Bec and the Oyster - just for fun

Eight years ago this Christmas, my beautiful daughter and her fiancé visited South Brazil, where I was then living. During the visit, she had this unsuccessful encounter with an oyster. 

 

The Manger

Luke 2:12 And this shall be a sign unto you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

The more familiar the story, the more the central point can be staring us in the face without us realising it. It is not so much that familiarity breeds contempt, as that familiarity strips away the power to surprise, or even the ability to shock.

I think that is the case here. There can be no doubt that the "sign" referred to here is a key motif in the story: we are told that the shepherds found exactly what was said, and this is underlined again by the last verse - 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.

So what exactly is the sign?

It isn't the "swaddling clothes". Although that is the bit that sounds odd to us, it is actually the nod towards normality in a very odd story. This is what you would expect Mary to do. This is how babies were treated. If this is the sign, it would be as if the angel spoke today and told the men to look for an infant in a small onesie, or Pampers. Not much help to certain identification there - every baby in Bethlehem was in swaddling clothes!

 

No - the sign is the manger. The odd thing for the modern reader is that this does NOT seem odd. We are so unused to mangers in our daily life, and so familiar with the word in this story, and in this story alone, that we have lost the sense of shock. We even vaguely confuse the word with "cot" or “crib”. (The latter word actually comes from an old word for “manger” – the transfer of ideas and then of sentimentality began centuries ago.) It is as if every expectant Israeli couple of the time, in making a list of requirements for the nursery, jotted down, "Get manger from IKEA" along with the Beatrix Potter wallpaper. That was where babies were put in those days.

But it wasn't. No couple planned for this. No expectant mother wanted this. Mary might not have dreamed of the option of a hospital delivery, but nor had she thought fondly of mangers. The "no room at the inn" and the M-word almost certainly imply that the final stages of labour and the birth itself occurred on the lower, outer, probably uncovered level of an inn, where guests left their pack animals. In today's context she is having her baby in the Travelodge car park.

 

While travellers wrapped themselves in their blankets and lay on the straw mattresses of the communal sleeping platform, a young girl was in labour on the level below. And when her baby arrived, the best option for warmth and safety - perhaps even to avoid trampling by someone's mule or donkey in the crowded stable area - was the feeding trough. The child is off the floor, he is on a bed of straw, it's the best she can do. But don't romanticise it. Don't sanitise it. Think donkey breath and dung and smells and rats and a pregnant woman's worst nightmare.

It shocked shepherds. It was in some ways more of a surprise to them than angels in the night time. It was a pretty convincing sign that they had found the right baby. And when we join this "sign" to the other things the angel said, the shock only deepens.

The sign of the feeding trough is to assure the shepherds that they have found "a Saviour, which is Christ The Lord". Sure - it's a good sign in that it was unambiguous: you can bet there was no other baby in a similar situation. But wasn't it also incredibly inappropriate? Wouldn't the Christ, the expected Messiah, the Lord, be arriving into the most privileged surroundings, his birth attended by the best medical teams, the news being carried by the world's media, not by a bunch of farm workers? Isn't the manger utterly twisted and perverse as a sign? Isn't something pretty screwed up here?

 

And, yes, it is. For it is the manger that is the sign of the kind of Saviour, the kind of Christ that this baby is going to be. He is not coming like Mary Poppins to wave a celestial wand and tidy up a mildly messy world. The manger is the sign that we are far too screwed up for that. The manger is the sign that the Lord is going to get involved at the most earthy level - he isn't in the palace, he doesn't have a home, he isn't even on the sleeping platform of the inn where the paying guests make themselves comfortable - he is down in the dirt, down with the poor, a displaced person who will go on down and down to the cross. 
 

Will Santa think I have been good or naughty this year? I couldn't care less! The sentimentalism of almost every Christmas tradition can only ever reduce the bigness of the News. The manger is the sign that my sin can't be measured on Santa's pathetic scales. The manger says that I am so desperately wicked that only by stepping right down to straw and dung level - and, later, to nail and blood level - can Almighty God save me.
 

And the manger says he did.
 

Oh, may we keep and ponder in our mind

God's wondrous love in saving lost mankind!

Trace we the Babe, who hath retrieved our loss,

From His poor manger to His bitter cross,

Tread in His steps, assisted by His grace,

Till man's first heavenly state again takes place.

Then may we hope, th' angelic hosts among,

To sing, redeemed, a glad triumphal song.

He that was born upon this joyful day

Around us all His glory shall display.

Saved by His love, incessant we shall sing

Eternal praise to heaven's almighty King.

(From "Christians, awake! by
John Byrom, 1692-1763)

O seguinte foi traduzido pelo Marcos Raccioppi, e depois mexi  um pouco no texto: qualquer valor na tradução é dele, qualquer erro é meu! 

