What have you recently felt empowered to say 'yes' to?

Yes

People in churches rely on those affirmatives. I'm beginning to understand just how huge the Christian volunteer force is within your average church. It's all about delegating, equipping, negotiating, empowering, diversifying and recognising giftings. If we could all bop congregations on the head to guarantee a 'yes', we'd have a really energised, risk-taking and fruitful body of Christ. Jesus is the only one who can bop us on the head and when you have been 'bopped', it would seem life will never be the same again, but in the best possible way.

SAY YES! BE OPEN TO GOD!

Wales to give only limited protection

I can remember reading during Lambeth 08 about how awkward it would become for traditionalists to ensure that they were protected in conscience from the ministry of women.

To test the purity of a church for a traditionalist, he would need to ask the priest:

(1) - have you ever received communion from a woman?
(2) - were you confirmed by a female bishop?
(3) - were you confirmed by a male bishop who:-
(a) - was confirmed by a female bishop?
(b) - was ordained by a female bishop?
(c) - was ordained at a service where women were also being ordained?
(d) - was consecrated at a service where a female bishop was present or laying hands?
(e) - has ever received communion from a female priest or bishop?
(f) - has ever ordained a female priest?
(g) – has ever participated in the consecration of a female bishop?
(4) -If you answered 'no' to (3(a) to (3)(g)) above, repeat each step (a) to (g) in relation to:-
(i) the bishop who consecrated the bishop who confirmed you
(ii) the bishop who ordained the bishop who confirmed you
(iii) the bishop who confirmed the bishop who confirmed you

This was only half of the process, I got a bit lost after point 4, it's more thorough even than this!

Barry Morgan seems to be stamping down on some of this by withdrawing the means by which such a process could be offered. I think he is right to do so - just imagine how neurotic you would have to be to go through that whole procedure above and then what happens when you remind yourself that the Queen has quite an important role too.

O'Donovan and Gay Bishops

This just seems like a very strange thing to say. Perhaps I'm just being a bit thick but what exactly is O'Donovan trying to say in the CEN with this?

Manifestations of the Holy Spirit's power.

I enjoyed reading Adrian Warnock's experiences of the Holy Spirit.
I shared mine a while back and quote from an old post I wrote

I'm reminded of my own baptism in the Holy Spirit. The complete helplessness I experienced in the face of such power, a power that literally swept me off my feet and had me fall over. A power that didn't start to drain away for about a week and where it was experienced again the following morning in just about the most traditional, high church, liturgical setting one could imagine. The next day I visited my parents' church for Sunday worship and had to grip the rails. It was a feeling that left me in agony of sorts for a while, I wanted to just be there already with the trinity and away from this earth, so beautiful and empowering had been the foretaste of the inheritance that awaited me. I have had two other very memorable experiences like this – two when someone prayed over me in tongues and the third in prayer ministry when a feeling of the most intense and amazing heat filled my back, travelled up to my neck and then down each of my arms. I remind myself of all of these experiences of the Holy Spirit if ever I feel unsure or a little disconnected from God – they are so important to me.

I encourage you to dwell on those times in your life when you have been very conscious of a topping up. You might like to share them here. Adrian does not allow for posts on his blog. If you do not want to share them, although I think we should as testimony to our faith and God's power, meditate on them and thank God for his very real and powerful presence in our lives as we continue to seek him again and again and again...

Where's your great emergence going on?

Are these definitions about right?

Threads from Henry's Web introduces definitions of complementarianism and egalitarianism.
What do you think?

Complementarianism: Belief in essential equality, but functional hierarchy in the sexes. This hierarchy is by God’s design and is not due to the fall. Man is to be the leader in the church and home. Women are not to be in positions of authority over man in the church or home, but are honored due to their role in the same way as men.

Egalitarianism: Belief in the essential and functional equality of the sexes. All role distinctions which imply leadership belonging to the man is due to the fall, not by God’s design. Therefore, women can serve in positions of authority over man in both the church and the home. Role is assigned by individual giftedness, not gender.

