Tag Archives: Bible

How are we to communicate?

03 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Bible, Catholic Tradition, Faith, poetry

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Julian

The question of language is a vital one for the Church. How do we communicate the Word of God? This is a complex issue, bound up as it is with questions of culture (local, national and institutional, to name but three), personal formation, and individual preferences.

For the longest time in the West, the preferred text of Scripture was in Latin, although, of course originally, none of the text was in that language. Across time, the result of this was that the Scriptures were the preserve of a small elite, and the growing feeling that this was hardly what Jesus meant led to an irrisistible demand for texts in the vernacular. Now, of course, this is taken for granted, and being what we are by fallen nature, we can now argue, instead, over which version of the vernacular we prefer; but at least the words of Scripture are now available to all who wish to have access to them.

There are those who sometimes wonder whether this is such a good thing, as people will interpret the texts for themselves, but then they always did, even when the only people with access to them were priests and bishops; as anyone familiar with the early Church can attest, limited circulation of the text did not mean that there was anything like a uniform interpretation available.

One of the huge benefits of something we now take for granted, that is the ready availability of the Bible in a language, and even in the version of it that suits our taste, is that we can engage with it as individuals. Surely that is part of being a Christian? We develop a relationship with Scripture as we do, through it and the Church, with God. These wise words by the Rev Jessica Martin struck me as I read them this morning:

Like all relationships, it will have appalling, jagged gaps, breakdowns that seem insuperable. I will sometimes argue with it, sometimes be angry, sometimes disagree. That is how conversation is. For scripture, its crucible of meaning is the receiving intelligence, history, body, and affections of the reader. Scripture makes itself vulnerable to my flaws and to my failures of understanding; the trust goes both ways. I am not expected to be “mute and spiritless” before its holy voice.

The whole piece is worth reading reflectively.

Here I want to focus on one part of what she has to say here:

we have a huge communication gap between our worship and our reasoning. In worship, we don’t talk much about how to believe in poetic connections. And we divorce our reasoning from our corporate worshipping life, and so from our communal heart.

There is much wisdom in this, too much for a short essay to unpack, but let me offer a few preliminary reflections and hope that your comments, and further thought, will take me forther.

It is easy for our worship to fall into one of two styles: the one formal, even archaic; the other informal and even anarchic. As someone whose preferences tend to the former, and whose character shies (literally) away from what I would probably (perhaps wrongly) call “over-emotionalism” (confession time, I am actually comfortable with sharing the “peace”), I would rather worship where there is due order and the rubrics are followed. But I try not to mistake my personal preference for any kind of norm, and I am alert to the difficulty that those who drop into Church for the first time might encounter. I suspect those difficulties exist in a similat way in Churches where the worship style is more informal.

That raises a larger topic for another day, which is how Churches interact not only with their regular congregations, but with those who might want to come to Church but not get terribly involved. One of the effects of the pandemic has been to emphasise how important the place of worship is. There are those who say that it does not matter that Churches have been closed, we can worship God anywhere. The latter part of that sentence is correct, the first part of it betrays, I fear, an impoverished view of how individuals react to the numinous. It is not, at least for me, just the absence of the Eucharist, it is something more imtangible and poetic. T.S. Eliot expresses this best in “Little Gidding”:

It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

That “kneeling where prayer has been valid” matters to me, because Eliot is right, prayer in more than “an order of words.” That takes me back to another insight from Dr Martin’s article:

When we reason at arm’s length with inert lumps of text, we cannot recognise how they and we communicate. But scripture in worship comes into the unfolding history of Now, binding together those who take part and making it more likely that they will take care with fragile shared meanings. Worship is recognised as a form of encounter. Enacted words are pregnant with change.

Just as in the Incarnation, the Word in becoming flesh, made Himself vulnerable to our frailties in order to heal them in His death and resurrection, so does His written word become vulnerable to our limitations of understanding, but through His Church and our worship, transcend them to help transform us.

 

 

BuzzFeed’s hit piece on Chip and Joanna Gaines is dangerous (and annoying)

06 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Atonement, Church/State, Politics

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Chip and Joanna Gaines of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” (HGTV)

Chip and Joanna Gaines of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” (HGTV)

There was a hit piece published on Buzzfeed last week on Chip and Joanna Gaines last week. If you don’t know they are the hosts of one of HGTV’s house flipping shows. And no, I haven’t seen it, I no longer have cable (other than for the internet) and rarely watch TV. But the difference in this one is that the hosts are Evangelical Christians, and that was the point of attack. Here’s a bit from Brandon Ambrosino, writing in the Washington Post (yeah, I went , “Huh?” too).

