Reading for 2025 (no further)

The title of this post is, I admit, a bit cryptic. You’ll have look back at this January post to get it. But having tee’d up my reading for the year, all neatly piled up, I thought it was only fair to say something in retrospect about it. Then next year (i.e. next week) I’ll say something about my plans for 2026. Only one item will appear in both piles and it is foundational metaphorically and physically. My Greek New Testament has been well used (if not the “Intermediate Greek Grammar” that also appeared with it). I’ve carried on trying to read part of my daily Bible reading in Greek (2025 was a New Testament year), before switching to English, as well as with my weekly reading group in which we’ve mostly been reading John’s writings. Again, because it’s the Tyndale reader’s edition, I’ve benefitted from the help given on each page, which saves me reaching too often for my copy of BDAG (if you know, you know), which was a 2025 birthday present. Currently Tyndale House in Cambridge, whose efforts produced this version of the Greek NT, are expanding and upgrading their library facilities. More power to their elbow. They do vital work that is of continuing benefit to the wider church.

My big “theological reading project” for the year was N. T. Wright’s “Christian Origins and the Question of God”. As before, the idea was to read a little bit every day and knock off the whole thing over the year. And very useful it has been too. Even when the material is hard, and the language a bit convoluted, Wright is always an educational, and even occasionally an entertaining, read. The early volumes have been a really helpful in understanding the intellectual background (not to say ferment) of second temple Judaism which is the wider context into which Jesus steps and Paul later appears. The main thrust of much of this is that this is (unsurprisingly) a Jewish context, something that some Christians (or at least some theologians) have at various points attempted to extinguish from the reality that is the history. Right at the centre of it all is the middle volume (“The Resurrection of the Son of God”), which must stand as one of the best explorations of the resurrection ever written (at least in English) and quite a lot else besides. Some of this material even turned out to be relevant to my other big project of the year (of which more below). The final volumes focus on Paul and his theology; although what theology, his or anyone else’s, actually is turns out to be a tricky question). One of the main themes is again that Paul doesn’t suddenly stop being Jewish and then determines to set up some rival “religion” (although what constitutes a religion also turns out to be quite tricky). Rather, he comes to the startling conclusion that Jesus, albeit the crucified Jesus, has been demonstrated to be the promised Messiah (by the resurrection), has fulfilled one set of promises long made to Israel by their covenant making, covenant keeping, creator God, and has inaugurated the fulfilment of anther set. And to stop uppity Gentiles like me becoming too cocky, I should just remember that I’m the odd branch that has been grafted into a Jewish rootstock. Interesting to read against the background of the recent antisemitic atrocities in Manchester and Bondi Beach. Having succeeded in reading through to the end, I’m going to miss my daily dose of N.T.!

I did plan some “lighter” reading in the form of Hillary Mantell’s “Wolf Hall” trilogy. This was inspired by the BBC adaption of course. It turns out to be a sort of mixture of history and theology. Alas, it turned out no to be “light” enough. I did get to the end of the first book in the trilogy but then I gave up. Mantell is of course a Booker Prize winner; that should have warned me. History I like, and theology I’m committed to. Historical theology (which I suppose you could argue is what N.T. was writing and what I enjoyed reading in the form of Calvin’s Institutes last year) I have enjoyed. There is some historical fiction I’ve enjoyed (I learned all about the Napoleonic wars from Denis Wheatly’s “Roger Brook” stories) but not so much this. I might have another go at Cromwell in 2026, but no promises.

At the top of my 2025 pile was some of the reading that was necessary for a paper I was writing on neuroscience (my former interest) and theology. Some of this was to do with basic philosophical problems that arise when we consider what we are as persons (eg are we made of one kind of stuff which is only physical or is it more complicated than that?), and some were taken up with previous theological responses to what assumed to be the inescapable philosophical consequences of the advances in neuroscience over the last fifty years. Some of those responses left a lot to be desired. It still astonishes me that some in theology fell for the line that the only valid questions are scientific questions and therefore only science can give valid answers. This is basically to make an a priori commitment to a particular form of materialism (only physical stuff exists) which makes explaining things like money and football scores inexplicable in any useful way. And of course it rules as invalid the question “does God exist?” assuming you take God to name an entity that is immaterial. You no longer have to prove He doesn’t exist, because you’ve already decided the issue. There are many supporters of such a position. What is interesting is that, however large that number used to be, it is almost certainly declining. This kind of view leaves unexplored lots of things that actually we are all very aware of including God Himself. You can only go on for so long telling people that questions about such things are invalid. Materialism is its various forms is increasingly viewed as being inadequate (see further here).

Having done lots of reading round the topic I wrote my paper and submitted it. One reviewer loved it, one hated it, and the third thought that what I had produced was good as far as it went, but that I had ignored the important topic of “neurotheology”. So, I had to do more reading, and a bit of writing, and submit a revision. Such exercises are always akin to a negotiation. Whether I’ve done enough for the editor remains to be seen.

Perhaps one day what I’ve written will be on someone else’s reading list. More on my 2026 reading pile shortly.

On Christmas plans….

What plans do you have for Christmas? Perhaps you have a particular present in mind for that special one (or have been thus instructed). But you’re leaving the actual purchase to the last minute (Christmas eve would be ideal). Imagine though. You turn up at a suitable retail outlet only to discover that they’ve sold out! You would just have to switch to plan B. Or perhaps you have a Christmas journey planned. The tickets have been bought, the hotel booked. Imagine though. You turn up on time at your favourite local airport to discover all flights have been grounded by a software glitch somewhere in Austria! No doubt about it. Plan B again. Such things don’t happen to us often. But the plans we make often depend on lots of other people and things over which we have absolutely no control. Lots of moving parts that we need to run smoothly. Usually they do, occasionally they don’t. And on those occasions when Plan A doesn’t work out, plan B has to be pressed into service. Some people seem to think about the first Christmas (i.e. the birth of Jesus – although that wasn’t any kind of Christmas) as a sort of divine plan B.

Why might such a thought occur to anyone? Because before any of the “Christmas” events transpired there was a whole series of happenings and history that had unfolded over the preceding centuries. Some of the players in this history thought they had a handle on what was going on, and indeed that they were central to God’s big plan. That a big plan was needed was clear from almost the beginning. Things were just not as they were intended to be, and that applied to people too (you’ll find the reason for this laid out in Genesis chapter 3). With a devastating flood and the destruction of the tower at Babel, things seemed to go from bad to worse to confused. But then, from around Genesis 12 (actually the hints are right there in what appears to be the unmitigated disaster of Genesis 3), a coherent strategy emerges. This involved the God who made everything calling an obscure man named Abram out of idolatry (i.e. the worship of things that are not God) and making extravagant promises about blessing coming to everyone on earth through him and his descendents. Gradually, from that man (eventually renamed Abraham), who took God’s promises seriously and trusted the God who made them, a people emerged and came to prominence. Not that it was all plain sailing. From a human point of view it seemed to take a long time and a circuitous route. And once or twice the whole thing seemed to be on the verge of complete collapse. At the time when Abraham’s descendents were numerically strong enough to be called a nation, they actually had to be rescued from slavery and oppression while residing far from the place they had been promised. Their whole rescue experience, in both symbol and reality, turned on God being faithful to His original promise even in the teeth of their consistent failure to live like Abraham (ie trusting God). But their very failure to be the people they were supposed to be pointed to a basic flaw within them that they shared with rest of humanity (the same flaw that affects all of us today). They were no more or less flawed than anyone else; in this respect they were representative of us all.