The ones who spread their wings and fly...

My attention was brought to this article. I have always been interested in the plight (sorry, loaded term) of women in conservative dioceses or parishes. It just can not possibly be that all of the women worshipping do so without some very real inner struggles, and yes, it is all about obedience! Moreover, it is about to whom should they be obedient? Is God's call and their spiritual assurance the same as the requirement for them to read scripture in a particular way? What about when the Head of the diocese teaches an interpretation which women feel is at odds with what they understand God to be saying? Where do they go - well, in this case, it would seem, they go to Melbourne!

Anglican women's leader gives up on Sydney by Kelly Burke Reli. Affairs Writer May 27 2002


A serious blow has been dealt to Sydney's conservative Anglican diocese with the resignation of its most senior woman, Di Nicolios.

After several decades working within the diocese, the high-profile head of women's ministry finished on Friday and will become rector of St John's parish in Diamond Creek, Melbourne.

In doing so, she will attain the one thing Sydney has denied her - ordination to the priesthood.

The defection has surprised the evangelical Sydney Diocese. The archdeacon, 55, has never openly advocated women's ordination, indicating that she preferred to work within Sydney's conservative structure, which views women as heads of the church as theologically intolerable.Her resignation prompted criticism of Sydney's entrenched ban on female priests from the founder of the Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW), Patricia Brennan.

"Sydney remains in the dark ages - the liberal arm of the church here has been badly suppressed, and the diocese has become intellectually incestuous," she said. "This has nothing to do with the nature of ministry. The issue at stake here is the relationship between men and women, and men being viewed as having a God-given role of authority over women."

Sydney is one of only a handful of Anglican dioceses in the country that ban the ordination of women as priests, following the general synod vote 10 years ago allowing the practice. There are more than 280 women priests in the Australian Anglican Church.

Archdeacon Nicolios has been reluctant to discuss her resignation and denies that her move sends a message of defeat to other female deacons in Sydney.

"I am friends with each of the women deacons in Sydney and have spent the past decade working closely with them," she said. "They know I greatly value the role of deacons in ministry and they have been very positive about my move."

The Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev Peter Jensen, referred only to his written statement, which said: "Naturally I am disappointed to see Di leaving Sydney and want to express my gratitude for all she has accomplished."

It is believed that Dr Jensen recently met Sydney's women deacons and MOW representatives, and made it clear that the ban on women priests would stay.

He has argued that women are being encouraged into leadership roles through lay ministry and ordination to the deaconate. Archdeacon Nicolios was his trump card.

But Muriel Porter, the prominent Melbourne Anglican lay woman and religious affairs columnist for The Age, said that of Australia's 170 women deacons, only 32 are in the Sydney diocese.

h/t Peter Carrell

Easter in Serbia

I love this video. I can relate to some of the feelings here. Kate's passion for the gospel is a 'bubbling over' kind of passion and expresses itself this way - I understand the frustration she feels about the worship service at the beginning of this video. As I learn about myself, I understand my own effervescence about things but as I become more aware of this, I am also challenging myself to understand better that this is how God has me express my love for him but his ways are particular for each of us and there are gentle spiritualities and bombastic spiritualities, there are the trickling streams and the rushing rapids to use some 'Graham Kings' language less politically. Kate's feelings on Easter morning communicate themselves carefully - I felt really moved at that point. I sometimes experience the feeling of wanting the whole world to sing with me but often all I hear is a barely audible hum. God bless you, Kate.

Not a hanging offence

Today with my DDO, I was asked about conflict and how I handle it. I discussed two incidents of recent tension in my life, one was about a friendship which broke down as I left my teaching job. It is a shame that this friendship did not resolve itself. A gap widened in the relationship as I left the job and had my children. My friend could not understand how I could give up on my passion to stay at home all day - she felt like I had chickened out and being the efficient person I am, should be able to have had the career and the babies at the same time, which I believe is very possible but was making me feel rather miserable. She also felt I had become rather distracted and was disappointed that I wasn't as much of a laugh as her other friends - I had never really been a party animal anyway but I became even less so with babies to feed in the night.