I am currently planning my wedding, and I’ve never been happier. I believe that God brought me and Andy together and that God celebrates our love. I also believe that our marriage will offer a powerful testimony to skeptics that queer love can be God-honoring, and even sacramental.

I have heard from a few well-meaning Christian friends that they feel they can’t attend my ceremony. I think that’s silly, I think it’s theologically misguided, and it hurts me deeply because it makes it seem as if they care more about abstract principles than me, their friend and family member.

Still, I do not think these conservatives should be shamed or mocked. I do not think they should be fired. And I certainly do not think they should be the butt of a popular BuzzFeed article.

I’m referring to a non-story written by Kate Aurthur, published Tuesday on BuzzFeed. The piece starts off innocently enough by describing the success of Chip and Joanna Gaines, a husband-and-wife team whose series “Fixer Upper” is one of the most popular shows on HGTV. After pivoting to the religious beliefs of the Gaineses, and pointing out that they go to an evangelical church whose pastors oppose same-sex marriage, Aurthur then poses these questions:

“So are the Gaineses against same-sex marriage? And would they ever feature a same-sex couple on the show, as have HGTV’s ‘House Hunters’ and ‘Property Brothers’?”

The entire article is an elaborate exploration of that hypothetical question. And yes, it is very much hypothetical, by the reporter’s own admission: “Emails to Brock Murphy, the public relations director at their company, Magnolia, were not returned. Nor were emails and calls to HGTV’s PR department.”

But that does not stop Aurthur from writing almost 800 more words about the non-story. Her upshot seems to be: Two popular celebrities might oppose same-sex marriage because the pastor of the church they go to opposes same-sex marriage, but I haven’t heard one way or the other. (I can’t imagine pitching that story to an editor and getting a green light, by the way.) […]

BuzzFeed is probably at the forefront of discussions surrounding diversity in entertainment. But do their reporters think diversity refers only to skin color? Does ideological diversity count for nothing, especially when it is representative of, again, a sizable chunk of the American public? It’s hard to make the case that the website promotes this kind of diversity, particularly on same-sex marriage. In June, Ben Smith, the publication’s editor in chief, told Politico that “there are not two sides” on the issue.

via BuzzFeed’s hit piece on Chip and Joanna Gaines is dangerous – The Washington Post

Ok, ya all got that? There are not two sides to the question, so sit down and shut up, not to mention believe what we tell you to believe.

Well, guess what? A whole bunch of people say there are at least two sides to this question. Our churches (unanimously till about 15 minutes ago) have always believed and taught that marriage is between one man and one woman. A case can perhaps be made for SSM, civilly anyway, although I’m not going to, so don’t even go there with me. But the mainstream view is one man and one woman.

And you know what else? This supercilious, arrogant attempt to shut down the debate, that they created, is a good bit of why Donald Trump will be President. Because we all, any of us who disagree with the overly narrow left about anything, have simply had enough.

Decidedly true in America, in fact, you might even ask Kelloggs, who recently and ostentatiously pulled their advertising from Breitbart, and now is looking at a possible conservative boycott, or the failing network ESPN and it’s NFL franchise, or Target, and its frantic backtracking on bathroom policy.

A good many of us have simply decided to put our money where our mouth is, and you know, it works, not least because we are a 40% (at least) plurality of the country, and we’re not very happy lately. Vote with your feet, vote with your ballot, and yes, vote with your pocketbook. Remember this? So do we.

mad-as-hell

Revised Common Lectionary

21 Saturday May 2016

Posted by in Anglicanism, Bible, Catholic Tradition, Lutheranism

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830_connectThere’ve been a few articles sitting in my archives for a while on the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) which might be worth a read, so let’s talk about them. The RCL is, of course, mostly what we use in the ELCA, almost all of the Anglican churches, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and churches from other denominations. And it is largely in sync with the Roman Catholic church, worldwide, as well. Yes, there are others, in the ELCA, there is the Narrative Lectionary, the LCMS has a Historic One Year Lectionary, and there are likely others. Still that’s pretty broad swath of Western Christianity, and one reason why Chalcedon’s Gospel lesson’s on Sunday here, work for most of us. It also has the benefit of getting us through most of the Bible in a three-year period.

Its story is interesting. The Benedictine Lutheran tells us:

As noted in my earlier article, the roots of the RCL are based on the three year lectionary developed in the Roman Catholic Church during the years following Vatican II. Following the conclusion of Vatican II, Biblical scholars came together to work on the three year lectionary, which resulted in the publication of Ordo Lectionum Missae in 1969. After over a decade of work by scholars from numerous Christian traditions, the Common Lectionary was published in 1983. Finally, after a trial period of the Common Lectionary, and revisions made by even more scholars, the Revised Common Lectionary was published in 1992. (For more information, go to this website: http://www.commontexts.org/).

