements in theology today. It claims to revision philosophy as well as theology and to bring theology back to the centre of thought as in the medieval university. He claimed that the movement had global reach.
2. Themes 1. RO is a critique of the secular. The secular is an illusion! This is to me is the great attraction of RO. It has real apologetic teeth at this point. There is no neutrality when it comes to metaphysics. It is all metaphysics - just good or bad metaphysics. In analytical philosophy we see not argument but a buried theological decision. Theology saves common sense!!
2. Postmodernism. RO is very positive about the destruction of modernism and wishes to 'embrace the postmodern flux'. The flux is however not a cause for despair AT ALL but a sign of divine plenitude. Once again, I find this a very attractive feature of RO.
3. RO rests on a peculiar and contested genealogy. This to me is the least interesting feature of the movement. Duns Scotus is cited as the point of departure - where subsequent Christianity went wrong. As a post-Reformation theologian, this leaves me a little sidelined!
He went on a little here to speak about the mode of theological writing. The point is, that if you stick to pure rational discourse, you will go wrong, says Milbank. He has a bit of a point here: Christian theology when it attempts a pure rationality fails to capture the richness of its own scriptures. I would cite 17th C. scholastic protestantism as guilty of this. Narrative and metaphor in fact SAVE the grand tradition, says JM. To strip them away is a fatal move.
4. Theological ontology... RO talks a great deal of participation in the divine being. This it has learnt from thinkers like Maximus, and this participation is expressed liturgically and especially eucharistically. This is unashamedly platonistic - Milbank says that Christianity is inherently Platonist.
3. Criticism. Milbank said there were no serious criticisms. Sure, he said, you get politically correct US rant and you get a British version which is nitpicking about his reading of various thinkers, but these are not serious.
4. Future directions. JM spoke here of a number of themes that he was interested in exploring: geopolitical theology, the idea of gift exchange and so on. He was quite unabashed about being a supercessionist! He also spoke of an educational programme: theologians should be soaked in the classics and in philosophy and literature. And he has an interest in parish life and so on. He claims an ecumenical reach beyond Anglicanism.
A vigorous question time followed.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Friday, October 20, 2006
John Milbank on Radical Orthodoxy After Seven Years
This was a lecture/debate I attended here in Oxford last night.
Milbank began by eschewing 'false humility'! And went from there making sweeping and hubristic claims for his own project! It was a tantalising performance.
A summary and reflection to come.
Milbank began by eschewing 'false humility'! And went from there making sweeping and hubristic claims for his own project! It was a tantalising performance.
A summary and reflection to come.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Martyr of the Month - Charles Godden
I cite the following from a Moore Theological College newsletter.
Recently, the Sydney Synod (rather gracelessly in my view) refused an opportunity to recognise Godden as a martyr on the grounds that he was not called upon to give up his faith!
OUR FORGOTTEN MARTYR
Remembering the death of Charles Christopher Godden
BY JOHN HARRIS
On 16th October, 1906, on a lonely jungle track high on the slopes of the brooding
volcano that is the island of Ambae, Charles Godden met his violent death, Moore
College’s first and only Martyr.
An orphaned country boy, Charles was converted at confirmation classes in Euroa,
Victoria. He immediately offered for the ministry. At 19, he entered Perry Hall,
Nathaniel Jones’s little college in Bendigo. In 1897, when Jones was appointed
Principal of Moore College, he brought Charles with him. He was ordained by the
Archbishop of Sydney in 1899 and appointed to St Michael’s Surry Hills.
A year later, the Bishop of Melanesia, Cecil Wilson, spoke at St Michael’s of islanders
‘crying out for someone to teach them the gospel’. Charles instantly offered for
missionary service. He wrote prophetically, ‘There have already been six martyrs … I
shall therefore have the opportunity of glorifying God by my devotedness to the lost
sheep whom the Good Shepherd is seeking.’
After training on Norfolk Island, he was appointed to Ambae, part of the New
Hebrides but now the independent nation of Vanuatu. He reached the isolated little
Lolowai mission on the coast in April 1901 during the last days of ‘blackbirding’, the
infamous Queensland labour trade. Just 24 years old, he was the only missionary,
visiting coastal people by boat and venturing inland to jungle villages. He gained a
reputation for his enthusiasm for teaching the Bible, his medical skill, his efforts to
begin schooling for children and his devotion to the discipling of new converts.
In December 1905, Charles returned to marry Eva Dearin at St Michael’s Surry Hills.
His best man was David Knox, Broughton Knox’s father. Charles spent some of his
leave drafting an Ambae translation of Mark’s Gospel. In April 1906, the couple
arrived at Lolowai mission amidst a crowd of islanders with welcoming flowers.
