Resurrection

The result of a conversation with a published author after dinner this evening.

My faith depends on the Resurrection. The literal, physical resurrection of Christ from the dead. I believe that the evidence for that resurrection is convincing, and makes sense of God as He has revealed Himself through the whole Bible, not just the Gospels.

But I don’t believe in the Resurrection because of the Gospel accounts and the convincing arguments put forward based on them and other historical evidence. I believe in the Resurrection of Jesus because I have met Him. No, no, don’t get excited – not physically! I can’t tell you his address or anything so you could go and meet Him for yourself and see. I have met Him because I have experienced Him. In His Word, yes, but in His world as well. And in a sense beyond the world as well, inasmuch as we understand the world in non-spiritual terms. I have met the resurrected Jesus in intimate yet awesome, calm yet powerful, real yet spectacular spiritual experience. And not just once, either. In a sense, my faith is a perpetual encounter with the risen Jesus.

And that’s quite hard to counter.

Of course, the way I’ve just described it sounds very airy-fairy wishy-washy emotional trance-like and drug-induced. That’s not what I’m talking about! I do, as I’ve said, meet Him in His Word, and that’s every bit as real and essential to my discipleship.

Without that experience my faith would be weaker than Aaron Lennon’s left foot. Or my left foot, just to make the point. That’s pretty weak.

I love apologetics. I think they’re essential and wonderful. We can and do learn so much from and about God by careful study of His Word and His world. I’d love to see and hear more of it all over the place. I believe Jesus is at the very heart of good Christian apologetics. But they’re not enough on their own.

On their own, apologetics makes Jesus about me. About my idea of what God is like. Sure, God’s told us what He’s like in His Word, but we have to use our minds to read and understand that. Yes, He gave us our minds, but He also gave the mythologian their mind too, and they read the same words and hear very different things.

So, what if the resurrection could be proved not to have happened? What if someone conclusively proved that they had found Jesus’ body? What would happen to my faith. Well, it would change, and I would imagine that change to be considerable. It would change because it would mean that my experience of Jesus would be affected. The Risen Jesus that I have met and do meet would be affected. And if He is affected, then He is changed, and He stops being He and becomes he. Maybe He becomes me.

But that doesn’t worry me – although it may worry some of you!

It doesn’t worry me because no-one has proved the Resurrection to be a fraud. There is no body that has been found. The discovery that would shake my faith to its very core is no more than a hypothesis. And a hypothesis doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of the Resurrected God and the experience of Him.

Jesus is alive. I’ve met Him. Now I’m following Him.

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That’s all sounded very forthright and sure of myself. Quite arrogant, actually. No surprises there then. That’s not because I am arrogant – at least, not about this. It’s just how it needed to be written.

I’ve heard it said that faith is spelt S-U-R-E. I’ve also heard it said that it’s spelt R-I-S-K. I expect it’s spelt F-A-I-T-H, but that the two people both have a point. As I’m not God, nor am I omniscient, nor am I even all that clever in theological terms, my faith as I’ve just described it quite possibly could be blown over by a puff of intellectual wind. But that’s a RISK I’m SURE I’m meant to take.

Personal authority

I think I’m beginning to get a handle on the main thing that I’ve been dealing with whilst at theological college. How exactly does authority work in the Church. Or, perhaps more accurately, how should authority work in the Church? It is, I suppose, the issue behind all that makes the majority of the headlines as far as the Church is concerned. Normally, the question of authority looks at things like Scripture, tradition and reason (and experience, too) and which of those takes priority in terms of having authority to determine orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Yet I’m beginning to think that this is an unhelpful way to look at it, as there’s a more basic question worth considering:

What level of personal authority is appropriate for Christians to exercise within their life of faith?