I then needed to discuss conflict within a Christian context and breathed deeply before confessing my behaviour last Spring. I still have some mixed feelings about what I did. I responded to a local sermon by a Church of England minister in which he taught his congregation that women should not serve as ordained ministers. Of course, he was preaching on 1 Timothy 2 11-15. He quoted Wayne Grudem(!) and talked about how women are from Venus and Men are from Mars which has, of course, since been refuted with a book called 'The Myth of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus' . I felt that I had to do something to let the women of that congregation know that this is an interpretation of scripture and is not what everyone believes and that indeed the Church of England accepts two integrities on this secondary issue and most parishes accept women incumbents and have of course ordained women since the nineties. I felt a kind of righteous anger on behalf of what I imagined to be many oppressed women within that congregation who might be having their callings so challenged. I wrote a refutation of 1 Timothy 2: 11-15 and I posted it on the windscreens of the cars in the church carpark so that the other point of view could be accessed, much the same way as I often return to my car to find a pizza promotion flapping under my windscreen. (My words might have been pleasant or uncomfortable spiritual food, depending on your viewpoint).

So I confessed. I knew I should share this. The Church has to accept me for who I am and I am spurred into action by what I consider injustice. I do not sit on the fence on issues. I am not a renegade or a rebel, really rather conventional, but I do have passion for certain issues and certainly for the gospel but also for the oppressed.

I will encounter a diversity of opinions forever on the issue of women in ministry until the next life, as I am experiencing now in my latest interaction with David Ould who serves under Peter Jensen in Sydney diocese - that has been an interesting conversation (See The Shack review).

If they accept me in July (BAP), I am also anticipating that I will come across people who can not accept my ministry because I am a woman, indeed they will not recognise me and might refuse the bread and wine Jesus offers them through me. I am slowly understanding that I will live with this. I aim to try really hard to see the integrity of their point of view, to be gracious and understanding, to recognise in the 'other' my brother (or sister) in Christ.

It has been painful and I learnt a lot about myself as I interacted with conservative teaching and then reacted to it. I did apologise for my behaviour and it would have been great, if instead, I had spoken face-to-face with this minister as I did with the minister of the sister church, who was very gracious and decided with me to agree to disagree. I had a friendship with this minister and his family and realise that because this was missing with the minister of the church whose cars I littered, I had no foundation upon which to enter into debate.

Everything is best tackled from the bedrock of relationship. I know that now. I also see that relationships between human beings are very fragile things. They have to be invested in. They have to be acknowledged as fragile. Just like we bring presuppositions to our study of scripture, we bring our baggage and our presuppositions into our relationships. People are so precious, made in the image of God, but so flawed.

My mum, my incumbent and my DDO have been very supportive as I have reflected on my behaviour. I think today, after a year, I was finally able to let this burden go, set it down at the cross and move on. My DDO said 'there's nothing quite like confession' and she's right. I think I understood why it is important to many Catholics to confess their weaknesses to the priest as well as God. We have to be accountable to each other.

I will always feel passionate about women in ministry, whether I become one or not. In fact, I am and always will be a woman in ministry and if those Bishops' advisers in July do not recognise my calling, I will never fail to encourage other women to go forward courageously, in confidence, that they too should take our glorious gospel out into the world and kindle it into fires in people's hearts - men, women and children, inside the Church and outside the Church.

Listen to 'Stand in the Rain Reign (of God)'

Twitter ''was kind of the next evolution in communicating the Gospel message,''

Someone from Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church posted 18 tweets adapted from the Gospel of Mark, over Easter. One tweet read, ''...Caiaphas and the priests have been up all night questioning a man who claims to be the Messiah...'' That was soon followed by one from Jesus: ''Let the scriptures be fulfilled. It is as the prophets wrote. I am who you say I am.''

Read the full article here.

The power of communication - we use whatever God has given us to communicate the Gospel!

