felix hominum

Book Review: John H Armstrong: Your Church is Too Small

Your Church Is Too Small
Why Unity in Christ's Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church
John H Armstrong
Zondervan, 2010
220 pages

One of my first memories of campus ministry takes me back to a scene during orientation week at a major university.  I took some time to wander through the vast array of displays in the school's athletic center.  All of the various group and clubs and organizations on campus had their wares set up in assorted booths and tables and such.  I had just arrived as the new person for Anglican campus ministry in a university of over 35,000 students.  I thought it would be a good thing to check out the variety of Christian groups on campus - each one having it's own location in the campus agora to recruit new students and proclaim their message.

Now don't get me wrong.  I didn't lament the presence of so many different Christian groups on the campus.  But that very first day on the job I was struck with the thought of what might happen if all these groups had some way of uniting.  And so I was moved to do what was perhaps almost unthinkable for an Anglican in such a setting.  I went around to all of the Christian displays and asked the students and leaders staffing them if we could gather the Christians together, even for a few minutes, for prayer.  Right there, in the middle of the athletic center, buzzing with thousands of students.

I start with a story  from the past because that is where Armstrong starts.  He comes from a Reformed tradition, and he has been influenced by the ecumenical work of people like John Mott and Leslie Newbigin.  His book begins with a look at two histories;  his own and that of the church.  In his own life and work he began what he calls a "journey to catholicity".  He takes his starting points from Scripture (Jesus' prayer for unity in John 17) and from the common witness of the early church as expressed in the Apostles' Creed.  These, for Armstrong, served as benches upon which he can sit with Christians from other traditions.

As Armstrong comes from a confessional Reformed tradition, it is easy to see how his passion for unity can be seen by some withing his tradition as compromise at best and dangerous pluralism at worst.  I think all of us who have been involved in some such activity on a real level run up against this.  The fuller unity is not one in which we merely hang out with Christians from other places or denominations whose doctrines or practices are close to our own.  That is merely associating with the like-minded or the like-practiced.  Which is why, by the way, I have often found that many "Ecumenical" events are rather predictable.  They can sometimes merely be the getting together of similar people from different traditions.

I suspect Armstrong would strongly reject a charge of compromise simply because he has been searching for that early common ground.  Biblically, it is Jesus' prayer;  confessionally, it is the creed; practically, it is mission-ecumenism.  At heart of course, it is Christ himself.  As Armstrong points out, the quickest route between two Christians goes through Christ Himself.

Can the church's past act as guide for unity in the present?  Armstrong suggests that the 4 classical marks of "The Church" - one, holy, catholic, apostolic - can at least be a framework upon which contemporary Christians might build bridges over their differences. Currently there are tens of thousands of Christian denominations, independent churches and sects in North America.  Somehow each one thinks it has an understanding of what it means to be the Church.  In order to address the question of unity in the present, Armstrong looks at the roots of disunity in church history, as well as some of the current thinking that has supported the particularly Protestant pastime of splitting congregations and starting new "churches".

At heart (though Armstrong devotes only a few pages to it) is the Cartesian revolution of looking at the self as the source of certainty.  Here I want to draw out some points that Armstrong makes in broad terms.  Opposing the "self" there is the classical understanding of God as Trinity.  My sense is that once we are moved by the the unity and diversity which is the Trinity, we will have a better chance of finding the path to unity and diversity incarnated in the visible church. While we might want to go back in a romantic sense to the unity of the early church, we cannot.  First, that unity was not without its difficulties and factions.  Second (and here I am stealing a thought from Pete Rollins) it is not to the early church that we must return, but to the Person and Event which gave birth to the early church.  So our present quest for unity, while we wrestle with practices and doctrines, traditions and Scriptures, must go back, eventually, to God himself as Trinity.

So where does the path go from here?  For Armstrong, the church of the future needs to be missional-ecumenical. I know, I know:  can you pack two buzzwords from different ends of the spectrum together and not have a mess of pottage at the end?  Fortunately, Armstrong brings these two terms together with content (accent on the first syllable).  Here I think I'll return to that episode of days gone by.  Over the course of that year, the students and leaders of various Christian groups on campus tried to covenant to meet together regularly for prayer.  We would take turns leading the prayer times, which in itself was a learning experience for many.  As the year went along, we sensed that the places in which could really cooperate actively were in the areas of mission.  This is the point of the exercise:  to work together in Christ's mission to the world.  I have personally found that ecumenism which tends to focus solely on having a smorgasboard worship service, cobbling together external pieces from various traditions, often misses the point and the power of the Kingdom.  Armstrong encourages us toward relational and cooperative unity in mission as a place where the Church, in all its fullness, can begin to exhibit the unity for which Christ prayed.

Overall - A good basic intro to a newer and more robust ecumenism.  Easy to read, questions at the end of each chapter for discussion.  Lots to think about, act about, and of course, to argue about amongst ourselves.

Notice:  This book has been provided courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications, Inc and the author. Available now at your favourite bookseller.

John Franke: Manifold Witness, The Plurality of Truth

I will be intrigued to read John's book - he's currently here giving some talks at a conference on missional theology.  The title and the phrasing can be troubling:  what does plurality of truth look like?  Does it simply mean an infinite open-endedness to every question?  Part of John's starting point is the evident fact of the "plurality" of Christian practice. 

To conjure up the past, has true diversity more to do with what St Augustine was trying to get at in book 12 of the Confessions?  Augustine argued that there could be many "true" interpretations of the same biblical text.  But for Augustine, this did not mean that every interpretation was true.  What places the limit on the variety (or plurality) of "truths"?  Better yet, the best model for plurality/diversity is really the Trinity itself...

this week's reading : The God Who Smokes

in which Timothy J Stoner tells us what he really thinks about the whole emergent mish mash.

I'll let you know at the end of the week how it goes.  From the first 30 or so pages, Timothy wants to give us a broad critique of the good, the bad and the ugly in the various expressions of emergent Christianity.  Nice writing, some great imagery, and good style.  Doesn't like too much of postmodern christian stuff so far.

If my reading schedule goes according to plan (and remember that plans never go according to plan), I'll get around to posting a review at the end of the week.

On the other hand, you could always drop in for a local Peter Rollins event.

The 10 Dumbest Things Christians Do

1.   Slinging mud on the bride of Christ
2.   Winning people to the church rather than to the Lord
3.   Living below the level of our beliefs
4.   Speaking above the level of our knowledge
5.   Hopping from church to church
6.   Fighting among ourselves
7.   Missing golden opportunities
8.   Settling for mediocrity
9.   Allowing wolves to live among the sheep
10. Accepting the unacceptable

It's not my list, it's Mark Atteberry's;  from a book of the same title.  I'm mostly through it, and will be posting a few thoughts over the next little while.  Mark Atteberry comes from a different part of the Christian spectrum than I do, but there is some really thought provoking stuff in there.

book review: Kyle Strobel, Metamorpha: Jesus as a way of life

Metamorpha:  Jesus as a way of life
Kyle Strobel
2007 Baker Books

A bit of Kyle’s background is evident from this one off quote, which BTW, was quote of the day here at felix hominum a few weeks ago:

Mine is probably the first generation of children whose parents became Christians in the seeker movement.  The first time I sang a hymn was in college.  I have been saved from facing issues that come with growing up around a lot of tradition;  for example, I have no qualms with redoing everything if that is what is needed.  On the other hand, my lack of tradition has left me feeling my way in the dark even though millions of others have walked the way before me.

The first time I read this book it didn’t really grab me, but on a second reading I found that I appreciated more what Kyle was getting at.

The book is based on the theme of change.  Hence the title – use of Greek word for change.  Kyle divides the book into thee broad sections.  He writes about Christian metamorpha as a new way of seeing, and new way of being, and a new way of living.  Within these broad categories, he gives us his take on the three basic means (“informers” as he calls them) by which change takes place: “This is the equipment you’ll need for the metamorpha journey: the Bible, the Spirit, and a community of believers to travel with.”

The new way of seeing ourselves and the world is the first step in metamorpha:  Kyle claims that “much of Jesus’ ministry was about worldview development”.  In this I think he is right;  how one lives in the world will come out of how one views the world (including one’s self).  So we have the challenge of Jesus:  begin to see things through a new lens.  Kyle points to the importance of community as the place where change takes place: “Institutions as institutions can encourage people to accept propositions and even a general way of life, but they rarely change people’s core beliefs.”

His section on the new way of being touches on each of the 3 informers:  Bible, Spirit and Community, with additional material on the self.”  Much of what he says will resonate with those who have come from a modernist evangelical background.  That’s not to say that he doesn’t give some helpful and interesting general approaches for the rest of us.  He invites the reader to “interact with the Word in a more holistic way”, engaging it as “history, shepherd, and friend”.  He borrows a helpful thought or two from John Webster:  “Revelation is thus not simply bridging of a noetic divide (though it includes that) but is reconciliation, salvation, and therefore fellowship;  The idiom of revelation is as much moral and relational as it is cognitional”.  With this in mind Kyle takes us on a brief tour of the Gospel of Mark.

His section on the Spirit was, I think, the weakest section of the book.  I think I can live with that, seeing as it took the church as a whole 4 centuries to articulate the beginnings of a doctrine of the Spirit.  In dealing with the topic of community, Kyle reminds us that we cannot follow the path of Christ apart from the body of the church.   One of the thoughts which struck me on second reading is that we have so many difficulties in our church community because we haven’t really seen what an actual biblical community looks like.  Kind of like every church that describes itself as “friendly and welcoming.”  Easy to say, not so easy to do.

