Ross Royden

2011-12-09T15:01:00.001+08:00

I hope you are all enjoying the season of Advent and are looking forward to Christmas.

It may seem as though I have forgotten to post on Predestination, but there is an explanation!

I had wanted to read Matthew Levering's recently published book on Predestination first. I had ordered it from Amazon, but when it arrived it was slightly damaged. I wouldn't normally have worried as the damage was only superficial, but the book itself costs so much that I thought this time I would return it and get a perfect copy.

The replacement has just arrived an hour or so ago. I have to confess to being a big Amazon fan. If you are going to order online, they make it as straightforward as possible to do so. Anyway, this is going to be my Christmas reading so Predestination is postponed until the New Year!

In the Church's Liturgical Year, we are now in Year B and we will be reading through Mark's Gospel. Last Sunday the reading was the first eight verses. This is the first in a series I am preparing for my Church introducing it.

St Mark's Gospel

TheGospel reading last Sunday was the beginning of Mark's Gospel (Mark 1:1-8),and I thought I might use the opportunity to introduce the Gospel that most scholars believe isthe first of our New Testament Gospels to be written.

What we oftenforget is that while the Gospels would have been read by some, they would havebeen heard by most. That is, for all sorts of reasons, not least the cost ofcopying written texts, the Gospel would have been read out aloud in church groups,perhaps in the context of worship. In trying to understand then the messagethat Mark was intending to convey about our Lord, we need to ask how would ithave been heard.

Sadly, our concentration is not such that we couldcope with sitting and listening to Mark being read out in one sitting, althoughit only takes about an hour and half to do so. Some may remember how the actorAlex McCowan, in January 1978, devised and directed his own solo performance ofthe complete text of the Saint Mark's Gospel receiving much critical acclaim.

Today, we miss the impact that hearing the Gospelread out loud would have had on the first listeners. There are many recordingsof the Bible available: if you get the chance, try listening to one. It opensup a new dimension in Biblical understanding.

And remember: What is true of St Mark's Gospel is true also of therest of the New Testament.

2011-11-24T10:20:00.001+08:00

I have just looked at my diary for the next few days and have realised that there is not going to be the time to work on the series of posts I had planned on predestination. However, in my last post I referred to my friend Ben Witherington's blog and his discussion there of free-will. I tried to give a reponse to it both here and in the Comments section. In the Comments section of Ben's blog, there has been further discussion between Ben. I would like to take the discussion further here.

This is the link to the post:

Bible and Culture

This is what I wrote as a comment on Ben's post:

Hi Ben,

But even on your view of pre-venient grace, it still means that God chooses some and not others: those to whom He extends pre-venient grace to make it possible for them to make a choice. And once you allow God the right to decide who gets to make a choice, then you are vulnerable to exactly the same criticisms that you make against those of us who believe in predestination!

Thank you for your blog. It is always interesting and stimulating!

Ross

This is Ben's reply:

Hi Ross.

Wrong. God extends prevenient grace to everyone.

(Ben)

I did follow up with another comment, but that has not appeared in the Comments!

I was, I must confess, much surprised by Ben's response, not so much because he said I was wrong. Being wrong, after all, is always a possibility in this life! But rather by his assertion that God extends prevenient grace to everyone. This means, on Ben's view, that everyone is being offered the grace they need to enable them to respond to the good news of Jesus Christ. As Ben points out in his post, without it no-one can respond.

Thanks to God's generous pre-venient grace, then, every Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or whoever they may be, is being offered the chance to respond to the good news. However, because in many cases no-one is telling them what the good news is, although they are now able to respond, there is nothing for them to respond to. It also means that the grace of God has been offered them in vain, and it hardly seems to be their fault that it is!

This illustrates, I think, the problem faced by those who want to hold to free-will and a Biblical understanding of the human condition. They need God to enable the will to be free to respond, but they cannot limit those whom God enables in this way for you then end up with a form of predestination because God is choosing whom to enable. The problem occurs because it means that God is enabling people without also telling them what it is he is enabling them to do, which seems more than a trifle bizarre.

The only way round this that I can see for those wanting to hold this position is to argue that God extends pre-venient grace when the Gospel is preached to all those hearing it preached. This inevitably means that God does not extend his pre-venient grace to all. It also raises the question of who decides who gets to hear? If it is us who decides, then that makes it all a bit of a lottery when it comes to salvation and gives us the power to decide not only who gets to hear, but also who gets to receive pre-venient grace.

Alternatively, you have to say God chooses whom we are sent to preach the good news to, which means, however generously, that God is still choosing some and not others, which brings us back to where we started.

What I am arguing is that you have the following choices:

1. that the grace of God is offered to all to enable the to respond, even though all will never get chance to respond simply because all will never get to hear, and so God's grace is, in the majority of cases, in vain

2. that who receives the grace of God is made into a lottery dependent on whom we decide to offer it to

3. you have a form of predestination in which God chooses, in some way, those who get to respond to his grace

For those taking the Bible seriously, I see no alternative to 3. Surely, it is only because we are so against the idea of God choosing some and not others and so addicted to the idea of human freedom that we resist it!

In the series I have planned, I want to think about what such a belief in predestination should look like. I hope to start after the weekend!

2011-11-19T11:54:00.001+08:00

I am a bit worried at the moment as the weather is not looking good for our parish lunch tomorrow. Normally, we set up the tables and chairs this afternoon, they are all here, but we can't set them up because it looks very much like it is about to rain. We have a Plan B, but it is very much a Plan B.

Anyway one of my favourite blogs is that of Ben Witherington's. Interestingly, in his latest post, he writes on the subject I have been posting on lately. I his post takes a very different line on predestination and free-will to my own. Read it here: Bible and Culture

Ben totally disagrees with the idea that God chooses some and not others. He accepts that the Bible teaches that as sinners we are unable to make a free choice to accept the Gospel, but argues that God's grace enables us to make a free choice, while preserving our right to right to say no and to refuse God's offer of salvation. This is a quote from Ben's post:

'Back to pre-venient grace. This theology grows out of texts such as we have mentioned and the way it envisions the salvation process is exactly as it is described in the NT. Yes indeed God’s grace, administered by the Spirit must work in a person leading them to respond to the Gospel. No responsible Wesleyan theologian would suggest that its a matter of ‘us all having free will’. No indeed. Without grace no one responds to God for we are all in the thrall of sin and darkness.'

Readers of this blog will know that I have many problems with this. On thing I keep coming back to is the fact that even on Ben's understanding, God still chooses some and not others: those to whom He extends pre-venient grace to make it possible for them to make a choice. And once you allow God the right to decide who gets to make a choice then you are vulnerable to exactly the same criticisms that you make against those of us who believe in predestination!

Meanwhile to return from the sublime heights of theology, I now need to worry about the ridiculous question of the weather!

2011-11-17T09:56:00.001+08:00

6. Whose Choice?

I have been posting some thoughts on predestination. These have intentionally been limited to a few questions that I think arise when the subject is mentioned, and have not been an attempt to explain or even defend the idea.

Firstly, I have tried to make the point that there are huge problems with the concept of free-will that some think of as an alternative approach. I have suggested that, in the first place, we human beings simply do not have free-will in the way that many of its proponents seem to think. At best, we only have a limited ability in limited circumstances to make some choices and even then our choice is still largely the product of many forces over which we have no control. As Paul puts it: 'the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.' (Romans 7:19) This is why Paul uses the language of enslavement to sin to describe the human predicament. If I am not free to do good, it's hard to see how I am free to accept God.

I have also pointed out that even if we did have the absolutely free-will that some think, it would sill leave God open to the accusation of unfairness as this would make the offer of salvation a very arbitrary thing, if for no other reason, than the simple fact that some get the chance to hear and respond and some don't. Salvation really does become a lottery if God is not involved in some way in helping us to make a choice.

Secondly, however, other alternatives to the idea of predestination that try to combine human choice and God's involvement in it run, I have suggested, into exactly the same objections that are made against predestination, specifically its perceived unfairness. I have not been arguing that these alternatives are necessarily wrong just that they don't overcome the main objection to predestination.

Why, then, are we so resistant to the idea of predestination?

Firstly, it is not I would venture to suggest because we have objectively come to the conclusion that it is wrong, but because we simply do not like the idea that something is being decided for us over which we have no control, even though that's true of most of the important issues our lives. We don't get to choose our physical parents, why are so we so sure we get to choose our spiritual one?

Secondly, we do also recoil from the idea that God chooses some and not others. Unless, however, you believe that God will eventually save all regardless - and what becomes of free-will then? - by definition some will be saved and some will not. The Free-willers want it to be left to us to choose. However, isn't there at least a case for handing the decision over to God!?

In future posts, I will attempt to show on a more positive note why I think predestination should, at least, be given a hearing.

Postscript

As we are now getting ready for the Feast of Christ the King my Church's birthday celebration, I probably won't have the time to start until next week. Mind you, celebrating Christ as King reigning over all in heaven and earth is perhaps a good time to be thinking about how much freedom we have to rebel against him or to accept his rule! Thank you for reading.

2011-11-16T15:31:00.001+08:00

Help!

I would be really grateful if any readers of this blog could visit my Church's new facebook page and if you are so moved to 'Like' it. I need another 11 likes to move on to the next stage in its creation!

This is the link:

Christ Church Kowloon Tong on Facebook

Thank you in advance!

2011-11-16T14:03:00.001+08:00

2011-11-16T14:02:00.001+08:00

5. Whose Choice?

The Bible makes it very plain that God entrusts to the Church the work of preaching the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What happens next? We have broadly speaking the following four positions:

1. God does not direct and guide us to those who are to hear the good news and make the choice of whether or not to accept it, that is left to chance, circumstance, and the commitment of the Church in telling people the good news.

2. God directs and guides us to those who are to hear the good news and make the choice of whether or not to accept it.

3. God directs and guides us to those who are to hear the good news and also helps them to make the choice to accept it.

4. God directs and guides us to those who are to hear the good news and also enables them to make the choice, which he has already decided they should make, to accept it.

I am sure that many in the Church, especially I suspect in the Anglican Church, would go with a version of 1. Of course, we will still pray about it and ask for God's strength and help, but the business of going and choosing is the responsibility of us human beings. If you believe this, then 'good luck', and I use those words advisedly, and I wish you every success, but it is not a position that I personally can share. Whatever he may do with the universe, I can't believe God plays dice with people's salvation.

For others in the Church, and especially those trying to be faithful to the Bible's teaching, 2 and 3 seem to allow us to keep a commitment to allowing humans freedom of choice, while also involving God in the process - which is nice. They also sound reasonable and spiritual: God and us working together for the salvation of humankind.

There are, however, questions that those holding either of these two positions have to answer. With respect to 2, why does God direct and guide us to these particular people? I suppose the best answer would have to be something like these are the spiritual equivalent of a football manager's choice of a squad for a game. They are the ones most likely to play.

With respect to 3, however, why is God not only offering the Gospel to some and not others, but actually helping some and not others?

I am not, for the moment, saying that either 2 or 3 are wrong, simply that they don't escape the accusation of, at best, bias or, at worst, unfairness on the part of God.

That leaves 4. Oh dear, we don't like this one at all do we? But the reason we don't like it can't simply be because it makes God unfair. On any view, but 1, he is still that. And even then he can be accused of unfairness in leaving whether or not people hear the good news to chance.

So what's the real reason we don't like to think that 'God directs and guides us to those who are to hear the good news and also enables them to make the choice, which he has already decided they should make, to accept it.'?

2011-11-14T18:34:00.000+08:00

When I was ordained I was required to swear assent to the 39 Articles of the Church of England. This is the one on Predestination:

XVII. Of Predestination and Election.
Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.

I wonder how many Anglican priests still assent to this today? I assume, of course, that those who did so swear assent at their ordination weren't perjuring themselves. What a wicked thought: Anglicans saying things they don't believe.

After all, we do all mean it when we say the Creed each Sunday, don't we?

2011-11-12T10:48:00.010+08:00

Monday

It is Monday and I just about to set off for Ming Hua our theological college for my lecture. It's Virtue Ethics today! Quite a busy week this week. Tonight it is the Church Council meeting with a very full agenda.

Regular readers will know that I am at present posting a series on Predestination. This is a reflection in the light of it on yesterday's second reading from Thessalonians.

Paul has already described the Thessalonian Christians using these words: ‘For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you …’ (1 Thessalonians 1:4) This is a very different perspective than that adopted by most Christians today. We are more likely to describe ourselves as those who have chosen God. While we focus on our choice to be a Christian, Paul here focuses on God’s choice of us. This leads him to write the words that are in are passage this Sunday: 'For God has destined us not for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ ...' (1 Thessalonians 5:9)

Paul’s thinking is clear. God has chosen the Thessalonians to be his people and his plan for them is that rather than experiencing the wrath that others will experience on the Day of the Lord, they will instead obtain salvation. The obvious question (apart from whether we agree with him, of course) is in what sense does Paul think the Thessalonians are chosen?

This question immediately lands us in the debate about predestination: the idea that God choose some, and not others, to be Christians. Christians have, historically, been very divided over this issue. It is fair I think to say that many in former generations were more able to accept the idea than we are today, although there was still much argument over it. John Wesley famously disgreed strongly with his fellow evangelist George Whitefield in the eighteenth century over it.

There are a number of options when it comes to understanding what Paul means:

1. God chose the Thessalonians in the sense that he chose them to hear the message that Paul and his co-workers, Silvanus and Timothy, preached to them. This much, at least, is true. Paul had been prevented from preaching the Gospel in Asia Minor and had been lead to the Philippians and Thessalonians in Macedonia by a vision.

2. However, while 1 above is clearly true. It seems that Paul means more than just that the Thessalonians were chosen to hear the message. Consequently, others have argued in addition that God chose the Thessalonians, not only in the sense that he chose them to hear the Gospel, but that he chose them as a group, that is, as the Church, to be his people and to obtain salvation. It is, then, the Church that is chosen rather than individual Christians. This is the view taken by friend Ben Witherington in his commentary on Thessalonians.

3. Others have argued, though, that you can’t really choose a group without also, by implication, choosing those who are in the group. Those who take this position then divide into two:

a) Firstly, there are those who think that God chooses individuals because he knows in advance who will accept the message. The Thessalonian Christians, then, were singled out by God to become Christians because God knew in advance that they would accept the good news as preached by Paul and his co-workers.

b) Secondly, there are those who think that God chooses without pre-condition those whom he will bring to faith and that this choice is based solely on his own decision without any reference to us. The Thessalonian Christian, on this view, were chosen by God before they were even born. God then lead Paul to them and enabled them to come to faith in a way he didn’t with other people.

As I have said, this has caused much division in the Church in the past and it would be wrong of us to let it do so in the present. What discussion of this issue does do, however, is to remind us that salvation is God’s idea and whatever role we have to play in our becoming a Christian, the fact that God is willing to accept and save us is a much bigger deal than you and I deciding to become a Christian.

2011-11-10T13:49:00.000+08:00

4. Whose Choice?

The main criticism of predestination, the belief that God chooses some and not others, is that it means that God chooses some and not others! This, it is argued, is simply not fair or just. In response to this perceived unfairness, Christians have resorted to the doctrine of free-will. From this point of view, God freely offers and we freely accept or reject that offer. The problem, I have suggested, is what decides who gets to make a choice. Either it is a random opportunity depending on, amongst other things, where you are born and live. Or God has a role to play in deciding who gets to choose.

However, once you allow God a role in deciding who gets to choose, you are up against all the same problems that those who believe in predestination have to face. These are again summed up in the simple question: why some and not others? Why does God choose to give some an opportunity to make a choice while leaving others with no opportunity for one? The point I am making is that people reject predestination often on the grounds of its perceived unfairness, but fail to see that the alternatives run into exactly the same problem only from a different direction.

The idea of human free-will of necessity must die the death of a thousand qualifications. At best, all we are left with is a very limited ability to choose to be a Christian if we are fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to do so. At worst, we are left with the responsibility for making a choice without God's help we are incapable of making, even if we are fortunate enough to be given the opportunity.

The idea of predestination when put bluntly and starkly may sound unfair, but given the inherent weaknesses of alternative positions based on the idea of human free-will and choice, it at least deserves more consideration than nowadays it is given.

2011-11-10T13:46:00.000+08:00

3. Whose Choice?

I started on this series as a result of thinking about the sermon for Sunday, which contains this verse: 'For God has destined us not for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ ...' (1 Thessalonians 5:9)

We have seen how verses in the Bible such as this, and there are many more, raise the question of free-will and predestination. I have suggested that although it is an idea beloved by many, if not most Christians, free-will in any meaningful sense simply does not and cannot exist in this world. Our life in this world is under too many external and internal constraints.

This doesn't necessarily mean we have no choice, although often it does mean that, but that our freedom to choose is severely limited. Indeed, when we think we are freely making a decision that is truly ours and ours alone, in fact, we are acting exactly as outside forces have determined we would act. That, after all, is the whole point of advertising.

The obvious question then for us as Christians is how much choice we have in whether we become Christians. Looking at it from a purely human point of view and leaving God out of it for a moment, it would seem that we do not have a lot of choice:

1. In the first place, to become a Christian we have to hear about Christ. And clearly you are more likely to hear about Christ in some parts of our world than in others.

2. Then, secondly, even in those parts of the world that Christ is spoken of openly, you still have to hear someone speaking. Even in the UK, where there is an established church many people haven't got the first idea of Christ and who he is.

3. And then, thirdly, even if you hear about Christ, you have to understand what it is the preacher is saying. Given that often the Gospel is expressed either in very difficult to understand terms or simply in such a boring manner that you have lost interest before the first sentence is finished, your chances of being in a position to make a meaningful choice have been reduced considerably.

From a human point of view then, while I may theoretically have a choice on whether or not to be a Christian, my opportunities for being able to exercise that choice are very limited indeed.

Now the obvious criticism of this is that it is from a human point of view and you may say, what about God? Can't God guide and over-rule human weakness? Well, yes, of course he can, but as soon as you involve God in the choice, you limit human choice even more. And once you involve God, you have to ask why he seems to help some to choose and not others.

Either becoming a Christian is a hit and miss affair, in which case it is hard to see how God can be just, or you are faced with the fact that God chooses some and not others, even it is simply to help them with their choice. And so we are back to the question with which we closed a previous post:

Is this how the Gospel comes to us: as an apple tossed randomly into a crowd?

2011-11-10T09:21:00.000+08:00

2. Whose Choice?

Here is the full quote from Calvin that I mentioned in the last post:

'And, in fact, we shall find many that will grant freely enough that God was not moved to send us his gospel by any other motive than his own free grace; but, at the same time, they surmise that the reason why some receive it and some do not, is because their own free wills hold sway, and so, by that means, God’s grace is diminished. For God does not offer us his grace, as a man might offer an apple to little children, so that the best runner should come and have it. If God should thus toss it out, it is certain that the greatest part of our salvation would be the product of our own power and skill, and the praise of it would redound to ourselves.' (from the Fifth Sermon on the First Chapter of Sermons on Ephesians)

Calvin is often seen as having invented the doctrine of Predestination, whether we believe in it or not, it is, of course, simply not true that Calvin invented it or was unusual in his belief in it. Here is a quote from chapter 16 of Augustine On Predestination:

'Faith, then, as well in its beginning as in its completion, is God’s gift; and let no one have any doubt whatever, unless he desires to resist the plainest sacred writings, that this gift is given to some, while to some it is not given. But why it is not given to all ought not to disturb the believer, who believes that from one all have gone into a condemnation, which undoubtedly is most righteous; so that even if none were delivered therefrom, there would be no just cause for finding fault with God. Whence it is plain that it is a great grace for many to be delivered, and to acknowledge in those that are not delivered what would be due to themselves; so that he that glorieth may glory not in his own merits, which he sees to be equaled in those that are condemned, but in the Lord. But why He delivers one rather than another,—“His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out.” [Rom. 11.33.] For it is better in this case for us to hear or to say, “O man, who art thou that repliest against God?” [Rom. 9.20.] than to dare to speak as if we could know what He has chosen to be kept secret. Since, moreover, He could not will anything unrighteous.'

Thinking about this has made me realize that I should tackle in broad terms this subject of predestination. I generally avoid doing so because I am aware that it can be very divisive. I think now, however, is the time to attempt some thoughts on the subject. So I am relabeling the last post to start the series!

2011-11-09T11:11:00.001+08:00

1. Whose Choice?

I am continuing my preparation for Sunday. I wrote in my last post of how we downplay the New Testament theme of the Wrath of God. In 1 Thessalonians 5:9 Paul writes: 'For God has destined us not for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ ...' This touches on another theme that is rarely discussed nowadays, although it used to be a major pre-occupation in previous generations, that of predestination and free-will. What does Paul mean when he writes that God has destined us?

For most Christians, it is axiomatic that we human beings have free-will. Part of the reason we are so committed to the idea of free-will is simple human pride. We hate the idea that we are not masters of our own destiny and that our decisions are not our own. Part of it, though, is that it fits our sincerely held view of how the Gospel works. God offers his grace freely and we freely decide whether to accept it or not.

Personally, I have never bought the idea of free-will. It seems to me to be patently obvious that none of us have free-will in any meaningful sense. This doesn't mean that we can't make choices, but that our choices are never really free. We are conditioned by all sorts of things: our history, our culture, our upbringing, our experiences, our physical and emotional make-up - in fact, the list of things that influence and affect our choices is a long one. For the Christian not only are there historical, social, cultural, personal, and financial limitations on human freedom and choice, there are spiritual ones as well. The Bible tells us that we are trapped in sin, held captive by the world, the flesh and the Devil.

An old joke about the Judge who said that every Englishman is free to have tea at the Ritz makes the point. I may be free to buy tea at the Ritz, but if I am poor and homeless I do not have the ability to take advantage of that freedom.

All this raises interesting questions about how we become Christians. If God leaves it to us to choose whether or not to accept the Gospel, then isn't that being a bit random? Won't some of us be in a better position to make that choice than others? Calvin uses the example of an apple tossed into a crowd of young boys. Won't the tallest and fittest have a better chance of catching it than all the rest?

Is this how the Gospel comes to us: as an apple tossed randomly into a crowd?

2011-11-07T21:08:00.001+08:00

The Wrath of the Lamb

I am now preparing for the sermon on Sunday.

I am particularly drawn to Paul's statement in 1 Thessalonians 5:

'While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly ...'

Those who know their classical history will know what this is a reference to. As fortune would have it, I am listening at the moment to a dramatisation of Robert Graves' book, I, Claudius, by the BBC. It details some of the struggles of the Roman Empire - and Emperors - in the time of the New Testament.

