Hi everyone, Here's a link to my podcast: http://thecommonroom.podOmatic.com See you there! - - Michael
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Hmm ... Jensen thinks again
In my Doctrine 2 lecture today I said something like this:
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.
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.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
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...
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...
Monday, September 21, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Jesus: Connections for Life
With the 'Jesus All About Life' campaign primed and ready to go this month, the good folks down at Christians in the Media have done us all a favour and put together a resource to take the conversation futher. The TV ads will prompt discussion: will Christians be able to take it to where it counts? The Jesus: Connections for Life coursewill do just that.
There's a professionally produced booklet and DVD package which could be used by a group, a church or an individual. It's all very well done and rates very low on the hokey factor. Dominic and his gang have been able to put substance in. Go order some copies today!
There's a professionally produced booklet and DVD package which could be used by a group, a church or an individual. It's all very well done and rates very low on the hokey factor. Dominic and his gang have been able to put substance in. Go order some copies today!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Andrew Shead on translation
Andrew Shead talks about translation.
Given the recent announcements about the NIV, this is a timely discussion!
Given the recent announcements about the NIV, this is a timely discussion!
Monday, September 07, 2009
A New Evangelical Anglican Vision?
Just this past term I have had the great pleasure of co-teaching – with Professor Ashley Null, the renowned Cranmer scholar - a MA unit offered here at Moore College entitled ‘Anglican Identity’. In it we made careful study of the development of the English reformation and the works of leading figures like Fisher, Cranmer and Hooker.
A highlight was reading the moving testimony of Catherine Parr, last wife of Henry VIII, to her conversion to the gospel of justification by faith.
I was curious, however, as to why so few Sydney clergy thought this was a subject that might interest them, or that the study of the founding documents of our denomination might be well worth their while.
This was confirmed by casual conversations with Moore students. I asked them ‘how do you understand your identity as an Anglican?’ – and was met with baffled looks and shrugs. The denomination is a ‘good boat to fish from’, mostly, but there is (it seems to me) no great passion for Anglicanism itself and no great commitment to study its formularies and its history.
Perhaps it is because the international controversies have become wearisome and even a source of embarrassment. Perhaps it is because the denomination changes at glacial speed – and we in our time are addicted to change, even for its own sake. Perhaps we are also in the grip of the ‘lone ranger’ vision of the brave church planter, unencumbered by denominational vagaries.
But I was surprised that even the GAFCON movement, with its bold and remarkable vision for an global Anglican movement, has not caught the local imagination. It has been perceived as a political rather than a spiritual movement - which is certainly not the way it was perceived by those who were present in Jerusalem.
More than ever, we need to renew our vision of what it means to be an evangelical Anglican. My conviction is that not only is being evangelical the most authentic way of being Anglican – we’ve been saying that for years - but also that being Anglican is a great way of being evangelical.
How come?
Firstly, because the Anglican formularies (the 39 Articles, the Prayer-Book and the Homilies) subject themselves at every turn to the authority of scripture. They offer themselves to be tested against a scriptural norm.
Second, because Anglicanism has a great sense of what is of primary and what is of secondary importance. Other Protestant denominations have a tendency to make secondary issues – like the manner of baptism or church discipline or church government – primary. And they endlessly divide because of it. The Anglican formularies commit us to important things – and allow us freedom under Scripture on the secondaries. The great evangelical bishop JC Ryle called this a 'studied moderation about things non-essential to salvation'. What a blessing!
Third, Anglicanism is a great mission strategy. From the beginning, Cranmer and the others knew that they were in a battle for hearts – hearts, like Catherine Parr’s, that needed conversion. Today, the opportunities opening up for mission because of our Anglican networks are extraordinary - nationally and globally. Anyone interested in Christian mission ought to be interested in what is happening through Anglican church today - yes, despite all our well discussed flaws.
I am sure I could add more to this list. But I am not sure that the message is being heard.
The text of Ed Loane's wonderful speech to the Anglican Church League is here. In it, Ed recounts the League's century-long determination to defend the evangelical character of the diocese of Sydney from liberalism and tractarianism. It struck me however that for most of that century evangelical Anglicans knew what the Anglicanism they were defending was. There was a strong positive as a corollory to the negative. If today we have lost a sense of what that Anglicanism really is, then a determination to defend it becomes merely negativity for its own sake, or sectarianism. We need urgently to relocate the evangelically beating heart of our Anglicanism - that ought to be the go-forward mission of the ACL. No amount of fighting off charismatics or New Perspectivists will seem meaningful if there is not this real sense that being Anglican is worth it for a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical.
And that leads me to a final point. We urgently need a liturgical renewal or even revival - and our Anglican heritage gives us the resources to make it possible. Now: I don't want to be misunderstood here. I am NOT calling for nostalgia, for dressing up, for antiquarian services in 16th century English or anything of the kind. Far from it. BUT it seems to me that Cranmer's great insight was that the habitual and regular gathering of God's people - corporate worship - was a crucial moment in which the distinctive emphases of Christian doctrine were to be embedded in the hearts of believers (and preached to non-believers). The thirty-nine articles envisage that in diverse times and places new expressions of corporate life will needed to embody and embed these same truths - showing us that the content and not the form was the thing that mattered.
Too often, Sydney Anglican meetings are characterised by what they are NOT. They are not charismatic and they are not Catholic. Fine. But I can't believe we are satisfied with these negatives. What is more, we have a real envy problem when it comes to the charos - why are their people having so much fun? Why do they enjoy such theologically lite services so much?