So, the RCL is the fruit of the labor of multiple scholars from multiple Christian traditions over the course of several decades. It is not a perfect lectionary. But, it is a truly “catholic” (universal, not just Roman) lectionary.

And so it is one of those ecumenical efforts, across almost all of the mainline churches, to teach the same thing, at the same time, and to do it effectively. How is it effective? Because it is a worship lectionary, not a Bible study guide. Again from the Benedictine Lutheran.

Through the magic of Google, I found an article called “Explaining the lectionary for readers”, which contains a beautiful explanation of how and why the Catholic (and therefore, RCL) lectionary readings are put together.  Although it is from a Catholic website, this language strikes me as being very much Lutheran as well, with its primary focus being on the proclamation of Christ:

 “[W]e can think of the readings at the Eucharist as a series of concentric circles:
• at the centre is the gospel which is a recollection and celebration of the mystery of Jesus, the Anointed One;
• this recollection is given added dimensions by readings from the Old Testament: the Law (such as Genesis or Exodus), the prophets (such as Amos or Joel), the Psalms, and the Writings (such as the Book of Wisdom or the Books of the Maccabees);
• then there are the readings of the great early Christian teachers’ letters to churches, such as those of Paul.
The purpose of the readings is that, in the words of the General Instruction on the Lectionary, in accordance with ancient practice there should be a ‘re-establishing [of] the use of Scripture in every celebration of the liturgy’ and that this should be seen as ‘the unfolding mystery of Christ’ being ‘recalled during the course of the liturgical year’
*****
If the readings at the Eucharist are there to help unfold the mystery of Jesus Christ, then several important consequences flow from this:
• We are not reading the Scriptures simply to get a knowledge of the Bible.
• We are not reading these passages because many Christians consider reading the Bible a valuable activity in itself.
• This action is not part of a Bible Study, nor should it resemble the classroom atmosphere of a study group.
•The focus of all our reading is not an abstract understanding of the scriptural text – such as would be carried out by a biblical exegete in a theology course – but to see what each portion of text (whether from the gospel, the Old Testament, the psalm, or the epistle) reveals to us about the Paschal Mystery.
• Our reading is not book-focused; it is not text-focused; it is focused on Jesus as the Christ.
• The gospel is the primary focus on the mystery of the Christ in each celebration; the Old Testament and Psalm relate to it as background, example, context, or elaboration; the epistle is a separate attempt to focus on the mystery of the Christ through the help of early Christian teachers.
• The readings are to help us encounter the person of Jesus Christ in whose presence and name we have gathered.
‘The word of God unceasingly calls to mind and extends the plan of salvation, which achieves its fullest expression in the liturgy. The liturgical celebration becomes therefore the continuing, complete, and effective presentation of God’s word’.”

He also notes that Professor Rolf Jacobson, one of the developers of the Narrative Lectionary, says, “We actually think that we do a better job of aligning the Biblical story with the major festivals of the Church year. In the Revised Common Lectionary, you get the adult John the Baptist in Advent saying ‘Jesus is coming’, but that’s not the Christmas story – it’s not the adult John the Baptist saying the adult Jesus is coming. So, what we have is the prophetic texts – the prophets longing with hope for the fulfillment of God’s kingdom and the coming of the Holy One, and then the Holy One is born at Christmas, and we tell, then, the Biblical story in order….”

But is that why we celebrate Advent, or is it as the linked article says?

Is Advent merely a season where we prepare for the birth of the baby Jesus at Christmas?  If so, his claim might have merit.  However, Advent is not just about recalling the story of the baby Jesus coming into the world.  If it were, I’m not sure why we would even have a separate Advent season – we would just have one six week Christmas season. Instead, Advent is also a season where we prepare for the return of Christ at the eschaton (a word which essentially means, to borrow a phrase from the rock group REM: ‘the end of the world as we know it’).  Therefore, contrary to Professor Jacobson’s opinion, the readings where “the adult John Baptist is saying the adult Jesus is coming” make sense given the historical purpose and meaning behind the season of Advent:

“The eschataological orientation that is found in some of these early sources continues to be a significant element in the proclamation of the season of Advent. Indeed, the very name Adventus, ‘coming,’ ‘approach,’ suggests not only the coming of God into the world in Jesus but the approaching return of the risen Lord in all his heavenly splendor.  Indeed, the Advent season and its hope should not be regarded purely or even primarily in terms of Christmas.  It should not even be seen as an introduction to the Incarnation but rather as the completion of the work of redemption.

Your mileage may vary, I suppose, but I was taught the latter, and still believe so.