It was Rome's precise boast, or, more especially that of the Emperor Augustus, that he had brought 'peace and safety'.

However, the Empire of God always challenges the Empires, and Emperors, of this world.

I love the way this verse from the Book of Revelation challenges are present day prejudices and conceptions:

'And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?' (Revelation 6:10)

For most Christians, this is just so not where they are. They forget the Wrath of the Lamb who over-turned the tables in the Temple and talked of people being banished to outer darkness.

As Paul says, 'Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' (Romans 12:19)

Christians have interpreted this to mean that there will be no vengeance, no Day of Wrath. That is not what the New Testament says. It tells us simply to leave Wrath to him who alone can judge the motives and hearts of all. But the certainty that vengeance will come is a given in the Bible and we should prepare for it - as our Lord consistently warns us in the Gospel.

This is the message of the season of Advent that we are now approaching.

2011-11-03T10:40:00.000+08:00

Since I wrote the post about excessive meetings, I have been both encouraged by the number of people who have said they agree and discouraged by the relentless number of meetings that keep popping up. The need is for discernment to know which are important and which are not.

I have been working on the sermon for this week and next, which will both be based on the second reading for the day from 1 Thessalonians. The theme will be the same for both: death and the future. Readers of this blog and those who know me will know that I am not a big fan of death. I really dislike the flippancy with which some Christians discuss it.

Anyway, looking at what the New Testament writers, in general, and Paul, in particular, have to say about it, I am struck more and more by difference in perspective between us and them. The emphasis in most Christian preaching and pastoral care today is on the destiny of believers once they die. Understandably, we want to reassure bereaved families and those facing death - whether that of their own or a loved one - that the deceased or dying are going to heaven to be with Jesus. Hope is expressed very much in terms of what happens when we die.

In the New Testament, however, this is not the emphasis. The emphasis is not on what happens to us when we die, but on what will happen to us when Christ returns. Now given that Christ's return has been delayed, from our point of view, for a very long time, it is understandable that we should focus on what happens at the point of death and not at some apparently very far off moment when Christ comes again - if we still believe he will, which many do not.

The problem reflected in the passage from Thessalonians for this coming Sunday seems to be that the Thessalonians were very worried about what would happen to those who had died before Christ came again. Paul writes at the start of the letter:

'...how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.'
(1 Thessalonians 1:9-10)

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy in their preaching of the Gospel seem to have stressed the fact that Jesus will return and we are to wait expectantly and be ready for Him. Perhaps because of the relatively short time they were in Thessalonica, they did not deal with the issue of what happened to someone who died before Jesus returned and it is this question that they are now answering in their letter.

Their answer is interesting: they do not say, don't worry those who have died are safe with Christ, but, don't worry those who have died won't miss out when he returns. In other words, they remain focused on the return of Christ as the ground of Christian hope. It is then, and only then, that we will be raised and forever be with the Lord.

This still leaves hanging the question of what happens to the dead in the meantime. Some people think that Paul either changed or developed his theology in his future letters. Personally, I think it is a case of him explaining it in the light of different situations and questions. But more on that in another post!

2011-09-24T19:14:00.001+08:00

It's Saturday and I can't believe, I have at last the time to sit down to write.

I was asked this week why I didn't want to go to various Christian conferences, clergy meetings and special services. (Not true, BTW: I just happen to limit them to a few hundred a year). The answer I wanted to give was: 'Because I have a life and a ministry'. Although, hopefully, I managed something better and kinder than that.

But really, do we need all these conferences and special services? Don't get me wrong. If someone wants to organize something and then take their chances on people turning up because it sound s interesting and exciting, I am very happy.

But what happens in the Church is that people (normally, clergy) organize meetings, services, whatever, and then tell people they have a duty to turn up.

Well I, at least, am on the payroll and so there is the 'it's your duty argument', but what about families where both partners are working and where attending means having to sit through, let's face it, very boring meetings? It just means that their kids are being neglected and deprived and their marriages put at risk.

I keep hearing that the Church believes in the family, wants to support marriages, and disapproves of divorce. So what do we do to offer support? We organize a conference, meeting, or service that takes people away from their families.

So we believe in the family, do we? Really? Then let's instead organize a movement to protest against unnecessary gatherings, services, and un-needed meetings in our churches.

Just say, No!

I volunteer to Chair the first meeting - oops!

2011-08-12T11:13:00.000+08:00

Thinking Ahead

I am now getting back into the swing of things after coming back from holiday earlier this month. This week I have been going over the diary for the next few months having acquired a new one for 2012 while away. While visiting the UK, I saw party venues advertising for Christmas - scary!

This is the time of they year when requests for assemblies and dates for events and meetings start pouring in for the next year. It is a little depressing watching the diary fill up so quickly! I got so used to filling in dates for 2012 that I signed something with the date 2012 instead of 2011!

Last Sunday, I was preaching on the set reading: Romans 10:5-15 and, in particular, on the theme of preaching itself. Preaching and teaching the Christian faith were what I originally felt myself called to do. I have always felt dissatisfied that it hasn't been more of a focus of my ministry. Like other ordained ministers, I give regular Sunday sermons, but there are so many other other tasks also demanding time and attention as the diary illustrates all too clearly that it can only be one thing among many others. Sadly.

Yesterday I talked about a TV programme popular in the UK to illustrate what I saw as a problem with preaching in the Church. The programme is Dragon's Den. In it would-be entrepreneurs make a pitch to 5 multi-millionaire investors - the Dragons - hoping that the Dragons will make an offer to invest in their company.

Many of the pitches are extremely professional and entertaining. After the pitch, however, comes the questioning from the Dragons. At this point, many of the ideas and companies that seemed brilliant in the pitch are exposed as not nearly as good as they originally sounded. They are shown to be lacking in substance.

Congregations increasingly expect their sermons to be short and entertaining. Like the pitches made to the dragons. The trouble with short and entertaining is that, again like the pitches to the dragons, they can also be lacking in substance.

I have just started preparing for the sermon a week on Sunday. This will be on Romans 12:1-8. It has struck me how much weight Paul puts on the mind and thinking. I have always believed that a sermon which fails to make people think has failed as a sermon, no matter how entertaining it may have been. But more about that in the next post!

2011-07-15T15:22:00.001+08:00

A very wet Hong Kong indeed today. I thought I would bring the posts 'Introducing Romans' to a close with the following Postscript. The posts 'Introducing Romans' really belong together, but that would have made the post very long indeed. Hence the need to break them up. Anyone wishing to access it as an unbroken whole can do so clicking on the label Romans or on the following link:

Introducing Romans

Have a good weekend!

Postscript to Introducing Romans

We have noted how Paul was spending the Winter in Corinth when he wrote Romans, reflecting on his past work in the East and preparing for his future work in Rome and the West. Before that however, he was off on what he saw as a crucial journey to Jerusalem. The last thoughts we have from Paul before he set off on this journey were of those who caused division and opposed his teaching. Doubtless, he was worried that they may get to Rome before him. After all, his opponents had caused him trouble enough in the past 10 years or so.

He was also worried that he might meet opposition in Jerusalem when he arrived with the collection. Paul was well aware that so controversial was his preaching to many Jewish-Christians that they might simply refuse to accept the gift no matter how badly they needed it. He was right to be worried. Acts 21 records Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem with the collection. The day after his arrival, he goes to meet James, the brother of Jesus, and the other leaders of the Jerusalem Church.

Paul gives them a report of his ministry amongst the Gentiles. They seem to have received it well enough, but what really mattered to them can be seen from how they reply to his report. Luke tells us: ‘Then they said to him, ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs.’ (Acts 21:20-21)

Their answer to this concern is for Paul to go to the Temple and demonstrate his loyalty to Judaism and the Law. It was either a set up or a terrible miscalculation. When Paul is recognized in the temple led instead to a riot and Paul nearly being killed. Instead, he was arrested a riot breaks out and Paul is nearly killed. Instead he is arrested. We do not hear of him as a free man again. He is imprisoned in Caesarea for two years before being sent at his own insistence for trial in Rome where we know he was also a prisoner for two years. What happened to him after that we do not know because this is where Luke finishes his account of Paul’s ministry.

Paul had planned three journeys and had written of his desire to see the Roman Christians. He was to make two of those journeys and did eventually get to Rome, but not in the way he had hoped. As for the journey he had planned to

Spain

, we simply don’t know whether he made it there or not. Some think that Paul was released after the imprisonment in Rome recorded at the end of Acts and went on to

Spain

. Some think he was released, but didn’t make it to

Spain

. Others still think that he was not released. The truth is we will never know!

In Christian mission and ministry, we have to make plans. God expects it of us. Otherwise, there is a danger that we will just drift. Churches, dioceses and provinces often have five year plans for what they will do and often these are formulated with the best will and intentions. Just as Paul’s plans had been.

It can then be very disappointing when our plans do not work out as we either wanted or expected as frequently they do not. Coping with disappointment can be hard. On the occasion of my 25 years in the priesthood, I preached a sermon on some of my own disappointments. One person who heard it declared afterward that she was disappointed in me. Disappointment doesn’t always fit with some Christians’ world-view!

But in Romans itself Paul wrote of his sufferings and yet despite them he knew that ‘all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose’ (Romans 8:28). Paul had learnt through years of ministry that although God wants us to plan ahead, God is greater than our plans and has a plan of his own. Paul was to write to the Philippians about his imprisonment:

‘I want you to know, beloved that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.’ (Philippians 1:12-13)

No matter how much we may be committed to the Church and to the Gospel, God is more so. We need in our planning and thinking not only to be open to God’s guidance, but to God overruling and changing our plans. As the saying has it: ‘man proposes, but God disposes’.

And what is true in mission and ministry is true for us personally. We all have our hopes and dreams. We plan for the large and small things in our lives: for our careers, partners, and families. We plan where we shall live and what we shall do. We plan for our children and their schooling. And the big plans give rise to the little plans that govern what we do each week and day.

As Christians, we need to see that our lives are in God’s hands. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan, but that we should not be so attached to our plans that we are not open to God changing them. At times, we will find this frightening and we will be afraid. There would be something wrong with us if we were not. Paul believed, however, that not only did ‘all things work together for good for those who loved God’, he also believed, as he again says in Romans, that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

Yes, our plans will change or even fail altogether – that is a fact of life. For the Christian, however, there is the promise of God that, no matter how much we may be disappointed or how bad things may get, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. As Paul discovered, not only is God greater than our plans, he is greater than our failure and, no matter what, he remains firmly in control.

2011-07-13T10:31:00.001+08:00

This post deals with the other two journeys that Paul was planning at the time of writing Romans.

2. A Journey to Spain

However, while he was reflecting on the phase of his ministry now coming to a close, Paul was also reflecting on what would happen next. Having preached in the east of the Empire, Paul now wanted to go west and his attention turned to Spain. He informs the Roman Christians: ‘So, when I have completed this, and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will set out by way of you to

Spain

…’ (Romans 15:28 NRSV).

Why

Spain

? This cannot be answered with certainty. Paul could have gone east from Jerusalem into the Parthian Empire where we know there were Jewish communities or even as far as

India

. Even if Paul wanted to stay within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, then there was the north coast of Africa, which again had established Jewish communities. There were in other words plenty of places that Paul could have visited. The answer probably lies in the principles Paul gives for deciding where to preach. In Romans 15:20, he writes: ‘Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation …’

By this he doesn’t mean that everyone in a specific region has heard the Gospel, but that the Gospel is established there.

Spain

obviously struck him as a region that had not been evangelized. It also fitted with other ambitions.

3. A Journey to Rome

The third journey that explains Paul’s reason for writing to the Roman Church is that Paul specifically wanted to visit the Church in Rome. In Romans 1:11 at the start of the letter he writes of his longing to see them and tells them in 1:13 that he has often intended to come to them, but has been prevented from doing so.

The reason for Paul now wanting to go to Rome is probably two-fold:

1. The first reason is one that is frequently commented on. It is normally linked with Paul’s intended journey to

Spain

. Paul speaks of how he intends to make this first visit to Rome on his way to

Spain

: ‘For I do hope to see you on my journey and to be sent on by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little while.’ (Romans 15:24) What Paul probably means by this is that he is hoping Rome will be come a base for his mission in the west as Antioch was for his mission in the east. Paul originally was ‘sent out’ by Antioch to preach the Gospel (Acts 13:2) This sending out would involve the Romans in providing support in terms of money, prayer, and personnel – many of whom, as we have seen, were already known to him.

2. All the above is undoubtedly true and important. There may have been a second reason, however, and that is that Paul wanted to bring Rome within the orbit of his authority. We have seen that Paul made a point of principle not to preach where Christ had already been named. And yet, at the beginning of the letter, he tells them that he has wanted to visit them, as he puts it, ‘in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles.’ (Romans 1:13)

There is an apparent contradiction here. Paul will tell them at the end of the letter that he is going to Spain because he doesn’t want to preach Christ anywhere that Christ is named, but here at the beginning of the letter he tells them he wants to come to Rome so that he may preach the Gospel and reap a harvest among them as he has the other Gentiles.

The answer to this apparent contradiction lies in the fact that, as we have previously observed, the Roman Church was not established by an apostle. Paul clearly feels that this means it ought to come under his authority as the apostle to the Gentiles. He actually is quite explicit about this. His Gospel, he tells them, is about Jesus Christ our Lord ‘through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ …’ (Romans 1:5-6)

These two reasons are, in fact, closely linked. If Paul is to be able to use Rome as a base, it is essential that Rome recognizes that he is a genuine apostle, with all the authority that implies, preaching a message that he received from God.

In Romans then he sets out his Gospel, that is what is distinctive about his Gospel as the apostle to the Gentiles and seeks to explain it to the Romans in the hope that they will feel able to embrace both it and himself as the person preaching it. Paul was not certain that they would any more than he was that the Jerusalem Church would accept the collection. Paul was only too aware of those who would oppose it. Paul writes at the very end of the letter: ‘I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.’ (Romans 16:17)

Romans 16:16-20 are sometimes considered to be an afterthought to the letter, coming as they do after all the greetings in that chapter. It is worth reminding ourselves, however, that Paul having dictated a letter to a scribe, in this case as we have seen to Tertius, then adds a greeting in his own hand to authenticate the letter (see Galatians 6:11, 2 Thessalonians 3:17, 1 Corinthians 16:21, Colossians 4:18). What is more he tells the Thessalonians that this is his practice in every letter he writes. This would suggest that 16:17-20 are verses that Paul has added in his own hand.

If this is so, and the verses are there in any case whether in Paul’s own hand or not, they suggest that Paul feels he will have the same battle for the Gospel in the years to come as he had in the years just past. Romans lays the groundwork for what Paul hopes will be future ministry in Rome in the years ahead.

In Romans, Paul writes about the themes that he believed to be essential in his preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. He goes into more detail and deals with the objections with more care than in any of his other letters. He wants to be well prepared for the journeys that lie ahead.

2011-07-09T11:00:00.000+08:00

Today I want to look at the first journey that Paul was planning at the time he wrote Romans.

1. A Journey to Jerusalem

In the winter of 57, Paul felt that his work in the eastern part of the Roman Empire was complete. He writes in Romans 16:19: ‘from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.’ In 16:23, he states that there is now no role for him in these regions. Except that is for one.

Paul has for some years been collecting money from his Gentile churches to take as a gift to the Christians in Jerusalem. As he puts it to the Romans: ‘At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.’ (Romans 16:25-26). Paul didn’t, however, see this simply as a charitable gesture. For him, this was an expression of fellowship between the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and a sign of unity between the two branches of the Church.

Incredible though it may seem, Paul was worried that this generous collection and ‘sign of peace’ would be rejected by the Church in Jerusalem. He writes to the Roman Christians: ‘I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf, that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my ministry to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints …’ (Romans 16:30-31)

In these three months, it is likely that Paul was reflecting on how his ministry had gone now that this chapter had come to an end. Inevitably, he would remember the opposition he had encountered so far, the arguments he had had and be thinking about the questions he would be asked in Jerusalem especially by those who were suspicious of him and his message. The letter to the Romans is the outcome of this reflection.

2011-06-28T09:48:00.000+08:00

A Milestone of Sorts

Only time for a short blog today as I need to put the finishing touches to 5 short talks I am recording this afternoon for the radio.

I wanted to blog today because 30 years ago on June 28 I was ordained deacon in the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary in Chester in the UK. Not having any other opportunity to mark the occasion I thought I could at least remember it here.

I have just been on the Cathedral website and was intrigued to discover, and not a little disappointed, that it makes very little mention of the name preferring just Chester Cathedral. I wonder why this is!

2011-06-27T09:48:00.001+08:00

It's the start of a new week so before I get sucked into all the stuff that awaits, I thought that I would post the
second in this new series on Romans!

Introducing Romans - Part 2: A Letter from Corinth

So what can we be certain of?

Well you would think that the first thing would be that Paul wrote it! In fact, in Romans 16:22 we read these words: ‘I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.’ Tertius means by this that he wrote it down, that he was the person that Paul dictated it to. Does this matter? Well, it is, perhaps, a gentle reminder that Paul wrote the letter according to the writing conventions of the day and that when trying to understand what it means it needs to be read as a first century letter not a modern piece of theological writing.

It seems likely that it was written during the Winter of 57 to 58 from Corinth, a church closely associated with Paul and one which he did establish. Romans is unique amongst Paul’s letters in that all his other letters were written either to churches he himself had established or to people he knew well. Although Paul hadn’t established the Church in Rome and hadn’t even been there at the time of writing the letter, this didn’t mean he didn’t know about the Church there.

He writes at the beginning of the letter: ‘First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world.’ (Romans 1:8) This could be taken as hyperbole or mere flattery were it not for the fact in Romans 16, at the end of the letter, Paul sends greetings to a long list of people at Rome whom he obviously knows well including Priscilla and Aquilla, who were his co-workers in Asia, as well as close friends and relatives.

But why write it?

We need to remind ourselves that Paul was a controversial figure in the early Church as he still is today. Jewish Christians in particular were deeply suspicious of him and he faced severe opposition from some of them. The intensity of this opposition can be seen particularly clearly in his letter to the Galatians and his second letter to the Corinthians. Essentially, the accusation of his opponents was that he had sold out on Judaism. You can see why they thought this. Paul did not require his Gentile converts to be circumcised, as God had commanded in the Old Testament, and he didn’t require them to keep the Law of Moses, which all Jews, Christian and non-Christian alike, believed to be the Law of God.

Paul felt that in some cases his teaching was being misrepresented, that it was certainly being misunderstood, and that some of his opponents were simply false teachers responsible for leading people astray and compromising the Gospel. In Romans, then, Paul doesn’t seek to give a complete statement of Christian theology, rather he seeks to explain those elements of it that were particularly characteristic of his preaching and to answer some of the questions and objections that had been raised because of it.

This explains why the letter deals especially with such themes as justification by faith, the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, the Law, God’s relationship with Israel, and what you can and cannot eat as a Christian! It was Paul’s teaching on these themes that got him into the most trouble with other Christians. He doesn’t need to talk about the resurrection of Christ, for example, because this was something he and his opponents were all agreed on!

Given, then, that Romans is an explanation and exposition of that which was distinctive in Paul’s teaching: why send it to Rome where, as Paul himself acknowledges in the letter, he had never been before?

The answer to this question lies in three journeys Paul was planning to make at the time he wrote Romans.

2011-06-25T15:39:00.002+08:00

It is that time of year again. No, I don't mean the Summer, but the end of term with all its many events! Tomorrow in Church we start reading through Romans and I have been working on a simple introduction to it. This is the first part!

Introducing Romans - Part 1: An Independent Church

June 29 is the feast day of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Apostles.

The Feast of St Peter and St Paul is an important reminder that Christianity isn’t simply about Paul. (In the light of Anonymous' comment below, I think this should read: the spread of Christianity isn't simply about Paul!) There were other important Christian leaders and teachers, not least Saint Peter. Paul was, of course, hugely important, but it is possible to overdo it. In both non-Christian and Christian circles, Paul is often seen as having effectively created what we now know as Christianity.

For some, this is a negative thing: Jesus preached the pure Gospel and Paul came along and changed it, making it into a religion to rival those of the pagans. For others, it is a positive thing: Paul is seen as having provided the much needed theological and intellectual basis for the new movement.

The truth is, as Paul himself acknowledges, that Paul received a great deal from those who were Christians before him. Much early Christian theology was in place before Paul became a Christian. The reason that the picture of Christian origins is distorted is because much of the New Testament was written by Paul and the only early history of the Church, the Book of Acts, focuses on the mission and ministry of Paul.

It doesn’t do any harm, then, to remind ourselves that there were important centres of Christianity that neither Paul nor for that matter Peter founded.

Egypt

, and Alexandria in particular, was an important centre and there is certainly no evidence that either Peter or Paul went there, although our Lord did, of course, albeit as a baby! Rome itself is another example.

Both Peter and Paul are linked with Rome. Peter is believed by Roman Catholic Christians to have been the first Bishop of Rome and by some to have founded the Church there. While it is probable that both Peter and Paul died in Rome, they didn’t found the Church there. The Church was already in existence in Rome before either of them went there. So how did it come to be in existence?

We are told that on the Day of Pentecost that there were in Jerusalem ‘visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes’ (Acts 2:10). They were amongst those who heard the disciples speaking in ‘other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance’. It is likely that some of these became believers and took the Christian Gospel back to Rome where it seems to have thrived.

Despite its independent origins as a Church, Rome was to become closely associated with both apostles. Apart from Rome being the place where the two apostles were martyred under Nero’s persecution of the Church, St Peter was claimed as its first Bishop, and it was to give its name to the greatest piece of Christian writing in the history of the Church: Paul’s letter to the Romans. In this letter, Paul, undoubtedly, does show his theological genius and the letter has been of phenomenal influence on people who were themselves great theologians of the Church: Augustine in the fifth century; Luther, in the sixteenth; and Barth in the twentieth. These and many more like them were all indebted to it. There have been many, many books and commentaries written on it. It is certainly the one I personally have the most books and commentaries on.

Even though it has been so closely studied, Paul’s letter to the Romans still manages to challenge and perplex. Scholars argue over the meaning of almost every verse, often reaching dramatically different conclusions. In the next post, we will begin by asking whether there is anything we can be certain of.

2011-06-08T12:20:00.000+08:00

Returning to Romans

I recently ordered a copy of a book just published on Romans. It is Richard Longenecker, Introducing Romans. Like many, the more I read Romans and the more I read books and commentaries on Romans, the less I seem to understand it. This book is in anticipation of a commentary on Romans that Longenecker is in the process of writing.