The BCP is a standard which we ought to emulate in our own way - it is one of the best things we have! It dramatises the Christian gospel and the Christian life in response - teaching us justification by grace through faith and the authority of scripture and nurturing us in those. It makes a feature of preaching, but it puts even the preacher under the authority of the scriptures that are read aloud. In rejecting the theology of Roman Catholicism, the Protestant reformers at the same time had a compelling alternative to offer. And done rightly, it hits the Christian experientially deep down. Could we one day be able to say again that what we do in church meetings is the one of the best things about being a Sydney Anglican?
A highlight was reading the moving testimony of Catherine Parr, last wife of Henry VIII, to her conversion to the gospel of justification by faith.
I was curious, however, as to why so few Sydney clergy thought this was a subject that might interest them, or that the study of the founding documents of our denomination might be well worth their while.
This was confirmed by casual conversations with Moore students. I asked them ‘how do you understand your identity as an Anglican?’ – and was met with baffled looks and shrugs. The denomination is a ‘good boat to fish from’, mostly, but there is (it seems to me) no great passion for Anglicanism itself and no great commitment to study its formularies and its history.
Perhaps it is because the international controversies have become wearisome and even a source of embarrassment. Perhaps it is because the denomination changes at glacial speed – and we in our time are addicted to change, even for its own sake. Perhaps we are also in the grip of the ‘lone ranger’ vision of the brave church planter, unencumbered by denominational vagaries.
But I was surprised that even the GAFCON movement, with its bold and remarkable vision for an global Anglican movement, has not caught the local imagination. It has been perceived as a political rather than a spiritual movement - which is certainly not the way it was perceived by those who were present in Jerusalem.
More than ever, we need to renew our vision of what it means to be an evangelical Anglican. My conviction is that not only is being evangelical the most authentic way of being Anglican – we’ve been saying that for years - but also that being Anglican is a great way of being evangelical.
How come?
Firstly, because the Anglican formularies (the 39 Articles, the Prayer-Book and the Homilies) subject themselves at every turn to the authority of scripture. They offer themselves to be tested against a scriptural norm.
Second, because Anglicanism has a great sense of what is of primary and what is of secondary importance. Other Protestant denominations have a tendency to make secondary issues – like the manner of baptism or church discipline or church government – primary. And they endlessly divide because of it. The Anglican formularies commit us to important things – and allow us freedom under Scripture on the secondaries. The great evangelical bishop JC Ryle called this a 'studied moderation about things non-essential to salvation'. What a blessing!
Third, Anglicanism is a great mission strategy. From the beginning, Cranmer and the others knew that they were in a battle for hearts – hearts, like Catherine Parr’s, that needed conversion. Today, the opportunities opening up for mission because of our Anglican networks are extraordinary - nationally and globally. Anyone interested in Christian mission ought to be interested in what is happening through Anglican church today - yes, despite all our well discussed flaws.
I am sure I could add more to this list. But I am not sure that the message is being heard.
The text of Ed Loane's wonderful speech to the Anglican Church League is here. In it, Ed recounts the League's century-long determination to defend the evangelical character of the diocese of Sydney from liberalism and tractarianism. It struck me however that for most of that century evangelical Anglicans knew what the Anglicanism they were defending was. There was a strong positive as a corollory to the negative. If today we have lost a sense of what that Anglicanism really is, then a determination to defend it becomes merely negativity for its own sake, or sectarianism. We need urgently to relocate the evangelically beating heart of our Anglicanism - that ought to be the go-forward mission of the ACL. No amount of fighting off charismatics or New Perspectivists will seem meaningful if there is not this real sense that being Anglican is worth it for a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical.
And that leads me to a final point. We urgently need a liturgical renewal or even revival - and our Anglican heritage gives us the resources to make it possible. Now: I don't want to be misunderstood here. I am NOT calling for nostalgia, for dressing up, for antiquarian services in 16th century English or anything of the kind. Far from it. BUT it seems to me that Cranmer's great insight was that the habitual and regular gathering of God's people - corporate worship - was a crucial moment in which the distinctive emphases of Christian doctrine were to be embedded in the hearts of believers (and preached to non-believers). The thirty-nine articles envisage that in diverse times and places new expressions of corporate life will needed to embody and embed these same truths - showing us that the content and not the form was the thing that mattered.
Too often, Sydney Anglican meetings are characterised by what they are NOT. They are not charismatic and they are not Catholic. Fine. But I can't believe we are satisfied with these negatives. What is more, we have a real envy problem when it comes to the charos - why are their people having so much fun? Why do they enjoy such theologically lite services so much?
The BCP is a standard which we ought to emulate in our own way - it is one of the best things we have! It dramatises the Christian gospel and the Christian life in response - teaching us justification by grace through faith and the authority of scripture and nurturing us in those. It makes a feature of preaching, but it puts even the preacher under the authority of the scriptures that are read aloud. In rejecting the theology of Roman Catholicism, the Protestant reformers at the same time had a compelling alternative to offer. And done rightly, it hits the Christian experientially deep down. Could we one day be able to say again that what we do in church meetings is the one of the best things about being a Sydney Anglican?
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Calvin @ 500 - sign up quick!
If you are planning to come to the Calvin conference at Moore - then I advise you to book in and sign up quick! The word on the street is that more than 150 delegates have signed in from interstate. Sydney-siders have been leaving it till the last minute - but they will have to let us know they are coming for catering purposes or they will GO HUNGRY.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
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