Eventually it looked like God had given up on them. Although they owed Him everything, they kept playing fast and loose with His, although He was constantly proving Himself true to that original promise. They even returned to the sort of idolatry that their ancestor had been rescued from. Eventually everything appeared to fall apart. It looked as though, like so many other ancient cultures, they were to be washed away by successive waves of history. So if ancient Israel, for that’s who we’re thinking about, was plan A, and it was through Israel the rest of us were to be blessed, the plan appeared to be in big trouble. The whole of the Old Testament of the Bible is their story. It is a story of repeating patterns, and of a promise which, while often forgotten, was never quite erased.

Out of the ruins something (someone!) long promised eventually arrived. His coming wasn’t new in the sense of something different (i.e. plan B because plan A hadn’t worked) because it fell precisely into those patterns and expectations set up by the whole of the Old Testament, something many of the writers of the New Testament go out of their way to demonstrate from Mark to Revelation. But it was new in the sense that when it happened it was simply not what was being looked for, to the extent that many, both at the time of the promised One’s arrival and since, completely miss what’s going on. All that had happened in Israel’s history, what appeared to be wasted time and effort, turned out to precisely illustrate what was about to happen and more besides. It all turned out to be part of one big plan (A).

Israel’s experience, real and excruciating as it was, actually served to reveal the magnitude of the problem. That was necessary because human beings don’t generally understand just how awful their natural predicament is and therefore the magnitude of the solution that is required. It turns out that promises, encouragements, rules, religious systems, all of which work from the outside of a person, can’t ultimately fix the problem, which for all of us, for all of time, has been on the inside (the unfixed flaw mentioned above). But it’s almost as though part of plan A was to illustrate that problem in detail, and how not to sort it, before the actual solution was presented.

Here’s the big difference between God’s plans and ours. We often need plan B because we don’t have the power to deliver plan A. There are always things outwith our control that can (and sometimes do) interfere. But the thing about God is there is nothing outwith His control or beyond His power. So there was never going to be anything to interfere with, or thwart, plan A even if looked to human eyes as though there was. Something amazing is happening when Jesus is born in Bethlehem. His birth isn’t a sign of the failure of plan A and the need for something new (plan B). It’s actually the next part of the unfolding plan, brining us closer to the crux of plan A.

I hope you Christmas plans work out. God's plan certainly is.

One hundred and fifty years (and counting)

Just as we have done for the last few years at this point in the summer, we decamped to Keswick in the English Lake District. It’s a shortish hop for us (about two and a half hours north up the M6 – when open). There are lots of reasons to come to Keswick, most famously the majestic surrounding hills, the beautiful lake, the ice cream. But as readers of this blog will know (and apparently there are a few of you), these are but chocolate sprinkles on a very chocolaty chocolate cake. The real reason we’re here is the Keswick Convention which this year is 150 years old. I’ve written about the Convention before (in 2018, 2019 – the others are easy enough to find). Clearly, to last 150 years, it must be getting something right. But I wonder what it is?

Longevity is, of course, no necessary indication of value. Where human institutions are concerned, more than a few have lasted a long time. Those that do tend to be the ones that continue to meet some basic need or perform some useful function. But they do this by doing two apparently contradictory things successfully. First of all they remain the same to the degree that continuity through time can be observed, remaining identifiably a single institution rather than a succession of different ones. Yet life is change, so they must also change, grow or evolve as needs (either perceived or real) change. If there’s no change, then fossilisation and irrelevance develop. Too much change, and it begins to look like the particular institution in question doesn’t really qualify as such or that it has neither firm foundation or core of any value. It strikes me that Keswick has negotiated this conundrum rather well. The world (in both sacred and secular aspects) has changed over the the last 150 years. And so has the Keswick Convention. Yet it has a distinguishable DNA that has been constant.

The original aim of the Keswick Convention (which began with a tent for 1000 in Thomas Dundas Hartford-Battersby’s vicarage garden) was essentially to get serious about living out the Christian life. At the centre of it was Bible teaching. It’s worthwhile reflecting in what today is considered a “secular” culture, that the notion of taking the text of Scripture as being both authoritative and transforming seemed as odd to many in the final part of the nineteenth century as it does today. Although 19^th century Britain was well-churched, belief was beginning to become as shallow as it was broad. David Bebbington identifies the early 1870’s with the beginning of the ebb of evangelicalism on this side of the Atlantic. In the established Church of England there were many who rather looked down on taking Scripture and its call to transformed living too seriously. According to the historian Mark Noll there was a growth in “Broad Church opinion and the progress of High Church practices”. Classic evangelical views (i.e. historical, biblically orthodox belief) were increasing seen as out-of-date and in need of radical revision, and there were those in professional theology (who prepared the men who would fill the pulpits) who were only too eager to carry the revision out. The Robertson Smith case and Charles Briggs paper defending “Critical theories” (both in 1881) were harbingers of what was to come. Outside the Church of England, the theological drift that would soon engage Spurgeon in the “Downgrade” was well and truly underway among “independents”.

In contrast the post-enlightenment “inevitable progress” narrative (which could point to real advances in science, technology and medicine) gathered steam. And it was portrayed as the antithesis of classic, orthodox Christian belief; a competing, more successful and more “adult” narrative. Christianity (and Christian theology) was merely one superstition among many which was on the cusp of being banished for good. Human reason and its products were all that were needed. Long before the bloody 20^th century put paid to the myth of inevitable progress (although the odd still-twitching digit is occasionally  encountered today) Hartford-Battersby discovered for himself that true transformation occurred from the inside out, effected by the Word of God, through the Spirit of God. This is what he wanted to share with others. And so the Keswick Convention was born.

Of course, he and his friends had rediscovered something that had always been true. But truth has a way of sinking out of sight (or being obscured) before reappearing again (as it must). There is always a need for transforming truth. To use some jargon, the transformation that occurs when someone comes to faith in Christ (i.e. is converted, saved, becomes a Christian), while fundamental is not final in the sense that no further change is necessary or possible. There is a need to hear that we all begin in desperate need of rescuing (the kind of language used by Paul at the beginning of Galatians). Having been rescued, utterly and completely, in way that can only be accomplished by God Himself, a new life of gratitude begins. Our position is secure in Christ; our thinking and behaviour now have to change to be in conformity with this new position. And this needs to be shaped and directed. The motivation may be gratitude marked by changed appetites and attitudes, but it’s tempting to feel that it’s all then “over to us” to work out how we navigate our new way in a world and culture that now seems (and is) threatening and hostile. Fortunately, the needed help is on hand.