It deals with all the issues surrounding Romans such as when was it written, to whom, and why. It gives a very good overview of where scholars are at when it comes to understanding and interpreting Romans. If you would like to read a short review I have written on it, this is the link: Longenecker, Introducing Romans

Scroll down for the review.

Preparing the hymns for Sunday worship for the next few weeks (see the last post) has alerted me to the fact that we will be reading through Romans over the Summer starting at chapter 6. Longenecker's book arrived at the right time! Coincidentally, I have 5 short talks for the radio to prepare to be broadcast in August. Added to the fact that June 29 celebrates Peter and Paul, Apostles, it looks like this is a good time to return to Romans. The last time I preached and wrote on Romans was back in 2008 (see the label: Romans). I don't want simply to repeat what I wrote then, but it will be quite fun to be able to pick up where I left off, and I am grateful that this new book has helped me to do that.

2011-06-07T11:00:00.001+08:00

Communication

I realize that it has been a little while since I last blogged. My blogging does tend to go in spurts. On the one hand, I don't want to get into the habit of just saying something for the sake of it; on the other, I realize it gets a bit pointless if I don't post anything for too long. So my apologies for the erratic character of my blogging!

Here in Hong Kong, the Summer season is now well and truly upon us. Temperatures are well into the 30 degrees centigrade. Strangely, there hasn't been too much rain. No doubt it will come! We have had some heavy rainfall, though, and as usual we have new leaks in the Church. They are not too serious at the moment, but it can get depressing, nevertheless. Those reading this outside of Hong Kong may be interested in the following which has just been published on news website:

'Shelters have been opened across the territory for people to seek refuge from the heat after the Observatory issued the very hot weather warning. It is forecasting more sweltering weather over the next couple of days and is urging people to take precautions and avoid prolonged exposure to the sun.'

June is always busy both with the Schools and with events and meetings before people go away over the Summer. Yesterday, however, was a public holiday in Hong Kong so I took advantage of the phone not ringing and fewer emails coming in to choose the hymns for the Sunday services until mid-September. Apart from feeling very pleased with myself, it is good to know that there is now one less thing to worry about!

Being able to work in relative peace made me realize how much of a distraction email can be. It is now a fact of life, of course, and it can be very useful, but it does mean that people expect instant responses. I am reading Tim Challies book, The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion, and he makes the point that any new technology brings advantages and disadvantages. I remember embracing the email when it was still a relatively new method of communication. It seemed to offer nothing but advantages over the old postal system.

Even in Banchory a significant part of my day would be spent writing or answering letters, and then walking to the Post Office to catch the last post so that they would arrive - hopefully - in a couple of days so that with any luck I would get a reply if required within a week or so.

The change that email has made not just in speed, but in expectation, was brought home to me last week.

I received an email with a question in it at about 10.00am. As there was information I needed to gather to answer it, I thought I would leave it until lunch-time to reply. Meanwhile, the sender grew so anxious that I had not replied immediately, and not being able to get me by phone, phoned a third party to contact someone who would be seeing me later that day to ask me to reply!

Now the business people out there would probably tell me that if I think this is bad, I should try having a Blackberry and see the expectation that this raises. Which is I suppose my point: do we really need this speed of communication? Aren't we in danger of sacrificing thoughtful communication for instant communication? And what is this doing when it comes to prayer and meditating on God's word?

I wouldn't want to be without email. Forgive me, however, for not rushing out to buy an iphone or Blackberry!

2011-04-22T19:13:00.000+08:00

Good Friday

It's rather busy here at the moment, so please forgive a very short blog! I just wanted to say to you, my faithful readers, that I hope you have a very Happy and Blessed Easter.

My love to you all.

2011-04-19T13:32:00.000+08:00

The Real Presence of Christ

Last Wednesday was the last in our series of Lenten Studies on the Eucharist. We were looking at the different approaches to the Eucharist developed at the time of the European reformation and then thinking about how we understand what is happening in the Eucharist when we celebrate it today.

It has become customary to contrast the Roman Catholic belief with the approaches of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin and despite some of the limitations of this approach and the generalizations that it leads to, this approach does have the merit of defining four broad views of the Eucharist.

The Roman Catholic view we discussed last week. Essentially, at the start of the 16th century, Roman Catholics believed in the sacrifice of the Mass and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine. It was this that the reformers in their different ways were reacting to.

All three reformers were agreed in rejecting the idea of Christ being sacrificed in the Mass. They also rejected the restriction of communion to one kind, that is to the bread, for the laity. After this, as is well-known, there was much disagreement.

Luther was nearer Roman Catholic Church in the way he believed in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament. While rejecting transubstantiation, he developed an idea that was much like it. Transubstantiation is the belief that the outward appearance of the bread and wine remain the same, but that the substance, the inner reality, are changed into the body and blood of Christ. Luther suggested, as an alternative, consubstantiation. In this the outward appearance of the bread and the wine remain the same, as with transubstantiation, but the substance, the inner reality, is BOTH that of the body and blood of Christ AND the bread and wine. Luther was extremely insistent on the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament and took the word 'is', when our Lord said at the Last Supper, 'This my body' and 'This is my blood', quite literally.

Zwingli in his rejection of Roman Catholic teaching went to the opposite extreme and opposed any real presence of Christ's body and blood in the bread and the wine. In his initial teaching, at least, the Lord's Supper was for Zwingli a symbolic meal. The word 'is' for Zwingli in our Lord's words at the Last Supper meant, 'This signifies my body' and 'This signifies my blood'. There is evidence of a more positive view of the Lord's Supper in his later teaching, but it is fair to say that Zwingli and Luther fell out over this in a big way with the result that Protestants were to be seriously divided over the meaning of the Lord's Supper, a division which remains to this day.

Zwingli's view has been caricatured as belief in the real absence of Jesus, which is unfair to Zwingli, but not to many of those who followed him. It is a reminder that it is one thing to say what you are against, another to say what you are for!

It is to Calvin's great credit that he spent so much time in his writings trying to develop a positive doctrine of the Eucharist, focusing as much on what was happening as on what was not. Like Zwingli, Calvin rejected the idea that Christ is in anyway physically present in the bread and the wine and so disagreed with Luther and his followers on this. Furthermore, he was not afraid to say so! Calvin, however, also worked hard to reach agreement over the meaning of the Lord's Supper with those who succeeded Zwingli and followed Zwingli's teaching. His efforts were met with some success.

Reading Calvin, what comes across, to me at least, is that the Lord's Supper meant something to him on a more than intellectual level. You get the impression that the Lord's Supper is very much part of his spiritual life and that without it he would feel spiritually impoverished. He is not just writing in a theoretical way about Christian doctrine, but about something that is central to his experience of the Christian life. This explains why for Calvin frequent participation in the Lord's Supper is so important. Calvin alone in his day believed that the Eucharist should be celebrated and the sacrament received by believers on a weekly basis. The Lord's Supper is something that for Calvin truly matters.

While Calvin agreed with Zwingli that Christ is not physically present in the bread and the wine, he rejected any idea that the bread and the wine were empty symbols. He says that what they 'represent, they also present'. He believed that Christ's body and blood are truly offered to us in the sacrament and that when we partake of the sacrament by faith, we spiritually feed on the body and blood of Christ. Christ is thus really present in the sacrament albeit spiritually by faith. We can describe the bread as Christ's body and the wine as Christ's blood because that is what they represent and what they offer the believer who by faith wants to feed on Christ.

I have said here before that for me this is the most helpful way of looking at the Lord's Supper. If I may be so bold, however, I think I would like to go a little farther than Calvin at least in trying to explain our use of language. At the reformation, the argument was very much over whether Christ's body and blood were present in the sacrament. Again, at the risk of over-simplifying, some such as Luther said they were present physically and some such as Calvin, spiritually. There is still, however, a tendency to suggest that we must literally eat Christ's actual body and drink his actual blood whether we do this physically (Luther) or spiritually (Calvin). Where I think Zwingli was on to something was in feeling uncomfortable with this understanding of the Biblical language. I think his own understanding went in the wrong direction, but he is right to ask what the language means.

Surely the language of eating and drinking Christ's body and blood is metaphorical, that is, that what we are being invited to do when we are offered the body and blood of Christ is to participate in the benefits that Christ's death and sacrifice have obtained and made possible for us. To focus on eating the body and drinking the blood whether we do this physically or spiritually is surely to stop at the sign and not to move on to where the sign is pointing.

Not for one moment do I want to suggest that nothing is happening in the Eucharist. I believe absolutely in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and, to put it bluntly, that Christ is offered to us in the Eucharist in a way that he is not offered to us elsewhere. The bread and wine by representing the body and blood of Christ, are presenting to us all the benefits of Christ's passion. What we are being offered is not simply Christ's body and blood, in whatever sense, but an intimate communion with the person of Christ himself made possible by the body and blood of Christ.

In other words to stop at the idea of eating Christ's body and blood, perversely, is to limit the presence of Christ in the sacrament. When Christ said in John 6:57 'whoever eats me, will live because of me' he meant far more than 'whoever believes in me will live because of me', but, surely, he also meant more than 'whoever has bite of my flesh and sucks my blood, will live because of me'. Surely what he is referring to is a union between himself and the believer that is so real and intense that only the language of feeding on him is powerful enough to express it.

For this reason, I have no problem whatsoever in saying that, in the Lord's Supper, I eat Christ's body and drink his blood, but in saying this what I am saying is that Christ is so really and truly present that I am able to encounter him and receive him in way that transcends all speech and doctrine.

As Calvin said, 'I would rather experience it than understand it.'

2011-04-12T11:57:00.002+08:00

The Fourth Lent Study: Audio

After a short delay, I can now post the audio for last week's talk on the Eucharist: From Real Meal to Medieval Mass. I should say that these are not live recordings, but recordings made after the talk. Actually, they are recorded by me here in my study! This means they sound more read than delivered! In the version delivered on the night, I take breaks to explain and develop points more than I feel able to here. I hope that they are, nevertheless, reasonably clear.

I am quite pleased that I am at least getting hold of the technology of doing this. Please let me know if there are any technical problems - as well as, of course, any comments you may have.

This is the link:

The Eucharist - Study 4: From Real Meal To Medieval Mass

2011-04-08T13:49:00.000+08:00

From New Testament Meal to Medieval Mass

It was the fourth of our Lent Studies on Wednesday. This week, we were looking at the transformation of the Lord's Supper from a Real Meal in the New Testament to a liturgical celebration focused on the elements of the bread and the wine as it has become.

It was perhaps inevitable, given the behaviour of some at the Church's meals, that the Church would find it necessary to regulate how the Lord's Supper took place as Paul had had to do at Corinth. In the Didache, written at the end of the first century, or at least at the start of the second, there is the beginning of guidance for a service rather than instructions for a meal. It is clear that formal prayers to be said over the bread and wine are beginning to take shape.

It is still, of course, fairly basic at this stage, but by AD150 we see in Justin Martyr (103-165) a clear structure emerging to the service. The President still, Justin tells us, prays freely over the bread and wine, but there is a definite liturgical pattern to what happens. In another work, the Apostolic Tradition, there is an example of what we would call now a Eucharistic prayer. Traditionally, the Apostolic Tradition has been seen by scholars as having been written in Rome by Hippolytus at the beginning of the third century. It is believed by some recent scholars to be a composite work of material from between the middle of the second and beginning of the fourth centuries. Whichever view is right, this is the earliest surviving example of a formal Eucharist prayer. This prayer has served as the basis for one of the Eucharistic prayers in the modern Roman Catholic Mass and the Church of England Eucharist. It is this Eucharistic prayer we use here at Christ Church.

What is also interesting in the Apostolic Tradition is that provision is made both for a Eucharist with a prayer over the bread and wine and also for a Real Meal without the bread and the wine in a eucharistic sense. This probably illustrates the point we have been making about how the Eucharist as a liturgical service separated itself from the Lord's Supper as a meal with the Eucharist becoming the main service and focus of the Church's worship.

For good or ill, the Meal eventually did die. This was no doubt helped by the the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in AD315. The Church was now able openly to aquire buildings in which to meet. This led to a more formal celebration of the Eucharist with the liturgy for it becoming both more elaborate and fixed with additional prayers being added to it. Some of these prayers we still use today. Although it is important to note that there was not one liturgy everywhere, but rather different families of liturgies. These had much in common, but there were also significant differences. In the West, not surprisingly, the Roman liturgy would eventually become the predominant one for the celebration of the Mass.

Over what we call the medieval period other developments took place:

1. The Mass was seen as a sacrifice being offered by the priest for the benefit of those present or even dead and absent. Perhaps 'seen' is the wrong word as the offering took place away from the worshippers often behind a screen.

2. The Mass thus became as much about performance as it did participation. The benefit was there irrespective of whether the congregation ate the bread or drank the wine.

3. In this performance of the Mass, the bread and the wine were believed to become the body and blood of Christ in a real way. While there were occasional arguments about how this happened, there was no argument that it did happen. The view, of course, that became most accepted was that of 'transubstantiation' most notably as was expressed in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). It is worth stressing that the doctrine of transubstantiation is not so much an argument that the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood, but how they do so.

4. This emphasis on the Mass as the performance of a sacrifice in which the bread and the wine were changed into the body and blood of Christ meant that not only did people not have to eat and drink the converted bread and wine to gain benefit, but that it was desirable for them not to as these were by their very nature holy and not to be taken lightly. The consecrated elements became primarily not something to be eaten and drunk, but worshipped and reserved. Ordinary believers would only take communion once or twice a year and even then only in one kind, the bread. It was not worth the risk of spilling the wine.

Such then was the situation in 1500 at the beginning of the sixteenth century. However, over the next 100 years or so the Church was to divide over its understanding of the Eucharist not just between Roman Catholics and Protestants, but between Protestants themselves. The Protestants were agreed in rejecting the sacrifice of the Mass, the worship of the elements, and that it was wrong to deny the cup to lay people. They could not, however, agree on what was happening in the Eucharist, if anything, and in what way, if any, Christ could be said to be present.

The extremely virulent dispute between Luther and Zwingli over this probably ensured that protestantism could not be a united movement. Criticism of the Mass by Protestants in turn led to a hardening of attitudes within the Roman Catholic Church which at the Council of Trent reaffirmed traditional Roman church teaching.

This brings us then to our last study next Wednesday when I will ask what it is we think is happening and what it is we are doing when we celebrate the Eucharist each week. To help us answer this I intend to look at the main approaches as they were developed in the sixteenth century and to study John 6.

I will post the talks from Wednesday in audio form here in a day or two!

2011-04-04T12:09:00.001+08:00

Happy Monday

It is a public holiday tomorrow here in Hong Kong which is nice! I am hoping to use it to write up my next study for Lent. In the meantime, here is the link to last Wednesday's talk. It is in two parts!

The Eucharist - Study 3: A Real Meal (Part 1)

The Eucharist - Study 3: A Real Meal (Part 2)

2011-04-02T19:33:00.001+08:00

Happy Mothering Sunday

I am preparing now for our Mothering Sunday Services tomorrow.

Sadly, we are in danger of losing Mothering Sunday in favour of Mother's Day. But Mothering Sunday is so much richer. It embraces Mother's Day, but goes beyond it. We remember, of course, our earthly mothers, but also our Heavenly Mother, the Virgin Mary and our Mother Church.

Tomorrow, I will be thanking my God, who mothers me, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who cares for me, my dear mother in the UK, and my wife, who always looks after me. We will also be thanking all the countless mothers who are just being mothers, some who will be thanked and many who will be forgotten.

So for all our Mothers Everywhere, we ask our Blessed Mother to watch over them, keep them, and protect them.

2011-04-01T18:32:00.000+08:00

Please Give Me Your Opinion

This is by request for some feed-back!

I have now found a way to put links to audio talks by me here on the blog. Basically, you click the link and you are taken to a site hosting the talk. All well and good, but a little bit pointless if no-one wants to listen to them! Recording them so that they are 'listenable' to in this way does require a bit of effort on my part, which is no problem as long as I am not speaking into (virtual) space!

So if you listen to the 'trial talks' and find it in principle a good idea (I know it all needs refinement), could you post a comment or send me an email (I know that not everyone likes leaving comments)?

In our Lord's Day, if there were ten people who were willing to meet together on the Sabbath, there could be a synagogue. The idea being that they would tithe (give a tenth of their income) to fund a Rabbi, who would then be in a similar income range to themselves. Don't worry, there will never be appeals for money here, but if there are ten people who find it a reasonable idea. I will go ahead and try to get better at speaking into the microphone!

Tune in at Easter to see the result!

2011-03-31T15:40:00.000+08:00

Update on Lent Talks

I am trying to make some of my talks available through audio. This is all a bit experimental at the moment, but here is the first attempt. It is the second talk for Lent, 2011. If it works, and there is any interest, I will add others!

The Eucharist - Study 2: A Violent and Bloody Sacrifice

2011-03-31T11:50:00.001+08:00

Wait for One Another

At our Lent Bible Study last night, we were thinking of how the Eucharist in the Early Church was a real meal, so real that at Corinth some ate and drank so well that they became drunk. The only reason we have Paul's extended piece on the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 is that he found it necessary to write to correct this abuse.

Early in the letter Paul had written to the Corinthians:

'Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.' (1 Corinthians 1:26)

Not many, notice, but some nevertheless. Some were well-educated, powerful and of noble birth and this is something that sometimes goes uncommented on.

Firstly, those who were rich must have been truly genuine and committed to the Christian message or else why join a movement that was mainly comprised of the poor, slaves, and those from a much inferior social class? What was happening in the early Church was truly exciting: the rich were mixing with the poor as equals and as brothers and sisters in Christ and, whatever else we may say, this is much to their credit.

Secondly, their commitment to Christ expressed itself in the willingness of the rich to support the new movement in material terms. Paul himself refers to the support he had received from Philemon. We know that the first Christians met in the homes of rich people who were willing to open them up for the purpose. It was here that the Lord's Supper and the church services took place. To be able to afford a house big enough to accommodate a sizeable group of people would have meant that you were seriously rich. That despite being rich, and therefore socially well-connected, you were willing to open your home to slaves and the like to come and eat in is really remarkable.

So before we rush into condemning the behaviour of the rich in Corinth - as we must and as Paul does - it is worth remembering all this. So what was going wrong at Corinth? Essentially, it seems that the Church would decide a time to meet. The meeting itself took the form of a meal celebrating the Lord's Supper. The rich being rich could get to the meeting on time without any problem. After all, that's one of the advantages of being rich, you have control over how you live your life and when you can come and go. The poor, especially slaves, have no such control. They have to do as they are told and need the permission of others before they can do anything.

The problem at Corinth was that the rich, instead of waiting for the poor to turn up, got on with their gathering, sharing in the meal together, so that by the time some of the Church had managed to get there, there was no food left and so they left the meeting hungry.

At our study last night, I asked the question how would most Vicars, as advised by their Church Councils, deal with such a situation if something like it occurred today. I suggested that 9 times out of 10 (if not more), the following approach would be adopted:

1. Obviously, we must be careful not to appear ungrateful to the rich who are so kindly providing places for us to meet, generously giving to support the ministry, and even providing food and wine for us to enjoy at our meetings. Where would we be without their commitment?

2. We can perhaps keep back some food and drink for those who can't make it to the meeting on time. Then there will be something for them to eat and they won't go away hungry.

3. We should also encourage the slaves to be more responsible in their time-keeping and ask them to try harder to get to the meetings on time.

I can guarantee that at every Church I have known that this would be the basic approach. So how does Paul deal with the situation? We need to remember that he is normally very diplomatic when dealing with pastoral issues. In Romans 14 and 15, for example, his advice is a model of diplomacy, tolerance, and compromise. Here, however, his reaction is one of absolute outrage:

'What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!' (1 Corinthians 11:22)

He is not in the least intimidated by the wealth and power of the rich. He is not prepared to compromise what he believes to be central Christian truths to keep the favour of the rich. After this expression of outrage, he then goes on to describe the Last Supper Jesus held with his disciples drawing this conclusion:

'Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.' (1 Corinthians 11:27)

He continues to tell them that it is because of their unacceptable behaviour at the Lord's Supper that some have become sick and died (11:30). This phrase 'an unworthy manner' has been taken to mean that each of us as individuals should not receive Communion if we have sin in our lives. It has caused much angst and soul searching. It is, of course, right that each of us take receiving Communion seriously, but we need to see that what Paul meant in using this phrase was that the rich should show respect to the poor. Receiving in an unworthy manner in Paul's terms is less about sin in our personal life and more about failing to show respect to a fellow member of the Body of Christ.

That Paul is talking primarily about our relationship with one another rather than our individual relationship with the Lord is confirmed by the conclusion that Paul himself draws at the end of this passage:

'So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation.' (1 Corinthians 11:33)

So simple: wait for one another! You are in this together regardless of whether you are rich or poor. In Christ who you are, where you come from, which school you went to, what job you do, how much you earn, how popular you are, all count for nothing. Wait for one another! No-one is more important than anyone else. Wait for one another, make sure you value all equally, for only then will you be eating the Lord's Supper in a worthy manner. Any celebration of the Lord's Supper then that doesn't include every member of the Body of Christ, whatever their age or background, is not the Lord's Supper and is to put at risk the physical and spiritual health of all who take part.

All that Paul writes, of course, only makes sense if the Lord's Supper was a real meal. It is also worth noting that as Paul founded the Church at Corinth and was its pastor for its first 18 months, it must have been Paul who established the practice of having the Church's meeting over a meal. Ironically, however, the consequences of what Paul writes here were that the Lord's Supper became less about sharing a real meal and more about what the meal signified. Probably this was a right and necessary development, but we should not forget that originally the Lord's Supper was a real meal that all could share in as had been the Last Supper itself.

The development of the Lord's Supper from being a real meal to the Eucharist in the liturgical form in which we now celebrate it, will be the subject of our next Lenten Study!

2011-03-29T12:52:00.000+08:00

The past few weeks have been especially challenging for me. I am hoping that now the waters leading up to Easter will be calm ones! I am, then, thinking about Easter and preparing for the services over it. The coincidence of reading Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, and delivering a series of Lent talks on the Eucharist as a preparation for Easter has brought home to me how there exist two very different approaches to the death and resurrection of our Lord at work in the Church.

1. A Vindicated Martyr for Truth and Justice and an Example for All

The first sees Jesus' death as the inevitable outcome of his life and teaching. How he lived and what he taught inevitably brought him up against those in power who had to silence him. Jesus, however, refused to be silenced, but proclaimed the Kingdom of God accepting death as the consequence. God, however, vindicated Jesus by raising him from the dead, thus demonstrating that Jesus was right all along, defeating death in the process.