Four Years, with Love

15 Sunday May 2016

Posted by in Blogging, Faith, St. Isaac

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Desert_Monast-SM-682400381Three years ago, today, Jessica said this.

Across this year my life has changed beyond all recognition, but what has remained constant and grown are the good things, and the bad ones have been burned away, not without some pain, but decisively. Amongst the good things is this place and your companionship. So thank you, all of you.

But since then we’ve found she was just getting warmed up. Across that time she has had a number of jobs, a divorce, an engagement, a serious illness and has moved to Scotland – oh, and kept writing here when she could. Jess and I continue dearest friends, but some days, I wake up wondering what she got up to while I slept. But through all that she remains the same fine, helpful, Christian girl, who mostly desires to be useful, that I met almost 4 years ago, and fell in love with on the road to Walsingham. And Walsingham has continued to provide breakpoints in our friendship, and indeed on Jess’ journey.

When Jess came down with that cancer I mentioned above, it fell on Chalcedon to take over this blog, which he did in an exemplary manner, not only providing continuity of operation, in a very difficult time (on several fronts) but maintaining Jessica’s mission, as well. A very good man, who has worked supremely well for us, and the blog, and his faith. I outlined the history last year, no need to repeat, it is here. I quoted post No. 2 last year to illustrate it.

Polemicists will be polemicists, but the enquirer should not log off the Internet, which has a wealth of resources of interest to those whose minds are open. Like many in the CofE my own catechesis did not exist. I never got round to an Alpha course, and sermons apart, my religious education took place via books and the Web. Sites such as those of Tom Wright, BJ Stockman and Fr. Hunwicke and Fr. Longenecker have been invaluable- and you can always avoid the com-boxes.

There’s an Anglican irenic quality there – an Anglican bishop, an Evangelical Protestant, a high Church (now convert) Anglican and a Catholic convert from Anglicanism. My debt is repaid in part by trying to take an attitude free from confessional bias in what I write. That brings some scorn (rightly from their point of view) from those in all denominations who insist dogma and doctrine matter; I don’t disagree entirely, and I understand where they are coming from. Doctrine and dogma-free Christianity is no Christianity at all. But the Church Fathers hammered all this out a long time ago, and perhaps we’d be wise to settle, as they did, on the Nicene Creed as our benchmark for orthodox belief?

Our Lord Jesus Christ (OLJC) told the Apostles that men would know His followers by their love for each other, and He counselled them to be united; knowing us as He does, He can’t have been all that surprised that we’ve fallen away from those ideals. Perhaps if we were better at them there would be less for the polemicists to reproach us with? Great crimes have been committed in the name of Christianity, that is true, as it is of any great cause entrusted to fallen mankind. It is in our fallen nature to pervert whatever good things we have from God. In our folly we use the consequences of our own sinful state to reject the opportunity to reach out for God’s love; and in our pride erect a superstructure of Pharisaism on OLJC’s words, before proceeding to live in it rather than the love of Christ.

It is foolish to think we can prove or disprove the existence of God. If He exists He is Infinite, we are not; He is the Creator, we the created; if we think we have grasped the fullness of the Infinite then, by that mark, we have not grasped God. OLJC reveals what we need to know, and unless we read the Old Testament through the lessons of the New, we shall go astray. God is love. He came to redeem the world not in the expected form of a Messiah who would bring fire and sword to the heathen, but in the form of a slave, a suffering servant. OLJC redeems us through love and through suffering, not through smiting His enemies. A thought to bear in mind when blogging on religion.

The mission undertaken then, it the one pursued to this day. AATW has become a reasonably large and influential blog (although many are bigger) but on that day, she could have had no idea of what the future would hold. She was willing to share her vision with us. Blogs come and blogs go and sometimes return, but few manage to make it to four years.

And now we’ve made it to that anniversary, with the same mission, and with Jessica herself back in fine voice and full of fire. What the future will bring, we can’t know, but I think, she has rejuvenated the mission that she set for us all.

Perhaps Geoffrey said it best for us all, here.

Here, thanks to you all, I have found a home where I can have my own views challenged, my own knowledge increased, and where there is much food for spiritual nourishment. For all that, I am grateful. I have also found, as I always will, those who want to argue for the sectarian narrowness with which II was brought up, and, rescued from it myself by the Grace of God, I shall ever take my sword and strike it down; a combative Yorkshireman I was born, and I daresay I shall go to meet my Maker as one. I am glad He is all-knowing, because to know all is to understand all. At that last I can only hope that He won’t be altogether displeased with what I’ve done with the talents he gave me.