In October a Christian family from a jungle village asked him to come to baptise new
converts. Lolowai people warned him not to go. Alameamea, a ‘blackbirded’ labourer
returned after being jailed and tortured in Queensland, had threatened to kill the first
white man to tread on his land. Charles, however, considered it his duty. He left
Lolowai on Monday 15th October, travelling down the coast by boat and walking up
steep jungle tracks.
After the baptisms, while walking back down, Alameamea shot him with a musket.
His companions fled. He fell to the ground and his assailant rushed out, striking him
in the neck with an axe. His friends returned, tearing up clothes to bind his wounds.
Carrying him down the mountain, they rowed him home along the coast. Just as
they reached Lolowai, Charles died of his wounds. His final words were: ‘Let there
be no fighting because of me. Let there be peace.’
His grave is at Lolowai. A stone cross in the jungle marks the place of his
martyrdom. A simple monument at a little church high up the volcano contains the
stones on which his blood fell. He has two memorials in Australia, one in St John’s
Euroa and another in the Moore College Chapel.
He was the first Australian missionary to die in Melanesia and one of the first
evangelicals to be martyred as a missionary anywhere in the world.
Recently, the Sydney Synod (rather gracelessly in my view) refused an opportunity to recognise Godden as a martyr on the grounds that he was not called upon to give up his faith!
OUR FORGOTTEN MARTYR
Remembering the death of Charles Christopher Godden
BY JOHN HARRIS
On 16th October, 1906, on a lonely jungle track high on the slopes of the brooding
volcano that is the island of Ambae, Charles Godden met his violent death, Moore
College’s first and only Martyr.
An orphaned country boy, Charles was converted at confirmation classes in Euroa,
Victoria. He immediately offered for the ministry. At 19, he entered Perry Hall,
Nathaniel Jones’s little college in Bendigo. In 1897, when Jones was appointed
Principal of Moore College, he brought Charles with him. He was ordained by the
Archbishop of Sydney in 1899 and appointed to St Michael’s Surry Hills.
A year later, the Bishop of Melanesia, Cecil Wilson, spoke at St Michael’s of islanders
‘crying out for someone to teach them the gospel’. Charles instantly offered for
missionary service. He wrote prophetically, ‘There have already been six martyrs … I
shall therefore have the opportunity of glorifying God by my devotedness to the lost
sheep whom the Good Shepherd is seeking.’
After training on Norfolk Island, he was appointed to Ambae, part of the New
Hebrides but now the independent nation of Vanuatu. He reached the isolated little
Lolowai mission on the coast in April 1901 during the last days of ‘blackbirding’, the
infamous Queensland labour trade. Just 24 years old, he was the only missionary,
visiting coastal people by boat and venturing inland to jungle villages. He gained a
reputation for his enthusiasm for teaching the Bible, his medical skill, his efforts to
begin schooling for children and his devotion to the discipling of new converts.
In December 1905, Charles returned to marry Eva Dearin at St Michael’s Surry Hills.
His best man was David Knox, Broughton Knox’s father. Charles spent some of his
leave drafting an Ambae translation of Mark’s Gospel. In April 1906, the couple
arrived at Lolowai mission amidst a crowd of islanders with welcoming flowers.
In October a Christian family from a jungle village asked him to come to baptise new
converts. Lolowai people warned him not to go. Alameamea, a ‘blackbirded’ labourer
returned after being jailed and tortured in Queensland, had threatened to kill the first
white man to tread on his land. Charles, however, considered it his duty. He left
Lolowai on Monday 15th October, travelling down the coast by boat and walking up
steep jungle tracks.
After the baptisms, while walking back down, Alameamea shot him with a musket.
His companions fled. He fell to the ground and his assailant rushed out, striking him
in the neck with an axe. His friends returned, tearing up clothes to bind his wounds.
Carrying him down the mountain, they rowed him home along the coast. Just as
they reached Lolowai, Charles died of his wounds. His final words were: ‘Let there
be no fighting because of me. Let there be peace.’
His grave is at Lolowai. A stone cross in the jungle marks the place of his
martyrdom. A simple monument at a little church high up the volcano contains the
stones on which his blood fell. He has two memorials in Australia, one in St John’s
Euroa and another in the Moore College Chapel.
He was the first Australian missionary to die in Melanesia and one of the first
evangelicals to be martyred as a missionary anywhere in the world.
God's word is not chained
It is an honour to give this sermon at St Giles Normanton in the memory of George Seamer, a man who stood firm on the Word of God.
My text today is these verses from 2 Timothy:
8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, 9 for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained. 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.