In the last broad section of the book, he turns to a new way of living.  This follows on the heels of the previous section, which ended with a look at selfview (as opposed to worldview).  Kyle brings the reader to the place of wisdom in living the Christian life:

“In all things, we must not seek to live above or beyond this world, but to understand that we are to live kingdom lives within it”.  He touches on the theme of the cross as part of Christian living (no ‘prosperity gospel’ here) and gives us what I think is one of the great keys to Christian development:  discipleship starts within, and then moves outward.

Overall, I'd give it a 7.5 to 8 out of 10.  It is an accessible read, something which I think I could give to a lot of ordinary churchgoers to their benefit.  I think he raises some important questions with the theme of change, and invites us to seriously consider the ways in which change takes place.

Kyle's website for the book: Jesus as a Way of Life

book review; Carolyn Arends: Wrestling With Angels

Wrestling with Angels:  Adventures in Faith and Doubt was written in 2000 (as "Living the Questions") and released again by Harvest House in 2008.

I first had a taste of Carolyn Arends' creativity a few years ago.  The godparents of one of our kids gave us a copy of her CD "We've Been Waiting for You".  She has a good sense of lyric, melody and storytelling.  Since then a few more of her CD's have graced the felix clan music collection, but this is the first time I have read one of her books.

When we shy away from the Mystery, when we reduce God's vast proportions to a more manageable size, we also limit our experience of wonder (which is doubt's more happily disposed twin).
p 218

Wrestling with Angels takes its cue from the story of Jacob wrestling at the river Jabbok.  The book is a series of stories highlighting various people, memories and events in Arends' life.  In each story there is a kind of encounter with God in which Arends is invited into the mystery of God.  Arends in turn invites the reader into that mystery.  If the book has a theme, it is simply that. She chronicles her own journey of faith with its doubts and crises, its moments of joy and revelation.

Her writing is clear and sometimes poetic without being overly sentimental.  She has a few great turns of phrase.  Some of the stories invite us to consider the presence of God in the ordinary and even ridiculous (Mom falling into the water in The Fish Pond).  Others touch on the mystery of God in the face of family difficulties.  In one chapter, Forget-Me-Nots, she tells in plain and unadorned language the story of a her grandfather suffering from Alzheimer's.  She writes both about the wonder of discovery the holy in everyday life, and the presence of God in the tragic and confused.

I suppose the book is a bit like the person:  a series of chapters which, collectively, are connected and integrated from God's point of view, if not always from our point of view. I think that is at least one of the hidden gems of the book.   Readers looking for a straightforward biography of a "good Christian artist" will possibly be disappointed - it's not that kind of writing. 

Arends points the reader clearly in the direction of the mystery of the Incarnate Christ.  She simply gets us there via a more scenic route than readers of contemporary Christian books might be used to.  And she invites us to consider stepping onto that route ourselves.

4 out of 5

The Gospel According to the Beatles

I wasn't even thought of when Beatlemania began, but I recently picked up a book by Steve Turner:  The Gospel According to the Beatles.  It's going to be my evening reading for the rest of the week, and I'll be posting a review sometime soon after that.  Steve Turner is a writer of all things music biz.  Go look at The Man Called Cash: The Life, Love and Faith of an American Legend.

Groovy, baby.

book review: God on Mute: Engaging the silence of unanswered prayer II

Last week I spent 3 days on a silent retreat with a group of local clergy.  This is an annual event;  it's been a January tradition to bundle up, head out to the Star of the North Retreat Center, and spend a few days in prayer, reading, listening, and fellowship.

As it was a silent retreat, I thought it only fitting to take along Pete Greig's "God on Mute:  Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer".  I started the book a few days prior to the retreat, and thought it would be a good book to read at that particular place, at that particular time.

It was seven years ago, during the annual silent retreat, that I received a message to call home.  We were expecting our second child.  AK had gone to the clinic for a routine ultrasound (as if seeing into the womb can possibly be routine!).  Sarah Joy was suffering from congestive heart failure in utero.  There could be any number of causes.  We'd like to do more tests.  Would you like to schedule a termination of the pregnancy?  We'd like you to speak with the geneticist.  Pete Grieg's book tries to give people a way forward when God is silent.  Not when God says "no" to our prayers, but when God decides to take his time in giving us the answer, when he is silent for a moment. 

The overall pattern of the book is a journey through the last days of Jesus' earthly life.  We walk with Jesus on Maundy Thursday.  If there was ever an "unanswered" prayer, it is surely Jesus' prayer that we might be one.  Jesus' prayer in the garden is often a model for our own.  We pray with Jesus that cups might be taken away from us, and yet so often it seems that is the only draught God offers.  Not my will, but yours.

On Good Friday we are God-forsaken.  Jesus' cry of abandonment from the Cross becomes our own - why, why, why, have you forsaken me.  In this section Greig tries to work through some of the "why" questions.  Why does the world seem to work the way it does?  Why is my prayer not being answered?  What are the ways in which these questions have been answered by Christians, and how can a deeper understanding of God's will, God's world and God's work help us through our personal "Good Friday" prayers.  In this section he takes us through the series of simpler answers which we might be accustomed to.  I have heard many of those same answers from well meaning friends and strangers.  I think my favorite was the plea to "Just pray Jabez" and SJ would be healed.  But while those answers which Greig enumerates can and do have their place, I am glad that he takes us to Holy Saturday.

In our fear of unknowing, we leapfrog Holy Saturday and rush the resurrection.  We race disconcerted to make meaning and find beauty where there simply is none.  Yet.

This is the real place of struggle for unanswered prayers.  The time when God truly is silent.  Greig's observation is true - we want to hurry through Holy Saturday to Easter.  It is a day of silence.  Yet, we are reminded: though God is silent, He is not absent.  This is the deeper place of Christian trust, when we have to say "into your hands I commend my spirit".  It is the place of trusting in God's presence with us when all signs of his presence have vanished.  Too often we try to rush others through this day as well.  Or we try to fill the void with something of our own creation.  I think of how we like to fill hospital rooms with chatter and stuff, when sometimes our mere presence is what is needed.  Not our voice.

Then Greig points us to the Resurrection - the place where all prayer is answered.  The book is seasoned with his own experiences of struggling with "unanswered prayer".  And at the end he gives a bit of a guided resource for reflection which can be used alone or in groups.  The book is a good antidote to overly triumphalist Christianity, and it addresses a concern that many Christians have, but which often (I have found) they are not very willing to admit.  After all, what kind of Christian is ignored by God?  This book is food for thought and prayer for all of us who have wondered why God doesn't answer... I'd give it 8 out of 10.

related post:  God on Mute

God On Mute: Engaging The Silence Of Unanswered Prayer

Pete Greig recounts the scene from Narnia where Digory asks the Lion for the magic fruit, knowing it will cure his mother.  There is a secret hope that the Lion will immediately say "yes", and a dreadful fear that he will "no".  Instead, as Grieg reminds us, the Lion says neither. 

He is silent...

Many of us will have had those times when there was neither a clear yes or no.  There was silence.  I recall a time some years ago when there were numerous people praying for our daughter, SJ.  At one point I idly figured out (our minds turn to such things at such times) that there were people in over a dozen countries on 3 continents all praying for one particular person.  It seems out prayers can, at times, hit the ceiling and bounce back down.  There are times when we do not hear an answer.  We may want to shout back:  take your own advice - "say either yes or no", but say something, lest I be tempted to spit you out of my mouth.

It is the kind of struggle which we all to often keep to ourselves.  Perhaps we will be accused of "not having enough faith", or "not praying persistently", or not doing it "the right way."  If you have ever felt God was simply silent, well, you are not alone.  This is a difficult topic, and as I make my way through the book, I hope that Greig offers something for us to hope on.

The weekend's reading: 
God On Mute: Engaging The Silence Of Unanswered Prayer
Pete Greig

Update:  review now posted here.

Monday book review: "Germ", Robert Liparulo

Monday books tend to be a little bit different from books from the rest of the week.  Monday is a day off for me, so the reading for the day corresponds.  Today's tome was "Germ".

Germ is Robert Liparulo's second novel.  It's a combination good guy/bad guy, science gone awry, Nazis and American spies, with a Christian pastor and his bad brother mixed in for good measure.  It's your basic entertainment suspense thriller sort of read.  it's not exactly heavy lifting, but hey, what else are you supposed to read on your day off?

So what's the "Germ"?  A scientist discovers a way to program the ebola virus with your DNA.  In other words, if he has a sample of your DNA, he can create a designer virus which will attack only you.  Of course, with people's DNA available anywhere and everywhere, he can create a set of targets at will.  Which of course he does.  He even has an evil Nazi past.

Enter special agents, an informer from the scientist's lab, and one of the strangest hit men in history to round out the scene.  There is some good old fashioned shoot 'em up scenes, and a few interesting twists along the way.  One or two twists are actually quite clever, IMHO.  Overall, the book is a light, easy read.  It's pure entertainment reading, with a very light dose of Christian imagery thrown in.  The pastor is not overworked as a character, and there is just enough gore at the right moments.