Authority has three forms; personal, corporate and external:
1) External authority is that which is exercised by a person or group outside of the context in which it is being exercised, i.e. someone having authority over someone else. For example, the UN can impose sanctions on a country without actually being ‘part’ of that country. In one way, that’s also like the authority that God exercises over His creation. What He says, goes, even though He is not part of that created order.
2) Corporate authority is that which groups impose on themselves. For example, we are policed by consent (theoretically) in this country. Why does a policeman have authority to tell us to stop doing something? Because we’ve said that we want him to have that authority.
3) Personal authority is the way that we choose to determine how we live as individuals. If I think it is right for me to eat five chocolate bars, then I will do so. And jolly nice it will be, to.

Of course, personal authority is essential for the other two forms to operate effectively. Our personal authority determines whether or not we abide by corporate or external authorities – whether we give them/it authority over us. When it comes to issues of faith, this, I believe holds true. We all, as individuals, decide what authority we consent to. Some consent to the plain reading of Scripture. Some consent to the authoritative teaching of the Church. Some consent to personal opinion based on experience and reason. In reality, we all probably consent to a combination of all of these, and it’s the way in which we combine them that highlights differences.

And yet, personal authority also operates outside of that role of assenting to the other two authorities. To my mind, this becomes quite clear when we consider the interpretation of the Bible. As human beings we have been created with intellect, a tool of such scope that it separates us from the rest of creation (though this is not the only unique quality humanity has). The way that we use that intellect, the way we apply our minds is entirely determined by personal authority. We choose what we believe and think in the same way that we choose what to do. External and corporate authority is powerless over it in its most fundamental form. We can allow it to be influenced by other authorities, but it is a choice to do so.

Personal authority is then, immensely powerful and significant. But does it have limits? Even potential ones?

Thinking exclusively in terms of religious belief, I don’t think that I believe anything because an authority other than my personal authority has insisted on it. By that I mean that I don’t think I hold any beliefs that clash with my own personal take on the likelihood of that being true or the right thing to believe. At first glance that’s obvious, really. If the Church said I had to believe dinosaurs were on the ark, I would say “no, sorry, I don’t think I’m sold on that one”, and I wouldn’t believe it. Perhaps more problematically, were I to come across a plain part of the Bible that I disagreed with – let’s imagine that Jesus said “I tell you the truth, anyone over six foot tall is of the devil” – then I would find it quite easy to ignore it, and believe (vehemently!) that it shouldn’t be in the Bible!

So is it possible to override your personal authority and submit to a corporate or external authority. Certainly it is in terms of actions. I personally don’t believe that the filioque clause should be in the Nicene creed. I think it is poor theology, and I don’t like it. Yet I will (occasionally, when the need arises!) say it, as it is the authorise, corporately authoritative statement of the Church. Maybe that’s a bad example. I can’t think of a better one though. Good reader, please come up with your own!

If it is possible in terms of praxis, is it in terms of (whatever may be the appropriate form of the Greek word for) belief? I’m not convinced that it is. I don’t think we could ever say “I personally don’t believe ‘x’, I believe ‘y’. But the Church says that ‘x’ is true, therefore I will force myself to stop believing ‘y’ and believe ‘x’ instead.” Even if we speak about ‘changing our minds’, that is an act of personal authority.

So, what does this all boil down to?

Tension.

Living with tension is one of the most difficult calls on the Christian’s life, and that’s probably why we’re so bad at it. Living in the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’ of the Kingdom of God is bloomin’ hard work. I don’t like it. I wish it were one or the other (and I’d prefer the ‘now’, thanks all the same). Clarity is a far more appealing entity than ambiguity, and I don’t think that’s just my OCDs coming out of the woodwork. By and large, people like to know where they are. What they can rely on. What is ‘true’. So, when I read the Bible and see an strong affirmation of the role of women in society and extrapolate Paul’s long-term solution to the problems women were causing in his churches to the point where I believe that today he would have no problem with women bishops whatsoever, that’s all well and good. But when I hear that someone who has read exactly the same Bible as me thinks that it instructs us to restrict authority in the Church to men, I have a problem. And how do I choose to solve that problem? Well, it’s quite easy, really. I choose to believe that the opinion of the other person is of a lesser authority than my personal authority. And when a group of people say it, my answer is the same. Were the Church to declare it as their corporate understanding and claim it to be authoritative, I would locate my personal authority as being over and above theirs.