A Manjedoura

Lucas 2:12 E isto vos será por sinal: Achareis o menino envolto em panos, e deitado numa manjedoura.

Quanto mais bem conhecida a história, tanto seu ponto mais central pode estar bem na nossa cara sem que nos demos conta dele. Não que a familiaridade gere desprezo, é mais como se a familiaridade lançasse fora o poder de nós surpreender, ou até mesmo a habilidade de nos chocar.

Eu acho que esse é o caso aqui. Não pode haver dúvida de que o "sinal" aqui referido é a chave fundamental da história: nos é dito que os pastores encontraram exatamente o que foi anunciado, e isso é sublinhado de novo pelo último verso:

20 E voltaram os pastores, glorificando e louvando a Deus por tudo o que tinham ouvido e visto, como lhes havia sido dito. 

Então, o que exatamente é o sinal?

Não são os "panos". Apesar de isso soar um pouco estranho para nós, é realmente o aceno para a normalidade em uma história muito estranha como essa. Era isso o que se esperava de Maria. Esta é a forma de como os bebês eram cuidados. Se este fosse o sinal, seria como se o anjo, falando nos dias atuais, dissesse aos homens para procurar uma criança em um pequeno tiptop, ou usando Pampers. Não ajudaria muito para uma identificação precisa – todos os bebês em Belém eram enrolados em panos!

Não - o sinal é a manjedoura. O estranho para o leitor moderno é que isto NÃO parece estranho. Estamos tão desacostumado com as manjedouras em nossa vida diária, e tão familiarizados com a palavra nesta história, e somente nessa história, que nós perdemos a sensação de choque. Nós, até mesmo vagamente, confundimos a palavra com "berço" - a transferência de idéias e de sentimentalismo começou há séculos. É como se a cada casal israelense esperando um filho na época fizesse uma lista de presentes para o chá de bebê contendo uma “Manjedoura da TokStok", juntamente com uma “esterilizadora de mamadeiras”. Afinal, era onde os bebês eram postos naqueles dias. (Creio que este ponto soa mais forte na Inglaterra que no Brasil - existe esta confusão aí?)

Mas não era não. Nenhum casal teria se planejado dessa forma. Nenhuma gestante quereria isso. Maria certamente não poderia ter sonhado com a opção de um parto hospitalar, mas nunca tinha pensado com carinho em manjedouras. O "não quarto na pousada"  e a manjedoura quase obrigatoriamente implicam que as etapas finais do trabalho de parto e do próprio nascimento ocorreram no nível mais baixo, exterior, e provavelmente descoberto de uma pousada; lá onde os hóspedes deixavam seus animais. No contexto de hoje ela está tendo o bebê no estacionamento de um hotelzinho barato.

Enquanto viajantes envolvem-se em seus cobertores e deitam em colchões de palha em um dormitório apropriado, uma jovem estava parindo no nível abaixo. E quando o bebê chegou, a melhor opção pelo calor e segurança - talvez até mesmo para evitar que fosse pisoteada por alguma mula ou burro no estábulo lotado – era o cocho de alimentação dos animais. A criança ficaria afastada do chão, ela estaria em uma cama de palha, e era o melhor que se podia fazer. 

Mas não romantize isso. Não higienize isso. Pense na respiração do jumento, no esterco, nos cheiros, nos ratos;  o pior pesadelo de uma mulher grávida.

Isso tudo chocou os pastores. Foi, de certa forma, mais surpreendente para eles do que encontrar anjos na madrugada. Foi um sinal muito convincente de que tinham encontrado o bebê certo. E quando juntamos este “sinal” às outras coisas que o anjo disse, o choque só se aprofunda.

O sinal do cocho era para garantir aos pastores que encontrariam "um Salvador, que é o Cristo, o Senhor". Claro - é um bom sinal e bem inequívoco: você poderia apostar que não havia nenhum outro bebê em uma situação semelhante naquela noite. Mas não foi também extremamente inapropriado? Não deveria o Cristo, o Messias esperado, o Senhor, estar chegando em vizinhanças mais privilegiadas? o seu nascimento ter sido na presença das melhores equipes médicas? noticiado pelos meios de comunicação globais? e vez de por um bando de trabalhadores rurais? Não seria a manjedoura totalmente distorcida e perversa como um sinal? Não parece que alguma coisa aqui está bastante bagunçada?