Jesus thus sacrificed his life for the Gospel and God brought life out of death by the resurrection. Jesus died as a martyr, but God did not abandon him. We now are to follow the example of Christ trusting in the God who raises the dead.

The advantage of this explanation of the death and resurrection is that it is entirely intelligible and makes sense providing, of course, that you are willing to believe in a God who resembles the normal Christian understanding of him. After all, we know of modern examples of people who have stood for truth and justice, often at great personal cost, even suffering death as a consequence. True they may not have been resurrected in the way the Bible describes Jesus as having been resurrected, but it is not so great a leap of imagination to believe that God could raise Jesus and anyone else for that matter.

A further advantage is that it is a positive message that resonates with us. It is victory over death and the triumph of truth: an example of how we too should live trusting that God will look after us as he looked after Christ. The emphasis on this view is on the resurrection as sign of hope. It is a call to follow Christ in his life and sacrifice trusting that God will not abandon us either.

On this first view the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is essentially that of someone sacrificing their life for what they believe. There can be no doubt that there is that to it. Nor can there be any doubt that in the New Testament Christ's life and death is held up as an example of how we also should live our lives and not be afraid of the consequences of standing for the truth. But is that all there is to it?

2. An Offering for Sin and Victory over the Powers of Darkness

Not according to the second type of approach. On this view, Christ's death was not just the sacrifice of a martyr giving up his life, but was an objective sacrifice that achieved something in and of itself.

The trouble with the first view is that it moves too quickly on to the resurrection. Those who take the second view argue that Christ wasn't simply dying because of what he believed and how he lived, nor was he dying simply because of the human sin of those who crucified him, he was dying for our sin and behalf of our sin in an objective sacrifice offered to God to obtain the forgiveness of sin and to defeat the forces of evil which controlled the world and held all in their power.

This, in other words, was not an ordinary death. It was a unique, one off death that forever changed the nature of reality. God did indeed vindicate that death in the resurrection, but the death itself was where the primary action took place. This is why we still preach Christ crucified.

The problem with this view as opposed to the first is that it is much harder to explain to people today. It is certainly not easy for us to understand. In the ancient world, sacrifices were normal and understood in a way they are not today. However, I am certain that the second view is the foundational view of the New Testament.

The question, of course, is which should be foundational for us today. I imagine that this Easter most will go with the first.

Whether we are right to do so, however, is another issue altogether.

2011-03-24T16:00:00.001+08:00

A Violent and Bloody Sacrifice

What perhaps got the 16th century protestant reformers more upset than anything else when it came to the Roman Catholic understanding of the Mass was the suggestion that in the Mass a sacrifice was taking place. The Sacrifice of the Mass was something that they rejected altogether.

I am aware that protestants often caricature Roman Catholic teaching on this, and I certainly don't want to be guilty of that myself, but it is clear that many did and do believe that in the Mass Christ is being offered again to God and that this sacrifice can bring benefits that can be applied to people or situations. This is where the idea of masses 'for the dead' came from and why the Mass had value even when people didn't actually partake of the bread and the wine. The benefit lay in the event itself.

The reformers, however, believed that Christ died 'once for all' and that his was an unrepeatable sacrifice. The idea that Christ was being offered again by the priest seemed to them completely to undermine the sufficiency of the work of Christ. They not only then rejected any such thought, they rejected any practice that might even suggest it, and so out when priests and out when any talk of altars in churches. I have known many Christians today who get very upset when we call the table at the front of the Church, an altar.

It is surely right that we should reject any suggestion that Christ's death is anything other than perfect and sufficient for our salvation. Maybe, however, we shouldn't be quite so squeemish about talk of altars and maybe we should be careful of rejecting the association of the Eucharist with a sacrifice altogether.

Last night in our second Lent Study, we saw how the Last Supper was a Passover Meal and how the Passover commemorated the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. They were commanded by God to slaughter a lamb and put its blood on the door post so that the Lord would pass over the Israelites homes and spare them the death of their first born in the 10th plague. In the Last Supper, Jesus institutes a new Passover celebration to remember the sacrifice he is about to offer of himself. There is to be a new covenant in his blood. A deliverance this time from slavery to sin.

The Lord's Supper then is about sacrifice and death, about blood and a new covenant to save us from sin. At the Eucharist, we may not be offering a new sacrifice, but we are remembering a sacrifice without which we would not have any hope of life. The Eucharist is about a death that brings life to the dead.

Many talk about the Eucharist as celebrating the gifts of God in creation. They see it as a thanksgiving for all that God has given to us and an offering of ourselves to his service. It is a celebration of life. It is right that there is this to it. It is, however, far more important in the Eucharist that we focus on the death of Christ for us - for that was rather our Lord's point. We remember what he has done for us by his death in the past, we seek the benefits of his death in the present as we ask forgiveness for our sins, and we proclaim, as Paul puts it, his death until he comes.

Seen like this, the word altar seems to be entirely appropriate!

2011-03-19T17:37:00.002+08:00

Love Wins, and Loses

I am preaching at the services tomorrow and my intention had been to focus on the Epistle reading from Romans 4, which fits nicely with what I plan to say on Wednesday at the next Lenten Bible Study. However, when I sat down to write the sermon (I am still one of those who write his sermons out by long-hand), it became obvious that there was only one reading that I could focus on and one verse in it, that is, the Gospel Reading and John 3:16:

'For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.'

I have preached on this verse many times, but what gives preaching on it added significance this week is Rob Bell's book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, and the furore surrounding it that some are calling Hellgate! I have already mentioned it in the blog this week. As I have said, I am surprised that people are surprised that this is where Rob Bell is coming from. Perhaps they are just annoyed that he has raised the issue at all.

One of my favourite TV series at the moment is Outnumbered. There is something of a running joke in it about the 'elephant in the room': something large and significant, but about which we do not speak. Universalism, and more particularly a rejection of hell or any idea of it, is the 'elephant in the room' of the Church. We don't talk about it, but it is there, and universalism and a rejection of anything that passes for hell is the default position of most pastors, priests, and preachers regardless of their particular brand label. Even if we prefer, for whatever reason, not to talk about it.

(A Question for Anglican Vicars: have you ever told anyone who has asked you about what has happened to their loved ones who have died that they haven't just slipped away and that they might not just be waiting for them in the room next door?)

Rob Bell's book, even if this was not his intention, is making people come out of their own particular closets. Me included. A lot depends, of course, on what you mean by hell. For some it is a place and for others, a metaphor, but even a metaphor must be a metaphor of something, and, even on the most benign, understanding it cannot be something very nice. Certainly, it must mean that for some people the future is not one of heavenly bliss, but of hellish consequences.

Now Rob Bell is very clever. He asks whether we think Gandhi is in hell. But Gandhi is one of those nice non-Christians that we all like. What about Hitler and Stalin and Mao? The fact is we can all play this game and we would be wrong to do so. The question of who is in hell, wherever or whatever it is, is not for us to judge. After all, we may be going there ourselves.

But because we shouldn't speculate on its occupants, doesn't mean it doesn't exist (whether literally or metaphorically).

I personally deplore those who have labelled Rob Bell a heretic and a false teacher. (How many people have you brought to faith in Christ this week?) But that doesn't mean he is right. In fact, I believe he is seriously wrong, not in the questions he asks, but in the answers he implies.

It would be lovely to think that, ultimately, we were all going to cuddle one another in heaven rather burn in hell, but if cuddling each other is our destiny, then rather than appealing to those parts of the Bible we like, we should just get rid of it altogether, and admit we are making the Christian faith up as we go along and hoping we get it right.

However, for anyone who wants the Bible to play an authoritative role in what they believe, there is no escaping the consequences of God loving us, consequences which, because the set reading tomorrow stops at John 3:17, we won't be told of in our services, but which can be spoken of in places like this:

'Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.' (John 3:18)

God's unconditional love for all of us has very serious consequences. It is that some of us will be won and also that some of us will be lost.

2011-03-17T11:21:00.003+08:00

Lent 1

We had the first of our Lent Bible Studies last night. It is always hard to attract people during the week here, for good reason, so it was encouraging to see those who did come! As I have said previously, this year we are thinking about the Eucharist and its meaning. Most of our services at Christ Church are Eucharistic and follow a set liturgy. Given this, it is all too easy to become mechanical in our worship and to fail to pause to meditate on the significance of what we are doing.

One of the questions, I want us to ask during these studies is about what is happening when we receive the consecrated bread and wine. Is anything happening that can only happen in this way by this means? Do I receive something tangible from God that I would not otherwise receive? And if so, what?

I spoke last night of my own developing understanding of the meaning of the Eucharist. I began my Christian life in a context in which Communion was peripheral and unimportant. At Bible College, I came to believe, through studying the New Testament, that partaking of the Lord's Supper should be the focus of our gatherings for worship. As a curate on the Wirral in the UK, I increasingly came to believe that Communion was something that we did together. This is important because very often people focus on their own private Communion with God to the exclusion of their Communion with each other. I found the book by Robert Banks, Paul's Idea of Community, very helpful in thinking this through.

When I left the Wirral, I had, then, a strong view on the central importance of the Eucharist for Christian worship and a belief that it was a communal celebration. I still, however, saw it fundamentally as something we were doing because our Lord had told us to, something that encouraged us to look back to what he had done for us rather than something that had real benefit in the present. To put it another way: while there are always blessings that are to be had from obedience to God, in principle there was nothing to be received in Communion that could not be received by other means - through praise, prayer and preaching, for example.

It was only after my return to parish ministry in Scotland that I found myself focusing more intensely on what was happening when receiving Communion. Was it only because our Lord had commanded it that we did this? Was its only benefit that it helped us to look back to what Christ had done for us? It was here that Calvin proved especially helpful in my thinking. To cut a long story short: I came to see Communion as conveying what could not be received by any other means and that something very real truly is present when we receive Communion.

I thus came to the place from which I approach these Lenten Studies with three basic convictions:

1. Worship should be Eucharistic, that is, the Eucharist should be at the heart of our life together as the Church.

2. Communion is both about our Communion with each other as fellow members of the Body of Christ and also about our Communion with Christ himself. In the Eucharist, there are thus two key moments: at the Peace when the Celebrant says, 'We are the Body of Christ', and at the administration of the sacrament when the minister says to the Communicant, 'This is the Body of Christ'.

3. When we receive the consecrated bread and wine, we really are feeding on the body and blood of Christ, truly present in the sacrament and this feeding is vital to both our spiritual and physical health as Christians.

Next week, I want to look at the Eucharist as a violent and bloody sacrifice. This week, I looked at my own developing understanding over my ministry of the Eucharist as something that conveys real benefits to the believer in the present. I want now to begin to look at the nature of these benefits by looking back to the context of our Lord's institution of the Eucharist. It is for very good reason that we call the place where the bread and wine are laid an altar.

2011-03-16T10:42:00.001+08:00

Can't buy me love

Pastor Rob Bell of Mars Hill Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan has been creating a stir in the United States with a book, Love Wins, that reportedly supports belief in universalism: the doctrine that God's love will save all. I first heard of it when a friend in the UK phoned and asked whether I had heard that Pastor Mark Driscoll had become a universalist. My friend had, of course, confused the Mars Hill Churches. Mark Driscoll of Seattle coming out in favour of universalism really would have been a story!

(A good account of the controversy is in fact available via a link on the Seattle Mars Hill web-site:
A Chronology of Rob Bell )

My own confusion, however, is different to that of my friend. I can't understand why anyone remotely familiar with Rob Bell would be surprised that he lent towards universalism. If you build your ministry on the idea that God welcomes everyone always, you are hardly likely to believe that he will change his attitude when you die.

My confusion extends to the reaction in the media, on blog sites, and facebook. Most Christians I know gave up believing in God punishing people after they die a long time ago. I don't simply mean us Anglicans whose God is just such a cuddly teddy bear he couldn't possibly hurt anyone - or do anything else for that matter - but even most evangelicals who lay claim to the Bible. I don't mean they have stopped believing in a God who judges in a theoretical sense, it's just that the belief has no practical implications for how they preach or minister. It's a belief that like Mrs Rochester is embarrassingly kept hidden away in the theological attic and is not allowed out or admitted to.

My suspicion, and it's just a suspicion, is that part of the commotion surrounding Pastor Bell's book is that he has stated in plain terms what most preachers and ministers pretend and imply to their congregations and the outside world that they believe. There is, in fact, a very simple test to find out whether we are universalists to all intents and purposes. It is to ask ourselves when was the last time we told someone that the consequence of not turning to Christ is that they will not be saved.

Whatever we think of Rob Bell's book, Rob Bell challenges us to be honest and to sign up openly to the universalism we imply by our lives and teaching to be true or to start telling it as it is.

2011-03-13T09:33:00.002+08:00

Lent

It's the first Sunday of Lent and I have just returned from our early morning Eucharist and am enjoying a coffee before our main morning service. I quite like the liturgical change that Lent brings. For us at Christ Church no flowers in Church, more reflective hymns, and an emphasis on self-examination and abstinence.

I notice, however, that some churches rather than encouraging people to 'give up' things for Lent are encouraging people to 'take up' things for Lent. This fits well with an age that doesn't think it should ever have to do without anything. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, of course. Our Lord did without food and took up prayer, but I don't think that's quite what those talking about by taking up something up for Lent mean.

Although the liturgical emphasis maybe on quiet and reflection, Lent here at Christ Church is actually quite a busy time of year. For me lectures at Ming Hua, our theological college, a series of Lenten Bible Studies, the Church AGM and a raft of important meetings beginning tomorrow with our Church Council meeting: the last before our AGM.

The Lenten Bible Studies this year are going to be on the Eucharist. This is at the suggestion of a member of the congregation after the Lenten Bible Studies last year. Our worship here is Eucharistic, but it is easy to assume that people understand why and what it is we are doing when we come to Communion. It is also the first time for a while that I have led a series of talks on the subject and I am quite looking forward to it.

I have written about my own experience and how I approach the Eucharist on this blog (see under Eucharist) and this will be the approach I will be following in the talks.

On Wednesday, I intend to begin by talking about my own experience first as a non-Eucharistic evangelical, and then the discovery of its importance while studying the Bible at Bible College, through to celebrating regularly as a priest. I then want to look at its background in the Passover Feast, particularly its violent and bloody background. We often forget the significance of the language of the Eucharist as a sacrifice followed by drinking blood. This is perhaps why some prefer to focus on the Eucharist as a celebration of the gifts of creation - so much nicer than thinking about sharing in a death!

Calvin believed that Christians should receive Communion regularly and that the Lord's Supper should be at the heart of the Church. Many Calvinists subsequently ignored this aspect of his teaching. I hope over Lent that we can think at Christ Church about why it really is so important that we keep the Eucharist at the centre of our worship. I will keep you informed.

Have a good Lent!

2011-02-22T10:53:00.001+08:00

Happy New Years

Christmas has been and gone so has New Year and Chinese New Year. So many big occasions in such a short period! Now things begin to get more reflective as we prepare to enter Lent. These contrasts are, I think, important giving rhythm to the year. Last night, I went to hear Bach's, St Matthew Passion conducted by Mazaaki Suzuki. This was one of the opening performances for the 2011 Hong Kong Arts Festival. I am not musically literate, but I can tell when I am in the presence of a composer of genius and a performer of greatness. It is quite a long work to sit through on a Monday night especially after coming from a deeply frustrating School Council meeting.

Growing up, I had little interest in classical music. My childhood and teenage years growing up in Liverpool were dominated by the Beatles and what was known then as the 'Mersey Beat'. The first 'record' I remember buying was a single by Adam Faith! When I became a Christian, I became part of a culture that was deeply suspicious of 'pop' music, and I stopped listening to anything but Christian attempts at it: some reasonable, some ..., well, let's just say, less good. This was the era of the 'Come together' experience. Anyone remember that? We still sing 'Freely, freely you have received', which comes from it.

As I rejected the dualism implicit in this sort of approach, I started listening to non-Christian pop again and enjoyed it though was never a big enthusiast. I much preferred the spoken word on BBC Radio 4, which now, thanks to the internet, I can still enjoy here in Hong Kong. Classical music, however, remained very much outside my horizons. I had heard Church Choirs sing Bach and organists play his organ music before and after Church services and, frankly, did not care for it very much. This was both personal taste and ideology. It was after all the time when the cry was for the Church to be relevant. Whatever that meant.

My first serious encounter with classical music was at a concert I went to, which must have been around 1978. It was at the Royal Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool, given by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. A friend had invited me to go with him and I had no reason for not going. The Hall itself I had been in before. It was where my School Speech Day was held. The first of the two secondary schools I went to being just down the road. I seem to remember they were playing Elgar, although I don't remember which piece. I do very clearly remember thinking, in a moment of enlightenment that has stayed with me, that this was altogether different to what passed for music in popular culture. What was more the musicians had real talent and ability that went way beyond thumping away on a guitar. I didn't give up listening to popular music, but I did begin listening to classical music. Not knowledgeably, I freely admit, but for pleasure, nevertheless.

Ironically, I now find myself having done something of a circle and thinking that my young Christian self may have had a point when he rejected much popular music as the work of the Devil. Certainly the values it promotes seem hard to justify from anything like a Christian position no matter how much fun they may or may not be to dance to.

Whatever, I wish the Hong Kong Arts Festival every success as it brings great artists like Mazaaki Suzuki to Hong Kong and, hopefully, introduces more people to the genius of composers like Bach. Maybe one or two may even stop to think about the words!

2010-12-24T22:24:00.000+08:00

Happy Christmas

I am just about to go over for the Christmas Midnight Service. We had the Christingle and Crib service earlier! It doesn't come more challenging than that, does it? I was worried that the sheep (aka Sunday School children) carrying the Christingles were about to do their version of roast mutton! All are safe, I am happy to say.

I hope that wherever you are and whatever you are doing that you have a very happy Christmas.

Thank you to all who sent good wishes for Christmas.

Love to all.

2010-12-14T20:59:00.001+08:00

Let the Fun Begin ...

Well tomorrow is the first of many Christmas and Carol Services for me. The Christmas trees are in place and the decorations are all up - and I love it!

I think the Christmas tree here at the Vicarage is the best we have had, so all credit to 'Sophie's Christmas Trees' who I bought it from!

I know that there are many Christians who are ambivalent about Christmas, and I am sure we are right to want to present the Christmas message over the next couple of weeks. We do have to remember, though, that it was us Christians who decided to celebrate our Lord's birth at the time of a pagan festival, so we can't really complain that people just want a good time.

Maybe, while people are relaxed and having a good time, we can invite them to think about what can give long term joy as opposed to short term happiness. I hope so.

I continue to work on the Christmas Eve sermon. I am focusing at the moment on this phrase from John 1:

'The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.'

I am not sure I have ever known what it means. Having spent today with the commentaries, I am even less sure. All suggestions gratefully received! Oh, and please don't tell me that it means that Jesus' coming means we will all live happily ever after. I, for one, am sure that is NOT what it means!

I hope all your own preparations for the Nativity of our Lord are going well.

2010-12-13T12:11:00.001+08:00

It's Monday morning and a chance to catch up after an especially busy weekend! A highlight was the Graduation Ceremony and Eucharist at Ming Hua Theological College where I teach Christian Ethics.

Last Sunday at Christ Church was Pledge Sunday, the Sunday when we ask church members to commit themselves and their resources to God for the year ahead. I was preaching and below is the text of the sermon I preached. This is produced from the sermon notes and hasn't gone through too much editing.

The epistle for the day was Romans 15:4-13 and I used this as the basis for the sermon.

Pledge Sunday - Sunday, December 5, 2010

Two dates are especially significant in the history of Christ Church: dates, which, I think are of some significance for us as we celebrate Pledge Sunday today. The first date is September 2, 1933 and the second, October 29, 1938.

September 2, 1933 first. Many people do not realize that Christ Church has a history that goes back before the Church was founded in Kowloon Tong. Christ Church is a rebirth of another Church: Saint Peter’s, West Point. St Peter’s had been built in 1872 as a mission church for seamen. It was supported in its work by large shipping companies. Their support for this work stopped in the years after the First World War. As many of its congregation had moved to the newly developing area of Kowloon Tong, the decision was made to open a church in Kowloon Tong and close St Peter’s.

A church house was acquired at 3 Duke Street. Worship at St Peter’s stopped in August, 1933 and the church house was consecrated by Bishop Hall on Saturday. September 2, 1933. Worship took place in a large room in the house. The altar and furnishings were those of St Peter’s. At this stage, the church was known as the Kowloon Tong Anglican Church.

Secondly, October 29, 1938. Subsequently, the decision was made to build a church. The site of the present church was chosen in January, 1936 and, with government assistance, a church was built. The consecration service was held on October 29, 1938 and the Kowloon Tong Anglican Church became Christ Church. Our church bell came from St Peter’s and it is rung before every service and at the moment of consecration during the Eucharist. The bell is a reminder to us of our origins. In the mission to the Seamen’s Club in TST, the Mariners' Club, there is the Chapel of St Peter: a reminder and a continuation of the work of the former church.

Since then, both Kowloon Tong and Christ Church have been through many changes. What has not changed has been our commitment to serve Christ here in Kowloon Tong. That we have been able to do so has been because of the commitment of members of Christ Church over the past 77 years. Today it is important to pause and say thank you to God for all those who have both pledged their support and honored that pledge in the past. Their faithfulness has enabled us to be here today.

Our epistle this morning describes God as the God of steadfastness and encouragement. Some versions translate the Greek word for steadfastness as endurance. Christ Church illustrates this. Our ministry endured even when Christ Church was taken over by the Japanese army during World War II and used as a stable for their horses. It has endured during huge physical, geographic, political and economic changes in Hong Kong. And from this we gain great encouragement.

At this point, doubtless, you are probably expecting me to encourage you to pledge your financial support to Christ Church today so that we can continue this ministry. And yes, I will do that, of course, but first I want to ask what it is that we are pledging to.

Turning to our epistle again, I would like to read the verses which come before the set passage, that is, the first four verses of Romans 15. Paul is writing to the Church at Rome, which, like Christ Church at the beginning, did not meet in a church building, but in a house or rather several houses. These were pioneering Christians and Paul speaks enthusiastically and positively about them. As is common and understandable, these Christians tended to get on better with some rather than others. As a result, the Church could be divided roughly into those from a Jewish background and those from a Gentile background. Again, as is common and understandable, those in one group argued for what they thought was right and how the church should behave, and the other group for what they thought was right.