Now that’s scary if you ask me. Should it really be like that? But it gets even scarier.

If I can place my personal authority over and above the corporate authority of the Church, can I also be prone to place it above God?

I’m not stupid enough to think that I understand God completely, or that I know the meaning of every part of His Word, the Bible. So when I perform textual, contextual, linguistic and theological gymnastics with a passage or verse to draw out a meaning other than that which would appear plain so that I am more able to agree with it, what am I doing. If you’re struggling for an example, let’s use the old favourite – shellfish. Shouldn’t eat them. Actually, I don’t like them – but I only know that because I’ve tried them. And I don’t think that was sinful, because I’m able to talk about the new covenant and all food being clean etc. But it’s there in the text.

What am I really doing, when I make up my mind about an ambiguous part of the Bible? Am I placing my personal authority above God, or am I exercising the intellect that He gave me when He made me anyway? Am I just running hard and fast away from ambiguity in search of concrete truth? Am I avoiding tension as if it were a plague?

To quote that older, balder, but wiser friend again, “opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s apathy”. Maybe that fact that I’m concerned about this – let’s say I care about it – is a good sign by that standard.

But right now it’s really uncomfortable to have such lack of clarity. Maybe I should listen to some other opinions. Any volunteers?

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This cartoon seemed appropriate. If you disagree, tough.

Well, that’s Sorted then…

I’ve just stumbled across ‘Sorted‘ magazine’s website. It describes itself as “the UK’s only Christian mag for men”, tackling topics including entertainment, gadgets, interviews, money, motoring, reviews, sex and sport – all from a Christian perspective, presumably!

Now, I can’t really make any comment specifically about the content of Sorted, as I’ve not read it, yet from the website it does look like it’s well produced, and the endorsements and contributors suggest that it’s actually likely to do quite well. In fact, I think I may well try to get hold of a copy to see what I think.

And yet, I have a question in the back of my mind. (Hey, how surprising, seeing as how I’m at a theological college where the ethos is all about not questioning things…) Why do Christian men need to read a Christian magazine? There are, of course, an enormous number of men’s magazines on the market, the vast majority of the content of which would, it’s fair to say, be less than helpful to read / look at… But there seem to be so many things that encourage Christians to live in an isolated Christian bubble. ‘Sorted‘ may well not do that – it might encourage Christian men to actively engage in the world we live in (but aren’t ‘of’).

And yet, if the idea is that Christian men read this instead of anything else, then it’s just another part of the sacred-secular divide that is prevalent in certain parts of the Church. This Sunday, for example, I heard a sermon that basically espoused dualism as the full reality of the world we live in (apart from the last 20 seconds wherein we were told how dualism is a bad thing…). The answer was, of course, to keep ourselves pure and holy by avoiding evil at all costs.

That’s not how I understand Jesus to have encouraged his disciples to go about it. Purity and holiness, sure, but by withdrawing into a world almost that’s exclusively Christian?

When I did a course at LICC in London, one of the things they asked us to do was go and buy a magazine we would never normally buy, read it, and then try to paraphrase Psalm 23 in a style that would fit that magazine. I picked Men’s Health, and the result? The Lord is my personal trainer. It was no masterpiece, as I’m sure you can imagine, but I found it incredibly helpful. Where does the sacred-secular, dualist approach leave our evangelism, our ability to engage with and bring the Gospel to the world we live in – the world our friends, relatives, neighbours and colleagues who don’t know Jesus live in?

Sandwich boards. Loudspeakers on street corners. Tracts. Of course, these can ‘work’, but I would love to see the results of a survey on non-Christians responses to these approaches. If we start from a bubble away from the world, it’s pretty hard to encourage people to see what life in that bubble’s like. ‘Cos I expect it looks rather silly from the outside.