[2 Timothy 2:8-10]
On October 6th, 1536, in a prison yard in the castle of Vilvoorden just north-east of Brussels a 42-year-old Englishman named William Tyndale was strangled and then burnt at the stake for heresy and treason. Tricked and betrayed by an agent of King Henry VIII, he had endured 500 days of harsh imprisonment and a farcical trial prior to his execution. As he died, it is reported that he cried out ‘Lord open the King of England’s eyes!’
What was the nature of his crime? Why was he such a threat to the King and to the Church that he had to be silenced?
Apparently fluent in eight languages, the scholar Tyndale’s crime was to translate, print and distribute parts of the Bible into the English tongue, something that had been expressly made illegal in 1409. Tyndale’s life was committed to the power of words. He was convinced that God himself has spoken in words that ordinary people could understand.
The God of Jesus Christ is not a mysterious, distant and unknown deity who, if he speaks at all, speaks in a babble of Latin. By no means: the message of Jesus Christ and his victory over the devil and the grave is for all people everywhere, of every tribe and every tongue.
This message is not static, but dynamic: it is marvellously potent. It is the power of life itself! What Tyndale realized was that power of God himself lay not in the structures of the church, or with popes and bishops, or even with Kings, but in the word of God, living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.
Tyndale staked his life and safety on the power of God’s word. He knew that the word of God in the hand of the ploughboy was dynamite to kings and popes because it was the word about the rule of the Lord of lords. The irony of it was that not so long after Tyndale’s death King Henry himself authorized an English translation of the Bible which was substantially based on Tyndale’s work and which forms the basis for our English translations up to the present day.
God’s word is not chained!
Tyndale knew this because he knew what the apostle Paul knew.
These few words from 2 Timothy 2 are written by a man who also knew the deprivation and despair that comes with the loss of freedom. This was the man who had a calling from God to preach to the Gentiles, from one end of the earth to another. He had big plans: even to visit Spain with his good news, at the far edge of his known universe. But: he wasn’t going there while he was rotting away in chains. He wasn’t able to be with the churches that he had planted, or to be there in person to guide Timothy, timid Timothy, through his first stumbling steps in ministry. Was the mission going to fail? The question must surely have crossed Paul’s mind. What was the future to be? How could the gospel of Jesus possibly go forward with its chief apostle off the pitch and out of action? Would the Christian movement wither away and become a quirk of history, an artifact to be discovered and pondered over by antiquarians but of no ongoing significance?
If Paul knew first hand the impotence of his imprisonment, he knew also the shame of being chained up ‘like a criminal’, as if he was not the messenger of a mighty and glorious God but one of the numberless villains and vagabonds that frequented the Roman Empire. He was being treated as an enemy of good order and a threat to peace. This was not supposed to be the position of a respectable and cultivated Roman citizen; he was certainly not going to get access to the top end of town in his current position, nor influence the movers and shakers in society. What influence could he possibly have as a common criminal?
But the problem of the apostle’s imprisonment was deeper even than this: it was a real question mark over God himself. For, if his great apostle to the Gentiles is cooling his heels under house arrest somewhere in the empire, what is God doing? Is he really as powerful as he pretends? Is he really the master of events, or have events somehow conspired to master him? Is trust in the promises of this God somehow misplaced, if so little apparent progress can be charted?
It is a question we ourselves may feel like asking, even today. We experience from some quarters an open hostility to the gospel and a flagrant rejection of the word of God as if it were a polite suggestion.
That is more often a voice from within the church, sad to say.
From without, we experience rather the complete apathy of our friends and neighbours, the yawns and bored stares rather than the raised voices. Perhaps it is the apparent dagginess and the irrelevance of the gospel to most people that is more depressing than its explicit rejection by some. For every full church in the UK, there is at least one down the road that is virtually empty.
We may well ask: where today is the evidence of the power and authority of God?
But let us turn back to Paul at this point. What is his response?
He is not despairing: for, as he says: ‘God’s word is not chained!’
Why can he be so sure? Why can he be so confident when the evidence of the shackles jangling around his wrists would say otherwise?
What Paul says is that it is in the nature of his message. His gospel is what gives him confidence in his gospel.
And what is his gospel?
Have a look at verse 8. He asks his readers to ‘remember Jesus Christ’ – and two things about him in particular.
It has two parts:
First, Jesus Christ was ‘raised from the dead’.
That is to say, this man, the figure at the centre of Paul’s preaching, had been victorious over sin and death! The prison of the tomb could not keep him in. The chains of death and hell could not hold him: on the contrary, on the third day he had risen victorious. His grave is empty!
It is worth us pausing here to think: what kind of power is needed to raise the dead? Clearly this is not merely a human power: it is beyond the power of human beings to achieve. It is a power beyond our ordinary conception of what is powerful.
The word that Paul preaches is a message not only about life beyond death: it is a message of the defeat of death. It is a declaration that death has been reversed.
