Secret Believers - Brother Andrew and Al Janssen

Just finished reading this book...

Most of it is set in a fictionalised Muslim country, and particularly a fictionalised major market town there. All the characters and events are allegedly real, but they weren't necessarily in the same place to start with.

As a way of telling true stories about Muslim Background Believers in Muslim countries, though, it's quite sensible. And as would be expected, some of the stories are quite moving.

All in all, it's really encouraging to read about how God is working in countries like that, to read about the perseverance of the church, and it's a real spur to prayer.

There's quite a bit on how to respond as well. Definitely worth a read..

Edited to add: Of course, this sort of thing also happens in England.

Criticism

One of the things I like least about evangelicalism is the way that so often we don't help other people enough because we're scared of hurting their feelings by criticising them. I'll probably get thought some kind of unfeeling male fascist for this, but never mind.

If someone is in a position of Christian leadership, they should be a mature enough Christian so that their whole self-esteem isn't based on what other people think of their ability to lead. They should therefore be able to take criticism.

When people do criticise me honestly, lovingly and constructively, I find it really helpful for improving what I'm doing. One of the most important (maybe even the only important) skill I learnt in my teacher training was the ability to evaluate and be self-critical. I know I am not good enough at being willing to criticise honestly, lovingly or constructively.

Mark Dever offers five points for how to do criticism well, and they're well worth a read:

• Directly, not indirectly
• Seriously, not humorously
• As if it's important, not casually
• Privately, not publicly
• Out of love for them, not to express your feeling or frustration

His corollaries to each of those are also worth mentioning:

• Don't let people misread you
• Don't do it to try to make them like you
• Don't bother correcting unimportant stuff
• Don't make them worry what others think of them
• Sincerely encourage them where God is working

And am I secretly happy that this has knocked me saying why I disagree with the 39 Articles further down the page? Maybe.

Quotes from Steve Tilley

Steve Tilley, whom I think I met in a seminar many years ago, has some amazing quotes in his most recent few blog posts.

I think I will therefore say this once more. The only, the only management question worth asking of a subordinate, is this, 'How can I help you do your job better?'

'The neighbours’ lawn may be greener because there’s a leaking sceptic tank under it.'

Do you keep your sceptics in a tank under the lawn? What happens if they escape? A lawn covered in uncertainty and suspicion? I doubt it.

The Conservative Evangelical Prosperity Gospel

Mark Meynell points out (citing Emma Park) that a lot of evangelicals fall for the Prosperity Gospel, albeit the respectable middle-class sort.

I remember one baptism or dedication service I was at, where the promises made over the child were much stronger than usual, stuff like "Do you promise that if God wants your child to work for him in poverty overseas and die young, you'll support that?", except phrased better. I think that's where we should be at. Not saying I'm quite there though...

Conservative evangelicalism is so often just a subset of white middle class culture that we share all the rubbish of that culture too.

"Confessional Anglicanism"

I was speaking at lunch today to the son of a foreign Anglican cleric, and he expressed the view that the majority of evangelical Anglicans were in his experience confessional Anglicans - they saw the 39 Articles as a confession of faith to which they subscribed.

Now I very much like the 39 Articles - they are great at repudiating the sorts of heresies that were common in England in the mid 16th century, which is what they were written for (though I disagree with one point in them - see below) and where Anglican polity conflicts with Roman Catholic or Methodist or Presbyterian or Baptist polity, I usually agree with the Anglicans. We also mentioned Roman Catholics, who often see it as a membership thing rather than a confessional thing - they are Catholics because they were brought up Catholics or were converted in a Catholic church and can remain part of the Catholic church without necessarily agreeing with all of its doctrines.

But I see my Anglican identity much more like that - as being a "membership Anglican" rather than a "confessional Anglican". The Church of England is the historic Church in England, as preserved by the grace of God essentially since Christianity first came to England. It doesn't require me to believe or do anything contrary to Scripture, so I think it would be wrong to leave it, and right to submit to it on secondary issues on which the Bible is silent (for example, who can preside at a communion service). I'm a membership Anglican and a confessional evangelical.

As for where I disagree with the 39 Articles...

Article VIII

The three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius' Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed; for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.

Of course, Athanasius didn't write the creed that bears his name, and it was never approved by a Church Council (unlike the Nicene Creed which was confusingly from the Council of Constantinople). Athanasius' Creed is actually theologically Augustinian rather than Athanasian, and while I agree with the substance of the creed and with everything in the main body of the creed, I don't agree with the prologue, which is still part of the Creed.

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic Faith is this...

The Creed of St Athanasius

Now, I'd like to see someone try to prove that from Holy Scripture, with particular reference to the thief on the cross and for that matter any theologian before Augustine. Oh, and to show that holding an orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is more important than trusting Jesus.

"Rational Scepticism"

In deciding which passages he will accept, [the "rational skeptic"] proceeds on the a priori assumption that miracles can't happen. So he automatically writes off any Biblical account of a wondrous happening which suggests that there is an order of reality transcending the observable regularities of nature and occasionally breaking in upon them. Nor is rational skepticism content with jettisoning the Bible's miracle stories. It also dismisses other passages on the grounds that they reflect the ignorance and prejudice of a particular age, or the propaganda interests of the Church at a particular stage of its development. Its basic rule of Biblical interpretation is: "When in doubt, throw it out." And the highest scores in the game of radical reductionism are awarded to pedagogues who find the most novel and far-fetched reasons for doubting that any part of the Bible really means what it says.