This is typical, not only in churches, but in any human group or institution. There are always going to be decisions to be made and problems to be dealt with. There is nothing wrong with this: it’s just inevitable. The way that these decisions are normally made is by one side campaigning for what they want, and another for what they want. We have seen this just this week with the decision about where the World Cup will be held in 2018 and 2022! You see it in schools, businesses, clubs, even the family. It’s what democracy is all about!

In Rome, the Gentile Christians were arguing their case; the Jewish Christians theirs. Today we would settle such a dispute by taking a vote at the Church Council or a church meeting. Paul, however, argues for a much more radical way of tackling the issue: ‘We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbour for the good purpose of building up the neighbour. For Christ did not please himself …’

Paul tells them that instead of trying to get what they want, even what they think to be right, they should instead ask what will build up and strengthen my neighbour: my fellow Christian in the body of Christ. We do this to follow the example of Christ. For the Church is not ours, but his, and his way of doing things is different to that of the world.

Paul prays, ‘May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus …’

The Church is to solve any disagreements and make any decisions, not by one side getting its own way, nor even by popular vote, but by a coming together in harmony. By asking, not what do I think is best, but what is best for the Church and my fellow Christian in it?

Now unity is not the same as unanimity, nor is it the same as uniformity. We are all different with different likes and dislikes, outlooks and opinions. This is what enriches our life together. It is not whether we are different, but how we handle those differences.

Paul tells the Romans: ‘Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you.’ Rather than letting our differences push us apart, we are to use them to bring us together. We are to welcome and accept one another even if there are times when we don’t particularly like one another!

When people come to Church, they should come to a place where people accept one another and so accept them. We are not to be a place where people feel judged, but welcomed: everyone is welcome because Christ welcomes everyone.

This is an important reminder to us of what the Church really is. The Romans met in a house just as our first members did. ‘We are the body of Christ.’ Not the building or the place where we meet, but us, the people. We need to get this right first. Yes, the building matters. Yes, we value and thank God for it. But it is not the building that is holy; it is the person sitting next to you: your fellow member of the body of Christ.

But this is not all. Our harmony, unity and acceptance of one another are not an end in and of itself. It isn’t so we can feel nice when we are come together on a Sunday or whenever. Paul does indeed write: May not the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, but why? He continues:

‘So that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (v6)

And this brings us to what today is about. Pledge Sunday is not in the first place about money. First and foremost, today is a challenge to us to pledge that we won’t seek to please ourselves, that we will take Christ as our example and welcome and accept one another so that together we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ here at Christ Church, Kowloon Tong.

For unless we have this as our goal and pledge, then instead of being the Kowloon Tong Anglican Church, we will simply be the Kowloon Tong Anglican Club. And there is already a perfectly good Club in Kowloon Tong!

Having made this Pledge to seek together to serve Christ and glorify God, God, of course, also invites us to commit our resources: our time, our abilities, and, yes, our money to make what we have committed ourselves to happen.

As your Vicar, today I want to pay tribute to all those who have given in the past so that we can worship together today. I want to thank you for all you have given in the past year, and invite you on this Pledge Sunday to go on giving that we may indeed with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Chris.

Our service will include an Act of Commitment, please take it seriously! We will close our service today with the hymn by Charles Wesley that expresses what it is we are committing ourselves to:

‘Ye servants of God, your master proclaim,

and publish abroad His wonderful name;

the name all victorious of Jesus extol:

His kingdom is glorious and rules over all.’

Amen.

2010-11-30T12:59:00.001+08:00

Most people will by now be aware of the publication of a huge amount of 'secret information' on the wikileaks web-site. Listening to Hillary Clinton describing it as an 'attack on the international community', I was reminded of the words of Lenin:

'It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.'

The reaction of governments, especially western democratic governments, to the leaks has been one of universal condemnation. There seems to be some irony here. America and Europe have been lecturing the rest of the world for some time now about freedom and democracy, extolling the values of free speech and a free press. And yet now the same governments are arguing, in effect, that there are some things it is better in a democracy for the people not to know. Interesting.

I do not doubt the importance of secrecy and confidentiality in government. The wikileaks affair does, however, illustrate something that I have been arguing for a long time now and this is that there is a huge difference between democracy and freedom.

Freedom, of course, means different things to different people. If you are a young single mother living on crime and drug ridden housing estate, freedom is more likely to be about not getting mugged and your child not growing up a drug addict than it is about which distant politician happens to represent you in congress, parliament, or wherever.

If you live in a parliamentary democracy like the UK, for example, you have more chance of a good education and health care if you live in one part of the country to another. Freedom from illness and freedom to vote are very different types of freedom.

Don't misunderstand me. I am not saying that democracy is necessarily wrong just that it is not the same as freedom. How much freedom you have once a government has been elected will depend on a variety of factors. All governments limit freedom of speech, movement, and knowledge, doubtless with good reason. The freedom most of us value, though, depends as much, if not more, on how much we earn, where we live, whether we can access adequate healthcare, and if our children can get a good education or even just an education. Quite simply, democracy is a system for allowing a population some say in who governs them. No more and no less. It may or it may not lead to greater freedom. Hitler, after all, was elected to power.

Why does this matter to Christians? It matters because, I think, we are in grave danger as the Church of baptizing a system of government as though one system has more right to be called Christian than another. We have done this in the past, of course. When Constantine became a Christian and was, eventually, baptized a whole system of power was baptized with him. We have had Popes who have been secular as well as religious rulers, Holy Roman Emperors, Kings governing by Divine right, classes of people claiming to be born to rule, and Presidents of the United States, all of whose power has been justified by reference to God. Now we are doing the same with democracy.

By all means argue and campaign for democracy, but please let's stop acting as if it is a divinely sanctioned system of rule inherently superior to and more 'Christian' than all others.

2010-11-29T08:06:00.002+08:00

Christmas is Coming

It's official we are now in the run up to Christmas! As I suspect many of you did in your churches yesterday, we lit the first of our Advent Candles on the Advent Wreath, I have begun writing Christmas cards, and the Christmas tree arrives on Thursday. Readers of this blog will know that I love Christmas and I am really looking forward to it this year with all that goes with it - even the mince pies! (For my previous comments on Christmas, see under the label Christmas.)

I don't know what your favourite moment at Christmas is. For me, it has to be the Midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve. But herein lies a paradox. I have preached at this service for quite a few years now both here and, previously, in Scotland, but I have never been happy with my sermon. I don't just mean in the 'we can always do better' sense, rather I am always left feeling that I just didn't quite get there. The sheer wonder of the occasion seems to demand so much more than certainly I have been able to achieve.

Part of the problem - only part of the problem, mind you - is that by Christmas Eve, I always feel completely drained. Like having a Ferrari with no petrol in it. No matter how hard you put your foot on the accelerator nothing is going to happen. Another part of the problem is simply finding the words to describe the Word, the Word that did not stay a Word, but became flesh and dwelt amongst us.

This year I am going to go back to basics and work through the Christmas Gospel, that is, St John's Prologue to his Gospel in chapter 1 which tells of the Word becoming flesh. I have read it so many times and preached on it often, but have never really felt that I have got to the heart of what St John is saying. So to begin with, I am going to try reading and understanding the Prologue again.

Anyway, the sermon preparation for Christmas Eve begins in earnest now.

2010-11-25T10:23:00.002+08:00

A New Liturgical Year

I am more than a little embarrassed at how long it has been since I last posted. It has been so busy this term and the trouble is that once you get out of the habit of posting regularly, it tends to get squeezed out. But no excuses! Thank you to those who have been reading older posts and sending comments, you have encouraged me to get back in the saddle.

So what's been happening here? All the normal things, but rather a lot of them. We have experienced quite some numerical growth over the past year, which resulted in the largest congregation in our history a few weeks ago. It is hard to identify any one single reason for this growth, we are, of course, encouraged by it, but it does also pose challenges not least in terms of space.

By far the greatest challenge, though, for me is getting to know the congregation. How do you get to know so many people in any meaningful way and, more importantly, how do you minister spiritually to them? Spare a prayer if you are reading this!

Last Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King. I have written about this occasion in the past. To save you having to look it up: it is also our anniversary celebration. Christ Church was officially 77 years old. Our Bishop was with us for the service, a good number of people were confirmed, and we had a Parish lunch back at the Vicarage. The weather was really kind to us dry, sunny, and not too hot and many came both for the service and the lunch.

I wrote in the last post about different new years. That was at the start of the academic new year. This week it is, of course, Advent Sunday and the start of the new Church liturgical year. I can't believe we are back to Year A and Matthew's Gospel. It only feels like last year that I bought some new commentaries on Matthew to help preparing sermons in Year A. From a preaching point of view, my two favourites are Craig Keener's and Ben Witherington's. I am going to make use of France this time around as well, and will be interested to see what he has to say. I generally like France, even if he did once turn me down for a job!

I have enjoyed Luke this year, though. I have found myself regularly turning to Darrell Bock's large two volume commentary and Craig Evans' much shorter volume, which I have found surprisingly helpful given its size. What always strikes me reading Luke's Gospel is how different it feels to Acts. Obviously, you might say, given the change of location, but it is more than that. From the moment Acts opens you feel things are different. I don't mean in a literary way and it's hard to put into words. It is just a completely different world in every way. Maybe there is a sermon there in itself.

Thank you again to those who are still interested in this blog. I make no promises except to say I'll do my best to do better.

Have a great Advent!

2010-09-08T10:38:00.002+08:00

A New Year

Well, I hope that you have had a good Summer. Everything has started up again here as I imagine it has where you are too. I commented in Church on Sunday on how we have the Church's year beginning at the end of November, the New Year on January 1, Chinese New Year at the end of January, the financial New Year on April 1, but that for me September and the start of the new academic year was, for me, the significant one.

It is partly because of my involvement in education and partly because in the UK where I grew up, September was when the weather seemed to start to change - for the better, as far I was concerned. Whatever the reason, this new academic year brings some interesting anniversaries for me.

I was inducted as Vicar of Christ Church, Kowloon Tong on September 10, 2000 so Friday will mark the tenth anniversary of my time as Vicar here. I was born in 1955 and so in October I will be celebrating my 55th birthday, and then towards the close of this academic year at the end of June, it will be the 30th anniversary of my ordination. Quite a few milestones then and obvious cause for reflection, but, hopefully, not too much introspection. Don't worry I won't go on about it much in these posts or anywhere else for that matter. However, I thought I might be permitted to at least mention it here!

I also wrote a bit here about my feelings on reaching my 25th anniversary as a priest. My feelings haven't changed. My overwhelming emotion as I reach these various milestones is that I wish I had done more and achieved more.

When I was first a curate I found myself taking many funerals. The hymns were nearly always the same: 'Abide with me' and 'The Lord's my shepherd'. I wasn't too fond of 'Abide with me' in those days, but over the years it has become one of my favourites. We don't sing all the verses that Lyte wrote for it nowadays. One of them, however, seems particularly apt:

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

My hope is that the close is a good while off yet and that regrets about the past will spur me on to try to do more, if God spares me, in the years ahead.

2010-06-28T13:42:00.000+08:00

It is really wet here today and a rainstorm warning has just been posted. Heavy rain always brings problems in older buildings such as ours. We have already discovered a couple of new leaks. They are a nightmare to get fixed especially in this weather. I thought it might be fun to post the notes of the sermon on Communion and Confirmation I mentioned in my last post. They are notes and I have resisted the temptation to edit them too much!

I am pleased to say that after some technical problems, it is possible to hear sermons form my Church again very clearly via the web-site (www.christchurch.com.hk). Yesterday, I was preaching about the Law, Christian freedom and ethics!

Today is the First Sunday after Trinity. The Church’s calendar is rather imbalanced! For the past few months, we have been celebrating all the major festivals of the Church: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and, last week, Trinity Sunday itself and with them the seasons around then. Now we have stretched out before us the many Sundays of Trinity. One poet wrote in a poem:

We have done with dogma and divinity
East(er) and Whitsun past,
The long, long, Sundays after Trinity
Are with us at last.

Before, however, we settle into counting the Sundays of Trinity over the Summer. I want to delay the count by a week to think today of the meaning of a special day that was celebrated by many Christians on the Thursday just past. If you lived in places like Brazil or Austria, on Thursday you would have had the day off work, because in the Roman Catholic Church, for example, Thursday was the Feast of Corpus Christi. Corpus Christi is Latin for the Body of Christ. As the Church developed its liturgical Calendar for worship, it was obvious that there were going to be special days for celebrating of Lord’s birth, death, resurrection and ascension. It was not until the middle of the Middle Ages that demand arose for a special day to celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion. It is true that on the Thursday in Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Christians remembered how Jesus ate his last Supper with his disciples. But we also remember how he washed the disciples’ feet and commanded us to love one another. What Christians wanted was a day specifically to focus on the sacrament itself.

Not all Christians celebrate Corpus Christi, Roman Catholics do, some Anglicans do, the rest do not. This perhaps illustrates the division and confusion amongst Christians about the meaning of what we call Holy Communion. For us the Eucharist (another name for Holy Communion) is the central part of worship each week as it is in many Churches around the world. For Roman Catholic Christians, the Mass (another name for Holy Communion or the Eucharist) is so important that it is celebrated daily. Yet even for us who celebrate frequently, it is not always clear either why or what it means.

In the 16^th, there was an attempt at Reforming the Church in Europe associated with names such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin. But even these reformers couldn’t agree with each other as to the meaning of Holy Communion. Luther and Zwingli fell out bitterly over it and the division, sadly, remains today. Even in the Anglican Church, there are real differences as to the meaning of Holy Communion.

There is not enough time to go into details this morning about the meaning of the Eucharist. Although can I pause advertise the Lent Bible Studies next year, which I provisionally intend to be on this subject. I am responding to a suggestion after this year’s Bible Studies!

Basically though, the differences are between those who think that something is actually happening in Communion and those who see it more as a visual aid to help us remember Christ’s death for us. Roman Catholics, for example, believe that the bread and wine quite really do become the body and blood of Christ. Many evangelicals think nothing happens at all.

What we can be absolutely certain of is that the last thing Jesus did before he was arrested was to have a meal with his disciples that he commanded them to continue. It wasn’t the Church who came up with this idea, but our Lord himself.

And while there is much that we do not know about the Early Church, we do know that they took this command of our Lord’s ‘to do this in remembrance of him’ very seriously, so seriously that we also know that in the mid-50s just 20 years or so after our Lord gave the command to his disciples, Christians in Greece were keeping it and celebrating the Eucharist. And so it continues today.

We know then that this is something our Lord wanted us to do and that from the beginning it is something that Christians have done. In the first few centuries of the Church, Christians look it so seriously that they excluded people from receiving Communion who weren’t baptized or in good standing with the Church. So if someone was a known sinner, they would be excommunicated that is, forbidden communion. The Roman Catholic Church still continues this practice.

Nowadays, Christians who take the Eucharist very seriously go out of their way to include people pointing out that Jesus himself ate with sinners. Judas who was to betray Jesus wasn’t excluded from the first communion.

All of which brings me to Anglicans and to our own Church. Historically, Anglicans have attempted a middle way in all this. I will talk more about this in Lent next year. We have sought to avoid extremes. Anglicans in the past have said that anyone who is confirmed may receive Communion.

Let me pause for a moment to talk about Confirmation. With the rise of infant baptism in the Church, the need was felt for a way for adults to confirm the faith into which they were baptized as a child. At Confirmation, the Church confirmed God’s acceptance of that person. It as at this point that people started receiving Communion.

Nowadays, the Church doesn’t demand Confirmation for a person to receive communion. The trouble is this has led to confusion over the meaning of Confirmation and over when people can receive Communion.

Here at Christ Church many do not receive communion, but come forward to be blessed instead. Also here at Christ Church, many have chosen not to be confirmed. It so happens that we are now looking forward to our Confirmation service in the Autumn.

Now let me be clear. Here at Christ Church we fully respect everyone’s privacy and right to decide for themselves whether and when they take Communion. We also respect people’s right to decide for themselves whether they are confirmed or not. Could I today as we remember Corpus Christi, however, ask this of you?

Please would you if you don’t receive Communion, think about why you don’t. And if you haven’t been confirmed, could I encourage you to at least consider it. Classes will be held before hand to help people think it through with no obligation to go through with it if they decide not to. Communion and Confirmation are important to us and we would like to explain why.

For today I would to conclude simply by saying this. Being a Christian is hard. Life itself is hard. Jesus knew this and gave us a means to find strength and sustenance. We need physical food and we need spiritual food. It is this that we believe God provides us at Communion as we receive the body and blood of our Lord. Please think seriously about it and consider your own participation!

2010-06-07T11:16:00.001+08:00

Communion and Confirmation

It is now very much the Summer season here in Hong Kong. We get many visitors to Christ Church from all over the world and they often ask me how I like living in Hong Kong. There is no problem answering. Hong Kong is my home and the place I believe I am called to work and minister. If, however, I was to be asked the one thing I find hardest to cope with living here, without hesitation I would reply: the heat and humidity of the Summer. It really does get hot and even a short walk outdoors leaves you dripping wet! Fortunately, nowadays, we have air-conditioning! I have no idea how the British who came here in the days before air-conditioning coped, especially when I see pictures of them in very formal dress.

Yesterday, I was preaching on Communion and Confirmation. It was Corpus Christi last Thursday and we are planning a Confirmation service for the Autumn. One of the biggest issues for me before officially becoming an Anglican was the issue of infant baptism. For years I struggled with the question of whether it was legitimate to baptize babies or not. So much baptismal theology simply doesn't work when applied to infants. In the end, I decided that historically the Church had baptised babies and that it shouldn't be an issue to keep me from being ordained an Anglican priest.

As I have wrestled with the issue in the years since ordination, while I have come to believe that it is valid to baptize babies, Biblically valid, paradoxically, I still don't think that what the Bible says about baptism can be applied to the baptism of infants. To put it simply: adult baptism is not the same as infant baptism. I don't think there can be any getting away from the fact that in the New Testament baptism is a choice made by the person being baptized, something that by definition isn't true when a baby is baptized.

It is to get over this that Churches such as my own have a Service of Confirmation when a person previously baptized can confirm for themselves the vows made on their behalf at baptism and when the Church can confirm God's acceptance of them. The practical, pastoral problem here for me is that I can't persuade people to come to Confirmation.

To an extent this is a problem of our own making. It used to be the case in Anglicanism that we would only admit to Communion those who had been confirmed. There was then some incentive to be confirmed, although it is also true that we never saw many of those who were confirmed after they had been confirmed. It was treated as a passing out parade. Anyway, we decided as Anglicans, rightly in my opinion, that baptism was sufficient in order to receive Communion and so we now encourage anyone who has been baptized, whatever their age, to be receive Communion.

This means that many simply don't feel the need to go through Confirmation. They confirm their faith each week by being part of the worshipping community and taking Communion. The question then is, does it matter if people don't get confirmed? It certainly matters to some in my Church who still think that Communion should only be given to the confirmed. However, as I point out to them, that is now no longer an option. It also matters to Bishops for whom confirmation is one way of underlining their authority given that it is the Bishop who must confirm. The actual answer, however, is, I think, yes and no!

Yes, it matters precisely because, as I said at the beginning of this post, infant baptism is not Biblical baptism. It is perfectly valid on its own terms, but, in the New Testament, Christian faith requires a commitment - a public commitment at that. Confirmation, then, provides a means to make up for what is lacking in infant baptism. Indeed, it could be argued that Confirmation is New Testament baptism without the water.

But no, there is nothing to say that this is the only means for making the public commitment that the New Testament requires. If a person has made a decisive decision to turn to Christ in faith and repentance and is open about that in their life and witness, it is very hard to see why Confirmation should be a requirement. Of course, this doesn't mean it can't be encouraged by the Church as a way of demonstrating that commitment liturgically.

It does mean that it is quite difficult to persuade people to join the Confirmation Service we are planning in the Autumn!

2010-05-06T20:53:00.001+08:00

Having written about politics yesterday and in this the day of the General Election in the UK and as I look over my polling card for a totally pointless election in Hong Kong on May 16, I thought I would post an interview with one of the politicians I most admire in the world.

I don't always agree with her, but I always feel she knows more than me or most people anyway, and I would trust her as a person whatever her politics. So sad she doesn't want to rule anywhere. Here is a very recent interview with her.

BTW: anyone who can help me meet her let me know.

Condoleezza, respect!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArUKdqzLJYs

2010-05-05T12:14:00.000+08:00

I have had a bit of a holiday from blogging for the past month. Easter went well and we are now turning our attention at Christ Church to Ascension Day and Pentecost when there is quite a bit going on.

I was at Ming Hua, our theological college, yesterday, where the subjects under discussion were the Christian attitude to those in authority and to war. Living in Hong Kong and coming from the UK, gives different perspectives on these issues. The UK is, after all, at war in Afghanistan and Iraq and is going through a general election as I write. While in Hong Kong, there is much argument and debate about attempts to change the way the Chief Executive is chosen here. How involved, then, in politics should the Christian be and what should be our attitude to the various political issues of our day?

There are, I think, two extreme positions. On the one hand, there are those who think that Christians, or at least the Church, should not be involved in politics at all. As politics is about how the society in which we live is governed and organized, this seems to be an impossible position for anyone who takes the Bible seriously to adopt. However, on the other hand, there are those who engage in politics wholeheartedly and think the Church should do the same, but whose approach is no different to anyone else involved in politics. You wouldn't know they were Christians in other words.

What both these positions have in common, ironically, is that effectively they both leave God out of the picture. The first thinks that belief in God and involvement in politics don't mix. The other keeps belief in God and political involvement separate. If we see this world as God's world and if we believe we should love our neighbour as ourselves, it is hard to see how we can keep either God or ourselves out of politics.

But our starting-point, our ideology and presuppositions will be very different to those of the non-Christian, even if we end up voting with those who don't believe what we believe. The Christian will never forget that this age is transient, under the judgement of God, and that all human endeavour, even at its best, is tainted with sin. We will never, then, be able to give ourselves completely to any human political system or philosophy.

This is something that Christians in the west especially need to hear for there is the somewhat strange notion amongst some western Christians that freedom in a political sense and democracy are one and the same thing. Consequently, if the Christian supports freedom, they should also support democracy. I have often said I feel more free in Beijing than I do in London. I can walk the streets of Beijing without fear of attack, for example, in a way I can't walk the streets of London.

Democracy is a voting system for deciding who should govern us. It is not the same as freedom nor does it guarantee it. It may be a good system, but to absolutize it is as wrong as it was in the past to absolutize the divine right of Kings.