All the same, I’d better try and get hold of a copy of Sorted. It would be awful if I held a bigoted opinion…

An Inconvenient Truth

It’s a little late to start a day’s worth of Lesotho, so I’ll just mention what I’ve spent the day doing!
I’ve got my essay on whether it is possible to be a Christian in a same sex relationship about half done. I had to smile when I re-read a bit to discover I’d written ‘there are three main positions to consider…’! Ooo-err!

This evening, after an excellent Methodist service (why do I always have to wait for the Methodist services to feel like I can really engage in chapel?), our Christian Social Ethics lecture was looking at ecology theology. We watched a large part of Al Gore’s DVD ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘. As much as it’s received mixed media coverage, I’m convinced it presents in a simple (which is very important) way one of if not the most important moral issues facing the world today.

The theology of stewardship that Christians hold to is a blessing and a curse. All too easily, stewardship can subconsciously lead to exploitation. Good stewardship is a different beast, and it’s essentiat that the Church starts to pay more attention to devloping this theology. Maybe it’s even more important than ‘the gay issue’.

A question of evil

(Image from ‘Bold’s Fold’ by darren)

So, preparing to preach in St Catherine’s this morning I began to wonder what the majority view in the Church was about evil and the devil. What do people think? Is there a devil like there is a God? Is evil ever a noun as well as an adjective?
Of course, the danger in thinking too much about ‘the enemy’, ‘the evil one’ or ‘the accuser’ is that you end up a form of dualism, and that certainly isn’t up to scratch theologically.
But is there an equal and opposite danger of not taking the concept seriously enough? Of course there is – something is prowling around like a lion, and ignoring a lion doesn’t keep you safe from it.
So, how do you adequately describe the line between the two?

A new regime…

A fairly obvious event dominated the news yesterday – no, not Tottenham’s attempts to buy Darren Bent, although that is fairly momentous! No, I’m talking about the handover of power from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown.

In his last Prime Minister’s Questions (see right and here with Windows Media Player) Tony Blair seemed a bit demob happy, especially when he fielded a question from Richard Younger Ross (Lib-Dem MP for Teignbridge) about the link between the State and faith (not the State and the state of faith). His response? “I think I’m not really bothered about that one.” I’ve no idea what exactly he meant, or what the guffawing that followed indicated, but I just wonder what it might say about the majority view in the House of Commons about faith in the UK and the place it plays in life.
See here for a similar question.
The relationship between Church and State has been a long-running question and, even here in Wales where the Anglican Church is officially disestablished, there are many ways in which the two institutions are bundled into the same space.
In my mind, the link between my Christian faith and the society in which I live is unbreakable and irremovable. But lots of people seem to want the Church to have nothing to do with the State (even some Christians I know). I can see how atheists don’t really want an organisation they believe to be seriously misguided (the Church, not the Conservative Party) to have any kind of influence on decision-making at the highest level. But surely the social influence of the Church is such a force for good that it should be welcomed.
Hmmm… I think I’ll stop thinking and go and eat.