God’s great plan for His people does not end with their rescue any more than it begins with it. Thereafter he provides the resources required to lead the new life that has been inaugurated. And He is not somehow removed from this part of the struggle but is right in the thick of it. Hence the idea, taught by Jesus, and amplified by Paul, that He not only rescues us, but then resides in us, to provide the heft to swim against the tide. He resides in us to help us avail ourselves of His presence mediated by His Word (and vice versa). The much maligned Bible, the most heavily criticised and attacked of books, continues to be a means of not merely way-finding but of continued transformation as it is read, explained, heard and responded too. This continuing need was always at the heart of Keswick.

It remains so. In placing Scripture at the heart of what goes on for three weeks at the Convention each summer, it continues to meet what turns out to be the deepest of human needs. In presenting the Gospel, the good news of God’s rescue plan (that dead, cold, stony hearts can be made alive again) is presented to a culture which needs to know that such transformation (literally from death to life) is still possible. But for those that are newly alive, direction and instruction in the new life that follows is also made available. This explains the longevity of the convention. Real needs being met. Needs that are as old as fallen humanity and that will persist until God calls time on the world as it is. But many things about the Convention have observably changed. It has gone from one week to three, and from a tent for 1000 to one that holds nearer 3000. The location of the tent has moved around too. The number and style of talks has altered. Victorians were made of much sterner stuff compared to 21^st century Christians; substantial back to back sermons of some length were not unusual. Now there’s a single morning “Bible reading” and an evening “Celebration” (with added additional seminars and other types of session). The style and content of worship (though not its object) have changed. What were once innovations, like the separate youth programme, have continued to evolve. Inclusiveness and accessibility for those with disabilities or particular additional needs is receiving the attention it deserves. But important as all of this is, it is peripheral (though not trivial). At the centre is something as simple as it is profound. God is a speaking God. He speaks though His word and in His speaking accomplishes the impossible transformations that are our basic need.

Here’s to the next 150 years.

“Who does He think He is”?

This is a question that occurs to most of us at some point. It is usually unspoken, occasionally spluttered in indignation. It is most often prompted by the sayings or doings of someone else. Sometimes these sayings and doing only concern themselves. Occasionally they directly relate to us. Usually this question is rhetorical, prompting no great in-depth analysis. But I can think of one prime example of where this question has and is often asked, where analysis is possible and may even be a necessity for each and every one of us.

It is worth noting that the question asked above is first-cousin to another question: who is He? These are not identical. But in the case of the example I have in mind there is an important interplay between the two. The “He” is question is of course Jesus. Jesus, who although an historical figure, is being remembered today (“good” Friday) as having some continuing relevance to at least the billions of His (at least) nominal followers. That in itself is remarkable. Precisely because He is an historical figure, He can be investigated and has been. Indeed there have been concerted scholarly efforts to do so, often subsumed until the title “the quest for the historical Jesus”. Talk of “the” quest is, however, misleading. There’s an old quest that some argue was instigated by Reimarus in the eighteenth century. However, this produced a Jesus who sounded suspiciously exactly as you would expect him to depending on the philosophical convictions of whichever author you happened to be reading. The end result was a rather anaemic and a-historical Jesus. This quest was finally put out of its misery by Schweitzer in 1906 with the publication of his “The Quest of the Historical Jesus”. But while the “old” quest came to an end, the questing continued, suggesting that there was something important about these questions.

Just how one might parse the new questing that continued in the twentieth century, as a renewed quest, second quest, quest 1a, 1, etc is a matter of debate. But the continual interest in the question of who Jesus is, is remarkable given the view in some circles that we could know nothing directly of Him at all. In this popular mid-twentieth century view, what Jesus actually did and said had been lost entirely. The gospels were all slanted and mythological accounts that had little to do with history. They might tells us about the early church and the issues that were then current, but they could tell us little or nothing about Jesus Himself. Non-canonical writing about Jesus (ie writing outside the books of the New Testament) tended to be fragmentary or even less historically reliable, and much of this writing dated from well after the time of Jesus’ death. However, this turned out to be unsustainable because it simply ran counter to so much of the evidence. And there were two really big elephants in the room. The world was turned upside down by the events of around 30AD when Jesus died (so something remarkable was going on), and their was the multiply attested fact that Jesus continued to have real impacts on people’s lives right up to today.

Many will again have have found themselves contemplating Jesus’ death at the start of this Easter weekend. But many a great teacher has died a noble death (and arguably Jesus’ death was far from that). The classic example in the ancient world was Socrates, who accepted his death sentence, drank hemlock and died rather than live inconsistently with what he had taught. It is true that he has had a profound influence on Western thought (albeit mediated by Plato and others). Yet mention Socrates today, and many a mind will tend to remember a Brazilian footballer instead (“widely regarded as one of the greatest midfielders of all time”). In contrast, Jesus’ death was particularly cruel and appalling, and yet has been invested with such significance that many of us will have its instrument as an item of jewellery secreted about our person. And he steps right out of history in the story of contemporary men and women who claim not merely to know about Him, but to know Him. There is something in this that is more relevant to us than mere fascinating history.

And that’s where we come to the question that we actually started with. Given that there was an historical Jesus, is it possible to know who He thought He was? Well, it turns it out that what N.T. Wright calls “an impressive catalogue” of sayings are attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. Many of these are only explicable if they were actually originally said by Jesus. And it’s not just what He says, it’s what He does. The Gospel writers (and others such as Paul) are clear that they are communicating what was said and what was done. Do they do it as a twenty-first century journalist or historian would? Of course not (that would be a sure sign of something dodgy going on). They are clear and up front (in a way their critics are often not) that they are selecting from a much wider range of material that was available to them. They are organising their material to best effect. While all that academic questing was (or was not) going on, people continued to engage with their material, and found themselves engaging with Jesus Himself. And it turns out He was clear and consistent about who He thought He was. And so were the Gospel writers.

As an aside, I am not claiming that reading the Bible in general, or the Gospels in particular, can be done in some value free way such that some transparent meaning of the words on the page immediately moves into the mind of the reader. Reading doesn’t work like that. Text always has to be interpreted. And indeed, if the New Testament is being read in English, then the actual documents have already been interpreted once (by the translators). But by being aware of a few simple rules of thumb, many of which are known to us implicitly already, the question asked at the outset becomes clearly answerable from the Gospel accounts.

So who did Jesus think He was? In a very knowing way He speaks about His relationship with God the Father (whose name His original Jewish audience knew well), and does the sorts of things that they all knew only God could do. While distinct from God the Father, He also claims identity with Him. This so outrages His original audience, that they get ready to stone Him for blasphemy there and then (in part this is also the charge on which they eventually do get Him). He eventually heads to what looks like a very deliberate confrontation with both religious and political authority, knowing full well what this will entail for Him. But He apparently also believes that this is inevitable and necessary, and that His death will be the means by which life is secured for those who will align with Him, and only with Him. All because of who He is. If this is in any way near the historical reality, then only two response are left to us. One is the incredulous version of the question we started with, because He is clearly a crackpot or worse. He thinks He is someone He cannot possibly be. It doesn’t matter if He’s well-meaning if it turns out He’s just flat wrong about His own identity. But the second response is to take the question seriously, and look at the evidence in the round. But here it gets really interesting; that evidence does not end in His death.