2010-04-03T09:42:00.004+08:00

It's Easter Saturday and we are getting ready for tomorrow. This is the last in the series on God. I think this is a good day for it. Happy Easter everyone!

6. The Question of God: The Answer is Christ

In what we have been saying about God so far, the assumption has been that it is within the Christian faith that the answer to the question of God is to be found. This seems to rule out any contribution that other religions may want to make. In these relativist days, however, to suggest that there might be only one way, one truth, and one life to follow, if you are to come to God is considered arrogant and bigoted. In what follows, I will attempt to explain what I think our attitude to other religions should be and, at the same time, bring our series on the question of God to a close.

Firstly, we need to acknowledge that individual members of other religions are often good, kind people whose commitment to their faith is every bit as sincere as is that of Christians to theirs. Indeed, the commitment of some members of other religions puts Christians to shame. Furthermore, the contribution that some people of other faiths make to the general well-being of human beings leaves many Christians far behind.

Secondly, we also need to acknowledge that Christians, past and present, have, on many occasions, got things horribly wrong. On an individual level, we have not followed the example and teachings of Christ; our lives have not witnessed to him; and we have frequently been guilty of hypocrisy and sin. On a corporate level, the Church has much of which to repent. The Church has to accept guilt for its instigation of, involvement in, and complicity with injustice, exploitation, violence, and a general inhumanity. Our behaviour, at times, towards those of a different religious belief to our own cannot be defended. And should not be.

Thirdly, though, we ought, perhaps, to make a distinction between the Christian religion and the revelation of God in Christ. Religion is what we human beings do. Sometimes, we will get it right and our religion will be a faithful enactment of the teaching of Christ. It will express our obedience to and worship of our Lord. On other occasions, it will be entirely neutral, neither good or bad in itself, but capable of becoming either. On still other occasions, we will get it entirely wrong, and rather than the Christian religion being something good or even just neutral, it will become something bad, even demonic, reflecting our continuing sinfulness, rather than our obedience to God. On most occasions, it will be a blend of all three.

So, as an example of the good, we might cite the bravery and sacrifice of the early Christian martyrs, who stood firm against paganism and persecution at the cost of their lives as they proclaimed the Gospel of Christ. As an example of something neutral, we might cite synodical government (or any form of Church government for that matter). There is nothing wrong with it in itself. At times, it might be a useful way to enable the Church to serve God. At others, it might prove a complete waste of time and a barrier to the Holy Spirit. As an example of something wrong, we might cite the systematic persecution and torture of one group of Christians by another at the time of the reformation.

To say that the truth is to be found in Christ is not the same as saying that the truth is to be found in Christ’s disciples. It should be. Sometimes it is. Often it is not.

Fourthly, however, no matter how much we may recognize and acknowledge our failure and sinfulness, both individually and corporately, as Christians, we cannot compromise on what God himself has revealed to us in Christ. For the Christian, what God has spoken to us in Christ is an absolute standard and completely normative in matters of faith and practice. No matter how much we may go wrong in the process, our aim as Christians must be to be faithful to Christ both in what we believe and in how we live.

God is to be found in Christ and in Christ alone. This was a central tenet in the preaching of the Apostles and the Early Church Fathers. The Apostle Peter, when speaking to the Jewish authorities, says:

‘There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)

It follows, then, that because God has revealed certain things to us in Christ, we cannot believe other things that contradict this revelation. For example, we cannot believe that Christ rose from the dead and agree with Muslims, who do not. We cannot believe in a God who is personal with whom we can communicate and agree with Buddhists, who do not. We cannot believe in one God who alone is worthy of worship and agree with Hindus, who do not.

Some of the most basic Christian beliefs are absolutely incompatible with the beliefs of other religions. We might agree on some things, but that does not alter the fact that we disagree on much more. We might be able to work together in some areas, but that must not be at the cost of revealed truth. If we claim to be Christians and recite the creed each Sunday, then, for good or ill, we are also saying, like it or not, that the other religions cannot be right, no matter how good or nice individual members of them may be. In this respect, we need, humbly, to have the confidence to believe what our faith teaches us to believe.

When we declare our faith every Sunday in the Creed, we are declaring faith in one God and one Lord. It is an inevitable consequence of this that there is one truth and that that truth is to be found in Christ.

But why all this emphasis on Christ? It is because the question of God is ultimately not solved primarily by argument, debate, and discussion, necessary though they are. And we do not find God by a consideration of the evidence, important though it is to examine it. The answer to the question of whether there is a God is to be found in Christ. Personally, we come to know this God for ourselves as we encounter him in and through Christ. This is an encounter that everyone can have, and which everyone must have, if they are to answer the question of God for themselves.

We are about to celebrate Easter. Easter tells us that God took pity on us, that he had mercy on our ignorance and our inability to find him on our own by our own efforts, and that he came instead to find us and show himself to us. When we look at Christ, we are looking at God. Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples, said to him:

‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’

Jesus reply to him says everything that needs to be said:

‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ (John 14:8-9)

May each one of us find for ourselves the answer to the question of God in the only place that it can be found - in Christ.

2010-04-01T11:22:00.001+08:00

5. The Question of God: The Problem of Which God

Church leaders have expressed concern recently at the extent to which people are turning from Christianity to new age religion, astrology, and the like. It should come as no surprise. For years now, the church has gone soft on traditional Christian belief. It has encouraged people to reinterpret Christian theology and to bring it up to date. If we do not seem to believe in our faith, it is no wonder that society at large should decide not believe in it either. All that our attempts to make Christianity relevant have done is to drive people back to what used to be believed before Christianity ever came on the scene. It is rather ironic that young people should see pagan beliefs as more relevant to them than Christianity. So much for the desire to be modern.

The problem, though, is a real one. There can be little doubt that religion is back on the agenda. Interest in spirituality is high, but the choice of faiths and the variety of spiritualities on offer is bewildering. When it comes to religion, we are faced with a religious supermarket. It is perhaps no surprise that people are adopting a pick ‘n’ mix approach to religion. A bit of Christianity, a helping of Buddhism, a smattering of astrology and - hey presto!- instant religion.

It was not always so in

Britain

. It was always the case that the world was full of different religions. There have always been many competing religions, and Christianity has always had to struggle to be heard on the world stage. It was once the case, however, that the average believer in the pew could choose to ignore the existence of other religions. Living in

Britain

in the 19th century, you were unlikely to encounter any other religion besides Christianity. This is emphatically not the case today.

Firstly, we see and hear of other religions on our televisions and radios; we read of them in books, newspapers, and magazines. The world has become a global village, and all of us are increasingly aware of what is happening in other parts of it. We are conscious today of a variety of religions.

Secondly, immigration has seen the arrival in

Britain

itself of other world religions. We do not have to go to the Indian sub-continent to meet Hindus or to the Middle East to meet Muslims, members of these and other religions as well are now British citizens, living and practising their faith in most major British cities. To drive through some cities, in the 1990’s, is to see not only the church and cathedral, but also the temple and mosque.

The question, then, is a real one. Which god? Which faith? And, why my god? And, why my faith? Christians have to determine their attitude to other religions more so today than ever. Broadly, one of three basic types of approach can be adopted. All we can do here is summarize them.

Firstly, there is the pluralist approach. This sees all religions as, in principle, equally valid. Each religion in its own way expresses the human search for God and represents what has been discovered about God. On this approach, no one religion can be said to have all the truth. Consequently, our task is not to convert, but to listen. We, as Christians, certainly have things that we can share with members of other faiths, but we have things to learn from them as well. Inter-faith dialogue, joint services, and a search for common ground characterise this approach.

Secondly, there is the inclusivist approach. This is probably the most common approach amongst Christians at the moment. On this approach, the Christian faith is seen as the most complete revelation of God. But that does not mean that we should completely disregard other religions. They may not be in as full a possession of the truth as us, their understanding may be partial, but what they have is valid in as far as it goes. We still want members of other religions to come to faith in Christ, but we recognize what is of value in their religion. They may not have as much as us, but that does not mean that they have nothing.

Thirdly, there is the exclusivist approach. Nowadays, this seems bigoted and intolerant, but, traditionally, it has been the approach of the Church to other religions. On this approach, Christianity is the only true faith. All other religions are in error. They may be honourable attempts to discover God (equally, they may not be), but in any case, they are still wrong. Anything that is true in another religion is true only inasmuch as it agrees with Christianity. So there is nothing Christians can learn about God that they cannot learn from their own faith. Our task, then, is not to listen to members of other religions, it is to convert them.

What are we to say about all this? More than can be said here! The following are brief observations. Firstly, as Christians we can safely reject the first approach. To say that all religions are equally valid goes against so much Christian teaching as to render it incompatible with Christian faith. Furthermore, to argue, as some who take this approach would, that all religions are essentially saying the same thing is not only wrong, it is silly! The different world religions do not agree with one another. Indeed, they frequently contradict each other. The person who thinks that all religions are the same does not know much about religion.

Secondly, Christians have to avoid intolerance. There is no place in the Church for bigotry. We must recognize the sincerity of those whose beliefs and practices are different to our own. We also have to recognize with shame that many members of other religions live better lives than we do.

Thirdly, though, the issue is not whether Muslims, for example, are sincere or whether Hindus live good lives. The issue is one of truth. We live in an age which hates the idea of truth. Everything is relative. We do not like to think that there is one truth. We prefer to think that there are many different ways each one right for the person who chooses to take it. We want to allow different beliefs and alternative lifestyles. As Christians, we have tended to follow the spirit of the age and have gone, instead, for a faith that emphasizes feelings and individual fulfilment. What matters is what matters to me. What is true is what is true for me. But that is not Christianity. What is true is what God says is true, irrespective of whether I experience it, feel it, or believe it.

The Bible stresses the importance of truth. Jesus said: ‘you will know the truth and the truth will set you free’ (John 8:32). Christians believe that God has revealed the truth in Christ. Christians make many mistakes, they fail often, but that does not alter the truth of God’s revelation of Himself in Christ.

2010-03-31T18:48:00.000+08:00

Is it just me ...

My first Bible was the King James Version. It is still the version that comes to mind whenever I think of a passage. So, initially, I was quite excited to learn that celebrations were being planned for the 400th anniversary of its publication next year. Excitement, however, turned to incredulity and then, I have to say, something bordering on anger, when I went on a website dedicated to the celebration. (www.2011trust.org)

Here they have Richard Dawkins - a militant atheist, no less - extolling the KJV!

One of the biggest struggles I have had in the past has been with those who think that Church services should be in Shakespearian English. Many who argue thus - not all, I accept - are more concerned with a cultural elitism than with hearing the Word of God. Richard Dawkins sums it up in a phrase: 'The Bible doesn't have to be tied to religion.'

This website in its very promotion and celebration of the KJV has demonstrated why we can't any longer use it in public worship. We simply cannot be identified with this sort of snobbery.

Here is another quote from the website:

Professor Dawkins was asked why he wanted to participate in the initiative. "You can't appreciate English literature unless you are steeped to some extent in the King James Bible", he replied, "people don't know that proverbial phrases which make echoes in their minds come from this Bible. We are a Christian culture, we come from a Christian culture and not to know the King James Bible, is to be in some small way, barbarian".

Unbelievable!

2010-03-31T17:42:00.006+08:00

Holy Week is proceeding apace! Hard to believe that tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. Below I post the next in the series about God. I will post the remainder over the next few days. You may remember me writing that these were a series I did for Lent some time ago, but they are still what I would want to say on the subject now!

4. The Question of God: The Evidence of Revelation

In our thinking about God, I have been arguing that there is evidence all around us for his existence. But many people do not see it or do not respond to it. This raises the question of how people are to come to believe in God. This question at once brings us to the heart of the problem. The assumption in much of the discussion about believing in God seems to be that it is us who have to do the work, that it is up to us to find God.

This assumption lies behind a lot of religious thinking both outside the church and in it. In contemporary religious studies, religion is often portrayed as human beings’ search for God and for meaning in their lives. The different religions in the world, then, are to be explained as the different stories of our quest for something beyond us. Alternatively, from a Christian standpoint, people will be urged to believe in God, to think about the importance of faith, to consider the arguments, to see their need and to act. This sort of understanding can result in a presentation of the Christian faith that is based on what we can discover about God. It can also begin to seem that if we make the effort to think through the arguments, experiment and engage with religion then, eventually, we will find God. God is there and it is up to us to find him.

From a Biblical point of view, this is not at all satisfactory. First of all, it is not God who is lost, we are. Secondly, spiritually, we lack the means to come to God. Thirdly, even if the evidence were as bright as bright could be, we would not be able to see it because spiritually we are blind. The theologian who has done most in the twentieth century to remind the church of this is Karl Barth (1886-1968).

Barth was born at Basel. After studying theology at the universities of Bern, Berlin, Tubingen, and Marburg, he became a Reformed minister in Switzerland. It was while pastoring a church in Switzerland that he wrote a commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. It was to establish him as one of the major theologians of the twentieth century. He was to become a professor at several German universities until, after conflict with Hitler, he was dismissed by Hitler in 1935, and became professor of theology at Basel until 1962. Pope Pius XII described him as the greatest theologian since St Thomas Aquinas.

Barth rejected all theology that put the emphasis on human beings and what they did, and stressed, instead, what God has done and still does through revelation. God, for Barth, is utterly transcendent and wholly other. Stressing the sinfulness of human beings, he pointed out that men and women had failed to find God because of their sin, and so God, in the person of Christ had come to us, had sought us out, and had unconditionally welcomed us into a relationship with himself. In the Gospels, after all, it is the shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, not the lost sheep who seek the shepherd. In Christ, then, God reveals himself making it possible for people to believe in him.

And that said Barth is still how it is. We do not now find God, not even in Christ, by our own reasoning and efforts. It is not that God made the truth known in Christ, and it is now up to us to find it. It is still necessary for God to reveal himself to each one of us separately. This he does through the preaching of the good news of Jesus Christ. In Christ, God calls each of us to himself and makes it possible for us to come to know him. Left to ourselves we would only ever stumble around in the dark.

But what are the consequences of this for our examination of the evidence? We have been arguing that there is evidence for God. Well yes, indeed there is. We, however, have chosen not to see it and now have become unable to see it. St Paul describes human beings as being spiritually blind and therefore unable to see the light of the Gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4). Does this mean, then, that considering the evidence is a wasted effort? No, just not enough. It is right to show people that there are good grounds for believing in God, but more is needed. We must ask God to open people’s eyes to see the truth of the evidence. We must ask God to draw people to himself through the message we proclaim. Jesus said that no-one can come to him unless drawn by the Father who sent him (John 6:44).

So where does this leave human reason? Firstly, it means that reason alone will never and can never bring people to God. We need a spiritual renewal if we are to be able to enter into a relationship with God. Secondly, human reason is in any case limited because we as human beings are limited. There are limits to what we can know and understand. This is not a message that we like to hear. We are encouraged to think that there are no limits to human understanding. Sadly, the very fact that we are mortal, confined to a body and given over to death, with a brain that cannot absorb everything shows that there are limits. When it comes to God, we are never going to have the mental capacities necessary to understand him fully.

Thirdly, however, there is a vast difference between saying, as I have been, that we cannot find God through reason and saying that belief in God is unreasonable. Simply because something does not seem to make sense to us, does not mean that it does not make sense. Furthermore, once we have come to faith, we are in a position to see and understand more than before. Indeed, it should be an absolute priority for every Christian to grow in their understanding of God.

Someone who is very helpful when it comes to understanding the relationship between faith and reason is St Anselm (1033-1109). Anselm was born in Italy. At the age of 26, he entered the Benedictine monastery at Bec in Normandy. Shortly after, in 1063, he became the prior of the monastery. He was prior for about 15 years and then became the abbot. In 1093, he became the archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm believed that it was revelation, not reason or experience, that gives us the content of the Christian faith, but the believer can then seek, by the use of his or her reason, to understand more fully what he or she believes. By examining the Christian faith in this way, we can come to see how rational it really is.

In a famous passage Anselm wrote:

‘I am not trying, Lord, to penetrate your sublimity, for my understanding is not up to that. But I long in some measure to understand your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I am not seeking to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order that I may understand. For this too I believe: that unless I believe I shall not understand.’ (Prosologion 1)

May God grant us the faith to believe so that we too may understand.

2010-03-25T15:26:00.000+08:00

Five were wise, five were foolish ...

I feel a bit sad now that the Lenten Bible Studies have finished. I have enjoyed studying the five parables over the past five weeks. On Wednesday, we studied the Parable of the Ten Girls, five of whom were wise and five foolish. As I said on Wednesday, I don’t remember having spoken on this parable before. There is indeed a first time for everything!

The context of the parable is Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 24 about the destruction of the Temple and the Coming of the Son of Man. At the beginning of chapter 24, Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple. His disciples say to him:

‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ (Matthew 24:3)

I think in their mind this was really one question. The Temple was so important and of such significance that its destruction must surely signal the end of the age. We now know that it should have been two questions: the first, when will the Temple be destroyed? and, secondly, when will you return? The Temple was destroyed in AD70 possibly accidentally (from a human point of view, that is). It is not clear that the Roman General and future Emperor wanted it destroyed. If it was an unintended destruction it makes it all the more poignant. No matter how terrible and how much of an end of an age it was, it was not the end and the Son of Man did not return.

Jesus taught that, in fact, no-one knew when his return would be, not even Jesus himself. What was certain was that it would be sudden and unexpected. It was vital, therefore, that people were ready for it. There then follow in Matthew 25 three parables: this one about the Ten Girls, the one about the Talents, and the one about the separation of the sheep and goats. They each address how we should live in the time before the Son of Man returns.

In the Parable of the Ten Girls, five are wise and five are foolish. The foolish girls are not prepared for the delay of the bridegroom and run out of oil. The wise are prepared and bring extra oil. The foolish have to go looking for oil and suffer exclusion from the wedding banquet as a consequence. The message is clear: we are to be prepared for the coming of the Lord.

What has struck me this year as we have been studying the parables is how strong the theme of judgement is in them. The Tax-collector went home from the Temple justified, but the Pharisee did not. The King sends his army to destroy the city of those who refused to come to the wedding banquet for his son. The Unforgiving Servant is tortured for failing to forgive. The Rich Man is tormented after his death. The Foolish Girls are excluded from the banquet. And it is not just in these parables that the theme of judgement is to be found. It runs through all Jesus’ teaching.

All this suggests that many of us need to revise our understanding of the message of Jesus. We have gotten away from the Victorian sentimentalized picture of ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, but in its place have put the liberal Jesus who accepts everyone and is always there for us. This replacement Jesus seems just as false and unreal. Jesus announces the judgement of God and calls upon people to repent. Those who do so he accepts unconditionally. But those who don’t are excluded and have to face their fate.

This is not the picture of Jesus that we readily recognize and it certainly is not one that is often portrayed in our Churches. We find it hard to believe that Jesus would exclude anyone. If, however, the parables of Jesus are anything to go by we need to wake up soon or we are in danger of finding ourselves amongst the excluded!

2010-03-23T11:09:00.001+08:00

Our AGM passed smoothly and peacefully on Sunday. It may seem strange that I say peacefully, fortunately at Christ Church, at least, they usually are. It is not always the case in Churches though and nor has it always been the case in my own experience. I don't know why it is, but Christians aren't always very good at being nice to one another. Thankfully, on Sunday we were.

I am now preparing for tomorrow night's Bible Study. It is the last in the current series for Lent. The parables of Jesus continue to enlighten and surprise. They have a habit of hitting you just when you least expect it. This week we are studying the Parable of the Ten Virgins. I will share some of my thoughts on this parable later in the week.

Tonight, however, I am going to the ballet. It is the Hong Kong Arts Festival at the moment: an annual month long event that sees musicians from all over the world visiting Hong Kong. Among them this year are the Mariinsky Ballet and the Mariinsky Opera. The ballet company used to be known as the Kirov Ballet in Soviet times. It is based in St Petersburg. St Petersburg is a magnificent city. One of my biggest disappointments when visiting it some years ago was not being able to see the ballet or opera so tonight is a treat I am looking forward to.

The ballet they are performing is Don Quixote and the reviews have all been positive. So for a few hours tonight all thoughts of church politics, meetings, and the like will be forgotten. Well, perhaps not quite forgotten ...

Have a good week.

2010-03-18T16:39:00.001+08:00

The Rich Man and Lazarus - Part Two

As I said in my last post, the Rich Man and Lazarus is a truly shocking parable. Shocking because it is the rich, powerful, and successful man that ends up being tortured in the after-life and the loser, who can only lie all day at his gate, who gets to be with Abraham. What is more, Abraham refuses to let the Rich Man even have a drop of water to ease his pain.

What would Jesus' hearers have made of it? That he wasn't too keen on rich people would seem one thing. As I was preparing, however, I was struck by the following historical details.

The High Priest at the time was Caiaphas. He was the son-in-law of a previous High Priest, Annas. Both of whom are mentioned in the Gospels (Luke 3:2, John 18:13, Acts 4:6). Annas had been deposed by the Romans for over-stepping his authority, but he remained extremely powerful and influential. Annas had five sons of his own all of whom went on to become High Priests as did Caiaphas' own son. Josephus tells us that this was one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Judea in the first century.

Commentators rightly note how the Rich Man isn't named in the parable. (More about which in a moment.) But is it possible that Jesus is, at least, basing his picture of the Rich Man on Caiaphas? High Priests wore purple and fine linen as did the Rich Man. The Rich Man had five brothers. Why five? OK the five brothers were brothers-in-law, but the figure five is surely suggestive. Then there is the fact that normally the High Priests were Sadducees, Caiaphas certainly was (Acts 5:17), and the one certain thing that we know about the Sadducees is that they did not believe in resurrection and they did not believe, and this is important, that there were rewards and punishments after this life.

Their wealth and views on the after-life then provide a perfect explanation for the background to the parable. By having the Rich Man tormented and Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, Jesus is challenging their confidence that there will be no reckoning for their behaviour in the present. It may also explain Abraham's rather strange comment that if the Rich Man's brother's did not believe 'Moses and the prophets', then neither would they believe if someone was to rise from the dead. Why wouldn't the Rich Man's brothers believe if someone rose from the dead? Is Jesus simply saying they are set in their unbelief or is he making an allusion to the Sadducees stance on life after death? Something, indeed, that Jesus has an argument with them over.

If this sounds a little fanciful, we know that they didn't believe when it actually happened that someone did rise from the dead. In John 12, Jesus raises Lazarus, yes Lazarus, from the dead and the reaction of the chief priests, which would have included Caiaphas' 5 brothers-in-law, is not to believe him, but to try to kill him:

'So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.' (John 12:10-11)

This is precisely how Abraham says they would react.