E está mesmo. Pois a manjedoura é o sinal do tipo de Salvador, o tipo de Cristo, que esse bebê vai ser. Ele não está vindo como Mary Poppins,ou como uma varinha mágica celestial, para arrumar um mundo ligeiramente bagunçado. A manjedoura é o sinal de que estamos bagunçados demais para algo assim. A manjedoura é o sinal de que o Senhor vai se envolver no nível mais terreno possível - Ele não está no palácio, Ele não tem uma casa, Ele não tem nem mesmo um colchão decente para dormir naquela pousada onde hóspedes que podem pagar têm uma noite confortável - Ele está lá embaixo, na sujeira, lá embaixo com os pobres, uma pessoa completamente deslocada de sua real condição e que vai continuar descendo e descendo até a cruz.

O Papai Noel saberá se fui bonzinho ou malcriado este ano? Eu não ligo, nem um pouco! O sentimentalismo de quase todas as tradições de Natal só fazem diminuir a grandeza daquelas Novas.  A manjedoura é o sinal de que o meu pecado não pode ser medido nas escalas patéticas do Papai Noel.

A manjedoura diz que eu sou tão desesperadamente perverso que, só passando mesmo para o baixo nível de palha e esterco - e, mais tarde, para o nível de pregos e sangue - poderá o Deus Todo Poderoso me salvar.

E a manjedoura me diz que Ele o fez.

“Oh, que possamos manter e refletir em nossa mente

Maravilhoso amor de Deus em salvar a humanidade perdida!

Procuremos pelo Babe que tem recuperado nossa perda,

De sua manjedoura pobre para a Sua amarga cruz,

Trilhemos seus passos, assistidos por Sua graça,

Até que o primeiro estado celestial do homem seja restabelecido. 

Então, poderemos esperar entre anfitriões angelicais,

Para cantar, redimidos, uma canção feliz triunfal.

Ele que nasceu neste dia feliz

Em torno de nós toda a Sua glória deve exibir.

Salvo por Seu amor, incessante cantaremos

Eterno louvor ao Todo-Poderoso Rei dos Céus.” (John Byrom, 1745)

I don't believe in Father Christmas

I I don't get it. 

In order not to offend Muslims and possibly atheists, the biblical story of Jesus' birth is being toned down, lampooned or omitted altogether in schools across the UK. This has been the case for years, but recent more rapid shifts in culture and special sensitivities have accelerated it. 

In its place we have the americanised commercialism of Santa, which has grown rapidly into the vacuum left by the "traditional" nativity. "Santa" has outpaced "Father Christmas" as the standard term, and there has been a shift in emphasis too. 

As a child, I "believed" in Father Christmas, in the sense that, like the Tooth Fairy, he was part of a ritualised Let's Pretend game I played with my parents. Like the tree, the crackers, the big box of presents to be opened after the Queen's Speech, and being allowed a little sip of ginger wine, Father Christmas was part of the magic - the happy traditions of the solstice party, linked in a rather ill-defined way to the actual account of Jesus' birth. In my early twenties I went through a phase of rejecting that link, and abandoning the whole thing, but by the time my children were around, the same gentle hybrid of seasonal game reasserted itself. 

I think that many families in the UK, whether explicitly Christian believers or not, played a similar game. And my German stepsons were doing the same - chocolate arrived in their shoes if they cleaned them on 5th December, and they knew all along that Sankt Niklaus was mum really, but loved the game and the sweets. 

There is a new hard line about Santa now, though. In a society which has abandoned old truths, it is the newest and most synthetic myths that have to be insisted on. They are synthetic and they are commercial to the core; it is all firmly about receiving, not giving. I find it hard to believe, but Christmas schoolwork in many classes now includes looking through the Argos catalogue to prepare a list of what the child wants from the fat man in red. 

Parents whose children "do not believe in Santa" and who dare to say so are liable to get a stern word from the teacher because of their insensitivity and for how they are "spoiling Christmas for the others". Actual belief in Santa amongst children is now the presupposition. We have apparently lost the ability to really enjoy the happy adult-child conspiracy of make-believe - in fact, the relaxed play/pretend option I was brought up with and practiced with my children may have become all but impossible. I guess at the same time, we have stopped teaching our children to thank real people for their presents. 

The parent whose child has caused "offence" may argue, "But he isn't real!" and the answer comes, "I know... but..."  Since when could publicly funded schools reprimand parents for failing to maintain and make their little children maintain what is known and acknowledged by the teachers to be untrue? To put it another way, children can be scolded for speaking something that the teacher knows to be the truth, as do the parents who complain to the school when this kind of "unbelief incident" occurs. 

A Christian parent I know has ended up in deep conversations with the parents of her daughter's best friend - Muslims, as it happens. "Oh - we thought Santa was part of Christianity!" Confusion reigns. (But then for Muslims, scantily clad young women puking up their vodka outside clubs is also part of Christianity.)

Both serious Christian and Muslim parents are offended by greed-driven Santa rubbish. Interestingly, the biblical birth narrative would be less offensive to Muslims than commercial fakery. 