Book and a beer - I enjoyed them both.

book review: John Spong - Jesus for the Non-Religious

Jesus for the Non-Religious

I just finished re-reading John Spong's latest offering.  I had to read it twice to make sure I was not missing anything.  After all, just a few pages into the introduction, Bishop Spong declared that if he is successful in his task, then  "I believe I will have set the stage for the emergence of a new burst of Christian energy and power that has not been seen for hundreds of years.” (xiii)

Wherever this new burst of energy and power has been hidden, I have not found it here.  What would allow the dam to burst and this new force of Christianity sweep the world?  He argues that we will do this by seeing the Jewishness of Jesus and ridding ourselves of theistic concepts and language which are merely evolutionary leftovers.  We are, it seems to Bishop Spong, a species of beatnik poets, struggling against existential "anxiety" like footnotes in a Freudian textbook.  The only supposed cure for this anxiety is the illusion of a God conceived and portrayed as something other than ourselves.  By freeing Christianity from outdated concepts and language, we can see the Christ-experience and embrace the real Jesus.  In order to do this, it is necessary to demythologize the narratives which have grown up around the person of Jesus.  Gone are any notions of a virgin birth,  Mary and Joseph, most of the disciples (even Judas is historical fiction - which now saves me the trouble of addressing the Gospel of Judas) any form of the miraculous, any notion of a supernatural intervention in a purely materialistic existence.  Anything else is fundamentalism - a general term for any other possible understanding, although it would appear that only the straw man makes an appearance:  a "God" who does miracles is capricious (54), ascension is not possible because "one does not exit this world by rising into the sky without jet propulsion" (67);

This is the foundation:  Bishop Spong claims to be aware of something called "our postmodern scientific world".   That statement in itself tells us something of Spong's limited attention to the shift from modernity and its religion within the limits of reason alone (to borrow from Kant), to a post-critical reading of sacred texts, and a postmodern critique of the limits of the scientific worldview and method.  Spong's entire approach has not moved beyond the limits of empiricism, and so he fails to grasp how there can be a Being beyond Tillich's ground of being.

It is the presuppositions which hinder what still can be a number of helpful commonplace observations.  Spong goes to great length to point out that events in the Gospels have antecedents in the Hebrew Scriptures. Nothing new here for someone familiar with basic biblical studies.  Making such connections can be helpful for people who have never grasped any continuity in the biblical narrative.

But then Spong argues that such having antecedents are themselves evidence against the historicity of almost all the Gospel events (88ff et al).  "...[T]his would also mean that this intervening God would have to micromanage the world in order to guard those scriptures" (113).  Given that there can be no "God" cooperating with humanity in order to produce a sacred text in the first place, the rest of the conclusions are easily drawn.  We need to rid ourselves of this "superstitious way of reading the scriptures".

Still 2/3 of the way into the book, and I still have not met this Jesus for the non-religious.  When he is finally introduced, he is going to cause a revolution by calling us to embrace tolerance, diversity, reject prejudice and stereotypes, and in the end, we will all become contemporary Episcopalians.  Or something like that.

So what is good in this book?  The connections between the Gospels and the Hebrew scriptures should generally be helpful to novices.  The dismissal of the caricature of Christianity is something that most could agree with.  The only problem is that it is a dismissal of a caricature.

Where does the book fall short, apart from the thoroughly modernist assumptions about humanity and reality?  First, Spong offers no compelling reasons, within his framework, as to why in the world all of this mythology should have been built up around the person of Jesus in particular.  As someone who has some familiarity with the classical world, I can tell you why a mythology of divinity arose around the Caesars.  But there is no convincing reason in Spong's book explaining why it should have arisen around Jesus.  Unless, of course...

When Jesus for the non religious is finally introduced, he does not appear to me to be a compelling figure in any way.  If I were to give an introduction of Jesus to a non religious friend, I would much rather go with works by someone like Brian McLaren.  Even though I don't agree with everything McLaren writes, at least his presentation of Jesus is a truly human Jesus, a Jesus who radically challenges and a Jesus who, as a character, comes alive.  Spong's Jesus will be left in modernity, where he was created.

related posts:

John Spong - Jesus for the Non-Religious

Review: McLaren: The Secret Message of Jesus

John Spong - Jesus for the Non-Religious

I do not believe that anyone can, with supernatural power, cause the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the mute to sing and the lame to walk in any literal way.  If that were possible, the development  of medical science would have been quite unnecessary.  That development, however, was necessary, because the discovery of both the causes and the cures of illness or the lack of wholeness is now and has always been a human, not a divine, responsibility.

Jesus for the Non-religious, p 12

The weekend's reading is going to be John Spong's latest offering.  In his introduction to the book, Spong reiterates a number of points he has discussed before in other works:  the Jewishness of Jesus, non-interventionist deity, his rejection of traditional forms and liturgy, his problems with language and his reaction to his fundamentalist upbringing.  One thing remains.  For someone who talks about "a 21st century Christianity", he seems awfully stuck in the paradigms of hubristic modernity.  Only those things which fall under the explanatory power of modernity can be credibly held:

We know death to be a permanent state, and to be so total a shutdown of bodily function that the brain is irreversibly destroyed if it is without oxygen for a very few minutes... Certainly a crucified man, executed and buried on Friday, cannot walk out of his tomb resuscitated and alive on Sunday...  I must reject all these things as not possible.  (12)

Woo-hoo - hang on for the ride, kids!

Perpetual Advent - Kester Brewin

Of course, in many ways the church is destined to live in perpetual advent as we wait for Christ's return... No matter how impatient we get as a society, with processing speeds rising and our whole cultural velocity increasing ever faster; we cannot speed up pregnancy.  We still have to wait the same patient nine months that Mary did, not knowing, not seeing, not being able to hurry things along.

Signs of Emergence (47-48)

Jim and Casper Go to Church - book review

An atheist and a Christian do a road trip around Evangelical Church-land in America.  They take along their laptops and decide to record the experience.  The result is "Jim and Casper Go to Church", a short and easy read which is a bit of a religious travelogue through a smattering of Christian churches.  Jim, of Off The Map, wants to know, really know, what an atheist thinks when he or she walks into a church service.

They start out big, with a visit to Rick Warren's Saddleback, which is on the corner of Purpose Drive ("yes, those are the actual street names", p.1) and Saddleback Drive.  On the west coast they visit the Dream Center, and then the current incarnation of Mosaic, where they have a brief (and seemingly unproductive) chat with Erwin McManus.  In Chicago they go from classic Presbyterian to inner urban - from "King James" to "w'sup, Coach".

i didn't find that there were many surprises in this book.  On the one hand, a sophisticated and educated atheist goes to a variety of Christian expressions, and finds the various faults which they embody.  Fair enough.  There are enough specific "techniques" which the various branches of the vine use on a regular basis.  My favorite ritual is described like this:

...I waited for the moment we had come to expect at the close of every church .  We call it the "breaking-voice phenomenon."  For some reason, the pastor ends the service sounding as if he's about to cry.  Christians are largely inured to this.  It's so common that we either endure it or enjoy it because it's the tribal signal that services are almost done. (55)

So is it just a church-bashing exercise? As St Paul says, by no means!  What Jim Henderson wants to communicate is a two-fold proposal.  First, Christians are largely unaware of how their "services" look to the outsider who is unchurched.  It's the sort of principle that, I believe, you either get or don't get.  Second, Jim tries to reshape our vocabulary.  Rather than seeing Casper as "lost", the reader is encouraged to see him first as a person, not as a project.  Jim uses language like "a person whom God misses".  Rather like the Father "missing" the prodigal son, rather than focusing on the son as "lost".  What we need to do, says Jim, is to "defend the space" of friendship and discussion and listening to the unchurched, rather than focus on the "place" of worship.

The heart of the book is not the critique of various churches and worship styles, but rather the modeling of a conversation between a Christian and an atheist.  The book can raise a number of questions:

• do we think our "church services" are helpful to the unchurched?
• should they be?  or should evangelism take place primarily in another "space"?
• what is the experience of the outsider walking into our church?
• do we even connect at all, personally, with people outside a Christian circle?

Overall, I'd give it a 6-7 out of 10 simply as a book to read, but closer to an 8 as a tool for starting a conversation within my own church about "us and them".

Next up is a return to Budziszewski...

Budziszewski on Francis Schaeffer: A Christian Manifesto

I was in high school when Francis Schaeffer published A Christian Manifesto in 1981.  By the time I was an undergrad a few years later, I had been introduced to Schaeffer by association with IVCF.  Well, actually, it was by association with a particular student who was involved in IVCF.  I was rather partial at the time to a rather more liturgical form of Christian piety.  In those days they served sherry after High Mass on Thursdays.  But I digress.

In "Evangelicals in the Public Square", Budziszewski claims "it was Schaeffer who first made evangelicals aware of the culture war, an odd sort of war in which, he complained, so far only the other side had shown up to fight [73].  In response to what he saw as a growing systemic program of secular humanism, Schaeffer claimed that Christians have been negligent because they "have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals". (Manifesto, rev. ed.; Wheaton: Crossway, 1982, p 17).

Budziszewski examines several of Schaeffer's points.  First is the gradual replacement of a "vaguely Christian" worldview (Manifesto, 17) with the worldview of secular humanism.  In great part Schaeffer blames lawyers and liberal theologians [Budziszewski, 74-75].  What has happened, Schaeffer argued, is that Christian pietism has allowed for a compartmentalization of faith - Christians "have acted as though nothing more were at stake than a few particular truths, like Christ's virgin birth..." [75]  Budziszewski see in this a bit of a swipe at the Fundamentalist movement.  While the "secularists" have seen things in terms of transforming a whole society, Christians have been involved in only "bits and pieces".