So: Paul’s gospel is about God’s power to reverse the effects of sin and death. It’s an announcement of the forgiveness of sins! And it’s a message from the same God who called light out of darkness and called things that are not as though they were.
What’s more: this power is also the power to transform lives. It’s a power that makes a difference for individuals. Paul could talk about this from his personal experience, of course: a man who once sought to murder the followers of Jesus but then miraculously became one of his leading followers. In Romans 8:10-11 he writes:
10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
People here today know about this. People here have been changed by the power of God’s word, brought out of darkness into God’s wonderful light; they know the power of God’s word to liberate us from captivity to sin and death. People here live in full expectation that sin and death will not have the last word; and that they will have eternal life together with God. Like Paul, they have experienced it for themselves – they have heard this word of God and know how powerful it is.
The second part of Paul’s gospel: Jesus Christ was ‘descended from David’
This may at first seem like unremarkable thing to say. After all, lots of people could claim that they were descended from David: Joseph for example. But here it is far more significant that that: as the son of king David, Jesus was the heir to Israel’s throne and to all the promises of God that came to David. Back in 2 Samuel 7, God had made a covenant with King David that his kingdom would be without end. He had said to David:
12 When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
A son is promised; a direct descendent of David who will rule, and for ever. Though David will one day die, this Son of David, will live and live. In his gospel, Paul proclaims Jesus Christ as the one through whom God’s promises come to fruition.
God is powerfully true to himself. The true king who has ascended on high and NOW rules! The resurrection was not just the beginning of new life for Jesus: it was his enthronement as Israel’s mighty king: the king who was to rule not only Israel but the nations as well. All authority in heaven and earth is given to him. Jesus now rules: he is LORD. This was another way in which Paul summarized his gospel: Jesus is Lord.
And so, Paul’s gospel is powerful precisely because it is about power: it is a message about who is in charge, really. It is a word from and about a king who calls on people everywhere to recognize his authority and to submit to him as the son of David and the true heir to his throne. This word of God, about the rule of Jesus, has no regard for what human beings think is powerful: even though it be spoken by a man in rags or a by a poor woman it demands that kings, and princes and presidents and prime ministers and chief executives submit to his rule and the rest of us along with them.
So: Paul is able to say that God’s word is not chained because of what that word, his gospel: it is about: Jesus, raised from the dead, descended from David. And for Paul this means that he endures everything for the sake of others who believe it. He is able to withstand even his imprisonment, with all its deprivations and shames, because he knows that God’s word is powerful to accomplish his will. He is not despairing. He is not browbeaten. He is not bullied into silence, or embarrassed into defeat. Paul is all the more encouraged to continue on in hope, knowing that if even he should die with his mission unfulfilled that God’s word go to the grave with him. He endures everything (vs 10); he puts up with the trails and persecutions with an unbattered confidence in the power of the gospel. He knows that his own failings and weaknesses and sufferings are not an obstacle to God accomplishing his word.
So: for us there is I think a great comfort, but also a strong rebuke as well. We’ll start with the rebuke:
There is a sharp reminder for us that when we think that the word of God is chained to our programmes, our business, our effort, and way of doing things we are completely and arrogantly mistaken. It is a great temptation for evangelical churches in these days of thinking strategically about our church’s mission, and analyzing church growth, and signing up for programmes and courses and what have you. We do tend to think that the gospel could not possibly go forward without us and without our strenuous efforts. Our busy-ness which we offer to God to use does not make him dependent on us, though he certainly loves to make use of us. We must certainly resist this belief in our own indispensability: but I am afraid that in lots of evangelical churches resistance to this temptation has been rather minimal. We have started to believe in the power of the means that we use to do evangelism and run church services and not in the Word of God itself. We have fallen in love with our own technical excellence and forgotten that the only thing that advances the cause of the gospel is the gospel: that it is a powerful word about a risen king, a word that doesn’t need power-point to make it powerful. This morning I would like to invite us to re-consider our attitudes in this matter – not that programmes or thinking about the practicalities of our mission are wrong, but that we put them in the right place and recognize afresh our dependence on God’s word.
But also and more obviously here we have a great comfort: the word of God is not chained - so do not fear and do not despair at the attacks on the gospel or at the apathy of the wider community. Do not be afraid of standing on the word of God: where else can one stand? Do not be perplexed by the self-serving cleverness of those people who would tell us otherwise. Do not be surprised by resistance to the gospel – it is in its nature that it is a message as much rejected as accepted. Do not be surprised when the gospel is criticized for its irrelevance or its dowdiness – people need to find excuses to evade it, after all. But there is no need for us to be cowed or depressed either. Rather we can take great strength from the fact that God’s word does not return to him empty. This was after all the word that created the worlds, that caused the sun to shine and put the moon in its place; this is the word that rules the sea and the stars. God said, and it was so. And it is the word that brought Jesus out of the tomb; it is this word that rules: it is the authoritative word, the last word.