As it is, the only winner is the culture where postmodern depreciation of truth has now twisted into the active promotion of known lies. We have moved on from "This is my truth, tell me yours" to "This is my lie, you must believe it." 

Oh, and there is another winner. Argos.

Wrong, but wromantic; right, but repulsive.

Wrong, but wromantic; right, but repulsive. With these memorable words, Sellars and Yeatman summed up the Cavaliers and Roundheads in their fondly remembered "1066 And All That" - the source to this day, I must confess, of all my basic knowledge of British history. 

We are at a critical time for the church in the West. Fin de siècle change is all around us and, as ever, the church is the last body to catch on. That "last body" is not especially derogatory: we are the oldest body, with, by our very nature, roots most deeply anchored in the past, so caution and care ought to be intrinsic to who we are. Nevertheless, we have been caught out by the speed of change. 

It seems to me that there are two ways Christians are jumping at the moment. Some are standing firm on doctrine, strong and true, but sometimes doing so in a way that communicates hardness and brittleness. Others are buying into a more fluid understanding of the faith, and are emoting warmth and honesty and winsomeness in the process. 

Now please hear me out; I'm not saying that postmodern people are all warmth and openness. Actually there is more nastiness, arrogance, cruelty, dishonesty and abuse out there than ever. But some of the post-modern Christians whose voice is heard come across with an honesty and gentleness and kindness that is often lacking amongst conservative evangelicals. Evangelical rhetoric is not suited to the current environment; we may complain about that environment, but we still have to work within it. 

At its best, the more postmodern or liberal stream of Christianity can be very good at honesty about failure and weakness. The success of books like The Ragamuffin Gospel, of authors like Richard Rohr and of bloggers like Rachel Held Evans is in large part due to their honest and sympathetic handling of human frailty. We may critique them (I do!) but we must observe how they have a manner of speaking that functions culturally and draws people by its perceived integrity. 

And the fact is that evangelicalism is not the snow-white bed of honesty it wants to show itself to be. We need to remember that religiously conservative movements are ALWAYS the seedbed for pharisaism and hypocrisy. We are far from immune to that. 

Specifically, we have painted ourselves into a corner by hybridising our worthless-worm view of sanctification with a perfectionist expectation of those who lead us. We know we are all sinners, but expect perfect holiness, and create an environment of intense pressure to deliver that "holiness". 

This applies especially to leaders. Despite the repeated crashes as giants are knocked off their pedestals, we continue to insist on building more and higher pedestals. We are desperate for heroes - and then fast to utterly destroy any hero who shows himself to be mortal. 

I know to my cost what it is to allow a gap to develop between my publicly spoken, doctrinally impeccable, words and my personal devotional and moral life. I know what it is to hear temptation knocking at the door and feel that I couldn't open up about it for fear of losing my job - of coming off the pedestal for good. Every time I hear the words "mind the gap" on the tube I am reminded of the gap I did not mind in my own life - the creeping professionalisation that led to mask-wearing and levels of direct dishonesty and evil that make me shudder still. 

I am a passionate conservative evangelical. I believe in "true truth". Insofar as I ever want to 'rejoice in diversity', 'celebrate the liminal" or 'create a safe space for the exploration of ideas and for hearing different voices', I want to do so within the framework of a commitment to Scripture read as a united, God-given book. I am more than happy with the basic shape of classical reformation theology and appalled that so many are so quick to abandon that faith. 

But I am not at ease with what we have become if and when our conservative theology degenerates into an unkind pharisaism. My question is - Is it possible to retain the commitment to evangelicalism - to doctrinal orthodoxy - and at the same time be honest about weakness and failure, about fear and doubt, about temptation and sin? Can we speak the truth in LOVE? 

It jolly well ought to be possible! Our theology - of grace on the one hand and indwelling sin on the other (sorry - Salvationist/Wesleyan hat off today!) ought to make us kind and understanding more than any other tradition. But we aren't. We are very unforgiving - which leaves the struggling sinner very much alone. As a result, the casualties mount up - people bruised and burnt-out by their experiences of churches where grace has mutated into law, and holiness into hypocrisy. As my friend Robert Bannister put it, "the church is for people who have fallen off the roundabout" - but many churches have forgotten that.  

The Salvation Army is a church that is actually very good at helping roundabout-fallers like me. My prayer for our movement is for a fresh discovery of powerful preaching, with authority, and of genuine commitment to evangelical doctrine. May that come about without losing the love, the warmth and the grace to those who are hurting failures. 

And for every "staunch evangelical" church I pray - may you know and feel and practice the love and grace and patience and kindness and forebearance that flow from the very doctrines you love. For these things are fruit of the Spirit. 