Authority and the State: aside

Schaeffer was concerned with the removal of moral absolutes.  The overall result of the secularizing tendency, particularly in the state, is to eliminate any basis for authority beyond the state.  The flip side of course is that there is then no limiting of the state:  it is the state which can grant rights, and therefore the state can remove them.  There is no grounding of authority in anything higher than the collective.

Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:

It is interesting to stop at this point and consider the preamble to our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Why does our Charter recognize "the supremacy of God" and the "rule of law" - in that order?  It is argued by some that such concepts and language have no place in the state.  But what are the implications of removing any notion of an authority higher than the state? And what are the implications for a state which recognizes no authority, no "supremacy", greater than its own collective?

To be continued:  laundry calls...

related posts:

• J. Budziszewski: Evangelicals in the Public Square 
• Budziszewski on Carl FH Henry, Evangelical Politics and The Uneasy Conscience
• Coffee and the Charter of Rights

Budziszewski on Carl FH Henry, Evangelical Politics and The Uneasy Conscience

Coffee and a book...

The influence of Carl FH Henry on contemporary evangelicalism is undisputed.  He was a founder and first editor of Christianity Today, and one of the first faculty members of Fuller Theological Seminary,   He authored more than 30 books, and is, in the words of Budziszewski,“if not the father of the new evangelical movement – for it had no single originator – at least one of its uncles.”  [40] 

In 1947 Henry published “The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism”, a book which is his “most influential contribution to evangelical political reflection”.  [40]  Budziszewski devotes the first part of Evangelicals in the Public Square to critiquing both the book and its legacy.  What Henry saw in his own day was a movement away from the Fundamentalists to the “new evangelicals”, and with it Henry framed his lament over a misguided and hopeless modernity, and a challenge that Fundamentalists had ignored the social imperatives of the redemptive Gospel.

Henry argued broadly that redemption (like sin) is not only individual, but is also social [Henry, Conscience, 32, 37, 51-52].  He sought to correct the pendulum swing of the Fundamentalists, who in their reaction to a social gospel movement which seemed to downplay the divinity of Christ, had “seemed to revolt against the social imperative of the gospel itself” [41].  The underlying doctrine to drive this was the Incarnation, which has implications for wider social involvement and responsibility. Budziszewski summarizes Henry’s implications of the Incarnation for a redemptive social evangelicalism: “[Christians] should withdraw only from movements whose means or goals are explicitly anti-evangelical” [42].  What this means is that Henry was calling evangelicals and Fundamentalists to a wider engagement with the range of institutions – social, political, educational, economic. 

As Budziszewski points out, Henry’s strategy for engaging these institutions is not a developed Christian theory of education, politics, sociology or economics.  Rather, it is by populating these institutions with Christian individuals that the institutions will be transformed and redeemed. Here, I think, is the first question to be leveled in relation to contemporary “evangelical politics”:  Is it only through populating the institution with individual Christians that the institutions can be “redemptive”?  On one level, we see this played out in the elect-ability of candidates whose personal faith is agreeable to a set standard.  Fill the parliament, or congress, with individual Christians, and the rest will look after itself.  But is this the case?  Arguing from natural law, Bud holds that such an approach is short – it fails to call us to the task of thinking through a Christian economic and social philosophy, a Christian jurisprudence, a Christian philosophy of state and governance.  Christians need to have a notion of how the institutions can function redemptively.  For example, can we understand and enact just laws even if we do not have “Christians” in government? And conversely, will electing "Christians" lead to more just public institutions?

Another point to be considered in the (non) development of evangelical political philosophy is eschatology.   Budziszewski looks at three streams of eschatology in evangelical circles – streams which are still with us today.  Think of the “Left Behind” series which has populated Christian bookstore shelves and fattened publishers’ bank accounts.  Henry lamented the state of division and the amount of energy devoted to eschatology in his day, and Budziszewski looks at the legacy of these streams [44ff].  There is a large section of evangelical political thought which does not seek to transform the surrounding culture, but merely is content to be protected from it.  It is an escapist ideology which becomes merely defensive.  With shades of Kuyper, such evangelicals are happy as long as their own spheres are protected:  “we don’t think we will change the direction of public education, but don’t try to force that stuff on MY children.”  Budziszewski astutely observes that the “rise in fundamentalist political activity therefore reflects not a shift from a protective goal to a redemptive goal, but an increase in the perceived level of threat.” [46ff]

What Henry called evangelicals to do was engage the wider culture with the redemptive Gospel.  But what he failed to do was articulate a way in which evangelical Christians can think about those institutions apart from simply populating them with Christian individuals.  As Budziszewski points out, “Surely it would be naïve to think that better laws eliminate the need for God’s grace.  But it is equally unrealistic to suppose that conversion cancels out the need for better laws.” [47]

This whole area is a fascinating one.  One of the biggest charges brought against Henry and other evangelicals is that they failed to provide a “cultural apologetic”.  That is, they failed to explore if there is any basis on which to engage and cooperate with non-Christians in the pursuit of the public good.  This is a question which will have different answers from different quarters.  Is there any commerce between the City of God and the city of man?  Can there be a common notion of public “justice” among Christians and non-Christians?  Budziszewski argues that a great failing of evangelicalism is the absence of natural law as a bridge to a non-Christian culture.  This is the flip side of the Incarnation – all humans are made in the image of God, and as such, there are points of contact between all.  In their zeal for special revelation, they have neglected the tools of general revelation.

An interesting read so far.  Think I’ll have to pull out the Meno again…

related post:  J. Budziszewski: Evangelicals in the Public Square

J. Budziszewski: Evangelicals in the Public Square

The weekend's reading will be Evangelicals in the Public Square.  It is a series of essays looking at the work and influence of four voices who, though not all what we would call "evangelical", have had influence on American evangelical political thought.  Budziszewski & company look at Carl F.H. Henry, Abraham Kuyper, Francis Schaeffer and John Howard Yoder, examining their most important works, and asking how each has contributed to contemporary political theory and practice in evangelical circles.

The problem for evangelical political thinkers is not that the Bible contains no political teachings (for it does) but that the Bible does not provide enough by itself for an adequate political theory... The Bible assumes that [] large truths are known before we come to the Bible.  Unless Abraham had already known something of justice, he could not have debated God about it. [33]

Right away you can get a sense of where Budziszewski will take his critique of evangelical political thought:  the separation of scriptural revelation and natural law needs to be addressed if evangelicals are to develop a better political theory.

related post:  Budziszewski on Carl FH Henry, Evangelical Politics and The Uneasy Conscience

Q, Walter Bauer, & more Bock and the missing gospels

A bit of continual meandering around some themes introduced by Darrell Bock, with previous posts here and here...  Tonight's stroll looks at some questions raised by Bock in chapters 4 & 5 of this book.

So we have a variety of viewpoints all claiming to lead us to the roots of the true Jesus, and the true teaching or faith which he left to his followers.  Was the variety of viewpoints found in the the 2nd C also present in the 1st C?  Or was this variety a novelty, a subsequent development?

There are a few things to consider as we look at competing claims.  One is the nature of the claims.  So someone might say, “Jesus was just a first C wisdom teacher, nothing more and nothing less”.  Now anyone can hold such a view.  The question is rather do the sources hold out evidence for such a view.  I might hold that Napoleon was an 18th Century watchmaker.  But do historical records point me in that direction?

If one is using only the alternative texts (such as the Gospel of Thomas), is there evidence to support such a claim?  Elaine Pagels is persuaded that Thomas is old, at least as old as John’s Gospel, and that it presents us with a non-divine, non-exalted Jesus.  But looking at things like saying 77, where Jesus claims he is “above all”, tells us that these texts do not simply provide a us with a picture of Jesus as a simple wisdom teacher. And people in the pews or in the news who claim that Jesus was a mere teacher also tend not to: a] be familiar with such texts; b] quote such texts if they know of them. 

Whatever happened to Q?

A lot of weight has been placed on “Q”. Q is thought to be a source for some of the material in both Luke and Matthew.  Think of it this way:  my brother and I are both writing family histories.  We each draw on a collection of notes which came from our great uncle.  And we also include our own observations, first hand accounts, and stories from other family members.   So parts of our stories would be quite similar (drawing from the same source) and other parts would be unique to each of our writings. 

New Testament scholars have looked at Luke and Matthew and said “It looks like these writers have, at some point, been drawing from the same pool of material – either something written down, or particular stories handed on orally.  That is why the two gospels share similar stories at certain points.”  And so they hypothesized that there must be a source from which Luke and matthew both draw.  The name for this source is Q.  Now a few points are in order.  First is that “Q” has never been found.  That in itself presents a bit of a difficulty for historical accuracy, doesn’t it?  Second, accepting or rejecting the idea of Q does not put one inside or outside any circle of orthodoxy or heresy.  After all, Luke says that he used sources. 

The difficulty comes when you try to reconstruct Q, and then come up with a reason for its “disappearance”.  First, you have to assume that it was a thing in existence.  Second, you have to come up with a description of it.  Was it merely a collection of handed on teaching which was then incorporated into the gospels as authentic?  Or, as some suggest, was it a larger body of material which was suppressed because it gave an alternative picture of Jesus?  So someone like Ehrman makes the claim that it presented a different picture of Jesus, and so it was suppressed by the powers that be.  Perhaps there was an early tradition which told the truth about Jesus – that he was a wisdom teacher and nothing more, that all the things and teachings we now associate with the word orthodoxy were later additions, that “we have missed the truth about Christianity” (cf NT Wright in this book).  The key question about Q has to do with what one thinks was in Q.  Was it a body of sayings and material that was circulated in the tradition, and because of its authenticity (and hence orthodoxy) was simply absorbed into the writing of the evangelists?  Or did it have a lot of other things which contradicted the traditional gospels on certain points, and so it was “disappeared” by the orthodox religious mafia of the day?