Let this church then be one that never ceases to rest wholly and only on the word of God, and nothing else. Let it be fearless in its declaration of the message of the gospel of Jesus, though it be foolishness or a stumbling block to others. Let it not trust in the brilliance of its ministry team or the magnificent planning, efficiency and wisdom of its PCC. For the word of God is not chained.
William Tyndale not only translated these magnificent words, he believed them too. And, he was not despairing even though his opponents in this work were popes and kings. He was not despairing even as he went to the stake with his work incomplete, and with the full realization of his dream – that the bible be freely available to all English men and women in their own tongue – was several decades away. His example is a great witness for us in our experience today of hostility and apathy to the word of God to endure everything.
Let’s finish with Paul’s words:
2 Timothy 2: 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. 11 Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; 13 if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
My text today is these verses from 2 Timothy:
8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, 9 for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained. 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.
[2 Timothy 2:8-10]
On October 6th, 1536, in a prison yard in the castle of Vilvoorden just north-east of Brussels a 42-year-old Englishman named William Tyndale was strangled and then burnt at the stake for heresy and treason. Tricked and betrayed by an agent of King Henry VIII, he had endured 500 days of harsh imprisonment and a farcical trial prior to his execution. As he died, it is reported that he cried out ‘Lord open the King of England’s eyes!’
What was the nature of his crime? Why was he such a threat to the King and to the Church that he had to be silenced?
Apparently fluent in eight languages, the scholar Tyndale’s crime was to translate, print and distribute parts of the Bible into the English tongue, something that had been expressly made illegal in 1409. Tyndale’s life was committed to the power of words. He was convinced that God himself has spoken in words that ordinary people could understand.
The God of Jesus Christ is not a mysterious, distant and unknown deity who, if he speaks at all, speaks in a babble of Latin. By no means: the message of Jesus Christ and his victory over the devil and the grave is for all people everywhere, of every tribe and every tongue.
This message is not static, but dynamic: it is marvellously potent. It is the power of life itself! What Tyndale realized was that power of God himself lay not in the structures of the church, or with popes and bishops, or even with Kings, but in the word of God, living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.
Tyndale staked his life and safety on the power of God’s word. He knew that the word of God in the hand of the ploughboy was dynamite to kings and popes because it was the word about the rule of the Lord of lords. The irony of it was that not so long after Tyndale’s death King Henry himself authorized an English translation of the Bible which was substantially based on Tyndale’s work and which forms the basis for our English translations up to the present day.
God’s word is not chained!
Tyndale knew this because he knew what the apostle Paul knew.
These few words from 2 Timothy 2 are written by a man who also knew the deprivation and despair that comes with the loss of freedom. This was the man who had a calling from God to preach to the Gentiles, from one end of the earth to another. He had big plans: even to visit Spain with his good news, at the far edge of his known universe. But: he wasn’t going there while he was rotting away in chains. He wasn’t able to be with the churches that he had planted, or to be there in person to guide Timothy, timid Timothy, through his first stumbling steps in ministry. Was the mission going to fail? The question must surely have crossed Paul’s mind. What was the future to be? How could the gospel of Jesus possibly go forward with its chief apostle off the pitch and out of action? Would the Christian movement wither away and become a quirk of history, an artifact to be discovered and pondered over by antiquarians but of no ongoing significance?
If Paul knew first hand the impotence of his imprisonment, he knew also the shame of being chained up ‘like a criminal’, as if he was not the messenger of a mighty and glorious God but one of the numberless villains and vagabonds that frequented the Roman Empire. He was being treated as an enemy of good order and a threat to peace. This was not supposed to be the position of a respectable and cultivated Roman citizen; he was certainly not going to get access to the top end of town in his current position, nor influence the movers and shakers in society. What influence could he possibly have as a common criminal?
But the problem of the apostle’s imprisonment was deeper even than this: it was a real question mark over God himself. For, if his great apostle to the Gentiles is cooling his heels under house arrest somewhere in the empire, what is God doing? Is he really as powerful as he pretends? Is he really the master of events, or have events somehow conspired to master him? Is trust in the promises of this God somehow misplaced, if so little apparent progress can be charted?
It is a question we ourselves may feel like asking, even today. We experience from some quarters an open hostility to the gospel and a flagrant rejection of the word of God as if it were a polite suggestion.
That is more often a voice from within the church, sad to say.
From without, we experience rather the complete apathy of our friends and neighbours, the yawns and bored stares rather than the raised voices. Perhaps it is the apparent dagginess and the irrelevance of the gospel to most people that is more depressing than its explicit rejection by some. For every full church in the UK, there is at least one down the road that is virtually empty.