As culture heads into meltdown, as Islam and Intolerant Tolerance threaten the church, can we manage to be Right but NOT Repulsive? 

Evangelicals and Evangelists

Every so often I become aware of the ongoing confusion about these and related words. It is one thing when the BBC, a Prime Minister or a quality newspaper gets it wrong, another when members of a Christian church or even a theological college mix them up. So here goes:

Evangel - the original lovely Greek word at the heart of it all. Good news - gospel - the happy message.  

Evangelism - the act of spreading this good news.  

Evangelist - a person who spreads this good news, and perhaps (as in Ephesians 4:11,12) someone who trains other Christians in spreading it.  Also used of the writers of the four New Testament books known as Gospels.   

Evangelistic - of or related to the spreading of the good news. Can be used by extension to humorously describe enthusiastic advocacy for other things: "He's very evangelistic about kale/UKIP/the films of Kaurismäki."

Evangelical - adjective - in its broadest sense, of or relating to the gospel. But as a technical/historical term in theology, evangelical has come to describe a particular stream of thought and practice which emphasises: the divine author behind the human authors of the Bible, and therefore the authority of Scripture; the atoning death of Jesus Christ as the unique, sufficient and complete sacrifice for sin; the universal debilitating effect of sin in humanity which necessitates an immediate transforming work of God by the Holy Spirit; the importance of the active spreading of the gospel and the living out of its values in home, workplace and wider society; and a steady and vivid consciousness of and looking for the return of Christ. Although this use of the term has its roots in the 18th century revivals, the theological emphases described go back further, being at the heart (for instance) of Puritan, Huguenot, Moravian and Reformation life. 

Evangelical - noun - a person who sees themselves as part of the theological stream described above. Evangelicals see those theological points as of critical importance and as being essential to "normal Christianity".

Note also:

Evangelisation - as evangelism, the spreading of the good news.  Less used these days, I think, but when it is used by evangelicals it tends to have a more strategic, large-scale or geographical connotation. "Through low-key, home-based evangelism, the church saw the effective evangelisation of the whole region." This word is also used more by Roman Catholics to describe the teaching of the gospel within the community of the church. 

The Awfully Big Adventure of being a Traditional Christian

Society is changing. That is a truism because that is what society does. Hairstyles and fashions come and go – one generation’s cutting edge is another generation’s ridiculous. Ideas and philosophies wax and wane in the same way: perhaps in longer cycles, but with just as finite a life span as a mullet or crepe shoes. 

 

I think it was William Inge who said, “Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.” Despite this wisdom from the good Dean, the church has always had at least a wing that has been determined to cosy up to the latest wave of

fashionable thought. 

In fact, society, even at its most Christian-influenced, is always going to be in tension with the church. In its thought-life it will be in conflict with God’s revelation. The swirling and apparently chaotic currents of politics and human thought can be summed up as “the heathen raging and the peoples imagining a vain thing” – a superficially confused and meaningless roar of white noise that in reality has one thread running through it – opposition to God and his Messiah. The church’s role is to provide a prophetic voice that challenges society in that rebellion. 

Charles Finney

When the church – or parts of it – capitulate to the zeitgeist philosophically and ethically, the church loses any possibility of maintaining that prophetic role. This has happened time after time, in one way or another. The grafting in of imperial power structures and pagan practices into the church through and after Constantine emasculated us for centuries. The Protestant Reformation both benefitted from and was compromised by Renaissance humanism and the political and personal desire of kings and princes to loosen the authority of the Roman see. Finney’s methodologically driven individualistic Arminianism fitted just too neatly into the new American Dream where the salesman was king.  And many churches failed to see that 

Churchmen with Nazi leaders 

the hopes of German renewal offered by the National Socialists in the 30s were utterly incompatible with the gospel; their compromise has damaged the impact of some denominations to this day. 

In all of these cases, I think the church would have claimed to be culturally relevant, to be moving with the times, to be at the cutting edge, to be maintaining its prophetic voice. And in every case we can now discern, with hindsight, the damage that was done and the weaknesses that were left. 

Over the last decade the pace of change in the West feels as if it has picked up. Ideology which was creeping in through the humanities departments of the universities when I was an undergraduate is now quite suddenly dominant. As a Biology undergraduate at the turn of the 80s I lived in a staunchly Modern world. The heroes were Dawkins and Maynard-Smith – and if as a Christian with qualms about evolution you found them to be villains, you knew exactly what weapons you needed to fight them. But right back then, very strange things were being said by my friends studying sociology and social anthropology which I simply couldn’t get a handle on. Truth is all relative?? What is true in one culture is not true in another? The meaning of  a book is defined by the reader, not the author?? Frankly, it seemed crazy, utterly stupid, nonsense. I was a thoroughly Modern man. (And still, to be honest, feel most comfortable when the discussion is controlled by those presuppositions.)