In chapter 5 Bock gives us a brief tour of the influence of Walter Bauer.  Bauer published a work in 1934, which was republished 30 years later in 1964.  The English title of his work is “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity”.  Bock helpfully points out both positive and negative in Bauer’s work.  First, Bauer introduced some methodological considerations:  how far can one trust the church fathers in assessing the views of those they were writing against?  True enough, yet when one looks at Irenaeus against the sources there is great consistency:  he represented the views of his opponents quite well. (Bock 48).  A second insight had to do with geography:  as Bock states, ideas travel across time and place at different speeds. (49)

So what was Bauer’s thesis?  It basically had two pillars:  [1] there was a variety of views as to what the original form of the Christian faith was, which could be seen if one looked across the geography at the time;  what we call orthodoxy was a later construct;  [2] Rome was in control and imposed its version of orthodoxy across the church, that’s how and why “orthodoxy” came into being.

Bock devotes a good deal of energy (see Bock 48-55) referencing subsequent scholarship debunking Bauer’s thesis, although he notes that Bauer’s contribution to method are important.

Bock & the Missing Gospels: an intro to the questions

Picking up from here.

For a number of years I’ve had an interest in older things.  Probably explains why I ended up in Classics.  Old texts, old thoughts, old ways of looking at things – all of these capture imagination, both mine and those of others.  Over the past number of years we’ve seen the publication of things like the Qumran scrolls, the discovery of the Nag Hammadi material, and if you recall, the most recent “discovery” of the Gospel of Judas.

Often what one encounters is a sound bite of such ancient texts, in the form of an interpretive summary.  Sort of “I’ve looked at the material and can now say X about the historical Jesus/ the early Church/ Judaism/ Paul/ insert item here.”  I’ve encountered many people in bible studies, discussion groups and in conversation who have heard of these kinds of documents and about a particular interpretive school of thought.  One hears about these texts and their interpretation, significance or meaning from religious studies courses, local study groups and lectures, and from the more popularized works of theologians and would-be theologians.

I was an undergraduate in Classics a few years after Elaine Pagels published  “The Gnostic Gospels” (Princeton, 1979).  The book was an instant success.  Bock introduces his work with a quote from the back cover of Pagels’ work: 

…to illuminate the world of the first Christians and to examine the different ways in which both Gnostics and the orthodox Christians constructed God, Christ, and the church.  Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Whether you have studied or read in this area, or simply picked up a newspaper around Easter every year, you will have heard names like Bart Ehrman, Crossan and the Jesus Seminar.  The inside jacket of Ehrman’s “Lost Christianities:  The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew” (Oxford: 2003) makes the claim that:  “…these spectacular discoveries reveal religious diversity that says much about the ways in which history gets written by the winners.”  Bock looks at the announcements surrounding the more recent work by Marvin Meyer (The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus):  “an image of Jesus as the ultimate wisdom teacher.”  Students and laypeople alike will recognize (and have differing opinions of) what Bock refers to as the “new school”.

So where do we start?  In a sense we are starting ahead of ourselves:  we really need to look at what we understand by revelation and Scripture.  But for the time being, I want to take a walk through Bock’s work – looking at the Nag Hammadi texts at some depth.  This is really the most fruitful way of discovering any ancient way of thinking.  Read the text.  The same principle is true of the gospel of John and the letters of Seneca:  read the text.  It is great and helpful to read commentaries and interpretive materials, but they are no substitute for immersing yourself in the text.

Bock calls himself a “tour guide” for the reader.  No doubt he has his positions and beliefs, as we all do, and so one might be skeptical as to whether or not he will simply point out his favourite portraits of Jesus and early Christianity.  Yet I think overall he does a fair job of presenting the texts, the various interpretations, and giving the reader enough context to draw conclusions.  He limits his study to

“the period before Irenaeus, that controversial church father of the late second century.  The new school claims that Irenaeus ‘won’ and was the key architect of orthodoxy.  The claim is that this orthodoxy … emerged even more clearly in the third and fourth centuries.  So the new school argues that the Christianity we know has roots that do not really go back to the time of Jesus or even to the apostles in a way that precludes other alternative views of Christianity.” (xxv)

In chapter one, Bock gives the reader some basic historical background to the time period of the second and third centuries.  The first context of “Christianity” is the Jewish setting in which it arose, with the Jewish beliefs about God, and the broad category of the covenant and the promises to Israel.

It is helpful to think about some rough timeline in early Christianity, although one should remember that there are not abrupt jumps from one time period to the next.  Bock gives a brief overview of three:

1]  The time Jesus and the Apostolic period – up to the end of the first century.  This is the period in which Jesus and his immediate followers (apostles) would have been active.  The latest date for New Testament writing puts us in the 90’s AD, so with the death of the Apostles comes the end of the Apostolic age.

2]  The age of the “Apostolic fathers” covers the time the time of the first few generations after the first period, roughly up to 150 AD.  The Apostolic fathers were those “who had contact with the apostles or fit in the period just after them.” (9)  In this period you will encounter texts like 1 Clement, the letters of Ignatius (a bishop of Antioch), the “Martyrdom of Polycarp”, the Didache, the “Shepherd of Hermas”.  It is in this time period that one can certainly see the rise of “alternative” views of Christianity, particularly some Gnostic texts.  We will talk about the Gnostics below.

3]  The age of the Apologists goes from the previous period through to Nicea (325) and beyond. (10)  In case you are confused by the term “apologist”, it isn’t someone who is sorry for Christianity, it is one who writes a defense of Christianity, or makes an argument in its favour.  Apologists often wrote with specific “opponents” in mind.  In this time period you will see names like Justin Martyr (100-165; who, by the way, predates Irenaeus), Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origin.

So why is the history important?  Well, it is argued by the new school that these later apologists are the ones responsible for forming what we might call orthodox Christianity.  It is claimed that earlier on, there were:   [A] competing views and interpretations, or [B] an entirely different understanding of Jesus and Christianity, and that [C] these later apologists pushed out the other views and imposed ‘orthodoxy’ on the church.  Some questions which come to mind:  did these “orthodox’ beliefs exist in the early Christian communities?;  was there suppression of such beliefs?  Or, as NT Wright asks in his work, have we missed the truth about Christianity?

A word about the Gnostics.  While Bock gives us a brief overview, I would also point you to part one of Jaroslav Pelikan’s work, “The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition” from his five volumes on the history of Christian doctrine.  It is a more thorough and presents the reader with the “next step up” in terms of indepth history of the period.  It is worth getting.  But back to Bock’s overview.

When we think of possible “alternatives” to orthodox Christianity in ancient times, the term “Gnostic” always rises to the surface.  The term comes from the Greek words for knowing or knowledge.  In modern scholarship, Gnostic or Gnosticism is used to refer to those who held that belief was rooted in a “special knowledge”.  As Bock summarizes, “those in the know are called Gnostics”.(15)  In chapter two Bock looks at some of the discussion and difficulties around the term.  It is a term, which was used both positively and negatively in early Christian circles.  We can see both uses as we read the scriptures:  many Christians will be able to quote a text like “you shall know the truth…” and yet we have Paul writing “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Bock points us to the work of Kurt Rudolph, who has listed five traits of Gnosticism (19ff):
1]  Dualism – the belief that creation and humanity are a mix of good and evil, based upon the view that there is a distinction between the true “God” who is above all, and a lesser “God” who created the material world.  Often the “true God and the Creator God of Genesis are not the same thing.”
2]  Cosmogony, or how the universe is set up.  There is a contrast between light and dark, soul (or spirit) and body or flesh, knowledge and ignorance – things exist in pairs of opposites.  If point one shows us a dualism in God, then this point shows us a dualism in the created world and how we live in this dualism.
3]  Soteriology, or what we mean by salvation, and how it is brought about.  Salvation is by knowledge of the true state of things, and it is salvation of the non-material part of humanity.  There is a saving of the mind/ soul or spirit, but not of the body.  Because the body and flesh belong to the darkness, there is generally no resurrection of the body.
4]  Eschatology, or what the end-times of all things will be like.  Think “Left Behind”, but with panache.  There is a restoration of the spiritual to the Spiritual, and not much interest in having a re-newed creation.
5]  Cult and community, in which cult means not the people who sell peanut brittle at the airport and live on a commune, but the way the believers or adherents practice their faith in worship and liturgy and ritual.  For instance, the Gnostics had practices like baptism, and other liturgical ceremonies.

So Gnosticism and Orthodoxy – which came first?  Did Gnosticism give birth (by opposition) to what we call orthodoxy, or was it a derivative set of beliefs, a parasite upon orthodox belief and practice?

That’s it for tonight.

Darrell Bock & the Nag Hammadi "Missing Gospels"

For the past half year or so I have done a bit more reading some early documents.  You can still see NT Wright's Judas and the Gospel of Jesus : A Christian Response sitting on the reading list, although I finished it last spring.  One of the other books I have recently read is by Darrell Bock.  It's called The Missing Gospels.  It is a fairly good introduction to the Nag Hammadi texts; the many so called "gospels" which pop up in the news, in pop culture and in scholarship on a regular basis.  (Usually around Christmas and Easter, in order to "debunk more fully the mythology" which traditional Christianity has assembled around those dates.)