We may well ask: where today is the evidence of the power and authority of God?
But let us turn back to Paul at this point. What is his response?
He is not despairing: for, as he says: ‘God’s word is not chained!’
Why can he be so sure? Why can he be so confident when the evidence of the shackles jangling around his wrists would say otherwise?
What Paul says is that it is in the nature of his message. His gospel is what gives him confidence in his gospel.
And what is his gospel?
Have a look at verse 8. He asks his readers to ‘remember Jesus Christ’ – and two things about him in particular.
It has two parts:
First, Jesus Christ was ‘raised from the dead’.
That is to say, this man, the figure at the centre of Paul’s preaching, had been victorious over sin and death! The prison of the tomb could not keep him in. The chains of death and hell could not hold him: on the contrary, on the third day he had risen victorious. His grave is empty!
It is worth us pausing here to think: what kind of power is needed to raise the dead? Clearly this is not merely a human power: it is beyond the power of human beings to achieve. It is a power beyond our ordinary conception of what is powerful.
The word that Paul preaches is a message not only about life beyond death: it is a message of the defeat of death. It is a declaration that death has been reversed.
So: Paul’s gospel is about God’s power to reverse the effects of sin and death. It’s an announcement of the forgiveness of sins! And it’s a message from the same God who called light out of darkness and called things that are not as though they were.
What’s more: this power is also the power to transform lives. It’s a power that makes a difference for individuals. Paul could talk about this from his personal experience, of course: a man who once sought to murder the followers of Jesus but then miraculously became one of his leading followers. In Romans 8:10-11 he writes:
10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
People here today know about this. People here have been changed by the power of God’s word, brought out of darkness into God’s wonderful light; they know the power of God’s word to liberate us from captivity to sin and death. People here live in full expectation that sin and death will not have the last word; and that they will have eternal life together with God. Like Paul, they have experienced it for themselves – they have heard this word of God and know how powerful it is.
The second part of Paul’s gospel: Jesus Christ was ‘descended from David’
This may at first seem like unremarkable thing to say. After all, lots of people could claim that they were descended from David: Joseph for example. But here it is far more significant that that: as the son of king David, Jesus was the heir to Israel’s throne and to all the promises of God that came to David. Back in 2 Samuel 7, God had made a covenant with King David that his kingdom would be without end. He had said to David:
12 When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
A son is promised; a direct descendent of David who will rule, and for ever. Though David will one day die, this Son of David, will live and live. In his gospel, Paul proclaims Jesus Christ as the one through whom God’s promises come to fruition.
God is powerfully true to himself. The true king who has ascended on high and NOW rules! The resurrection was not just the beginning of new life for Jesus: it was his enthronement as Israel’s mighty king: the king who was to rule not only Israel but the nations as well. All authority in heaven and earth is given to him. Jesus now rules: he is LORD. This was another way in which Paul summarized his gospel: Jesus is Lord.
And so, Paul’s gospel is powerful precisely because it is about power: it is a message about who is in charge, really. It is a word from and about a king who calls on people everywhere to recognize his authority and to submit to him as the son of David and the true heir to his throne. This word of God, about the rule of Jesus, has no regard for what human beings think is powerful: even though it be spoken by a man in rags or a by a poor woman it demands that kings, and princes and presidents and prime ministers and chief executives submit to his rule and the rest of us along with them.
So: Paul is able to say that God’s word is not chained because of what that word, his gospel: it is about: Jesus, raised from the dead, descended from David. And for Paul this means that he endures everything for the sake of others who believe it. He is able to withstand even his imprisonment, with all its deprivations and shames, because he knows that God’s word is powerful to accomplish his will. He is not despairing. He is not browbeaten. He is not bullied into silence, or embarrassed into defeat. Paul is all the more encouraged to continue on in hope, knowing that if even he should die with his mission unfulfilled that God’s word go to the grave with him. He endures everything (vs 10); he puts up with the trails and persecutions with an unbattered confidence in the power of the gospel. He knows that his own failings and weaknesses and sufferings are not an obstacle to God accomplishing his word.
So: for us there is I think a great comfort, but also a strong rebuke as well. We’ll start with the rebuke:
There is a sharp reminder for us that when we think that the word of God is chained to our programmes, our business, our effort, and way of doing things we are completely and arrogantly mistaken. It is a great temptation for evangelical churches in these days of thinking strategically about our church’s mission, and analyzing church growth, and signing up for programmes and courses and what have you. We do tend to think that the gospel could not possibly go forward without us and without our strenuous efforts. Our busy-ness which we offer to God to use does not make him dependent on us, though he certainly loves to make use of us. We must certainly resist this belief in our own indispensability: but I am afraid that in lots of evangelical churches resistance to this temptation has been rather minimal. We have started to believe in the power of the means that we use to do evangelism and run church services and not in the Word of God itself. We have fallen in love with our own technical excellence and forgotten that the only thing that advances the cause of the gospel is the gospel: that it is a powerful word about a risen king, a word that doesn’t need power-point to make it powerful. This morning I would like to invite us to re-consider our attitudes in this matter – not that programmes or thinking about the practicalities of our mission are wrong, but that we put them in the right place and recognize afresh our dependence on God’s word.