If I was to tell a story in a sermon and began it, 'There was a certain black President who was the leader of a powerful country ...'or, 'There was a certain leader of a city who always wore bow-ties ... ' Wouldn't people make associations with either President Obama of the United States or Donald Tsang, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong?

Now nothing depends on this as far as the interpretation of the parable is concerned, but if it is in anyway on the right lines then it would have added even more dramatically to the impact of the parable when Jesus told it. Its shock value would have been even greater.

And it is shocking even if we manage not to be shocked by it. The Rich Man is not given a name. He is known by his wealth. Money does this it possesses and take over the personality of the person concerned so that they become known by their possessions. What matters is the brand labels they wear, the places they are seen in, the addresses they live at. The Rich Man, because of his love of money, has become anonymous, defined now by his wealth and not by who he is.

Riches also pervert. Abraham says how in his life the Rich Man received good things and Lazarus evil things. The parable is not glorifying poverty as, sadly, Christians sometimes are tempted to do. Lazarus' poverty was evil. But what the rich man owned was also good. Jesus is not dualistic. He is not suggesting that material things are wrong. The Rich Man's clothes were beautiful. His food was no doubt a tribute to his chef's skill and creativity. The problem is good things too easily become gods rather than simply goods. In our lust and desire for them, we give them a role they should not have perverting them and corrupting them.

We live in a society that from the earliest age encourages children to get an education so they can embark on a well-paid career and acquire as a result all the trappings of success. Doesn't this parable challenge this philosophy of life and call into question our attitudes and values? By encouraging our children to think like this, we are not preparing them so much for life after college as for hell after death.

Jesus speaks about a reversal of fortunes after death in such graphic terms not to frighten us by what will happen to us in the future, but to encourage us to change in the present.

2010-03-18T10:36:00.001+08:00

The Rich Man and Lazarus - Part One

I was intending to write a few comments about last night's lent parable, but I have just read a report on the Telegraph online web-site about Lady GaGa's latest pop video. It is nine and a half minutes long. I have just watched it on Vevo. As the warning above it says, 'it may contain material which may offend', which, of course, is its whole point.

What I found especially interesting, however, was what the Telegraph report said. I quote:

'Most debate has focused on whether the video could be considered a work of pop art or just salacious sensationalism threatening the moral fabric of society. Lady GaGa herself claims it is a “commentary on the kind of country that we are”.

In which case, as GaGa and Beyoncé ride off into the sunset following a series of semi-naked dance routines, random outfit changes, B-movie locations, clunking product placement and a near-incoherent plot centring on infidelity and mass poisoning, one might be forced to conclude that America is a nation straining under its own decadence, producing a jaded, thrill-seeking, attention-deficit generation who can communicate only through irony. It is certainly not the state-of-the-nation message that President Obama would like to be sending out.'

The thing is that it had had 20 million hits when I watched it. There is a whole generation growing up that connects with this. What's my point? Well only that unless we start connecting with it too we are going to lose a whole generation for Christ. I am not advocating making shocking videos (or am I?), but I am sure we have to do better than I have to confess I do each Sunday.

This is also my link to the theme of parables: Jesus' parables did connect and did shock. Last night, we heard about a rich and successful man being tortured in hell and being refused even a drop of water to relieve his pain by a righteous hero. Lady Gaga connects because she believes in what she is doing and knows how to project both it and herself. We had better start learning to do the same.

More on the parable itself later ...

2010-03-17T09:56:00.012+08:00

It is the third study in my Church's Lent series on the parables tonight and I will talking about the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. It is also our Church AGM this week and I have been busy getting the AGM Reports ready for printing ahead of the meeting. Anyway they have gone off and should be ready in time! I will write more about my thoughts on the parable after tonight's study, but for today here is the third in the series about God!

3. The Question of God: The Argument from Experience

So far, in these talks, I have been arguing that believing in God is rational. It is reasonable to believe in God.There are, however, dangers with this approach. It can begin to sound as if all that matters is the mind, or that human reason on its own is sufficient to lead us to God. That is certainly not what I am arguing, although I do think that reason is greatly under-valued by many Christians today. This week, I want us to think about the evidence from experience, and then, next week, as we think about revelation, examine the limits of reason. What I am arguing is not that reason is a substitute for faith, but that faith is reasonable. Reason alone may not bring us to faith, but that is not the same as saying that our faith is not reasonable. Indeed, if it is not reasonable, then it is not faith in the Biblical sense of the word.

Some Christians, though, both past and present, have despaired of ever getting anywhere with human reason, and have turned instead to human experience. One such was Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). He was a scientist, a mathematician, and a Christian thinker. You will have probably have used one of his inventions this week: the calculator. Pascal allowed only a limited role for philosophy and reason. ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing’ is a famous quote. Also famous is ‘Pascal’s wager’. When considering whether or not there is God, we need to consider, said Pascal, the stakes. If we believe in God, we stand to gain much both in this life and the next. Even if we are wrong, we will lose nothing for we will be dead and never know. There is nothing to be gained by not believing in God. It is better, then, to bet your life on God!

As an emotional appeal, I find this very effective, and it has to be remembered that many of the decisions we make in life are based on what we feel to be right for us. Some people will dismiss emotion when it comes to religion, but when it comes to almost every other decision that they have to make, whether it be whom they marry or which brand of cola they buy, they will let emotion play an important part. Our emotions are essential to our lives as humans. Nevertheless, when it comes to God, it has to be admitted that individual spiritual experience is of only limited value as evidence. Furthermore, it also has to be conceded that Christians often try to prove too much from their own experience.

Frequently, Christians will point to things that have happened in their life and experience as proof that there is a God or that Christianity is true. An appeal will be made to alleged miracles or supernatural occurrences. Sadly, rarely will these bare the weight that is put on them. This is not to deny their importance, nor their importance for the person who experiences them, but as evidence they do not carry much conviction.

In the first place, miracles and the like, which Christians often use in an attempt to establish the truth of their faith, are, in fact, often universal phenomena experienced by people of different religions and none. Secondly, on many occasions, the phenomena are perfectly susceptible to physical explanations.

So does this mean that, in thinking about God, evidence from experience has no value? I do not think so. Individual experiences may not count much as evidence, but religious experience taken as a whole may have something important to teach us. Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) has been very influential in the way people think about religion. In 1917, he became a professor at Marburg University in

Germany

. He is best known for his book, The Idea of the Holy. He stressed the universality of religious experience. No matter how much they may differ on just about everything else, what people have in common is what Otto called the numinous.

To put it plainly, people, wherever they may be, have an innate sense that there is something else out there, something bigger than them that goes beyond their physical senses and experiences. Human beings want to worship something. Sometimes what they worship may seem strange, but there can be no doubting their desire to worship. In this, we are very different to other animals. However much we may be related to them through the evolutionary process, animals of the non-human type do not go in for worship. Why are we as humans so religious?

Feuerbach (1804-1872) argued that our worship of God (or whatever) was a projection of our own feelings and emotions. We have created the sort of being that we wanted to believe in. Rather than man being created in the image of God, God was created in the image of man. Feuerbach was followed by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Sigmund Freud (1865-1939). Marx saw religion as a drug used by the rich and powerful to keep the oppressed happy with their conditions. Freud saw religion as an illusion, a crutch for weak people. We needed a father figure, someone to turn to and to depend on, and so we invented God. It is a bit like a child with an imaginary friend. Well, possibly. As before, that is one interpretation of the evidence. Again though, is it the most likely or the most reasonable?

The undisputed father of Western Christianity is Saint Augustine (354-430). Aurelius Augustine was born in Thagaste in Roman North Africa (modern

Algeria

). He had a pagan father and a Christian mother, St Monica. In his student days, at Carthage, he decided to devote himself to a life of philosophy. He turned away from Christianity finding the Old Testament crude and unspiritual. He taught in Africa and Rome. Then, in 384, he became a professor in Milan. It was here he came under the influence of St Ambrose and, in 386, was converted. He was press-ganged into becoming a priest in 391, at Hippo, in North Africa, and, in 396, became its bishop. He remained there until his death. Augustine wrote extensively. Sadly, he is not so popular nowadays. Some of his views are now somewhat politically incorrect. This does not alter the fact that his influence on the church and western civilization has been immense. He has been more influential, and still is, than either Marx or Freud.

Augustine said in a famous prayer, ‘you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you’. Augustine’s point is that God made you and I in his image, and we naturally want to worship our maker. St Paul tells us that while we have turned away from the worship of the one true God, we have not stopped wanting to worship, and have turned instead to the worship of other things. As has been said, there is a God-shaped hole in all of us. It is a hole that we are constantly trying to fill, but which only God can. When in difficulty, often almost as an unconscious reflex, we find ourselves praying, even if we do not normally engage in such superstitious behaviour. Our desire to worship and to pray strongly suggests the truth of what instinctively we feel: that there is something, someone out there.

That someone is God.

2010-03-15T20:30:00.002+08:00

Mothering Sunday

As I write this, we have just celebrated Mothering Sunday. The Church was packed and, as is our custom, we distributed posies to all our mothers. It was a very happy occasion. Mothering Sunday occurs on the fourth Sunday of Lent and so falls on a different date each year. In the

, Mothering Sunday is also known as Mother’s Day, largely due to the influence of the

United States

, which celebrates its Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May. This is also the day on which it is mainly celebrated in Hong Kong.

In fact, however, Mothering Sunday, traditionally, has a meaning that goes much deeper than that of simply Mother’s Day. In the past in the

, people would return to their mother churches; normally, a large parish Church or a Cathedral. Inevitably, the return to the 'mother' Church became an occasion for family reunions as children who were working away returned home. (It was quite common in those days for children to leave home for work once they were ten years old.) As they walked along the country lanes, children would pick wild flowers or violets to take to church or give to their mother as a small gift. Our giving of posies to our mothers keeps this tradition alive.

The Gospel reading for yesterday was that of the so-called Parable of the Prodigal Son. (I wrote a little about this last year. See under: Lent)

I say, ‘so-called’ because the parable as Jesus tells it is about two sons not just one. The parable is the third in a series of three parables. St Luke introduces them like this:

‘Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’’ (Luke 15:1-2)

So Jesus tells first the Parable of the Lost Sheep and then the Parable of the Lost Coin. The shepherd who finds his lost sheep asks his friends and neighbours to join him in celebrating finding his sheep. The woman who has lost the coin also invites her friends and neighbours to join her in celebrating her finding her coin.

After each parable, Jesus speaks of the joy in heaven over a sinner who repents. He then tells the parable we know as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It is Jesus’ longest parable and one of the most popular. The younger son behaves scandalously by asking for his share of the inheritance before his father is dead. He then wastes it in dissolute living. It takes a famine that reduces him to near starvation to bring him to his senses. Sometimes it takes a crisis or tragedy to do the same for us!

The Prodigal decides to go home and to ask to be taken on as a hired servant. He knows he no longer deserves to be called a son. His father sees him from a distance and runs out to meet him. The father won’t hear of him being a hired servant and orders for him to be restored and a party to be held to celebrate his return.

This is often where we stop when thinking about this parable. It is easy to see why. It is a message to us of the love and forgiveness of God who ‘when we were still far off’ met us in his Son. It reassures us that God runs to meet us and welcome us back to him if after we have strayed and failed him, we return to him.

But this is not where Jesus stops in his original telling of the parable. Jesus continues to describe the anger of the elder son on hearing that his father is giving a party for the lost son who has retuned. The father goes out to him as he had gone out to meet his younger son. Jesus concludes the parable with the words of the father:

‘But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ (Luke 15:32)

In the same way that the shepherd rejoiced over finding his lost coin and the woman her coin, so the father and the elder son should rejoice that the prodigal has returned. Jesus is speaking directly to the scribes and Pharisees. They are like them the elder son who refused by refusing to rejoice that sinners are responding to his message. Jesus has come to seek and to save the lost. The reaction when they are found should be one of joy and celebration.

The Church should be a ‘community of celebration’: places where people not only discover the forgiveness of God, but can celebrate finding it with others who also have found it. Our services should be occasions of celebration. And anyone coming to our Church for the first time should get a sense that a party is going on.

2010-03-11T12:03:00.000+08:00

Last year, I found revisiting 5 of Jesus' better known parables for Lent surprisingly profitable. I say surprisingly for familiarity can breed - well, if not contempt exactly, then at least a feeling that there is little new to be discovered. As it turned out, that certainly wasn't the case last year and nor is it proving to be so this year as we look at 5 more.

Last night, it was the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. You probably will all know it. A servant having been forgiven a massive debt by the King goes out and demands a relatively small one from a fellow servant. When the fellow servant can't pay, the first servant has him thrown into gaol. The King on hearing of it from other servants, distressed at what has happened, has the first servant handed over to be tortured until he pays his debt, something he could never hope to do.

Jesus' punch-line is unambiguous: 'So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.' (Matthew 18:35)

In my thoughts on the parable, I talked about three stages of forgiveness:

1. Taking sin seriously. The parable is about real debt, not imaginary debt. In my preparation beforehand, I puzzled over the amount of the debt Jesus uses in the story. 10,000 talents is a huge figure. The problem is that it is if taken literally, it is unrealistically so. Commentators try to calculate how much it is with figures such as 60,000,000 denarii being used, meaning it would take a day labourer 164,000 years to repay. I rather suspect that Jesus is not expecting the figure to be claculated in this way. What I think he is saying is that the debt was so great, you couldn't put a realistic figure on it. It was unimaginably great.

2. Taking our own sin seriously. The parable challenges to see that our debt to God is beyond imagination. It is, however, a real debt and not an imaginary one, one that we can never hope to repay. Taking our own sin seriously is not something we are encouraged to do either in the Church or out. It goes against the emphasis of much preaching and teaching. Reading older hymns and sermons gives you an idea of the difference in emphasis: 'Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.'

Today's sermons are more likely to encourage people to think that they are not wretches, but valuable and loved by God. The aim of the sermon being more to build people up than to bring them down in their estimation of themselves. But surely if we do not think there is anything much that we need forgiving for, we are not going to appreciate Jesus' message of forgiveness. This message is not that the debt does not matter. It does. More than we can ever comprehend.

We are I think in danger of confusing welcome and acceptance with forgiveness. Because we rightly want to welcome and accept people, regardless of who they are or what they are like, we think we should not in anyway been seen to suggest that anything they have done is unacceptable to God. Forgiveness thus verges on being about condoning and not challenging people's lifestyles.

Surely the Gospel message is one that challenges us in the first place to see how bad we are, but then offers us the good news that if we turn from our wickedness, God will out of his boundless love and mercy forgive us. We may know this in our minds, but seldom nowadays, I think, do we feel it in our hearts. Certainly not with the intensity of a John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, or of a Charlotte Elliott, who wrote these words:

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
sight, riches, healing of the mind,
yea, all I need, in thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come.

3. Forgiving other people their sin. Jesus made forgiving others a central part of his teaching. Hence our promise to forgive others every time we say the Lord's Prayer. But it is hard, isn't it? We are very good at forgiving ourselves, largely because we don't think we have done anything particularly wrong. But even the smallest of hurts or sleights causes us to come down heavily on other people. I know that many of us have suffered great wrongs at the hands of others. But Jesus' point is that even they are nothing compared to our debt to God. Last night, I think the few of us who studied this parable together felt its challenge to forgive very clearly.

As we all agreed, however, doing it is much harder.

2010-03-09T12:00:00.001+08:00

Our Lord was known as a 'glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners' (Luke 7:34). There can be no doubting that he was a friend to sinners and to tax-collectors, but those of us who follow him today would not accept that he was either a glutton or drunkard. And yet you can't be accused of being either if you don't like food or wine. Jesus clearly did. His first miracle, as we have noted here, was to turn water to wine and when the guests clearly had already had a lot. Presumably that was why they had run out in the first place!

And he was so concerned that the crowds had not eaten all day that he performed his greatest miracle feeding the five thousand. The last thing he did was have a meal with his disciples, and it is a meal that he left as the central act of Christian worship.

Now I know all the theological and alleged theological significances of all this, but meals, real meals, were a focus of our Lord's ministry.

I find this something of an encouragement. I rather like food myself. I came to cooking itself rather late in life, and am a rather amateur, albeit enthusiastic, cook for my own pleasure as much as anything else. I am a massive fan of Elizabeth David and won't cook anything without checking whether Jane Grigson has a recipe for it first. One modern cook I especially like is Vivek Singh, whom I have actually had the privilege of meeting and watching cook! He brings to Indian cookery this sense of passion and depth that you find in Elizabeth and Jane.

What is sometimes lacking in modern cookery writing, I think, is a sense of spontaneity and sheer love of food. It is all very professional and well-researched, beautifully photographed, and fool-proof if you follow the instructions. What is lacking, however, is the sheer sense of thrill and inspiration that you cannot miss in Elizabeth David's writing. One of my favourite pieces of hers is where she talks of how a stock cube won't do! Indeed, one of the very first dishes I ever cooked was a Tomato Consommé using a recipe of hers. The recipe calls for chicken stock. She gives alternatives, but then writes:

'A non-alternative, I'll repeat that, a non-alternative is a bouillon cube. Water is a preferable one. (ED, Is there a Nutmeg in the House, pp.30-31)

Her point being that it is the final flavour that counts!

Which brings me back to Christian worship. We have all sorts of modern liturgies and liturgical aids. I use Visual Liturgy myself. It is a piece of software to help clergy plan services. It produces beautifully laid out services, which if you follow are also fool-proof. It provides lots of alternatives and choices of hymns, prayers, and readings. Much like modern cookbooks or cookery web-sites. Yet one of the ironies of cookery at present is that the number of people actually cooking is declining as the number of books being produced about it are increasing.

As with food so with worship. We need a sense of enthusiasm and excitement that focuses not on celebrity, glamour, and show, but on the flavour of the real thing.

2010-03-08T09:45:00.001+08:00

The start of a new week.

Tonight I have the Church Council meeting - always a challenge! I am hoping beforehand to spend some time preparing for the Lent Bible Study on Wednesday. This week it is the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. The one where a servant who is forgiven a massive debt goes out and insists on collecting a relatively small one. We Christians are not always the most forgiving of people. The key I am sure is to have a better sense of just how much we have been forgiven. Not easy in a cultural climate that minimizes the seriousness of personal sin. It is unlikely we will ever appreciate how much we have been forgiven when we have no sense that what we have done was all that wrong in the first place.

But before that there is a mound of stuff from the weekend that must be dealt with as must the people who are coming to do the annual maintenance of the air-conditioning system.

Church Council, administration, building maintenance, and thinking about forgiveness. It's one way to start the week! I hope yours is good.

2010-03-06T15:22:00.000+08:00

I am getting ready for tomorrow and thought I would take a break to post the second in the Lenten series I called the Question of God. I hope you are having a good weekend.

2. The Question of God: The Evidence of the Cosmos

Last week, we saw that the question of whether there is a God, or not, is a real one in the society in which we live. We noted that there were, in this world, problems with the idea of ‘proof’ and that this applied to everything, not just to God. Nevertheless, we concluded, belief in God still needed to be rational. There should be evidence for believing. We are now going to think about some of the evidence for God as well as some of the objections to it. Time, sadly, prevents us devoting as much attention to it as we should. We can, at least, make a start.

October 23, 1996 was a special anniversary. On that day, the world was 6,000 years old. At least, it would have been if you accepted Archbishop Ussher’s dating of creation. Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) calculated that, according to the Bible, the world was created in the year 4004BC. Bishop John Lightfoot (1602-1675) further refined it to 9.00am on October 23. While people would not necessarily have gone along with that precise dating, there was a time when most would have accepted the basic point, namely, that it was God who had created the heavens and earth.

Then came Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Suddenly, God did not seem necessary anymore. We arrived here not by the supernatural, creative act of God, but by the natural, selective process of evolution. Human beings were not the result of the plan of God, but an accident of nature. This was excellent news for those who wanted to get rid of God. At last, they had an alternative explanation for the origins of life. No more did we have to resort to God to explain where we came from. Goodbye, God.

Except that God has not quite gone away. Indeed, the very persistence of faith in God is itself evidence for God. Despite all that the 20th century has thrown at him, God is still here and still very much on the agenda. But we will return to this. Those who want to argue for chance, and chance alone, have not had things all their own way. Firstly, not everyone is completely happy with the theory of evolution. This is not to say that I am siding with those who still stick to a belief in six day creation. I simply note a fact. Secondly, and more importantly, even if right, evolution only describes a process. It still begs the question of whether it was a chance or purely natural process. As a method, it is fine, but did it simply happen, or was there a mind behind it? Evolution as a theory cannot answer that.

Many of us think that rather than undermining belief in God, the descriptions that scientists themselves give us of the evolutionary process seem rather to reinforce such a belief. Indeed, have you noticed the way some people talk about evolution? They set out to describe what they believe to be a natural process and end up attributing to evolution intelligent, thinking characteristics. They will talk about evolution doing this or that, deciding and determining this or that, so that evolution starts to sound, not so much like a process, but more like a person.

Now, of course, they do not intend to do this, and would be horrified to know that this is what they are doing. However, when faced with the fact of the natural order, is it the case, perhaps, that we are compelled by the evidence to think that it could only have got here if there had been a thinking, intelligent mind behind it. A mind which decided and determined that this is how it should turn out. And if the natural world as we see it compels us to think and talk like this, could it be because that is precisely how it is? Is it that in the very evolutionary process we see the work of God?

This seems to be a good point to introduce Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Aquinas lived long before evolution as an idea was ever thought of. He went to the University of Naples, and, while there, in 1244, at the age of 19, joined the relatively new Order of Preachers, the Dominican friars. His family wanted him to become a Benedictine, and kidnapped him, locking him in the family castle for a year. He got his way, and continued his studies at Paris and Cologne. In 1252, he returned to lecture in Paris, thereafter lecturing at Paris and in

Italy

. In 1323, he was made a saint. In time, he came to be hailed as the Common Doctor of the Catholic Church and as the Angelic Doctor.

One of the greatest philosophers and theologians ever, Aquinas wanted to demonstrate that the Christian faith was in every way a rational faith and belief in God thoroughly reasonable. Aquinas defined five ways by which we could know there was a God. Behind each of them is the idea that the world itself reveals God as its creator. If you read a book, look at a picture, listen to a piece of music, you can often immediately tell who its author, painter, or composer is simply from the style. Aquinas’ five ways have been subject to many criticisms. Certainly the way he expressed his arguments reflects the language and thinking of his day, just as the way we express ourselves reflects the age we are living in. His basic point is, though, a good one. When we examine the cosmos, and ask how it got here and how it got to being the way it is, is not the most reasonable explanation not that it just did, but because someone wanted it to and purposed that it should?