I also note that today is Pentecost, which is consonant with the mission of this blog. In the Revised Common Lectionary, the Gospel for today is Acts 2:1-21, and seems appropriate to our mission today

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:

15 For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.

16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;

17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:

20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come:

21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Last year, I ended with a quote from St. Isaac the Syrian, that Jess used on day one. I still think it summarizes the Chatelaine, and the mission of All along the Watchtower better than anything else I could say.

In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.

Maranatha

13 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in Blogging, Faith

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downloadUpdate: Due to a timing mixup, this published at the same as Dave Smiths Quo Vadis, which precedes it. Do read it as well.

Sorry Dave. Neo

 

This morning Gareth commented on Vale saying

Now, this Sunday morning, I have found the devil has been at work here too. So sad that we forget the devil is most active in the very time – Lent – when we try to follow our Lord in the wilderness.

I was going to post here the Latin prayer of exorcism, but stopped myself just in time: those words should only be pronounced by a priest. I suggest instead that we use whatever form of prayer is appropriate to our different Christian traditions on this blog. The attacks of Satan can only be repelled in this way, and not by arguments, excuses, and failure to repent of evil.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner. Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus.

Amen, and amen.

Seems to me that we have all adopted the mores of the American election process here, lately, and it’s quite unseemly. We have been talking (well shouting) past each other and none of us has been listening effectively, if at all. Well, that’s toxic to what our mission here is, and it claimed a victim.

The men in their obstinance have driven out the Chatelaine of the Watchtower.

Can we do this mission without her? Well, I don’t know, we are a contentious bunch. Are we even going to try? I don’t know that either. I spoke with Chalcedon yesterday, he is very discouraged, as am I, and by the same thing that drove Jess from our midst. Not that we should not disagree, we always have, we always will. But by the tone we have all adopted, which could well be called ‘my way or the highway’.

That’s the tone that leads to a bar fight, not a discussion that illuminates. Some of us are more guilty of this, than others, I expect, but none of us are innocent, either.

I admire Jock, who said this morning.

Jessica, I now understand from both NEO and Rob that it was my last comment which played the decisive role in driving you from your own blog.

I wrote it in anger, without any time for reflection. It was mean spirited and nasty and I apologise unreservedly for it.

Takes a real man to take responsibility like that. I too have said some hard things that have hurt feelings, I too apologize.

But, in truth, from what Jess has told me, it wasn’t Jock, or QVO, or me, or any of us individually, it was the tone of the entire comment streams this week that she found toxic, and led to her withdrawal. She’s right, they were. Go back and read some of them calmly, many hard things were said, and we continually broke with our practice here of stating our beliefs calmly and rationally, opting instead to make personal attacks on each other.

As Rob said, I think there was a good bit of talking right past each other, as well. What really happened is that we all dug in like it was the last ditch and we had to defend it. Well guys, it’s not. Whatever we do here, our churches will survive, they will change, yes. They always have, maybe some will drop by the wayside, if so, then others will take their place. Whatever. I think we can safely leave that part in God’s hands.

We here, all of us, We are on the Lord’s side, maybe we should learn again to act like it. The adversary is over there somewhere, attack him, not each other, and do it in love, that’s how we grew, always, and its the only way we will grow now.

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us

To Everything There is a Season

1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

We have cast away she who is, I think, the best of us, now is, I think a time to heal.

Maranatha, Indeed

 

Saturday Jess

19 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by in Advent, Faith

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20121115-180317.jpgWell, this week we’ve been talking about hell, and free speech (no, they’re not the same thing) and a bit about being saved. So we’ll continue with the theme, as usual. Here’s Jess on the central theme, and as always the comment stream is also good.

Are you saved?

Our discussion seems to have taken us into the territory of what it means to be ‘saved’. Talking to an Evangelical friend she gave the clearest and most straightforward answer: ‘You have to receive Jesus as your personal Saviour.’ When I asked how she thought we did this, she said ‘repent and call Him Lord’. That was certainly a good Biblical answer and reminded me of Bosco, which was nice; indeed when she asked why I had a nice smile, I had to admit I was thinking of a commentator on this blog. Her response was: ‘Well if he makes you smile like that Jess, that can’t be a bad thing.’

Nor was, or is it. It set me to thinking of whether I was not making heavy weather of something quite straightforward, but then I thought no, because we have been discussing some of the points which came to Christians after they had received Christ, not before, so in that sense, we are all at a later stage of the discussion.

I was not sure whether Bosco or my friend Helen would appreciate that, because I was not sure that although we are speaking the same language, we are using it in the same way.  Helen certainly seemed convinced that having received Jesus as her personal Saviour she was ‘saved’. When I asked what she meant, she said it meant she was going to Heaven when she died. She asked what I meant. I want to share that answer with the community here.