If He only died, then He is simply another version of Socrates (or the Buddha, or Mohammed). All great and influential men in their way. But their most fervent admirers and supporters would all agree that they are dead. They didn’t make exactly the claims that Jesus made, and they didn’t die the death that Jesus died, but so far, so same. But that’s what makes Easter special. On Friday all is confusion. But Sunday’s coming, and with it clarity.

 

Faith, at least in some quarters, had almost become a dirty word, such that to call someone a “person of faith” was to question their intellectual adequacy and to suggest an unreasonable commitment to the implausible and non-empirical. This attitude was typical of that particular element of the “anti-faith” brigade that held that science was the all-conquering, all-sufficient means of answering any and all allowable questions. They of course claimed for themselves the authority to decide which were the “allowable” questions. They had a habit of ruling as unallowable those questions that they didn’t like or which their methods of choice couldn’t cope with. Theirs was always a highly questionable (and questioned) approach and it has not aged well. At least in its “New Atheist” form, its influence does seem to have ebbed somewhat.

Perhaps this was the inevitable consequence of the post-modern fashion of arguing that as nothing was true, anything might be. Truth became merely a personal perspective with no interpersonal authority. Therefore even “faith” could not be criticised too harshly, particularly when held, practised and discussed privately, away from the tricky and pressing issues that are the focus of public dialogue. But although largely relegated to the private sphere, faith began to become at least semi-respectable. Mind you, this kind of faith was an odd, unattractive, sort of beast. It had no purchase on, or relevance to, anything that apparently mattered.

More recently there has been another development of note, for the post-modern tide has also receded  (mainly because in its strongest forms it was self-refuting). Some commentators, particularly, but not exclusively, on the political right, have begun to argue that in the West faith (specifically in its Christian form) had bequeathed us all certain cherished values and views. They traced back to a faith-based heritage important concepts like human dignity and equality, tolerance, pluralism and more. But because for the best part of a couple of centuries these very foundations had not just been rejected but thoroughly trashed, they had noticed that some of these concepts and values themselves, not merely the soil from which they sprang, have begun to be questioned. First in the academy, then in institutions and finally in the culture, values like equality before the law and human rights were seen as being in danger to everyone’s detriment. Consider the value of truth and speaking the truth. Once, both in the UK and the US, it was a basic assumption that in public as well as private life being honest and speaking the truth was a “good thing”. This came directly from the ninth (of ten) commandments, and commitments flowing from it. Why were such directives worth paying attention to? Because they were an aspect of health creaturely living and came backed by the authority of the Creator of the created. But having relegated said Creator to the role of remote first mover and tinkerer with watches, and then having spent a long time denying His existence at all, this scheme loses much of its force. Maybe such notions are not as “true” or as useful as was once supposed. They can be dispensed with at no real cost.

Currently, on both sides of the Atlantic we appear to be testing this to destruction. So we find ourselves mired in untruth but have discovered some of the costs. Scepticism quickly turns to cynicism, and trust is rapidly eroded. At least in the UK our political system managed to remove one of our most-noted untruth tellers of recent years. Boris is, at least for the political moment, no more. He is playing no obvious role in our current general election campaign. What did for him was his propensity for being less than honest, presumably on the basis that the rest of us either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care. However, it is worth noting that as well as having a semi-detached relationship with truth and integrity, he also turned out to lack basic competence when it came to running a government. Perhaps if he had done his day job better he would have got away with his truth problem. But the Boris episode, has tended to reinforce the old joke about how you tell when a politician is lying – his lips move. While funny, this used not to be particularly true. There were always exceptions, and there was a degree of obfuscation and hypocrisy involved. But by and large politicians knew that while they might get away with claiming grey that was either black or white they had to avoid insulting our intelligence by claiming that white was black (or vice versa).

On the other side of the Atlantic, even the small crumb of comfort one might take from Boris’ demise is striking in its absence. Trump has largely been exposed as suffering from the same disease that afflicted Boris (or possibly it’s the other way round) and yet he is very much still around. A large slice of his electorate, including a lot of “evangelicals”, seem to prefer myths to truth. Reasons keep being found for why what once would have made him unelectable (his flat out lies, his abuse of the law not to mention his legally established abuse of women) turn out not to be that big a problem. Truth has become tainted while rank mistrust (occasionally accompanied by politically inspired violence) are all too observable. All this in what once had been thought of as a stable and (largely) prosperous democracy one that could be depended upon to uphold commonly accepted values of decency and integrity. Now even that hallmark of a democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, has been attacked and is under attack.

Spend several centuries dismissing what underlies the values that have shaped our culture, specifically faith in the God who reveals Himself in Scripture, and prepare to loose those values. Perhaps other foundations can be found, but most of the replacements that have been tried do not appear to have worked. Some no doubt celebrate the prospect of the demise of values that might loosely be called Biblical. For them the values themselves, as well as the foundation one which they were built, may have been the problem all along. And some have argued that we are seeing the fruit of a concerted campaign to undermine what had been widely accepted as valuable. Maybe might is right after all and human beings have no inherent dignity simply by virtue of the fact that they are human beings. Maybe inequality is just how things are and beyond that it is how things should be. While I view this brave new world as being intolerable, maybe you don’t.

However, if you feel that something important and valuable (and true) is being lost, much of this argument can be turned on its head. Perhaps the faith that gave rise to what had been valued is worth another look. This kind of reasoning prompted Justin Brierley to discus, first in his podcast “Unbelievable” and more recently in his book “The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God”, the proposition that faith is making a comeback (or at least its “ebb” has begun to reverse). It is worth pointing out that Brierley is a Christian, and his book is a work of apologetics; he writes to commend the Christian faith as being at the very least worth investigating. It could be he’s seeing a pattern where none actually exists. This is essentially the argument of Ralph Jones in his review of Brierley’s book in “The New Humanist” (but then, to be fair, it would be). But from Douglas Murray to Russell Brand something appears to be stirring.

At least “faith” is no longer a dirty word.

Easter retuning…..

We all perceive through filters. While this has a specific technical meaning, the technicalities needn’t detain us for too long; the general point is easily understood. Take vision (or seeing) as an example. Technically, because our visual system is designed to work in a particular visual environment (or if you prefer, it evolved in a particular context), it has assumptions built into its structure. Another way of saying this is that visual information comes to us through a number of filtered channels. Provided these remain appropriate, everything works fairly well and we can see what we need to see to do the things we have to do. Of course, in order to tease out exactly how this all works, sneaky scientists find ways of tweaking the circumstances in which a participant's visual system has to work (‘tweaked circumstances’ is essentially what an experiment is) to trip it up. This, it turns out, is not hard; it is the basis of visual illusions – stimuli that induce misperceptions. You can find lots online with which you can fool your own visual system. Personally, I rather like the “change blindness” phenomenon (although technically this is more an attentional than visual type of illusion). You can find a classic example here; see if you can spot what is changing as photographs are presented to you. If you can’t work it out (most people do eventually), the answer is at the end of this post. The general point is that we easily miss things that are different from our usual experience and expectations, that violate the assumptions we inevitably make about what is going on around us. Rather, we tend to assume that we are very aware of everything that is going on around us, and certainly that if anything important was going on, we’d certainly notice it.