For the rest of the week I will be doing some posting around this particular area.  What are these "other gospels" which one hears about?  What do they say about Jesus?  Bock does a great study of the original materials, both the Nag Hammadi & the traditional gospels, and compares them in several categories:  God and Creation;  Jesus - Divine and/or Human;  the nature of Redemption - Spiritual/Physical;  Jesus' death.  I will also throw in some stuff from Wright's analysis of the Gospel of Judas.

There are so many fundamental questions involved it's hard to know where to begin, but let me suggest this as a starting point.  in my reading of various churchy-type publications (okay, I like to read church newspapers), I came across a description of a traveling Jesus Seminar presentation in the Diocese of Calgary: 

For those who attended the Seminar at All Saints, our speakers presented  Jesus as one who was just as radically counter cultural in his own day as he is in ours.
An illiterate rural peasant from a dirty town, itinerant preacher and a day laborer...
Sower (big pdf, pg 8)

There are two things which jump out at me.  First is having a look at some of the "alternative texts" which people use to establish a new idea/picture of Jesus.  And second is the question of whether there are fundamental problems which arise in this sort of re-drawing of Jesus.  Many folks might be startled by this description.  Jesus an illiterate peasant?  How then shall we think of this:

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.

Let us fix our eyes on Him.

The Bishop of Rwanda

We are still finding bodies - buried in pits, dumped in rivers, chopped in pieces.  Besides providing the details of this very sad story, my goal with this book is to tell an amazing, uplifting story.  It is the story of the new Rwanda, a country that has turned to God, and which God is blessing.

It is wrong to say that Rwanda was forgotten or hated by God.  That is like saying that God forgot Jesus when He was on the cross...Rwanda was abandoned and forgotten by the world, especially by the rich and powerful nations, but God did not forget Rwanda.

from
The Bishop of Rwanda:  Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones.

The Rt. Rev. John Rucyahana, a Tutsi, was elected as bishop of Shyira Diocese in Rwanda in 1997.

book review: Real Christianity, William Wilberforce

“I would suggest that faith is everyone's business.  The advance or decline of faith is so intimately connected to the welfare of a society that it should be of particular interest to a politician.”

Reading Wilberforce reminds me of that uncomfortable feeling I had when I first began to realize that Jesus fed the crowds not before, but after He delivered His sermon.  Wilberforce’s Real Christianity is touted as “the book which helped end slavery in Britain”.  Those of us used to political and activist writing might be surprised to learn that Wilberforce says very little about the “issue” of slavery.  Instead, he addresses the spiritual state of the nation, believing that an authentic and lively faith in Christ was the chief cause for the social ills of his time.  Wilberforce’s approach seem counter-intuitive to many of us.

In 1797 Wilberforce, a member of Parliament for the County of York, published a small book which has come to be known as "A Practical Guide to Real Christianity."  The original title gives us a much clearer picture of what Wilberforce intended to accomplish with his work:

A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity

It was a book that immediately caught public attention.  Kevin Belmonte, an up-and-coming scholar of Wilberforce's text, notes that the book became an immediate "bestseller" of the time and went through five editions within six months.  15 more editions would be printed in Britain before 1826, and 25 editions would be published in the US.  It was translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

A new, rather paraphrased edition has been prepared by Dr Bob Beltz [Ventura, CA: Gospel Light/Regal, 2007].  This new edition is simply titled "Real Christianity", and retains the thought and powerful message of Wilberforce's original text.  One of the things I quite appreciate about Beltz’ versions is how he has retained the occasional emphasis with which Wilberforce wrote: italics and capitalization are kept in those passages where Wilberforce himself used them.  This gives the reader a fuller sense of the passion of the original text.  Some of what Wilberforce writes shows that the work is very much a product of his times, but the message of "authentic faith" is a timeless challenge to "cultural Christianity".

Chapter 1: The State of Contemporary Christianity:

Wilberforce intends his readers to understand that his book is addressed to those who profess to be Christians.  His lament is one that might be echoed by many today:  “I fear for the future of authentic faith in our country.  We live in a time when the common man in our country is thoroughly influenced by the current climate in which the cultural and educational elite propagates an anti-Christian message”. [20]  He places great emphasis on the Bible – he refers to it throughout the book.  He is also clear in his opinion that “what we believe determines how we live”. Belief precedes action and determines its direction.  [24]  He challenged those who have “settled for  cultural Christianity and remained ignorant or unresponsive to authentic faith”. [25]

Chapter 2: Current Ideas About the Nature of Man

Wilberforce immediately addresses what he sees as the root:  “the majority of Christians overlook, deny, or at the very least minimize the problems of what it means to be a fallen human being”. [27]  He asks his readers to take the problem of evil seriously.  This means being conscious of sin as an expression of fallen humanity.  He gives us two examples of the causes of sin.  In keeping with much of the thought of his time, he refers twice to giving in to our “lower nature” and “appetites” [29, 33], and it is clear that he is working within the framework of the rational Enlightenment.  However, he also challenges the materialist assumption that there is no “supernatural” agency involved in evil.  Wilberforce warns his readers to take seriously the existence of supernatural forces that tempt and corrupt.  He calls us to take into account how demonic activity is at work in the human heart”. [34]

Chapter 3: Understanding Cultural Christianity

Wilberforce begins with 11 “essential facts about Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit which the Bible teaches, and, historically, the Church embraced”. [41]  His 11 essential facts seem to be a propositional form of the classic creeds.  While he argues that “truths’ are foundational to authentic faith, the center of religion is a “commitment to Jesus Christ” [45].  He then adds to this rationalist approach by expanding on the necessary role of emotion in authentic faith [47-54].  In a line that is worth pondering, Wilberforce states that “[e]motions must be judged by what arouses them [49].  He then returns to the problem of “faulty thinking” about both the Spirit and the nature of God.  His summary at this point is just this:  “For those who attempt to reduce faith to a system of ethics, we respond with the words of Jesus:  ‘The work of God is this: to believe the one he sent’” [60].  What Wilberforce attempts to point out is that in his experience of contemporary society, those who practice a cultural Christianity of a system of ethics, rather than belief with ethics, fail to do justice to the ethics they proclaim.  This is because without authentic faith, one has no power to rise above fallen nature [chapter 2] and actually put into practice the ethics that Christ taught.

Chapter 4: True Standards of Christian Behavior

“We say that Jesus is our Savour, but we forget that he also said that He is our example.  he not only said ‘Believe in me’, but also, ‘Follow me.’” [64]  And here Wilberforce encourages his readers to recognize that “the pursuit of holiness is a joy.”[66]  This of course has long been the secret of the Christian life – holiness and joy are not mutually exclusive, but inseparably intertwined.  The great sin to which we are tempted is idolatry – anything which is in competition to our wholehearted love of God.  Again, it is faith which precedes action:  “It is almost impossible to live as Christ taught if we do not have a transforming belief that changes the way we live.” [78]  A necessary part of this call to Christ-like behavior is self examination.  Wilberforce refers to this process several times. [104 ff]  it is the Christian equivalent of the dictum, the unexamined life is not worth living.  And Wilberforce encourages us to be diligent and honest in our self examination. 

He gives us a simple answer to the problem of our morality:  “It is the neglect of study of the bible and reflection on the life of Christ that is at the heart of the practical errors of the majority of professing Christians.” [121  A rather simple remedy, but there you have it.  If we were to focus our time and energy on just those two pursuits, I’m certain we, and our churches would experience transformation.

Chapter 5: Arguments for True Christianity

This is the shortest chapter in the book – only 7 pages in all.  Here Wilberforce explains that he is “not trying to give proof of the truth of Christianity”, but rather it is in this chapter that he tells his readers that “Not only is the gospel intended for all of humanity, but it also has a special place among the poor.” [135]  And perhaps this is exactly one of the chief “arguments” for the living in authentic faith:  that the gospel is for the poor.

Chapter 6: The Current State of Christianity

Wilberforce next looks at the broader question of the influence of “authentic Christianity” in the culture at large.  He is critical of a national Church which has become simply indistinguishable from the general culture. [142]  He turns his attention away from the personal faith of which he wrote in the first 4 chapters, and instead writes more directly about the relationship of the institution of the Church to the institution of the nation politically.  He describes himself as a patriot, but not a nationalist. [151]  He takes some pains to show that at least on one point, the aims of Christianity and the aims of politics coincide – each is concerned to root out “natural selfishness”  in order to “develop a proper sense of who we are and what our obligations are to our fellow human beings.” [155] 

Wilberforce also recognizes, at least in part, that the political and economic systems of his day were not “naturally Christian”.  In fact he goes on to compare the health of the Church in times of persecution with what he sees as a moral decay brought about by too much attachment to new found mercantile wealth.  It is not that such recent “progress” is in itself bad (he praises the many benefits which have come with such progress), but he carefully asks his readers to think critically about the systems in which they find themselves.

Chapter 7: Practical Hints About Authentic Faith

Here Wilberforce turns his attention away from the larger political questions and back to the individual.  He looks again at the importance of self examination, noting that it is one of our great problems that we do see our faults as clearly as God sees them, nor do we perceive their gravity.  He gives some advice for those of younger years – both to men and women of marriageable age – also touches on the faults he has seen in the aged.  Temptation is everywhere present; he stresses a need for constant vigilance in spiritual growth.  Here in this chapter Wilberforce tells us that a social "benevolence" is the natural outcome of authentic faith.   "Private" faith will have an impact on the public sphere.