John Maynard Smith

But it is that Postmodern, relativist stream which now dominates our society, our culture, our media. Dawkins is a dinosaur, a representative of a bygone age. I’d still watch his teeth, but he is by no means a great force. No, the big issue is the dominance of the Relative. We are no longer modern, we are post-modern.  

And the church, of course, is tempted to buy into that. Given that society is ever less patient with absolutism and certainty, it is not hard to sense the potential “benefit” of running with that. In a world which rejects any idea of an overarching metanarrative, the church now says it’s wrong to see such an overarching narrative even in the Bible itself. In a world where sexuality has been utterly privatised, with behaviour and identity infinitely malleable, the church says that sexual/gender inclusion has always been central to the gospel when properly understood. In a world where everything must be affirmed, where all must have prizes, where negativity is the only negative, the church says that the gospel is one of self-realisation, that ultimately God's Love utterly dissolves every barrier, and that there is no hell to flee, because all will ultimately be gathered home. 

And, of course, such belief is always put forward as being brave and bold. Those who espouse the new approach are always ‘cutting edge’. They are always ‘reaching those the traditional church has failed’, they are ‘making a safe space for questioning people’, they are touching the lives of those who have been mistreated or marginalised by more restrictive forms. Traditional Christianity, on the other hand, is seen as staid, closed-minded, boring, harsh, irrelevant – a cause of the problems we face, not their solution. 

I want to challenge this. I want to challenge it because the post-modern wave will pass in its turn, and the church that has embraced it so passionately will be left a widower once again. But I also want to challenge it because it is nonsense. It is not the traditional stream of orthodox Christianity that is spineless, boring and unadventurous. The exact opposite is the case. 

There is nothing so boring and predictable and ultimately self-indulgent as “Christianity” when it ends up simply absorbing the zeitgeist, and not least because the church never does it as well as the world. But also because in the name of boldness, the church becomes just another yes-man, the culture’s parrot, squawking along to the current trend. It’s all so predictable! And tragically, the world finds it laughable – do you remember Not the Nine O’clock news and the CofE Satanists sketch? 

 

By contrast, standing for classic doctrinal orthodoxy, for belief in the inspiration and authority of scripture, for the uniqueness of Jesus in his person and work, for the reality of the future justice that he will bring when he returns, for a view of sexuality and marriage that has come to be hated and even outlawed, for the absolute need each of us has of personal regeneration, transformation through the direct working in us of the Spirit of God – believing and proclaiming such things is actually very scary. It requires real courage.  

We are entering a time in which it is very easy to imagine Christian pastors being reported to the police by members of their own congregations for things said in the pulpit. There is a great deal of hate and malevolence in our supposedly tolerant culture and, be assured, it will drive massive wedges into the church too. At such a time, thinking and speaking classic doctrine and classic morality takes a lot of nerve. And faith. 

The challenge is on. I have blown it in the past, destroying my ministry through spiritual coolness and moral failure. I don’t want to blow it again, through simply chickening out. I don’t have a public preaching ministry any more, but I know I must do what I can, which is write and agitate. Will you join the movement? :-) 

Terry Heyward on A Chralaig

The Salvation Army and the church in the West as a whole need adventurers. It needs bold compassionate people who will speak the truth in love.  People for whom the gracious welcome of a gospel-driven church is authentic and Christ-like. They do not deny the reality of sin, nor put grace and the challenge to repent into a false opposition. They know that Jesus tackled the would-be stoners of the adulterous woman ruthlessly, and spoke to her in firm kindness, “Go, and sin no more.”  That is Christ-shaped, bold grace. It is scary, because it offends both pharisaic-church and worldly-church, but it is good. So good.

The church needs people who will resist the incursion of the spirit of the age. People who will say No to making the gospel easier to believe, because they know that the gospel is always impossible to believe anyway. People who will not confuse resistance to the spirit of the age with simple conservatism, mind you, still less a hankering after the spirit of the previous age. (Vague, amorphous, viciously tolerant postmodernity is not necessarily any worse overall than spiky, proud, pushy modernity – it just has different points of weakness and rebellion.) 

The church needs prophets. It needs to learn again to raise its voice in gospel proclamation. I do not see Elijah on Carmel making a safe space for spiritual exploration, I do not hear Paul in Athens affirming the whole variety of spiritual experience. And I don’t imagine that the married monk of Wittenberg, or Wesley at Bristol, or Booth in Whitechapel were a particularly cosy listen. If the church is to proclaim the Living God and his Son, sent to save us, it will not be or feel particularly safe. I’m sorry folks, but we need to be a bit less Michael Mcintyre, and a bit more Stewart Lee.