Not surprisingly, what applies at the relatively low level of perception also occurs in different, arguably more complicated, contexts. Consider all that Peter and the other disciples of Jesus of Nazareth had seen and heard as they followed Jesus all over first century Palestine. Let’s take the shortest of the Gospel accounts of the experience they accumulated over a period of about three years, the one composed by Mark. Early on they are sufficiently impressed by Jesus and what he has to say to respond positively when he calls them to follow him. It’s unclear what they thought they were getting themselves into. Perhaps a private club or religious society? Perhaps they initially hoped that this would eventually develop into a larger popular movement of national revival. And yet from the outset this was a rather strange grouping (particularly in its membership), being told strange things by Jesus. They heard and saw Jesus’ explicit and implicit claims to be God! He claimed to be able to forgive sin and claimed authority over their holy day, the Sabbath. In a wilderness setting, just like the one they would remember from their national history as recorded in Exodus, he did the impossible and provided bread for thousands, something their history told them God had uniquely done in the past. Jesus healed the excluded and delivered the spiritually enslaved. He even restored the nearly and newly dead, as well as raised the thoroughly dead. What did they make of this? Not much at the time is probably the answer, as they, along with the crowds that Jesus often encountered, reacted in astonishment time after time. Much of what Jesus was saying and doing seems to have been as foreign to them, as out of kilter with their usual daily experience, as it is to ours.

But as well as publicly observable demonstrations and teaching, the disciples had personal time with Jesus that was way beyond what was accessible to the crowds. They could, and did, ask questions and for explanations. Jesus went out of his way to explain to them what he was saying, and indeed describe what was going to happen to him before it happened. Three times in Mark, and at particular points, he explains that he is going to be rejected, abused and killed, and that he was going to rise from the dead. Mark records that particularly this last point was completely lost on the disciples. It obviously was not to be taken literally; Jesus could not mean that having ceased to be alive he would return to life in any real sense. Like us, they understood the basic realities of life and death, how the universe worked – we live and we die, end of. There might be notions of some sort of existence after the point of death, but that was a matter of philosophy or complicated theology; it belonged with talk of spirits and collective memorialising of the dead. It wasn’t a real sort of thing, at least not really real. So, obviously Jesus had to be dealing in metaphors and pictures. But what could they mean? Eventually, as Jesus became ever more explicit about both his impending death and his rising from the dead, the disciples just stopped asking him what he meant.

So what were their expectations as they eventually arrived in Jerusalem, the location where Jesus had been telling them he would die and rise again? Perhaps they were swept up in the excitement of the welcoming crowds who thought they knew exactly what Jesus was about. Perhaps they hoped that Jesus’ talk of rejection and death was just that, talk. Things seemed to be on a more promising track. Here they were in at the religious and civil heart of their people, and it seemed Jesus was indeed about to lead a popular movement, with perhaps the disciples playing the role of trusted lieutenants. But then Jesus goes and messes it up. He seems to go out of his way to outrage the religious and civil authorities. In an apparently monumental miscalculation he even turns one of his own intimate circle against himself, such that one of his followers called Judas is prepared to conspire with the authorities to have Jesus arrested. The rest, as they say, is history. Perhaps you have been rehearsing some of it today on “Good Friday”. The tragic end to a promising beginning. And yet, had they really listened they might have known that things were not as they seemed. This was not a tragedy unfolding, not an ending, and more of a continuation than a beginning.

But then what was going on was so beyond their experience and expectations that inevitably they were no more able to understand it than we are today without external intervention. Their filters were on the wrong setting as it were. Their starting assumptions were wrong. And still today there is something about the way we are constituted that makes it hard to see and hear what's going on with Jesus. Even if we think it is worth trying to, it is hard to get beyond the mere rehearsal of historical events to a transforming understanding of the what and the why of his death in those appalling circumstances of rejection, betrayal, mockery, abuse, suffering and death. Fortunately the same help is available to us as would eventually allow Jesus’ first disciples (or at least eleven of them) to process the raw material of what they had seen and heard and understand what was going on. It takes nothing less than God himself, through his own word, by means of his own Spirit, to cut through our natural way of thinking and the expectations it generates, to retune our filters, so we can know, understand and respond to Jesus. Fortunately for us, he has always been happy to do exactly this. Just try asking.

And if you still don't get what changing in the 'change blindness' demo, pay attention to the engine under the wing of the aircraft in the pictures. Imagine not seeing that!

Keswick 2023.2 That Monday morning feeling……

Monday dawned and the rain (largely) stayed away. At least for long enough for me to walk down through Keswick Main St, past the end of Stanger St (where a bunch of us stayed in the early 80’s), past the Crosthwaite Parish Room (where 10ofThose have their second-hand book sale) and round the corner, on to the not-quite-so-new Convention site. I was heading to the “Pencil Factory”, the permanent bit of the site, for Matthew Mason's (see his details on London Seminary's staff list) seminar series: “On Being Creatures”. I confess I have given (as well as attended) Monday morning seminars, and not always with unalloyed joy. But this I was looking forward to. There’s always that anticipation at the beginning of any big convention or series. This morning what was being anticipated turned out not to be a disappointment.

If you wanted to label the subject matter, and wanted to be pretentious about it, you’d call it metaphysical and theological anthropology. Matthew left off the anthropology and started with a significantly better (and for our purposes more useful) theological topic. He started with God. As he fairly pointed out, if we get God wrong, then not much of anything useful will follow. And of course this meant he started where Scripture starts, with God, in the beginning. Although, as he also pointed out, there is more than a hint of what came before the beginning – ie God Himself, who has no beginning. And from the outset it is therefore clear (both in Scripture and in this seminar series) that with God we are not just talking about a bigger, stronger, longer-lived, cleverer version of ourselves. This is what all of our “gods-in-our-own” image (idols) inevitably are, that is why they are so seductively comforting rather than challenging. But this is to get things exactly back to front, and another reason why to understand ourselves, we need to start with God as He is. He is a completely different order of being, and if we get this wrong there’s little chance we’ll get back on track.

In His being He is immeasurably different to us, and the same is true of His doing. And a dramatic demonstration of this is what He did when He created. Human beings are of course a creative bunch. We can create pictures, sculpture, recipes, poetry, words (frebunctiousness – has that ever been written before?) and of course chaos. But all of this creative activity shares the same property. There was stuff before the human creative step to which, when we’re being really creative, we add something genuinely new. But we don’t (and indeed can’t) create something out of nothing. And yet, that is exactly what God has done. And here there is a dramatic difference between God and the idols that we occasionally allow to usurp His rightful position. Not only can they not create from nothing, they themselves are never created from nothing; they are always created (by us) out of pre-existing stuff (wood, stone, heavenly objects, football teams, Tik-Tok performers). As Matthew hinted, Christians may disagree about how God created, but not that He created from nothing everything that there is.