For Wilberforce, the route to a transformed nation is primarily through transformed individuals.   He calls cultural Christians to examine themselves and he urges them toward “authentic  faith”.  Wilberforce himself used the phrase “Evangelical Christianity” in his original text, and this book gives us a more complete picture of what evangelicalism should be about:  a lively faith coupled with a benevolence for humanity, all for the glory of God. 

book review: Girl Soldier - A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children

Grace Akallo was 15 years old when she was abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army from St. Mary's College in Aboke, Uganda.  “Girl Soldier” tells the tale of her own ordeal, as well as shedding light on the history of the conflicts – political and spiritual - which have been part of the landscape of the “pearl of Africa” for decades.

Grace tells her story, which is ultimately “hopeful”, in short first person pieces.  It is interspersed with the  writing of Faith McDonnell, a Christian activist and author.  I think the “back and forth” format of book does not work as well as intended, but I can overlook that fault for two reasons. 

First, Grace tells her story in a style which emphasizes the role of prayer.  Again and again she tells us how, in the midst of unthinkable evil, her heart turned to prayer.  There is very little “shock value” writing.  It is the bare bones of a Christian seeking God in the midst of a trial most of us could not even begin to imagine.

Second, I found Faith’s history of the conflicts enlightening.  While I was aware of the general plight of the people of northern Uganda, I knew only a little of the history behind these conflicts.  Faith supplies ample research and documentation for a novice to Ugandan history.  It is remarkable.  I’m not particularly prone to using such language, but if I was ever to point to something and call it “spiritual warfare”, then this is it.  I found myself agreeing with her conclusion that “some battle is being waged that is beyond that of flesh and blood, beyond the world that we can see with our eyes.” [213]

I picked up this book yesterday evening and finished it somewhere around 2 in the morning.  Every once in a while I would do some digging on the websites recommended in the book.  As a father to 4  children, I can't even begin to imagine the nightmare that these children and their parents are enduring.  The book offers a glimpse into this crisis, with a variety of resources and suggestions for those who are moved to prayer and action.  The immediate humanitarian needs are enormous, as are the long term needs of reconciliation and  forgiveness.

But as Archbishop Henry Orombi states in his preface to the book:  "There is hope for Uganda because the Christ, who was born, walked our world and died as a sacrifice, is alive". [16]

book review: An Emergent Manifesto of Hope: Key Leaders Offer an Inside Look

One of the more interesting series of conversations I had at our recent Anglican General Synod focused loosely on the emerging church stuff within the Anglican tradition.  There are a number of people across the country doing fruitful things within the Anglican vocation, but with a twist of lemon.  It is hoped that some of us might connect and contribute to renewing the way we do mission in our culture, and with our generation.

I've had a bit of an interest in things emerging for a while, mainly birthed from my time in ministry at a large university, and my association with some local ne'er do wells.  Alice the Camel, faithful commentress on felix hominum, remarked that I am "ever sifting".  While not all would agree with me, I suggest that there a a fair amount to be gleaned from some of the people, ideas and practices found in what has come to be labeled "emerging church."

An Emergent Manifesto of Hope:  Key Leaders Offer an Inside Look

An Emergent Manifesto of Hope:  Key Leaders Offer an Inside Look
ed Doug Pagitt & Tony Jones Baker Books: 2007, and for those who count such things:  318 pages

EMH is a collection on short essays centered around the theme of hope.  As Tony Jones writes in his introduction to the book, the limitations of such an approach are obvious:  “How do you explain where you fit in the Emergent friendship in 3000 words?  Or, worse yet, how do you describe your hopes and dreams for the future of God’s kingdom and your cooperation in it in as many words?” [15]

The essays are grouped under 5 broad headings; A People of Hope;  Communities of Hope; A Hopeful Faith;  A Hopeful Way Forward; and Hopeful Activism.  Within the book you will certainly find things to love or hate – there are a variety of perspectives offered.  Many of the contributors appear to be refugees from the Christianity of American modernism, especially of the evangelical variety, and there are a handful of authors with connections to the traditional “mainline” churches.  As I’ve said elsewhere, the term “emergent” [or “emerging church”] is a catch all; you don’t really know what’s in the box just by reading the label.

I suggest that if you are unfamiliar with emergent, this book would give a good overview both of the variety of personalities in that conversation, and the breadth which is found within the movement.  It will give you a flavour which you might not get from simply reading the critics, or from getting together with a few friends, and setting up some Celtic music and a bag of aromatic candles.  One of the keys terms in the conversation is “friendship”.  I suggest that the reclaiming of friendship as central to the Christian community is a breath of fresh air in an erotically driven age.

In the essay “The Art of Emergence:  Being God’s Handiwork”,  Troy Bronsink suggests that “we might view Emergent as a group, a creative agent in the midst of the church readapting prior symbols shared by postliberal and postevangelical Christians.” [69]  One of the discoveries shared by several authors is the existence and importance of Christian community outside their previous experiences of “church’.  This ranges from new ways of looking at neighbourhood to finding Christian community within prison walls.  In this new awareness of community at least two authors expressed similar experience:  “being agents for change while being continually transformed” [Maddok &Maddok, 88];   “Prison ministry is a type of spiritual formation that works both ways – it changes everyone involved” [Olson, 95].

Lest you think that community can only exist apart from traditional forms of church, Brian Mitchell, a Roman Catholic writer, offers this radical vision of community within the structure of the Diocese:  “Every layer in hierarchical structure exists to serve the layer beneath, not the other way around.  This is what separates true hierarchy from feudalism.” [116]  He calls for a return to looking at the Diocese, not the parish, as the fundamental form of local community.

Several essays attempt to address the relationship between contemporary culture and the Christian faith.  Ryan Bolger observes (rightly, I suggest) that it “is often very difficult for people to know the tendencies of their own culture.” [132]  There is recognition that we are in a post Christendom era [165 ff], with a renewed emphasis beyond marketing models of church and into [caution:  jargon crossing]  missional living.  “[W]e are going to have to let go of the attractional model – inviting people to come to us – and instead go to where they live, and to there, live out our faith.” [Taylor “Converting Christianity” 170].

A section devoted to “theology-shaped practice and practice-shaped theology” [171-243] is perhaps the most diverse section of the book.  The topics range from rethinking the face of leadership, problems of inclusion all the way to a positive analysis of the value of Karl Barth’s thinking and methodology to the problems of contemporary culture.  Here’s what Chris Erdman writes:  [Barth] is like a jazz musician who knows the score so well he can freely improvise but without the foolishness of those naïve, would-be musicians who think they can soar in ecstasy without knowing their chords or being tutored by the tradition itself.”  [“Digging Up the Past” 241].

In the last section, “Hopeful Activism”, I was most moved by Rodolpho Carrasco’s stories of Harambee Christian Family Center in East L.A.   It reminded me very much of Jackie Pullinger’s dictum that we need to have “soft hearts and hard feet” in our service to the poor.  All of the essays in this section draw out the implications of the previous section:  examples of faith in action, touching the various incarnational issues of living as a human being, of a certain race, of a certain tribe, from bread in the mouth to kisses on the lips.

So what’s the nitty gritty?  It is a good introduction to some of the people in Emergent circles, with enough variety in the choice of subjects and authors to keep you either engaged and provoked, or  frustrated and simply shaking your head.  The book is has a number of small gems popping up from time to time:  I blogged one as my “quote of the day” a while ago.  If you are already familiar with Emergent, you will probably recognize many of the names.  And yes, there are a number of authors with whom I would disagree on some points, but there are others as well who have made me think more deeply about certain questions. 

Bottom line:  worth getting and reading.

review: William Wilberforce's Real Christianity

William Wilberforce died on July 29, 1833.

In 1797 Wilberforce, a member of Parliament for the County of York,  published a small book which has come to be known as "A Practical Guide to Real Christianity."  The original title gives us a much clearer picture of what Wilberforce intended to accomplish with his work;

A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity

It was a book which immediately caught public attention.  Kevin Belmonte, a contemporary scholar of Wilberforce's text, notes that the book became an immediate "bestseller" of the time and went through five editions within six months.  15 more editions would be printed in Britain before 1826, and 25 editions would be published in the US.  It was translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

A new, somewhat paraphrased edition has been prepared by Dr Bob Beltz [Ventura, CA: Gospel Light/Regal, 2007].  This new edition is simply titled "Real Christianity", and retains the thought and powerful message of Wilberforce's original text.

So on a sunny afternoon, while the felix clan is having naps, I sit down to read a most remarkable work by an even more remarkable man.  I'll do some further reviewing as I go along (I'm currently halfway through the new edition) for those who have not read this book before.  Let me give you a piece from his original introduction to the book:

I would suggest that faith is everyone's business.  The advance or decline of faith is so intimately connected to the welfare of a society that it should be of particular interest to a politician.

The book into 7 chapters:

• The State of Contemporary Christianity
• Current Ideas About the Nature of Man
• Understanding Cultural Christianity
• True Standards of Christian Behavior
• Arguments for True Christianity
• The Current State of Christianity
• Practical Hints About Authentic Faith

I'll let you know...

holiday reading: An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

I have two choices: mow the lawn or read a book.  So I've picked up the copy of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (Pagitt & Jones, et al.:  Baker 2007) which has been laying around collecting dust for the last few weeks.  It is a collection of essays by names familiar to those who have been following/practicing the "movement" (for lack of a better word) which has come to have the tag emerging church over the last little while.