Aquinas, in his fifth way, also pointed to the nature of the cosmos. It is extremely intricate and ordered. If we were talking about anything else, we would say it is well designed. But does not design suggest a designer? William Paley (1743-1805) taking up the argument used the example of a watch. If someone was to find a watch, even if they had never seen a watch before, would not they know, simply from examining it, that it could not have just got like that by chance, but must have been made by someone. The complexity of the design argues for a designer. If we can see it with a watch, why not with the cosmos which shows even more evidence of design?

That Aquinas was right to argue like this receives support from the Bible itself. St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, writes of human beings:

‘For what can be known about God is plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.’ (1:20)

All this proves nothing. If you want to persist in believing that the universe just happened and that we are a result of chance or purely natural processes, then you are perfectly entitled to do so, that is one interpretation of the evidence. However, I would like to ask you to consider whether, in all honesty, it is the most reasonable one.

2010-03-04T11:57:00.001+08:00

Last night was the second of our Lent Studies. We were looking at the Parable of the Wedding Banquet in Matthew 22:1-10. It is not the easiest of parables. One writer, Klyne Snodgrass, in his magisterial work on parables, says he has finds it the hardest parable to interpret. Having said that, the overall meaning of the first part seems clear enough. The Kingdom of God was offered originally to Israel who has rejected it so it will now be offered to others. It is in the second part that it gets especially tricky.

The King comes into the room where the guests who have been gathered in by his slaves are congregated. We have already been told that they consisted of people who were both bad and good. The King asks one of them why he not wearing the correct clothes - a wedding robe. The man is speechless and the King has him tied up and thrown into outer darkness.

Jesus is telling this parable to the chief priests and Pharisees. They would probably have got the point of the first part, but what would they have made of the second part? What does the wedding robe stand for? Christians have interpreted it in various ways. A common interpretation is that it refers to Christ's righteousness, which we all must be clothed with if we are to come into God's presence. Unfortunately, whatever the truth or otherwise of this idea, it does seem to be reading later Christian theology back into the story. As I said last night, whatever we think the parable means to us today, it had to mean something to them then.

Others such as Tom Wright take the wedding robe to mean the good works we now do as Christians and that while we are freely called by God we must respond with acts worthy of that call. Again, this is doubtless true, but would that had been something that the chief priests and Pharisees would have been in a position to work out?

The best I can come up with which I offer as a suggestion is this:

Guests at a wedding, whoever they might be would be expected to dress appropriately both as a sign of respect and to show they were entering into the spirit of the occasion. The banquet for the King's Son was a time of rejoicing and celebration. The un-robed guest, although he finds himself called to the banquet, refuses to take part in it.

This parable is in fact the third of three parables Jesus tells the chief priests and Pharisees, all making similar points. Jesus uses the first in Matthew 21:28-32 to tell them that tax-collectors and prostitutes were going into the kingdom of God ahead of them. Jesus ate many meals with people during his ministry, meals at which tax-collectors and prostitutes respond with faith and enthusiasm. In Luke 7 we are told that on one occasion a Pharisee holds a dinner for Jesus, but is then shocked when Jesus allows a prostitute to his anoint his feet. Jesus says this to him:

'Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. (Luke 7:44-46)'

Although he had invited Jesus to dinner, the Pharisees treatment of Jesus shows a refusal to respond to Jesus in the way he should, whereas the prostitute responds with love and generosity.

The man who doesn't wear a wedding garment does not respond to the generosity of the King in the way he should. It is not so much that the garment represents something, such as Christ's righteousness or good works. It is rather the man's attitude demonstrated by his refusal to dress properly that is significant. It is not the wedding robe that represents something so much as the lack of it. Jesus is saying the chief priests and Pharisees, and those like them, will miss out on the salvation God offers because they have not responded with faith and enthusiasm to God's call.

God calls all both bad and good, but it is how we respond that shows whether we are amongst those who are his chosen ones. As the parable ends:

'For many are called, but few are chosen.'

2010-03-01T10:45:00.002+08:00

The first thing I came back to after Chinese New Year was Lent! This year, for our Lent Bible Studies at my Church, we are looking at five more parables of Jesus to add to the five we studied last year. The first which we studied last week was the one about the tax-collector and the Pharisee (Luke ). Jesus told this parable Luke tells us to those who 'trusted in themselves that they were righteous'. The implication, of course, being that we can only be righteous by trusting in God. Regular readers of this blog will know that this is a question I often find myself turning back to. It also raises the issue of the link between being righteous in God's eyes and how we live our lives.

As it happens, I also found myself last week back at Ming Hua, our theological college, teaching Christian Ethics. This is the second module where we consider specific issues: abortion, sex, euthanasia, war, etc, etc I intend to pick up on the blog where I left off a few months ago about this. But as far as I can see it is very hard to be as dogmatic as some would like us to be on these issues - as class discussion often illustrates.

I thought, however, that I would get back into posting here by posting today the first in a series of Lenten Studies I gave during my time in Banchory in the 1990s. They were on the 'Question of God'. I have to confess that I don't remember them exactly filling the pews, but reading them again at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, I am Pharisaical enough to think there is some merit in them! I must have done at the time as these are the only ones that I kept and only recently rediscovered them on my computer.

Indeed, the questions:

whether there is a God or not

how, if there is, we can know and be acceptable to him

and what happens when we die

have always seemed to me to be three of the most important questions in life. I don't think we always manage as Christians to give convincing answers to them. But that is another matter.

Anyway, it's good to be back in cyberspace! Thank you to all who keep visiting and reading.

1. The Question of God: Introduction

Today we begin a series on God. Am I alone in thinking that sermons and talks matter? Well, whatever we may think about sermons, there should be no doubting the importance of our subject. I have always found it strange that we do not worry about God. We are rather casual about God, and this irrespective of whether we are believers or not. I do worry about God, and have done for as long as I can remember. Surely the issue of whether there is a God, or not, is one that must have profound implications for us all?

Of course, for most of our history there has been no question about it. That there was a God was as obvious to people as was the sun, wind, and rain. It still is to many in other parts of our world. We forget the extent to which true atheism is a minority opinion. But the question of God is a very real one to us living in the West today. Nietzsche, at the turn of the century, said that God was dead. However, throughout the 20th century we have seen that rumours of God’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Nevertheless, for most people there is, at least, a question about it.

The question is expressed well in a book I was given to read over the summer. It is by Jill Paton Walsh and called, ‘Knowledge of Angels’. This was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994, and some of you may know it. Now let me say I dislike the book and certainly would not recommend it to you. I refer to it only because it seems to sum up where many liberal intellectuals are when it comes to God and where they would like us to be.

The book is set in the 15th Century at a time when Christianity was undivided in the West and when people believed in God as a matter of course. A stranger is washed up on the shore of a Mediterranean island. The stranger, whose name is Palinor, declares that he has no religion and does not believe in God. The Cardinal responsible for religion on the island takes pity on him and arranges for him to discuss the claims of faith with Beneditx, one of the holiest and wisest men in Christendom. This is in the hope that Palinor will come to see the error of his ways and believe in God. The stranger turns out to be cultured, sensitive, wise, and accomplished. Instead of Beneditx convincing him with his arguments for the existence of God, Palinor succeeds in undermining Beneditx’s faith. Towards the end of their discussions, Palinor says:

‘For I think that it is in principle impossible to know whether there is a God or not. I know therefore with immovable certainty that I shall never know that God exists. Likewise I shall never know that he does not. Such knowledge is always, and in principle out of reach.’

So there you have it. Doubt as a religious principle! You cannot prove God one way or another. You cannot prove he does not exist, but you cannot prove he does either. So best not to worry about it. Celebrate, not divine intervention, but human achievement. Nowadays, in matters of faith, doubt has become the order of the day, both inside the church and out.

The father of modern philosophy - and in many people’s minds the father of doubt - is one René Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes was a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. He was a contemporary of Oliver Cromwell and Charles 1. Descartes asked what it was possible to know for certain, beyond any doubt. If you were to doubt what you could not prove, what would you be left with? Many of us know the answer he came up with. Descartes concluded that we could be certain of our own existence. Why? ‘Cogito, ergo sum’. I think, therefore I am. Not much of which to be certain maybe, but something. What is not generally known, perhaps because it suits modern philosophers not to make it known, was that Descartes also believed it was possible to be certain of God’s existence.

But that was all. I can only be certain of my own existence and God’s. Now whatever you think of this, Descartes has a point. Modern thinking has tended to follow Descartes in demanding proof and doubting what cannot be proven. This is what lies behind what is believed to be science’s rejection of God. God cannot be proven in the laboratory, so we cannot believe in him. Yet Descartes reminds us that it is very hard to prove anything with absolute certainty. It does not lie in our power to be that sure. Given the way scientific theory changes so rapidly, you would have thought that people would have grasped that.

What we normally ask for is not proof in an absolute sense, but evidence. Reasonable evidence. We do not want life to be based on blind leaps in the dark. We can accept that an argument cannot be infallibly proven as long as there is sufficient evidence in its favour for us to believe that it is true. We want to be rational. We want what we believe to be reasonable: not mere superstition or wishful thinking. In this series of talks, I am going to disagree with the father of modern philosophy. I do not think God’s existence can be proven. But, as Descartes showed, in the sense people often use the word, very little can.

I do, however, think that belief in God’s existence is rational. There is sufficient evidence for God to make believing in him reasonable. If, however, this is the case, it follows that it is UN-reasonable to do nothing about it. If we can establish that there is good evidence for believing in God, then not to act, not to do something about it, can only be to do with either a determined, self-destructive rebellion or blind prejudice. What you cannot claim is that you are acting in a rational and reasonable way.

The question of whether God’s existence can be established by rational enquiry as opposed to simply having faith is one that has exercised some of the greatest minds in the church. In the next few weeks, I hope to introduce you to one or two of them. We should not turn our backs on the teachers of the past. They have much to teach us today. They demonstrate that it is possible to be a Christian without having to abandon your intellect.

Some believers have believed unbelievers’ propaganda. They are frightened to think too seriously about God in case it turns out that either he does not exist after all or that there is no evidence for his existence. They have believed people like Walsh’s Palinor that if you look at the arguments you have to surrender your faith. We have nothing to fear from honest enquiry. If it were the case that belief in God was not rational, then we would be wrong to persist in believing in him. As we shall see, however, the Psalmist is right in affirming that it is fools who say that there is no God (Psalm 14:1). It is atheism that is unreasonable.

2010-02-28T09:13:00.002+08:00

After a break for Chinese New Year, I am hoping to get back to posting here!

A very Happy Year of the Tiger to all visitors to this blog.

2010-02-03T11:36:00.002+08:00

Setting Up Home

Jesus’ trips with his mother and father to Jerusalem for the Passover each year remind us that Jesus did not grow up in a vacuum. For thirty years, he lived the relatively normal life of a Jew growing up in Galilee. Indeed, so normal was it that the people in Nazareth, who knew him better than most, could not believe he was anyone special when he began his ministry. Jesus seems to have realized that this would happen and comments in both the Synoptic Gospels and John on how a prophet is not accepted amongst those who know him best. (Luke 4:24, John 4:44)

Both the Synoptics and John alert us to the fact that Jesus continued to be in touch with his mother and brothers during his ministry. This reference to Jesus’ mother and brothers raises some fascinating and important questions.

First, what happened to Joseph? Joseph seems to disappear from the Gospels and it is only Mary who is spoken of. This has led scholars to speculate that Joseph may have died before Jesus began his ministry. It is only speculation, but it does seem somewhat reasonable.

Secondly, were Jesus brothers really his brothers? Some have argued that they were only his half brothers, being Joseph’s children from a previous marriage. Or, alternatively, that they were in fact only his cousins. The only reason for this sort of speculation is the desire to argue that Mary remained a virgin even after Jesus’ birth. This does not seem to have been the case. St Matthew, for example, says:

‘(Joseph) took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.’ (Matthew 1:24-25

The desire to keep Mary a virgin has more to do with Christian attitudes to sex than historical reality. We are safer to take the text at face value and accept Jesus’ brothers and sisters as his full brothers and sisters.

Everything we hear about Jesus’ family suggests that they were devout and that Jesus and his siblings had a devout upbringing. The best known of Jesus’ bothers, James, was to become the leader of the Jerusalem Church, aquiring a reputation for being devout in his own right. He even merits a mention by the Jewish historian, Josephus. That James became the leader of the Jerusalem Church is interesting given his parents regular visits to Jerusalem. But more about James another time!

The first mention of Jesus’ brothers occurs in St John’s Gospel. St John describes the miracle at which, Mary and his first disciples were present. We are then told:

‘After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.’ (John 2:12)

I have spoken in previous blogs of the importance that Capernaum was to assume in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus first disciples seem to lived and worked there. Jesus cured Peter’s mother-in-law there. Did Jesus and his family stay with the disciples or did they make their own home there as well? From the way the Synoptics present it, it sounds as if Jesus’ family literally moved house to Capernaum. Take this verse from Matthew, for example:

‘He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.’ (Matthew 4:13)

St Mark puts it like this:

‘When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.’ (Mark 2:1)

Further support for the idea that Jesus set up home in Capernaum with his family comes from St Mark’s account of Jesus’ visit to Nazareth. St Mark records the reaction of the people there in the following way:

‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offence at him. (Mark 6:3)

While the people of Nazareth know Jesus, Mary, and his brothers, they refer to his sisters as actually living there in Nazareth with them. This surely suggests that Mary and Jesus’ brothers did not live there any longer. The sisters presumably had married and would, therefore, have been expected to live with their husbands. Also interesting is that Jesus is referred to as the ‘carpenter’, but we are not told what his brothers did.

Capernaum keeps coming up in both the Synoptics and John as the centre for Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. The fact that Jesus is said to go to Capernaum with his mother, brothers and disciples means that, at the very least, the family of Jesus and his disciples knew one another and may even have shared a home with each other. It seems likely to me that they did do so. What it didn’t mean apparently was that the brothers were as comfortable with Jesus’ ministry as his immediate disciples were.

So what was Jesus’ relationship with his family and his brothers in particular?

2010-01-30T10:56:00.000+08:00

Jesus and the Temple

It has not been a good week for posting, but I was determined to do so before it finished even if I have left it a bit late! I am preaching tomorrow. The readings are on the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, which seems a little bizarre given that we have moved in the past few weeks to the beginning of Jesus’ adult ministry.

Jesus’ relationship with the Temple is ambivalent. He was presented in it by his parents receiving recognition from Simeon and Anna. St Luke again records the one incident we have from Jesus’ childhood when he was taken to Jerusalem by his parents and causes them some panic by going missing only to be found by them sitting in the Temple.

The Synoptics only mention one visit of Jesus to Jerusalem: the one leading up to his death. St John, however, records several and as I have argued previously this seems historically likely. What St Luke actually tells us about the visit when Jesus was 12 is:

‘Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival.’ (Luke 2:41-42)

‘Every year’ they went to Jerusalem and the visit at 12 was ‘as usual’. This strongly suggests that Jesus was brought up to go to Jerusalem and surely this would not be something that he would stop when he was older. St John tells us that after his first miracle in Cana and a visit to Capernaum (more of which in subsequent posts!), Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover where he ‘cleansed’ the Temple.

Scholars argue over this. The Synoptics record this event, but put it at the end of his ministry, not the beginning. They have to as this is the only time they record Jesus going there as an adult. Some have argued that Jesus cleansed the Temple twice: once at the beginning and then again at the end of his ministry, but most don’t think this likely. Most go with the Synoptics and argue that St John has put the event at the beginning for theological reasons.

One reason scholars have for locating this incident at the end of Jesus’ ministry is because of their understanding of what Jesus was doing when he turned over the tables and drove out the money changers. For them this is a prophetic act pronouncing God’s judgement on the Temple and is a reason for Jesus’ arrest and subsequent crucifixion. This doesn’t work so well if it happened at the beginning!

However, this doesn’t seem to be how either the Synoptics or John understand the event. Yes, Jesus did speak of the Temple’s eventual destruction, but here he seems more concerned with its purification:

He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." (John 2:16-17)

If concern for the Temple’s purity is his main concern, and I fail to see why those of us living 2,000 years after the event should have a better understanding of it than those who may even have been present at it, then it could well have occurred at the beginning of his ministry. Whenever it happened, it shows that Jesus wasn’t anti the Temple as such. It truly was his Father’s house and should be respected as such. Jesus’ attitude is best explained by what St John tells us happened next. After celebrating the Passover, Jesus spent some time in Judea effectively continuing the ministry of John, baptizing people - though as St John tells us, it was Jesus’ disciples who did the baptizing. St John then makes a somewhat enigmatic statement:

‘Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’ - although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized - he left Judea and started back to Galilee.’ (John 4:1-3)

Quite why the Pharisees learning that Jesus was becoming popular should send him back to Galilee is not immediately clear. Is it that he doesn’t want to undermine John? Is it that he wants to avoid possible hostility from them? Or is it that he realizes the time has come to begin his own distinctive ministry and emerge from the shadow of John?

Whatever, he sets off for Galilee where the Synoptics will pick up the story, but to get there he travels through Samaria. From Jerusalem, in the south, to Galilee, in the north, would have been about a three day journey. During it, he meets the Samaritan woman at the well and breaks all social convention by talking to her. In the course of the conversation, the woman asks him a question over an issue that divided Jews and Samaritans:

‘The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’

This is very much what Paul argues in Romans. The Jews were God’s people. The Temple was God’s house. Jerusalem was the Holy City. But all that is going to change. As a result of Jesus’ ministry, God will no longer be worshipped in special places, but in spirit and in truth.

This verse is uncomfortable reading for many like myself who minister in Churches that place heavy emphasis on special buildings and sacred spaces. I don’t think there is any escaping that fact that the New Testament not only rejects Jerusalem and the Temple as being any longer special places of worship, but also rejects the idea of special places altogether. The Temple is now the people. We are God’s house not the building we meet in.

It’s an idea we are all familiar with, but one we find hard to act upon.

2010-01-23T16:29:00.001+08:00

Happy Saturday

I am having a break before continuing some preparation for Lent! I know it might seem a little early, but I want to give details out of what we are going to be doing to people tomorrow.

Last year, I did a short series on the parables (for some details, see under the label Lent) and, at the risk of sounding boring, I thought I would do a second series this year. Last year, I focused on the well-known parables (the Good Samaritan, the Sower, etc). I thought it might be fun this year to look at some parables that often get a bit neglected - such as the one about the Wedding Banquet (Matthew 22:1-14/Luke 14:15-24) Oh, and has anyone any ideas why the poor guy who didn't have a proper wedding robe was thrown into outer darkness?!

Anyway, the series will be begin on Wednesday, February 24. If you live in Hong Kong and want to join us you will get a warm welcome. Drop me a line and I will give you more details.

I hope your weekend is good.

2010-01-21T10:34:00.000+08:00

From Nazareth to Capernaum

While Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea about 6 miles south-west of Jerusalem, he grew up in Nazareth in Galilee and was known by all as Jesus of Nazareth. Interesting, then, is the fact that he seems not to have spent very much time there once he began his ministry. Doubtless this is because of his conviction, recorded both in the Synoptics and John (Matthew 13:57, Mark 6:4, Luke 4:24 and John 4:44) that a prophet is not accepted by those from where he comes or as we might say ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. This coming Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke 4:14-21) records a visit Jesus did make to Nazareth. This is a visit that ends with the people there trying to kill him.

St Luke uses this passage to introduce the ministry of Jesus and its themes. Probably St Luke felt it appropriate to begin his account of the ministry of Jesus with a story from where Jesus grew up. St Luke himself, however, records that Jesus’ ministry was well under way before he went back to Nazareth and that the people of Nazareth had already heard about it. Jesus says that they will doubtless say to him, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ (Luke 4:23)

Nazareth, in lower Galilee, is about 16 miles south-west of the Sea of Galilee, 9miles south of Cana, where he performed his first miracle, and about 25 miles from Capernaum on the north of the Sea of Galilee. The mention of Capernaum is an important one for Jesus seems to have made both his home and base there once he embarked on his ministry.

Before discussing Capernaum, it is worth mentioning ‘The Mystery of the Two Missing Cities’! The first is Sepphoris, a very significant city. Nazareth was just 4 miles south of Sepphoris. It would have been almost impossible for Jesus not to have gone there at some time in his life, and yet there is not a single mention of it in the New Testament. The second missing city is Tiberias, effectively the main city of Galilee. St John tells us that the Sea of Galilee was also known as the Sea of Tiberias (John 6:1) and mentions an occasion that some boats came from Tiberias with people looking for Jesus (John 6:23). But it is only in St John’s Gospel that Tiberias is even mentioned and Jesus is never recorded as having gone there himself.

The reasons for this seemingly deliberate avoidance by Jesus of even talking about these cities, let alone visiting them are complex. Tiberias was built on graves, which made it unclean for Jews, so that may be part of the explanation when considering Tiberias. Sepphoris is much harder to explain. Whatever the reason, Jesus avoided the two biggest population centres in Galilee although, given the relative closeness of places in the region, doubtless people from each went to hear Jesus as we know, from John, they at least did from Tiberias. What they thought about Jesus’ refusal to go there personally we can only guess.

So why Capernaum? It was certainly conveniently placed as a base for Jesus’ ministry around the Lake and its villages, and it was just 9 miles from Tiberias. Perhaps more important was that this was where some of his earliest disciples seem to have worked and lived.

St John tells us that Andrew and his brother Peter, who were fishermen, together with Philip were from Bethsaida. The location of Bethsaida is not absolutely certain, but it was probably a place in Galilee about 2.5miles from Capernaum going north-east around the Lake. By the time of the ministry of Jesus, however, Peter and Andrew were certainly living in Capernaum. St Mark tells us that after Jesus had preached in the synagogue in Capernaum, he entered the house of ‘Peter and Andrew’ (Mark 1:21) where apparently Peter’s mother-in-law also lived and presumably Peter’s wife! Again, St Mark tells us that when they entered the house they discovered Peter’s mother-in-law ill in bed with a fever (Mark 1:30)

The fact that James and John, who were also fishermen, are associated so closely with Peter and Andrew (Mark 1:19) and with this visit to Peter’s house (Mark 1:29) may suggest that they too lived in Capernaum. There is some suggestion that Jesus rather than simply staying at Capernaum in St Peter’s house may have actually moved his own family there as well. I will talk about family next!