And in one of his most telling comments, he also reminded us all that this means God is central to everything and its continued existence. Indeed we probably don’t think about God as sustainer enough. Wherever you happen to be right now, right there and then God is acting to sustain you and all that you can see. But what happens if we attempt to leave God out of the account? Practically, humanity has been doing this since shortly after then events recorded in Genesis 3. Intellectually (at least in our corner of the universe) there’s been a determined effort to claim that we can leave God out of the account, and then do actually attempt to do it, since the “enlightenment”. Matthew quoted Kant on human autonomy. Kant made autonomy part of the foundation for human dignity. Well it turns out that leaving God out of the equation is tantamount to trying to undo what He has done, to 'decreate'  humanity and everything else. Things just don’t work without Him. In part this is what we see around us in the culture. Without God as foundation and centre, things are inevitably confused. It has taken a while, but it is perhaps in our day that is becoming drastically clear. We live in a culture that has difficulty deciding when (and which) human life should be defended and even defining what a woman is. There’s no evidence that the culture will be able to think its way to a better place while it continues to sideline the One who made everything and continues to sustain it in the teeth of denials of His existence. And as we are seeing, this is not mere abstract, angels on the head of a pin stuff. Very quickly this issue of God’s centrality and His importance for human dignity begins to impact on vital, practical, issues like the beginnings and endings of life and much else in between.

Not bad for a kick-off, with parts II to IV to come. Hopefully Tuesday morning’s feeling will be just as good as Monday’s turned out to be.

A Bible fit for a King…...

When I was young I confess I was fairly cynical. But cynicism is easy when you’re young. Life is simple, and you have all the answers. And even if you don’t, you’re fairly sure that there are answers within easy reach. The fact that you have experienced nothing (or at least very little) of life’s complexities doesn’t give you pause. Now I am older. I have learned that even the simple things in life come with their complexities, so I try not to be cynical. Where others are concerned, whom I might have rushed to criticise in the past, I have learned that their motives and inner workings are closed to me. I can observe their behaviour and infer motives from that. But I am as likely to be wrong as I am to be right. Given that my own deepest motives are often opaque even to me, and given the common human capacity for self-deception, even when someone actually articulates their motives it is only prudent to treat them with a degree of respect and scepticism.

I also have to confess that as well as being a cynic, I was also a bit of an iconoclast, taking great delight in criticising cherished beliefs and institutions, particularity those of others. The institutions that I happened to like or admire (there are always some) were somehow immune to criticism. But when you have nothing invested in a particular institution (because of a lack of age or interest), one to which you have contributed nothing, why not throw few (metaphorical) rocks at it? What then was one to make of the events of today, Saturday 6th May, 2023 – the coronation of King Charles III?

First of all, it was a dramatic reminder that, for all its pretensions, the United Kingdom is not constituted as a secular state. A recent Guardian editorial fairly pointed out that “….modern Britain is not a holy nation. Nor is it even a largely Protestant one. Britain instead is increasingly secular….”. And yet this ceremony, the formal public recognition of our head of state as our head of state and King, and of his wife as our Queen, was a religious, indeed specifically a Christian, service. Hymns and anthems were sung, there were Bible readings, prayers were offered and there was a (short) sermon. At the heart of proceedings, the King was anointed with oil in a ritual lifted deliberately and knowingly from the Old Testament, and communion was celebrated. Less than half of the population may now identify as Christian, but apparently the state both thinks in such terms (if the “state” thinks), and wants to be seen in such terms. This presumably reflected the desires of the King, but it involved many other state actors. The Prime Minster, no less, a practising and for all I know an entirely sincere Hindu, read from Colossians 1:9-17.

But there is a problem. The Prime Minister does not believe that the words that he read are true. And it gets worse, for things were not entirely as they seem. Many other participants either explicitly or implicitly don’t believe much of what was read and sung either. Consider the Bible that was presented to the King. It was accompanied by the following words: “Receive this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; this is the royal Law; these are the lively Oracles of God. More valuable than the gold about to be placed on his head is the word of God which shows us our failings and leads us to Christ.” The Christ in question is the one who, in the words read by the PM “is the image of the invisible God”. Such truth is now so hedged about with caveats and redefinitions by many of the clerical participants in today’s proceedings, that it has been emptied of much of its truth. As for Him being the “..firstborn from among the dead..” or the one in whom “the fullness of God was pleased to dwell”, this has become so mangled as to be meaningless. To have the current Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London recommend the Bible as the Word of God to the King added a certain irony to the proceedings, given how they are now viewed by the overwhelming majority (up to 85%) of the world Anglican communion. And at the centre of the debate within the Anglican communion is precisely the authority of the same book presented to the King.

Even the particular Bible presented by the Archbishop appears to be more about the look and ritual than substance. It turns out to be a specially commissioned copy of the edition prepared in 2011 for the 400^th anniversary of the production of the King James version of the Bible. But this rather goes out of its way to preserve not just the mistranslations inherent in the KJV, but about 350 misprints that were produced in the 1611 original. Of course, if the Bible is just a book, then none of this really matters. The misprints kind of take on a charm of their own. On cold nights in a draughty Royal palace, one can imagine “spot the misprint” becoming an entertaining diversion. But if the Bible is authoritative Scripture, indeed in the form of the autographs the very words of God, then accurate translation becomes an important issue. If not quite a matter of life or death (because God’s truth will out), perhaps not far off that. Fortunately, His Majesty has both the means and the intelligence to lay his hands on an improved translation should he wish to do so.

It is at this point that it would be fairly easy for my former cynicism and iconoclasm to manifest themselves. Except that much of what was said (and sung) in today’s ceremony was actually true, even although it is barely recognised as such. And to hear it at the centre of this national occasion is at least faintly heart-warming. It is in the Bible (as was said) that we learn that the King of Kings really did come to serve rather be served, and that this is a model for those in authority. If our King (and our politicians) were to take this to heart, this would be a major turning point for this nation. And the book the King was given is all that he was told it is. And more. For it has a power not confined by the inadequacies of those who were reading it publicly today. For all that we have had a couple of centuries of naive belief in the inevitability of human progress, and the development of multiple human philosophies that have sought to displace Bible truth and the God and Saviour it reveals, actual Truth was at the centre of today’s proceedings. 

Contained in a Bible that is fit for a King. And not just for the King.

Starting in weakness…..

There is something arbitrary about identifying 1^st January every year as holding some significance, and yet we do (at least in this part of the world). It is not as though between 31^st December and the 1^st January there is a change of season. It’s not the winter solstice (the day with the shortest period of daylight, after which day length increases again); that was on the 21^st December. Yet every year the transition between the 31^st December and 1^st January induces reviews of the previous twelve months, predictions for the next twelve, and even manages to induce, in at least some of us, an incoherent and usually unwarranted optimism about what is to come. Not this year.

I started 2023 off with a dose of the ‘flu (the real thing, not the ‘man’ variety). It commenced on New Year’s day, and I went rapidly downhill from there. I’m assuming that if I had not had my ‘flu shot back in the autumn my experience would have been a lot worse. But it was bad enough. It is said that if you feel like you’re dying you have a cold; if you don’t care if you’re dying, it’s the ‘flu. So, instead of long forest or beach walks to clear the mind of Christmas fug, I spent the first week of the year unable to do much of anything, much of it in my bed, and I spent the second week recovering. And when I have the ‘flu it also always messes with my head. Admittedly I didn’t have any serious near-psychotic episodes this time, but there were weird dreams and the occasional loss of place and person. It was all very odd indeed. Bounce into the New Year I did not.