Louis Cassels, Your Bible [1967]

hat tip to CQOD.

Colour-Changing Card Trick

This is nifty.

I got one...

Mary and Princesses

It's Advent...

One of the things that has quite surprised me in getting to know people is the number of women with huge princess fascination complex things. I'd quite like to try to figure out why it happens - I think it's a wanting to feel valued and beautiful thing, but there's got to be more to it in some of the extreme cases I know.

One of my best friends here at college has a young daughter who is fascinated with princesses too (so it's not just 20 somethings). And he wisely tells her that she is a princess only because she is a daughter of God, the King of the Universe.

And this kind of strikes a resonance with the build-up to Christmas. In a lot of the art representing Mary, she's depicted as wearing blue. Originally, this was because that shade of blue could only be made from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, so it showed she was really important. In some, probably the majority in this selection, she is depicted as well-off, which she'd have to be to own blue clothes. In the picture above (the Annunciation by Conrad von Soest, 1403), she looks like a noblewoman, and that's quite common in the art of the period.

But that seems to me to be almost completely missing the point.

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

Luke 1:26-33, NIV

All the evidence we've got points to Mary being a peasant girl. She's from Nazareth, which was a small village in a provincial backwater. But she's clearly a peasant girl who is really devoted to God, as seen from her response "May it be to me as you have said". She is a peasant girl, yet she is to become the mother of the King of Kings because she has found favour with God.

Mary is not a princess. She doesn't even come close. Except that she's a daughter of the Most High God. If you have to compare this to a fairy story, it's much more like Cinderella (with the very major difference that it's true) - God comes and takes a peasant girl and makes her the mother of his King.

It's scandalous really. And it's meant to be. And it shows that God gives hope and brings light not to the princesses of this world, but to the poor who seek him. As Mary's response shows, that's what God's always done.

Loving Homosexuals

There's an interesting article here. Most of it is fairly standard conservative evangelical stuff - going through the usual passages for homosexuality, without looking at it from the point of view of the theology of marriage, and missing the detailed reasons given for the destruction of Sodom, which don't explicitly mention homosexuality anyway.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
Ezekiel 16:49-50, NIV

But what's remarkable is the ending, which it's great to see from a conservative evangelical.

The first is that Christians should be in the forefront of those who protest when homosexuals are treated unjustly. That is because love and injustice are incompatible. Whenever homosexual people are the object of snide humour on the television screen or harsh penalties in the law-courts, genuinely loving Christian people ought to be the first to stand up in their support. Any minority group which suffers discrimination should have full Christian backing in a struggle for their legal and moral rights.

My second suggestion is also a requirement, if biblical standards are to be kept. Those who accept the Bible’s veto on homosexual behaviour must go out of their way to express genuine love for homosexual people.

At least two important distinctions underlie this essential Christian requirement. In the first place, temptation is not the same as sin. Even if homosexual acts are wrong in God’s eyes, it is not sinful to be tempted to make love to someone of your own sex – unless, of course, you go on to perform the act mentally (see Matthew 5:27-28 where Jesus has heterosexuals in his sights). Heterosexual Christians who ostracise their homosexual neighbours simply because of the pattern of temptations they experience are very confused and very wrong.

It's just great seeing conservative evangelicals being clear about that... The media stereotype, which is true too often in my experience, is that we are sometimes genuinely homophobic rather than being clear that it's a sin just like sex before marriage and that we're all sinners in need of grace.

Paul and the Old Testament Law

I think I learnt to explain this more clearly this week...

On one hand, Paul clearly sees the obligation to obey the Law as having been abolished in Jesus (e.g Galatians 4:21-31). On the other hand, he clearly sees the Law as undergirding a lot of his arguments and his ideas about what is moral.

I think Colin Kruse summarises the situation well.

The Mosaic law was not their law, any more than the Mosaic covenant was their covenant. However, the OT in its entirety, including the law, was their Scripture, and that meant that it was useful for ‘teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness’ (2 Tim. 3:16 NIV), as long as it was read paradigmatically and not applied literally.
New Dictionary of Biblical Theology

So the Law in the Old Testament isn't our Law, but it is still our Scripture. It can still tell us what sin is, for example, and what God is like and what people are like, but it isn't a Law that we have to obey. Paul's description of what Christians are to do to the Law isn't obedience - it's fulfilment.

1 Corinthians 10 is a great example of this. Paul can say all of the following things to a group of (largely) Gentiles:

• The ancient Israelites are "our forefathers" v1
• They drank from Christ v4
• They are (counter-)examples for us v6, 11
• The Bible was written for the Church v11
• The fulfilment of the ages has come upon us v11.

We are not under the Law. But the Law is still our Scripture, and it still tells us what sin is, and we should not sin. It still tells us what God is like, and we should not disregard that.