I said that yes, I was saved. I had received Jesus and declared my faith in Him as my Redeemer; He had died for my sins, and I owned Him as Lord, so I partook of that once and for all act of atonement (it is here I felt most as though I was not quite on secure ground, so do feel free to help 🙂 ). I was, I said, ‘a new creation’ in Him. I am being saved, by holding fast in Him, and. being justified by His blood, I hoped to be saved from the wrath to come.

It seemed to me that unless one read the first passage from 2 Corinthians, in the light of the other two passages (links above) you got a one-dimensional account of what salvation was.

For example, if you were ‘saved’ did that mean you could do nothing sinful (one ancient heresy) or did it mean (an even worse one) that nothing you did could be seen as sinful. Or did it mean that if we did something wrong after receiving the Lord, you ‘lost’ your salvation and could never regain it? But if that was the case, why should anyone bother to regret a sin and try to make themselves right with Christ again? That seemed, I said, a real obstacle in the way of a repentant sinner. Indeed, it reminded me of the Emperor Constantine, who only became a Christian at the end of his life in case he did anything wrong after baptism.

It also seemed to me a very individualistic doctrine of salvation which made little sense of the words of Christ and the Apostles about a church and a community of believers being the Body of Christ.  There was, it seemed to me, a difference between an assurance of salvation – that is the hope, and a certainty – after all, if one had the latter, what the point of a Last Judgement.

For me, and for Catholic and Orthodox, salvation is a dynamic process, not a one-off.

Saturday Jess

12 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by in Faith, Julian of Norwich, St. Isaac

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20121115-180317.jpgJess has limited computer time, not least because of her scrupulosity in using her time at work for work, and so we will have to bear with her not always being prompt in answering our comments on her new posts. Thursday was an example when a comment went unanswered for that reason. Perhaps, she had already answered it.

Before her illness, she was privileged to attend a lecture by Lord Williams of Oystermouth, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who was speaking on Dame Julian of Norwich. Mother Julian wrote the first book by a woman published in English, “Revelations of Divine Love”, and yes it is available, quite inexpensively, and yes, I have it, and it was one of my mainstays during Jess’ illness and the earlier part of her recovery. It is simply wonderful.

In the article for today, Jess compares what Lord Williams lectured on regarding Mother Julian and how it harks back to what her beloved St. Isaac the Syrian had to say about God’s love.

The anger of God

Why do we imagine God, the infinite and omniscient is angry with us? Is it because we are actually angry with ourselves and project that onto God? Do we really imagine God, who has created us to love Him, actually hates us? If He does/did, then the consequences for us would be much worse than we can imagine. Sin is the hard work we put in to avoid facing up to the fact that God loves us and His love is available to us if we conform ourselves to the pattern of His will for us. These are the main themes I took away from a lecture by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, which I was fortunate enough to attend today.

He was speaking on Julian of Norwich, and one of his complaints was that some people have turned her into a ‘cuddly’ symbol of a God of easy Grace. That God loves us is not, he said, an easy option, because it requires something of us we find it hard to give; that, he explained, was why we are angry we with God. The key text from lady Julian’s revelation is this:

Then said our good Lord Jesus Christ to me: “Are you well satisfied with my suffering for you?” And I said: “Yes, good Lord, in your mercy. Yes, good Lord, may you be blessed for ever!” Then said Jesus, our kind Lord: “If you are satisfied, I am satisfied. It is a joy, a bliss and an endless delight to me that I suffered my passion for you. And if it were needful or possible that I should suffer more, I would suffer more.”

Christ rejoices in our happiness. He wants to know that we are made happy by His sufferings. He is human and he is divine. He suffers because we make him suffer, and yet as God he does it because of his love for us. He is not, Rowan Williams suggested, trying to settle some great legal debt which we owe him, he is trying to overcome our pride and the contrariness which makes us divide ourselves from Him. We cannot, he said, begin to imagine, or exhaust, God’s love.

I wish I there had been a recording available, and hope there will be, as Lord Williams’ thought is not easily captured, but so much of what he was saying chimed with my beloved St Isaac the Syrian. This God lady Julian encountered is the one St Isaac described thus:

“In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the one who has preformed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.”

The idea that love is in some sense ‘easy’, or the bringer of easy Grace, is part of how our sinful and fallen nature reacts to the immensity of His love; it must, says sin, be complicated and hard, and we must suffer much; that drives us away and closes our hearts; we might be saved, but few others. Our pride divides us from each other and from God’s love. As Julian of Norwich concludes:

I was taught that Love is our Lord’s meaning. And I saw very certainly in this and in everything that before God made us he loved us . . . which love was never abated and never will be. And in this love he has done all his works, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting. In our creation we had beginning, but the love in which he created us was in him from without beginning. In this love we have our beginning, and all this shall we see in God without end 

Those, like lady Julian and St Isaac who have experience of the Divine showing know this, know its awful simplicity; we might, Rowan Williams suggested, humble ourselves and cease from mental strife for a moment to glimpse this miracle.