Speaking of communities of immense sanity, it's almost time to play some music with the local L'arche gathering.  I think that next time we have an Anglican General Synod, we should elect one of the core members of L'arche to run the program for us.

book review: The Thrill of the Chaste, Dawn Eden

The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On

Dawn Eden

W Publishing Group, 2006

I can’t always see the joy that is set before me.
But I know one thing.
Where my old way of life is concerned, there is no joy behind me. (35)

Dawn Eden gives us both a retrospective into her past, and what she has discovered in terms of hope for the future.  In the present she is coming to understand a good number of lessons, learning to live in the virtue of chastity, and encouraging others to do the same.

In Eden’s story there are several conversions.  She tells us that at the age of 31, “after being an agnostic Jew for my entire adult life, I had what Christians would call a born again experience”. (4)  But her book is not the stuff of much of what passes for contemporary devotional literature on the topic of “purity”.  The book is rather down to earth; she is up front about her experiences and her struggles. She writes as well of those daily conversions of habits, attitudes and actions to which Christians are called.  While she writes from and to an explicitly female point of view, I would suggest that many men could benefit from this book as well.  She gives us some insights into women’s sexuality which could come in handy, guys.

What is chastity?  She quotes Mark Lowry: chastity is “that virtue by which we are in control of our sexual appetite rather than it being in control of us.” (14)  With this short definition in mind, she proceeds in the second chapter to hold before us both our contemporary culture and the ancient virtue, arguing that being “chaste is a bold challenge to modern culture, because it proves that people are not automatons but human beings with free will, able to control who and what they are.” (17)  Mixed in with this is the apparent degradation of “singlehood” (21 ff) in our society:  to be single is often seen in negative terms, lacking a relationship with a man. (22)  And we’ve all seen enough Cosmo mags at the checkout counter to see that not a few advertisers are trying to tell women that there must be “all sex, all the time”. 

Much of popular culture, particularly magazines directed at single women, hold up “having sex like a man” as a goal toward which all intelligent women should strive.  Women who refuse to hold to that ideal are derided as provincial, hopelessly backward prudes. (33) 

There are a number of sensitive men who will take exception to that phrase “having sex like a man”, and I suppose I should object as well in case my loving wife reads this.  However, I will only quote the psalms “I said in my haste, all men are liars”.    I might suggest that  Eden accomplished some of what comes all too naturally to men when she writes:  “I was learning to detach, to feel as though I could separate the physical actions of sex from its emotional consequences…” (50)

We can learn this detachment early in life, and the experience of parental separation and divorce certainly played a part in forming Eden.  She recounts episodes in her childhood (56 ff) which certainly had an effect.  Yet, as Eden’s story shows, we can be more than the sum of our history, and at the end of the day, we can only throw back so much on Mom and Dad.

There is a certain amount of hope infused in this book.  She takes a look at the broader “meaning of sex” (63-71).  Coupled with this is her own discovery of how casual sex affects the other person:  “I started to wonder what effect my own actions when I was unchaste had on the men with whom I’d had sex.” (76)  Her conversion to Christianity led her to begin to see the other, and began her move away from a merely self-centered existence.  It is ironic that the sexual act, designed to be the communion of two persons, can be the ultimate lonely experience.  One of the first things that appears after her confrontation with her own life, is the beginning of concern for the other.  All of this takes time in the Christian life:  “what’s changed is not so much what I am, but what I am becoming.” (80) 

Eden tells us of her subsequent journey in working out the implications of her new faith.  Christ calls us to convert the whole of our lives, from our emotions to our wardrobes.  In all of this, she sees a new hope that she will eventually find Mr. Right, or rather that God has found Mr. Right, and will introduce them at the opportune time.  I was tempted to say something about this naïve confidence in God, but then I remembered how my wife and I got together, so I’ll have to agree with her.  God is not indifferent to such things, and as Christ calls us into specific vocations, he also calls us into the vocation of marriage. (101 ff) 

She gets down to the nitty gritty, telling her readers everything from tips on how to meet a future husband to dealing with sexual fantasies and masturbation.  Dawn has given us a good book:  one which is honest, insightful, and hopeful.  She is as open about her Christian faith as she is about her past, and doesn’t try to put too much blue eyeshadow on either.  She strikes me as a realist, but a realist who knows as well that the ultimate reality is God’s ability to make beauty out of ashes.  Like the “yes” which Mary spoke to the angel, Eden’s “yes” to God is not the end of something, but the beginning. (80-81)

book review: Jesus Mean and Wild: Mark Galli

Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God by Mark Galli

Mark Galli is the managing editor of Christianity Today, and in his latest book he tackles the image of the “Jesus meek and mild” with a look at the Gospel of Mark.  He makes his way to a Jesus whom he sees as mean and wild “by working through seventeen passages in the Gospel of Mark where I find Jesus the most discomforting.” (19)  His study of Mark leads him to look more closely at those episodes of Jesus’ ministry and teaching where the “nice” Jesus of cultural imagination is clearly set against the Jesus of controversy, anger, strength and harsh demands.  If you thought that Jesus only belongs on the front of a Hallmark card, then have a look at this book.

To begin, Galli looks at the question of suffering:  Jesus is driven out into the wilderness immediately after his baptism, and we too can expect to be driven to such places in our Christian walk.  In contrast to the sugar daddy god of the prosperity gospel, Galli finds “the consistent witness of Scripture that God’s plan for us is a difficult one and that redemption – personal, social and spiritual – does not happen without suffering.” (32)  Another theme, unpopular at best, is that of repentance:  “and so one of the first lies that we must renounce is that repentance is outdated or irrelevant.” (38)  As Jesus says at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, repentance and believing the Good News are part of the same message.

Galli points out as well that Jesus sometimes exhibits attitudes toward people which are less than what we think of as tolerant and patient.  Most of us would right away think of Jesus’ responses to the Pharisees, but Galli instead looks at Mark 1:40-43, when Jesus healed a helpless outcast leper.  "…Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.  After sternly warning him he sent him away at once." then

How is it that Jesus is capable of being so abrupt and stern with the weak and the outcast, and how shall the rest of us fare?  Only then does Mark’s Gospel bring us to the stories of Jesus’ reaction to the religious leaders, indicating that the divine ‘sternness’ and impatience is not reserved for the Pharisees, but can come to any of us.

Galli goes on to tackle some of the idols of contemporary (Christian) culture.  Jesus attacks our twin idolatries of family and individualism (81 ff), redefining the nature of community in Mark 3: 31-35.  Then there are the difficulties of a Jesus who seems to want to keep folks from understanding the meaning of the parables he is uttering (Mark 4:11 ff).  This Jesus seems to be issuing selective invitations into the Kingdom, contrary to our image of Jesus the all-embracing. (96 ff)

As he goes through the Gospel of Mark, Galli can’t help but be impressed by the displays of sheer power which Jesus exhibits, a power which he says we often downplay or rationalize. (111 ff)  “If we do that enough, we begin to think of the Gospel stories as nothing but metaphors, and metaphors primarily about us”.  We tend to lessen the sheer displays of power, Galli argues, because “the power of Christ frightens us – as well it should.” (113)

Galli also takes a closer look at the various demands Jesus makes upon those who would follow him.  Even in an age when research shows that what we call “high demand” churches are flourishing, we still fall far short.  “Give us a somewhat challenging faith and we do just fine… [I]f we’ve given ourselves to a contemporary, high-demand expression of faith, we should recognize that it doesn’t even approach the demands Jesus makes on us.” (134-5)

Galli wants his readers to consider that Jesus as he is portrayed in Mark’s Gospel is anything but simply nice, meek and gentle.  The money quote goes like this:  “We promise people peace and joy in Christ, and this is a sound promise.  We assure people that they can know Jesus personally.  This assurance is sure.  But we often fail to tell them about the calamity that comes to the one who seeks to know, really know, Jesus – the real Jesus.” (163)

Was this book a good read?  Yes.  There are a number of challenging thoughts provided by Galli’s journey through Mark’s Gospel.  Some I agree with, some I will look at again.  The style is readable, the secondary sources quoted range from the early Fathers of the Church to the latest contemporary figures.  The book uses personal anecdotes more sparingly than many others I have read, which makes for a refreshing change.  At the end there are a series of study questions for further reflection on each chapter.  A good antidote to the Jesus of "culture's paltry imagination". (176)

This is a book I'd like to engage with my parishioners  - maybe just in time for Lent...

The Thrill of the Chaste

Got a copy of Dawn Eden's "the thrill of the chaste:  finding fulfillment while keeping your clothes on"

Dawn blogs here.

Whatever happened to the Gospel of Judas?

You remember, that funny thing that the National Geographic hauled out of the archives last spring, just in time for Easter, and the promise that it would turn Christianity on its head, rehabilitate Judas' good name, and open up the secrets which the "Church" has kept hidden from the plebs for ages?

Well, 6 months later Tom Wright published a succinct little book.  "Judas and the Gospel of Jesus: Have We Missed the Truth about Christianity?"  I've read through the advance copy a few times.  It has probably been overlooked by most in the wake of his simply Christian thing, but this is N.T. Wright at some of his finest, I think.  He disembowels a lot of pretentions here.  We are going to go through it step by step...