All in all it was a reminder of my frailty and fragility. After all I had been floored by what for someone of my age and generally good health was a fairly minor viral infection. However, as the pandemic reminded us all, frailty and fragility is part and parcel of our human lot. Perhaps partly as a coping mechanism, many of us avoid the reality of just how frail as human beings we are. The reason the pandemic was such a shock to many of us was that, initially there was nothing that could be done. We all had to stay home and hope we didn’t get the bug. And if we did get it, we had to hope it wouldn’t be too bad.  And of course for many it wasn’t. And yet intensive care units filled with people who couldn’t breathe, many of whom did not survive. I was scary. How quickly we forget and move on.

But there is value in starting the year off with a reminder of one’s fragility and indeed mortality. I admit this is partly a function of age. When I was twenty I doubt that even a bad dose of the ‘flu would have had much of an impact. There was lots of time to recover and move on, and no need to worry about anything as serious as death. But it is worth bearing in mind that it is only relatively recently that life expectancy has been long enough, and general healthcare good enough, for us to fool ourselves about mortality. Current male life expectancy in the UK is just over 80 years. Given this, my suspicion is that most of us probably spend about the first fifty years of our lives convinced implicitly that  we are invincible and immortal, even although we know that we really are not. But there are lots of things to engage with and to keep us busy and distracted. Any younger person whose mind takes a more sober turn is likely to branded morbid. But then one reaches a certain stage in life where contemplating one’s demise in this life becomes much easier. There is a realization that, all other things being equal, one is nearer one’s death than one’s birth (something I wrote about last January).

All of this would be depressing were it not for the fact that there is a bigger picture. As important as life in the here and now is, if I really thought that this was all there is, I’m not sure it would be enough. If I really thought that from this point all that faced me was an increasing propensity to succumb to disease or injury, until my resources (plus those of various health professionals) were exhausted and I was unable to make a recovery, what really would be the point? So it’s just as well that my conviction is that there really is a bigger picture. Our very weakness and fragility is a sign, a reminder, that we are created creatures, and our needs are no accident. The tragedy of Western individualism is that it has misdirected us, telling us that each of us is all that we need, when this is clearly not the case. To deny my creatureliness and my createdness is to deny that I have a Creator, and also to deny myself the resources that He has provided. Importantly, my Creator is not the remote watchmaker-type creator of the Deist, but a Creator who is self-described as Father. Henry Lyte captures the reality well in his famous hymn. As well as writing “Frail as summer’s flower we flourish; blows the wind and it is gone; but while mortals rise and perish, God endures unchanging on”  he writes: “Father-like he tends and spares us, well our human frame he knows”. My reality (and I would suggest yours too) is that I am dependent on Him and created to know Him.

The here and now matters; this physical life now is important. If the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity tells us anything, it is that there is value to these lives lived now in weakness, frailty and dependence. Jesus Himself lived a life like this (and paradoxically a life completely unlike it in other ways). The value of these lives lies partly in what we learn about how things really are, and what we really are or ought to be. To deny all of this is of course a common strategy that has been adopted by humanity from almost the beginning of everything. But such a denial never ends well. Reality has a way of asserting itself eventually and inescapably. So to begin a year by being reminded reality is no bad thing. To be reminded of my real physical and spiritual dependence on my Creator and Father, and to be reminded of His gracious provision of all that I need will keep my focus on exactly where it should be. 

The Christmas movie channels popped up, unbidden, in September. TV adverts for Christmas food started in early October, and the John Lewis ad appeared at the beginning of November. By the beginning of December lots of houses around here had begun to sport inflatable, flashing reindeer, and illuminated fat men with long white beards, who were dressed in red suits. At night, houses began to be lit up like ….. well, Christmas trees! Yes it’s that time of year again where I try not to yell at the telly “But it’s only September (October, November etc)! To quote Noddy Holder, “it’s Christmas”.

Even in an economic downturn there are presents to be hunted down and bought, and in the midst of a bird flu pandemic there’s turkey to be procured. It is about preparations and as there’s lots to do and it takes lots of time, it’s important to start early (apparently). In our house, a Christmas tree appeared early in December and various gifts have now begun to appear beneath it, suitably wrapped and labelled. Much of the activity going on, perhaps this year more than most, is part displacement activity, part distraction. I suppose it is richly ironic that Christians who originally hijacked the end of December from their pagan predecessors complain when the pagans reacquire it for their own purposes. But this time of year, at least notionally, does have something to do with certain events in the ancient world concerning the birth of a particular individual.

Actually, the relative importance of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth has always been a bit ambiguous. It turns out that even for some of the Biblical writers, what we call “the Christmas story” wasn’t that important, or at least was not important enough for them to write about it. In their gospels, both John and Mark don’t tell us anything of the birth narratives of Jesus. Matthew starts his with a genealogy, and covers the actual birth story in just eight verses, although he does go on to tell us about the subsequent visit of the “wise men from the east”. It is Luke who, as part of his project to provide a full account of the birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and continuing activity of Jesus in the world, provides the most detail, including Gabriel and choirs of angels singing to shepherds (probably without the tea towels so beloved of small children). And it is also Luke who details some of the preparatory activity that preceded the events in Bethlehem. Back to preparations again. But when did God start preparing for Christmas, or rather the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity?

When you begin to think about it, this turns out to be a tricky question. That is because it has to do with time. Time is a given for us because we are creatures. We think and live in terms of, and in between, beginnings and endings and the change implied by a constant succession of events. This is all absolutely basic to our existence. It is written into our biology at a basic level, as well as into our psychology. The past has meaning for us, precisely because it is past and can be meaningfully contrasted with the present and the future. We are able to anticipate events, and given the current state of affairs be aware that there are things to do “now” that will  maximize the benefit to us of “then”. And all of this is so given that we don’t think about it and are hardly aware of it. It’s the way things are. It's the way we are. And there’s the problem - God is different.

He is different by definition because where we are creatures, He is the Creator who gives and sustains our lives. And it is not only that He precedes us. Nor is it just that He has no beginning. For even without a beginning, He could have been as time-bound as we are, subject to a succession of states and events and therefore also subject to change. But apparently He is not like that. I say apparently because we are at the point where we are quite close to getting stuck. Whenever we think about what God is like, because we are inevitably using the language of time-bound creatures, we are also inevitably limiting Him. The pictures that we paint with our words are inaccurate, maybe even wildly inaccurate, right from the start. The whole exercise would be futile were it not for the fact that God has used words to describe Himself in terms that we can understand. We cannot know everything, or know completely, but we can know certain things, and we can know them correctly.

And so back to time, or rather eternity. There isn’t a thing called time that exists outside of God to which He is subject. Indeed, as space and time are intimately connected, time did not exist until God created, so that He created both space and time. But clearly time exists for us and always has. How is this time, our time, experienced by God? All we really know is that if it is experienced by Him, it must be experienced in a fundamentally different way to our experience as creatures. Beyond that, it is difficult to say. The Bible writers used our time-bound language to illustrate this: “…. with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8). But this doesn’t really help me understand how God experiences the time He created any more that I can understand what it is like to be everywhere in the same instant (another feature of His being). But what is clear is that God does interact with us “in time”. So we read: “in the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4; i.e. “just at the right time”) Jesus was born.  Clearly this was an event that was not just a happy accident. It was planned. So when did God start planning?