Christianity 531: Evil

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Commentaries, Faith

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18002011-BTH-Job-2-11-Job-and-his-comfortersWell, Professor Chalcedon was making us think last weekend, wasn’t he? I started a comment on his post The forbidden tree and realized that it was going to be 400+ words, which is a bit silly in comments, so here it is.

One of the early heresies of the Christian era was the Gnostic idea that God did not creat[e] evil. This is not what we read in Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things – or in Genesis where He plants the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Evil thus existed before Adam and Eve – mankind came to know it through the fall of our first parents.

It seems to me that many are working very hard to not charge God with creating evil, but…John 1: 1-3 says this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

That’s pretty comprehensive.

Dave Smith’s link says this:

 Now evil is not something in itself, but a lack of something that should be present, e.g. a lie lacks in truth. God does not create evil since it is not a thing to be created. Evil is an imperfection, lack or void in God’s creation.

Huh? We are to believe that an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, creator God, created imperfectly. That doesn’t work very well with me.

Another link I found uses the analogy of a hole, saying this:

 For example, holes are real but they only exist in something else. We call the absence of dirt a hole, but it cannot be separated from the dirt.

Which is all well and good but, the hole was created by the removal of the dirt-by something, water, ice, a chipmunk, a shovel, an auger bit, an asteroid, a thermonuclear bomb, whatever, the hole was created out of the dirt.

In industrial controls, we learn a very strict form of logic, because electrons don’t really care what we think, or feel, and in addition we live and die (professionally) by Occam’s razor. The simplest answer is almost always the correct answer. So let’s plot this out

IF: God is outside time, AND

IF: God created everything that was created, AND

IF: Evil exists

THEN: God created evil.

As Cathy said, “No true Scotsman…”

That does leave the question of why, though?

Like Dave’s link, I end up at the book of Job. Job is the only righteous man in history (and many Jews say he is apocryphal). The link puts it this way:

Job is a righteous, God-fearing man (Job 1:1); however, God allows Satan to inflict Job with horrible disasters and disease to test his loyalty. Satan wants to show God that Job’s faith is false (Job 2:3-7). Under intense suffering Job argues with “friends” about the suffering of the innocent. Towards the end God enters the debate and responds:

Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance? Gird up your loins now, like a man; I will question you, and you tell me the answer! Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding… [Job 38:2-4; NAB]

Will we have arguing with the Almighty by the critic? Let him who would correct God give answer! [Job 40:2]

God responds by telling Job that His wisdom and power are beyond man’s ability to understand. Also man is not in control of the universe: his virtues alone do not ensure earthly happiness. Job humbly closes the debate with the words:

I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know…Therefore I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes. [Job 42:2-6]

In truth, God doesn’t answer Job’s charge, does He? He changes the subject and asks Job, “Who are you to question Me?” Well, there’s no answering that, is there?

And that, I think, is where we end up. God did indeed create evil, just as created everything else. What we do not know, and may not know in this lifetime is why, although I suspect it was to help us to become more Godlike. But it’s well above my pay grade.

For me the real evil in Job, is not his suffering (testing we could say) all that he had is eventually returned at least double. But what about his first family, who were killed in the testing, they remained dead, a testimony to the power of evil.

And for those who want a set of sermons on Job, try Jessica’s favourite internet Pastor, Gervase Charmley, here.

The Testimony of a Woman

06 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by in Blogging, Easter, Faith

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The angel and the women at the empty tomb. Benedictional of St Æthelwold, BL Add. 49598 f.51v

The angel and the women at the empty tomb.
Benedictional of St Æthelwold,
BL Add. 49598 f.51v

I bring you greetings from Jessica, who tells me that she misses us and prays for us as we do her. She is also pleased that you read and enjoyed her posts that we brought over from NEO, and it gave me great pleasure to do so, as well.

I know that you wonder, as do I, whether she will return to us, and not least to the blogs. I don’t know; she doesn’t know. She says there is much she misses about them, the give and take, the camaraderie, the learning and the teaching. But she also says she grew weary of personal attacks, and was increasingly hurt by them. And so, only God knows, and he hasn’t told anyone yet.

Personally, I pray, and suspect many of you do as well, for her return. But while I have told her what I think, as I usual, I will not presume to urge her to do so. That is for her to decide, with God’s help. Nor would I presume to attempt to substitute my judgement for hers. I have far too much respect for her to do such a thing.