But also and more obviously here we have a great comfort: the word of God is not chained - so do not fear and do not despair at the attacks on the gospel or at the apathy of the wider community. Do not be afraid of standing on the word of God: where else can one stand? Do not be perplexed by the self-serving cleverness of those people who would tell us otherwise. Do not be surprised by resistance to the gospel – it is in its nature that it is a message as much rejected as accepted. Do not be surprised when the gospel is criticized for its irrelevance or its dowdiness – people need to find excuses to evade it, after all. But there is no need for us to be cowed or depressed either. Rather we can take great strength from the fact that God’s word does not return to him empty. This was after all the word that created the worlds, that caused the sun to shine and put the moon in its place; this is the word that rules the sea and the stars. God said, and it was so. And it is the word that brought Jesus out of the tomb; it is this word that rules: it is the authoritative word, the last word.
Let this church then be one that never ceases to rest wholly and only on the word of God, and nothing else. Let it be fearless in its declaration of the message of the gospel of Jesus, though it be foolishness or a stumbling block to others. Let it not trust in the brilliance of its ministry team or the magnificent planning, efficiency and wisdom of its PCC. For the word of God is not chained.
William Tyndale not only translated these magnificent words, he believed them too. And, he was not despairing even though his opponents in this work were popes and kings. He was not despairing even as he went to the stake with his work incomplete, and with the full realization of his dream – that the bible be freely available to all English men and women in their own tongue – was several decades away. His example is a great witness for us in our experience today of hostility and apathy to the word of God to endure everything.
Let’s finish with Paul’s words:
2 Timothy 2: 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. 11 Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; 13 if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Straining at gnats?
In the debate about sexuality a comment often heard from the more liberal side is that sexual matters ('sleeping arrangements') are a matter of very small importance compared to the really large issues of injustice and poverty.
The accusation from liberal quarters of the church is that conservatives are obsessed with sex, and that relative to bigger issues sex is unimportant. This is usually accompanied by something about how Jesus doesn't mention sex that much and is more concerned with greed and war etc etc.
But: sex IS important. It is such a crucial and personal feature of human life and identity; and it is such a yardstick for difference between the Christian community and the world around us, and always has been since the earliest days, not true? Sex is not merely a private matter (a Hauerwasian observation): any feminist knows this. (And actually, Christians knew it first).
And, concern for war and greed and sexual behaviour need not be mutually exclusive, surely? And, why is it the conservative side that is 'obsessed' and the liberal side not? Who keeps pushing the issue forward? Who makes an idol of sexual identity such that it trumps unity and biblical teaching?
I am interested not so much in the mud-slinging, as in the 'this is more important than this' argument. Granted, I think there is a critique to be made of an evangelical spirituality that is more concerned with swear-words and tax returns than about global poverty and mega death. This issue is perhaps: where does the ethics of individual personal everyday actions fit in with the so-called 'bigger' issues? And, does the practice of not-swearing, or at least, of keeping language holy (and the practice of chastity for the matter) actually form part of a larger whole?
The accusation from liberal quarters of the church is that conservatives are obsessed with sex, and that relative to bigger issues sex is unimportant. This is usually accompanied by something about how Jesus doesn't mention sex that much and is more concerned with greed and war etc etc.
But: sex IS important. It is such a crucial and personal feature of human life and identity; and it is such a yardstick for difference between the Christian community and the world around us, and always has been since the earliest days, not true? Sex is not merely a private matter (a Hauerwasian observation): any feminist knows this. (And actually, Christians knew it first).
And, concern for war and greed and sexual behaviour need not be mutually exclusive, surely? And, why is it the conservative side that is 'obsessed' and the liberal side not? Who keeps pushing the issue forward? Who makes an idol of sexual identity such that it trumps unity and biblical teaching?
I am interested not so much in the mud-slinging, as in the 'this is more important than this' argument. Granted, I think there is a critique to be made of an evangelical spirituality that is more concerned with swear-words and tax returns than about global poverty and mega death. This issue is perhaps: where does the ethics of individual personal everyday actions fit in with the so-called 'bigger' issues? And, does the practice of not-swearing, or at least, of keeping language holy (and the practice of chastity for the matter) actually form part of a larger whole?
How to talk right?