Talk about one who was to come is easily found in the Old Testament. Although apparently it was just as easily missed, as Jesus Himself made clear to two of His early followers (see Luke 24:25-27). Passages from Isaiah will be read at many a carol service this year as every year, passages that date from long before Jesus’ actual birth (on which see this). These were written at the time Israel’s collective failure to live the way God had instructed them became apparent (particularly to them). Did God wait until a Plan A (Israel) failed before he began planning for Bethlehem? But then at the very start of the Bible, in words recorded thousands of years before the events that unfolded in Bethlehem, there are at least hints of what was to come, at least in terms of Jesus death, if not His birth (Genesis 3:15). Did God start planning Jesus’ entry into the world when things turned sour in Eden? Both seem unlikely. If God is eternal, He exists outside of time, even once He has created it. He knew about both Adam’s and Israel’s failure long before it occurred. Indeed, in a sense both were always before Him, as was the answer to this failure and the predicament that comes to all of us as a consequence. He knew that in the person of His Son, He would, amazingly, take on flesh and be born in time, at the right time. It was in eternity past that God began planning for the first Christmas.

Except that in eternity, there are no beginnings, because there is no time. He always was, and He always knew. And He accomplished all that was necessary for the events that we think of as Christmas, just at the right time.     

Turbulent Bishops (with apologies to Henry II)

In his displeasure at Thomas Becket in 1170, Henry II is reputed to have cried “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest”, leading to some of his more impulsive Knights paying the Archbishop a visit, resulting in his untimely demise. Even in the absence of outraged monarchs, the Church of England continues to encounter turbulence, although not (thankfully) with a similar violent outcome. This time it is the Bishop of Oxford who has been stirring the pot (one too many metaphors). For those not familiar with the continuing agonies of the established church in England, it has been discussing issues of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage in a process called “Living in Love and Faith”. It has come to the point where the Bishops are meeting to agree concrete proposals to put to their governing General Synod; change is in the air. Officially, the Church of England currently holds to “traditional” (i.e largely Biblical) views of sexuality, gender and marriage. The broader culture, of course, does not. Hence the “traditional” view is pitted against what is widely regarded as a “progressive” view. This is seen as a problem in that not only is it uncomfortable, but is said by some to be unsustainable. Something has to give.

It is worth saying that it would be surprising if the views of Christians, seeking to follow a Saviour whom the world saw fit to crucify, were ever entirely compatible with the views of that same world. However, for a long time broadly Biblically-based values and attitudes have so influenced the Western World (an issue famously explored in Tom Holland’s “Dominion”), that tensions have tended to be at the margins or under the surface (with the occasional glaring exception). But, with increasing speed the values of the culture which we inhabit have been diverging from anything remotely Biblical. Hence problems have arisen, among them what should the church’s response be to this divergence and how should it decide. And this brings us back to the Bishop of Oxford, Stephen Croft.

In the middle of the final part of a process involving discussions among the Church of England’s Bishops from November 2022 to January 2023, Bishop Croft decided that it was time for him to make his own thinking clear and public. So he published a pamphlet entitled “Together in Love and Faith: Personal Reflections and Next Steps for the Church” (downloadable here) in which he concentrated on the issue of same-sex relationships, and in particular the attitude the Church of England should take towards same-sex partnerships. Some have questioned his objectives. Others have rather rolled their eyes at another bishop seeking to subvert the very teaching he promised to uphold and defend. But his pamphlet is interesting. It is in part a description of a journey from an evangelical position in which Scripture is the starting point and final authority, including in areas as difficult, fraught and contentious as human sexuality, to what he calls “a more affirming position” on same-sex relationships. It is a careful, thoughtful and I have no doubt sincere attempt to argue for that position. And he does it claiming that he remains an evangelical, retaining “a high view of the authority of Scripture”.

There have been lots of responses, from both those who share his newly adopted objective (that the Church of England abandons its currently orthodox position and move to recognize same-sex relationships as on a par with heterosexual relationships), and those who oppose it. Some of the opposition is from “traditionists” who look at 2000 years of church teaching and practice and see that the Bishop’s position stands this on its head. For them this is sufficient basis for rejecting his conclusions. But much of the opposition (unsurprisingly) has come from those Anglicans who claim, along with the Bishop, to be evangelicals, recognizing Scripture as the source and standard of Church teaching and practice (while taking note of 2000 years of teaching and practice). Perhaps the most thorough and penetrating response has come from a member of the Bishop’s own diocese, Vaughan Roberts. To be fair to the Bishop, Roberts’ response it is as effective as it is because the Bishop gave him prior sight of his pamphlet before it was published. And the Bishop has praised both the tone and content of Robert’s response. All very Anglican. But both cannot be right in their conclusions. Part of their discussion is about practical steps the Church of England might have to take to retain both of them within its compass. But there is a more fundamental, and familiar, issue that quickly comes to the fore. 

Vaughan Roberts is no naïve Biblicist. He is a thoughtful and experienced pastor and Bible teacher, who leads one of the largest evangelical Anglican churches in Oxford. And crucially, he has personally has had to grapple with issues of human sexuality not just in the abstract, but personally. Once again in this paper he is very open about his own struggles and experience. Where he agrees with his Bishop, he makes it clear (and there are areas of agreement). But he is surely correct in spotting what has really changed for the Bishop. It is something the Bishop is also fairly clear about. Notwithstanding warm words about Scripture, he actually prioritises something above it. For him, Scripture is trumped by experience. We do not interpret our experience in the light of Scripture, we use experience to interpret Scripture. Where the demands and implications of Scripture lead to difficult and painful conclusions, including some that might mean careful and perhaps painful readjustment of our thinking and behaviour, it is legitimate to reinterpret Scripture. In fact, we probably should. For how could painful change be what God demands of us?  For the Bishop, in the light of the painful and unjust experiences of some of those whose sexual identity is different to Biblical demands and norms, we should find a way to alter our interpretation of Scripture to avoid the pain. This is simply the loving thing to do. And so in his pamphlet the Bishop goes to considerable lengths to do exactly this. As Roberts points out this is “an essentially liberal, rather than evangelical, approach”.  

All of which means that we have been here before. It is the old claim that Scripture is not the revelation of God, and does not have any authority over and above us. Authority lies somewhere else. For the Enlightenment it was in reason; in the 21^st century it is in experience. And so the current impasse that the Church of England finds itself in boils down to this familiar issue of authority. There is much more in Robert’s response beyond this, and all of it worth reading and thinking about. But why should the rest of us be bothered?

There are practical reasons for being bothered about the state of the Church of England; there's its infrastructure for one, with churches up and down the country. Then there are those links of fellowship between evangelicals (in the Roberts sense) in the Church of England, and those of us happily outside of it. We should not be, and are not, indifferent to the pressure they are under and the struggle on which they are embarked. It is tough. But what is at stake is truth, and truth always matters. There is such a thing as “Neuhaus’ law”:  where orthodoxy is optional, it will soon or later be proscribed. And that matters to us all.