And so, as Jessica said yesterday, “Under Jewish Law the testimony of a woman was no testimony at all.” And yet the very fact that you are reading this here is because of the testimony of a woman. How unlikely is this group? How likely for Chalcedon and I to meet? He is a distinguished and senior professor at a great British University, I am an electrician in Nebraska, yet we did. And we have become close friends due to the testimony of a woman. In fact, she foresaw it long before we did, I think. Not long after we became friends she commented that she thought we were the same man, because we always have the same reaction. She’s not far wrong, the major difference between us is which bank of the Tiber we stand on. 🙂

And so, our newer readers have had an opportunity to read Jess’ work over a few days, and to see why we have all come to love her so, and why we link so often to her posts. The Testimony of a Woman, is a powerful thing, indeed.

Probably the things that unites all the contributors here are first, our love of our Crucified and Risen Lord, but also, I think we all love teaching. Chalcedon, and Jessica are trained teachers and yet as I told Jessica once, one of the main things I miss about not being in the field anymore is the sheer joy of teaching someone to be better than I ever was.

The importance of women is something that goes to the very beginning of Christianity. I have said before that if you would understand the role of women in Jesus’ time, you have only to look at fundamentalist Islam, it is simply a milder form of what was. And yet in the Annunciation, we see the Angel sent to tell Mary that she would bear Jesus, reassuring her until she assents saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word,” That is not submission, that is informed consent, to something that she knew could, at best, make her a pariah, and at worst cost her her life. And so she pondered, and carried out the mission.

And again at the end of His earthly mission, Christ again chose a woman to carry the news, Mary Magdalen this time, when He chose to reveal Himself first to her. Jess said yesterday:

She looked into the tomb again, only to be met by the most amazing sight – two angels asking her why she wept. The answer she gave echoes down the ages:  “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” As she turned away she saw a stranger, whom she took to be the gardener and asked where Jesus was. Then the man spoke – just one word, one word which shattered the world as she had known it and which echoes down the ages, even to the end of all things. ‘Mary’ was that word, the first from the lips of the Resurrected Lord. However much her tears had blinded her, that voice was clearly unmistakable: “Rabboni!” She said. Teacher, teacher, that was what she called Him. She went to cling to Him and He said: ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’  He bade her to go and tell the others what she had seen.

And so she did, and so does Jessica, and so should we.

The Testimony of a Woman, God’s chosen method of communication with us, the most powerful sound in the world.

One Little Word

05 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by in Easter, Faith

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Under Jewish Law the testimony of a woman was no testimony at all. The first witness to the Risen Lord was a woman – Mary Magdalen. She was tearful. There she was, come to the tomb to anoint Him, and there was the stone moved. Her mind went where most of our minds would have gone – someone had taken Him away. That great stone had not moved itself, and dead bodies don’t walk out of tombs. The grave-clothes were bundled up and there was no trace of Jesus. Hard to imagine her feelings at the point. Only two days earlier her world had fallen apart. The man whose feet she had anointed and whom she had followed so loyally had been taken, tortured and then crucified. She knew that; she’d been there (which was more than could be said for most of those Apostles). It was over. All that remained was for her to do a final duty to the corpse. But even that was to be denied her. They had taken her Lord away.

She ran back to where the disciples were and told Peter the horrible news. Typically Peter, he ran to the tomb, and equally typically was outpaced by the younger John. But John stood at the entrance, and when Peter arrived he it was who, impulsive and brave as ever, went inside to see that the tomb was, indeed, as empty as Mary had said. The men went back home, no doubt to tell the others; Mary, as is the way of women, wanted to stay there a moment longer, perhaps to gather her thoughts, perhaps to mourn a moment alone.

She looked into the tomb again, only to be met by the most amazing sight – two angels asking her why she wept. The answer she gave echoes down the ages:  “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” As she turned away she saw a stranger, whom she took to be the gardener and asked where Jesus was. Then the man spoke – just one word, one word which shattered the world as she had known it and which echoes down the ages, even to the end of all things. ‘Mary’ was that word, the first from the lips of the Resurrected Lord. However much her tears had blinded her, that voice was clearly unmistakable: “Rabboni!” She said. Teacher, teacher, that was what she called Him. She went to cling to Him and He said: ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’  He bade her to go and tell the others what she had seen.

The testimony of a woman was no testimony in Jewish Law, and yet it was to a woman that the Risen Lord first came. He had broken the bonds of death, He had conquered the power of death and of Satan, the hold of sin on mankind was broken; and these things He entrusted to the power of one who in Jewish Law could offer no testimony at all.

She was the first. Let us love and honour her for that this Easter morning: ‘He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!’

[First published on nebraskaenergyobserver on 31 March 2013]