John Wesley preaching

The church – in my own context the Salvation Army – needs leaders who will be brave and bold regarding the doctrines and moral positions of the church. Clearly, leading an international movement of this size is an appalling responsibility and an impossible challenge. The fact of our interaction with government and social services makes this no easier – arguably it makes fatal compromise almost inevitable. I do not envy the leaders’ role! But it is right to place the challenge – doctrinal incoherence and moral equivocation will not take the movement forward, and nor are they loving. Allowing the teaching of positions that directly contradict (for instance) doctrine 11 may seem gracious and kind, but actually it betrays every supporter who gives towards the army’s ministry in the expectation that the doctrines will be upheld. The dream of an “inclusive church” which refuses to call out sexual sin is very cruel and unloving towards the person who struggles with particular temptations and has the right to expect the church to give support in that struggle. Failing to call to repentance is not loving – it is a dereliction of duty that hurts people, now and eternally. 

We are in an adventure, folks, and it is going to be a wild ride. The bold path, the daring, courageous way ahead, clings to the line of God’s truth while every wind of changing culture tries to blow us off course. We will stick to the eternally relevant word even as fellow Christians scorn our “irrelevance". We will not be traditional for the sake of it – we long to see more light shining from the Word – but we do not see any light at all where the Word itself is despised. 

G K Chesterton

I do not follow Chesterton in every last detail of this famous piece from his book Orthodoxy, but the overall argument is stunning, and we need to recover it: 

 

…it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a Holy Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins, or the fulfilment of prophecies, are ideas which, anyone can see, need but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious. The smallest link was let drop by the artificers of the Mediterranean, and the lion of ancestral pessimism burst his chain in the forgotten forests of the north. Of these theological equalisations I have to speak afterwards. Here it is enough to notice that if some small mistake were made in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness. A sentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have broken all the best statues in Europe. A slip in the definitions might stop all the dances; might wither all the Christmas trees or break all the Easter eggs. Doctrines had to be defined within strict limits, even in order that man might enjoy general human liberties. The Church had to be careful, if only that the world might be careless.

  

This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have made it too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. It would have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the Arians. It would have been easy, in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall into the bottomless pit of predestination. It is easy to be a madman: it is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one's own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom--that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.

In the beginning...

In the beginning, at the dawn of time,
we walked the earth in dignity sublime;

as his own image God had made mankind,

for him to live, and in him meaning find.

2 But Adam fell, and with him all our race;
now we’re made perfect only by God’s grace;
but, though we marred his image in the fall,
still marks of glory dignify us all.

3 Lord, may we value all with highest worth,
whatever race or class they are by birth;
honour the old, protect the unborn life,
though all around is cruelty and strife. 

4 Lord, may we love and serve our neighbour well,
Christ’s kindness show, his glorious gospel tell;

till he returns, our Saviour come again,

to end injustice, and in truth to reign.

 

5 Then we shall see him as he really is,

and shall be like him, in his sinlessness;

then, as his image, we will praise, adore

and, in his likeness, serve him evermore.

Andrew King (1961-)

© Christchurch Haywards Heath, administered by Praise! Trust

Recommended tune: Ellers

 

Letters to a shipwrecked minister

Before I had this blog I had another one. A pseudonymous one. It was called The View Beyond the End. I have decided to repost a piece from it - I think I am ready now, but it has taken a while. This piece explains something of the name of the blog, and how I came to write it. 

Letters

This blog is called what it is because I used to have a life in Christian ministry, and then it came to an end. It came to an end because, over a long period of time, I became cool toward God, professionalised in my work, and neglectful of my marriage. In the end I ended up committing adultery and losing my wife, my career, my reputation and, for a long period of time, all semblance of relationship with God. 

That I have come back I owe to so many factors – above all the preserving grace and infinite mercy of God, but, by way of instrumentality, the prayers of many, many people, and the loving support of my children and their spouses, and of many friends, including from the woman who is now my wife. 

A key instrument that God used in my return was communication by letter, and I wanted to write with thankfulness about the many letters I have received over the last years. You may not be in a position to meet up with a person going through what I was, but you may be able to send a traditional letter or write an email or Facebook message. These all had an impact on me. I stress the word "all", as some may seem to have been viewed very negatively. Indeed, at one level they were, and are, but they still formed part of the whole network of ways that God used in his sovereign grace to bring me back. 

I could categorise the communications in a number of ways 

1)   The aggressive and harsh

2)   The harsh and stern 

3)   The stern and loving

4)   The loving and spiritual 

5)   The spiritual and indirect 

1) The aggressive and harsh. 

I received a small number of letters whose tone was extremely unpleasant. In all cases they were from women; in all cases I knew that what drove the tone had more to do with experiences that the writer had been through themselves than specifically with me. 
 