The Pursuit of…

Last night Naomi and I watched a film together. We’ve not done that properly for quite a while. We watched ‘The Pursuit of Happyness‘ with Will Smith. Without wanting to spoil the story for anyone , it’s a ‘based-on-a-true-story’ story where the main character finds himself in serious financial difficulty, and has to look after his five year-old son whilst he makes one last ditch attempt to get a ‘good’ job. His sights are set on an internship at Dean Witter Assoc., but it involves an immensely difficult few months with no salary. As a result, he ends up being evicted twice and ending up sleeping rough (with his son) whilst trying to retain a professional appearance on the internship.
You can almost guess the ending based on it being made in Hollywood, but it left me with some mixed emotions.
Firstly, I actually cried (twice) at the portrayal of such a struggle and the sheer terror at the dangerous situation that he was putting his son in. It was incredibly well portrayed, and really got me! (of course, I denied crying at the time, but that’s because I’m insecure!)
But, I was also really saddened by the story’s definition of happiness. To me, it was more like relief at being rescued. I know (especially, perhaps, as a Christian)that rescue is a cause for joy and, indeed, happiness, but what was presented was the notion that ‘financial security = happiness’.
I’ve never really been in financial dire straits like that. I remember once having a bill payment returned due to insufficient funds, and found myself living on credit for a short while, something that I never wanted to do, and only did so because of pride (don’t go there, I know that doesn’t make sense). Consequently, I can’t really say how that kind of rescue equates with real happiness. But it’s a nagging question.
In the film, the main character refers to Thomas Jefferson’s adaptation of a similar phrase into the US Declaration of Independence that leads to the film’s title (the misspelling is also part of it). Why ‘pursuit?’, he questions. Is there something entirely unattainable about happiness that it can only ever be pursued?
What even is happiness? I know that complete contentment is only to be found in the arms of our heavenly Father, and that we can only come to Him through His Son, but this side of eternity, how much do we actually experience that contentment? And does it equate with happiness. Lots of people would probably place happiness at the top of their desires for themselves. How does Jesus speak into that desire?
If the Christian life isn’t a promise of no more pain, sadness, tears etc. until heaven, how does this meet that need, or do we need to realign our sights?
You might have noticed that all I’m doing is asking questions. I’ve got my own answers, and I’m pretty sure that they’re highly fallible which is partly why I’m not going to publish them here just yet. But time to think is good, and so is wise input from good friends…

If that’s doing it my way, I’ll never listen to Frank again…

Finally. I have enough words to submit a full portfolio on time. Phew!

I’ve still got until midday to hand it in, so I’ll probably do a final bit of proof-reading tomorrow morning, but no major revisions should be needed. I hope…

As I’ve said a couple of times now, I’m well aware that it’s a bit of a pickle that I’ve got myself in, and it’s done no-one any favours – Naomi least of all, I imagine. I wouldn’t know, as I’ve seen so little of her while I’ve been down here in my dungeon/study.

I don’t think now is necessarily the right time to continue to reflect on this though, as bed is calling me, and the keyboard keys are beginning to look the size of caryons of fruit juice. Batsmen get their ‘eye-in’, and the ball appears much bigger, making it easy to play. Maybe I could write some ground-breaking stuff now? Or maybe not.

How to discipline myself next year? Answers on a postcard.

When it all goes Pete Tong…

So, I’m working on biblical, ethical and theological perspectives on corruption, globalism and capitalism in response to the Paul Wolfowitz allegations.
It’s very interesting, if a bit intense! I’m over half-way through, but the whole plan and references are all well and truly sorted, so I’m hoping to get a good draft finished this evening for comment by my lecturer, John Weaver who, by the way, is going to be the next Vice-President of the Baptist Union (GB). And many congratulations to him.

Anyway, about Paul Wolfowitz. It would appear that he has acted unwisely. It would also appear that he’s sorry for acting unwisely. I don’t really think I can say any more than that. What’s sad, is that global corruption is in overdrive, and hardly gets a mention in the mainstream news, but one, seemingly comparably small indiscretion by a man who professes to want to tackle corruption and the rest of the world comes down on him like a tonne of bricks. From a potential ministry perspective, that’s quite scary. I know that those who are called to teaching and leadership ministry in God’s church are to be above reproach, and that we should practice what we preach, but let’s face it. I’m going to fall on my arse sometime, aren’t I? And what will happen? Everyone will know about it. And everyone will be entitled to their opinion, and as such will share it. Hopefully with me, but not necessarily.

It’s not something I’ve ever given much thought to, but I guess I should. How will I respond? Will I admit my faults, and act as graciously as possible, or will I throw my toys out of the pram? I wonder, and I pray.