In our Hauerwas seminar today we spent a good deal of time reflecting on the Hauerwasian mode of discourse: polemical, violent (even), subversive, angular. Of course, to be studying this writer in the home of good manners (ie Oxford) amongst a people skilled in the art of not saying the truth is an interesting juxtaposition! Hauerwas's speech is justified in that he brings to light through dissonance the deeply embedded pagan assumptions of much Christian discourse in the West. The truth ought to be offered so that one may respond to it, if it is indeed the truth; and, the truth often comes through unpicking the assumptions that clump around its opposite.
The thing that saves Hauerwas from being just a naughty boy is that he has done his homework. Behind every verbal missile is a depth of thinking and reading, and a coherent and complex framework. It is thrilling that Christian speech can be so dynamic, and also alarmed that it can be so rude! The truth ought to be so divisive.
Where it goes wrong is that imitators of the Hauerwasian style (or imitators of other similarly aggressive and polemical Christian thinkers) imitate it as a style. There is the provocation of the prophet and then there is plain bad manners. The two are not the same; and just because something is done with no taste and complete bad manners does not make it true, or right; and certainly, the person who is merely rude can not call themselves persecuted when they are attacked.
The thing that saves Hauerwas from being just a naughty boy is that he has done his homework. Behind every verbal missile is a depth of thinking and reading, and a coherent and complex framework. It is thrilling that Christian speech can be so dynamic, and also alarmed that it can be so rude! The truth ought to be so divisive.
Where it goes wrong is that imitators of the Hauerwasian style (or imitators of other similarly aggressive and polemical Christian thinkers) imitate it as a style. There is the provocation of the prophet and then there is plain bad manners. The two are not the same; and just because something is done with no taste and complete bad manners does not make it true, or right; and certainly, the person who is merely rude can not call themselves persecuted when they are attacked.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Does this bother you? David Hicks in Guantanamo
David Hicks is an Australian suspected of involvement with the Taliban in Afganistan. He has been detained without trial or charge since 2002.I have no doubt that he has some objectionable views and may have got up to some reprehensible activity: but the way in which this whole procedure has been carried out without the bounds of ordinary systems of justice bothers me a great deal.
Why has justice been so slow in coming? What is going on? Am I right to be concerned?
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Some stirring words from Stan about preaching
" When was the last time you preached or heard a sermon on war? Furthermore, when was the last time you preached or heard a sermon on abortion? When was the last time you preached or heard a sermon on the kind of crae we ought to give to the ill? When was the last time you preached or heard a sermon on the political responsibilities of Christians? The problem is that we feel at a loss about how to make these kinds of matters part of the whole church. So, in effect, preaching betrays the church. I do not mean to put all the blame on preaching, but ministers do have opportunities to address moral issues that almost no one else in this society has - except for television. It is not much, but it is something. At least preachers can enliven a discourse that is not alive anywhere esle, and people are hungering to be led by people of courage." (Hauerwas Reader, p, 622)
I generally can't stand 'issue' sermons, because they are so much opinion and so little word of God. They are so prone to all the worst vices of preaching. But if we preach the scriptures, won't these matters arise ALL the time? Oh, for courageous inhabitants of the pulpit!
I generally can't stand 'issue' sermons, because they are so much opinion and so little word of God. They are so prone to all the worst vices of preaching. But if we preach the scriptures, won't these matters arise ALL the time? Oh, for courageous inhabitants of the pulpit!
Monday, October 02, 2006
'Order' in Genesis 2 - 3
I am teaching a class in Moore's Introduction to the Bible.
This week we are looking at one of my favourite sections: Genesis 1-11.
But there is a strange comment in the notes about the order of creation and its reversal in the fall. That is, in Genesis 2 you have a hierarchy of man, woman, creature; in the fall the problem is the woman listens to the creature and the man listens to the woman; and then in judgment, the right order is restored as God addresses man, woman, creature. I have heard this preached in sermons, read it in books and heard it bandied about as evidence of the order and the sin which is at root the upsetting of this order.
Only: in Genesis 2 we don't EVER see order established in this way! In fact, the creatures are made it seems before them both... It is a curious logic indeed.
This week we are looking at one of my favourite sections: Genesis 1-11.
But there is a strange comment in the notes about the order of creation and its reversal in the fall. That is, in Genesis 2 you have a hierarchy of man, woman, creature; in the fall the problem is the woman listens to the creature and the man listens to the woman; and then in judgment, the right order is restored as God addresses man, woman, creature. I have heard this preached in sermons, read it in books and heard it bandied about as evidence of the order and the sin which is at root the upsetting of this order.
Only: in Genesis 2 we don't EVER see order established in this way! In fact, the creatures are made it seems before them both... It is a curious logic indeed.
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