In one case the writer assumed that I would not know who she was (in relation to other members of her family who I knew far better and who she quoted, unnamed, in her letter); on realising that I knew who she was she replied that she would never have written if she had thought I could identify her. She said that she would ask her daughter's forgiveness for quoting her; to the best of my knowledge she never has. 

Others were less underhanded, but almost as unpleasant. Adultery and betrayal, unhappy marriages and frustration – these things are all around us, and make for very vitriolic correspondents. 

I should say that one friend subsequently wrote to me with sincere apologies for her manner in writing her first letter. Reconciliation was very sweet. 

And the big point is that ALL these letters, although they made me sad and angry at the time, were part of the way God dealt with me to bring me back. Truth spoken viciously is still truth, and it struck home. The viciousness may say a lot about the author's state of mind and heart; the truth can be carried into the conscience.
 

2) The harsh and stern

I received a far larger number of letters, mainly from men, that could be described as harsh and stern. No personal venom, but a definite cold feel.  Sometimes they came from people I didn't know closely, but some were from people who had been close friends. 

 On one occasion the woman I was seeing saw one of these letters.  Her reaction, "THAT is from a FRIEND?" Notwithstanding her ignorance of Christian standards and expectations, she had a point. 

Yet every one of these letters had a real impact on me. Although sometimes my initial reaction was to be confirmed in my rebellion, deep down I knew differently, and over the long haul my conscience was challenged, time and time again. 

3) The stern and loving 

Then again, I received many letters and messages that were deeply serious but extraordinarily loving. These were often from former colleagues in Christian ministry – men I had known well or less well, who wrote to warn me of my spiritual peril. The letters did not pull punches – they told me plainly that if I continued on my present course I would be lost for ever, that I would go to hell – but they did so in a way that ached with pain and affection towards a wandering brother. 

These men were true shepherds. If tone could be described by way of action, while some letters yelled an order at a lost sheep, these letters came and offered to carry me home. 

 

And whereas others often fired off one missive and were done, these brothers sometimes made repeated, non-naggy, contact. 

Such letters never made me feel confirmed in my rebellion. They made me miss the love of these guys. They made me want to come home. 

4) The loving and spiritual 

 

The people who wrote most regularly were a handful of older ladies who never rebuked me at all. Whereas most of the stern letters were one-offs, a few people sent brief notes many times, sometimes with bits of news, a text that had spoken to them last Sunday, or a brief word of encouragement. Above all, I was reassured time and time again that they were praying for me. 

It would be a high-handed rebel indeed who could maintain steady anger towards such people. Some were like my mothers in the faith. Indeed, the most regular writer was directly connected to my conversion; it was after a meeting in her house nearly forty years ago that I had gone home to pray and seek God. 

These letters, too, really made me want to come home. 

5) The spiritual and indirect

This last category encompasses more than letters. It was more about contact. People who knew God, knew where I was at, knew what the score was, but without direct rebuking or nagging, simply interacted with me. Sometimes they asked questions about where I was at, in a way that took my spiritual state seriously, but with more serious empathy than direct condemnation. More often they just talked about other stuff. Life stuff. Being friends.

Facebook interaction was the general method – a comment on a photo here, a thoughtful political comment there, an appreciation for a YouTube music video or for a particular ale – these contacts from Christians who spoke naturally-and-yet-as-Christians broke down the illusion that I was living a brave new life, having all the fun. These people were human, and had warm and interesting and fulfilling lives, AND loved Christ, and let me know it without much direct speech.

They didn't just make me want to come home: they made me feel the pointlessness of not coming home.  That was a very big victory. 

   *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *  

In conclusion

 

I am grateful for ALL the above categories of correspondence. God used them all. My pastor through all of this was faithful in contact, and if meeting him could be put in terms of the categories of letters, he was both 3 and 5. 

I would say, if you know someone who has wandered:

·       Make contact. The most aggressive of the above types of letters were less painful and less of a stumbling block to my recovery than the massive roar of silence from the bulk of my Christian friends. Men in ministry who I had regarded as friends and colleagues for years made no attempt to contact me at all. To be honest, horrid contact is better than no contact.

·       Be real. Talk to the person where they are. Share your feelings of disappointment and betrayal if you have them. Be honest, so that genuine love may be seen and felt. But interact on a wider range of subjects than simply the sin. Be a friend.

·       Be open. Write in such a way as to encourage dialogue, more correspondence. Don't just fire off a missive (missile?) to salve your conscience as a "watchman"; plant a seed that may grow, starting an interaction that could save a wanderer. 

·      Talk about Jesus. When I was far away, I missed him. Every letter that made me miss him more was a nail in the coffin of rebellion. 

Thank you, all, for helping me come home.