Praying for a particular fruit

The journey through the Church of England system is also my journey with God and other people and as with all things it has its highs and lows. At first for me there was such excitement. There was energy, anticipation and expectation when I first discerned in 2006 that God was going to present me with a very new pathway September 08. I had this overwhelming feeling at Alpha 2006, which I went on to renew my commitment to God, that life would never be the same again. I shared my convictions with my table leader. Sure enough, In September 08 I started theological college in Nottingham.

Of late, the journey has been exciting still, yes, but also quite painful in that the Holy Spirit has been gently convicting me of some of the things that I need to work on in my life. This has come about through me being led to reflect on certain conversations I have had with people in which I haven't always been graceful or gentle. I have revisited many exchanges. I have been led to see some of my failings. I can sometimes talk too much, I get carried away, I can get over-enthusiastic. I can be, at times, a little impetuous. I am praying for a particular fruit - gentleness. I have also had my eyes opened by readig all of the references that have come in about me, which are travelling through cyber-space to my DDO and those bishops I will meet in July. You feel very much under the microscope. You are a small insect, the magnifying glass hovers above and the sun which has its rays magnified and whose rays are shining on you, are, I think, the light of God, just highlighting some of the dustier parts of your person, which you have let get dusty and left unattended for too long. You get to see the muck and debris so clearly but there is acceptance (to an extent) I will only ever be perfect in Christ, there is frustration (when am I going to become the butterfly?) and there is hope (God will be able to use my weaknesses to his glory) - this one takes a lot of faith - but even I am not a project too impossible for God!

Holy Spirit

Just playing around with ideas for a poster on John 20:19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

Thanks but no thanks Mrs Rebecca Williams

People just can't stop offering me money! Gotta be discerning - eh!

From Mrs Rebecca Williams

N�[38 Rue Des Martyrs Cocody
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire

ATTN:
DEAREST ONE OF GOD

I am the above named person from Kuwait . I am married to Mr Benson Williams, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2004. We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.

Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2. 5 Million (Two Million Five Hundred U.S. Dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account.

Presently, the fund is still with the bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that i have serious sickness which is cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained.

The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don’t have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don’t want my husband’s efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence i know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that the Lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace.

I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband’s relatives is around me always I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank here in Abidjan . I want you and the church to always pray for me because the Lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.

Contact me on the above e-mail address for more information’s, any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your
reply.

Remain blessed in the Lord.
Yours in Christ,
Mrs Rebecca Williams.

This released something in me....

....tears!



h/t accidental seminarian

Good to be back

Good to be back at college today. A month is a long time to be off. It's great to be with the family but I do miss the discipline and the contemplation of college life. There are lots of strands of connections between my life as a mother and a wife and my life as a student but there are the contrasts too. Both are about serving but there is little time for contemplation at home. There is very little silence and probably a little less harmony with a squabbling four and six year old. The emphasis at college is on being one in heart and mind with those around you, which is very refreshing.

At home, however, my husband and I set the agenda. We plan the meal times and bedtimes and how we spend our time, whereas as college there is a definite regime to fit oneself into it.

At college I am less the parent and more the child - to my heavenly Father. My emphasis is on doing his will rather than subjecting my will on my children at home who do not always want to obey. However, I am sure that my Heavenly Father feels the same way about me at times too.

We listened to Christina Baxter on Colossians 3 and she really brought it to life. She used analogies drawn from the journeys she has made recently. On one regular journey, she is forced to make a diversion, but sometimes forgets on the way home the new temporary route because there is no yellow sign on the way back. She's on automatic pilot and takes the wrong turn to be faced with a 'road closed' sign and has to correct herself and turn around. She recounts another time, when she went down the' road closed' street anyway, after having worked out the day before as a pedestrian that there were no longer any workmen there at that time (Good to know she's just human!). She talked about how on one journey someone else took, they simply moved cones, drove through and then replaced them behind them before driving on.

She illustrated thus the idea of the life that is now closed to us as Christians:
¹Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. ⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. ⁷You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

We know there is a diversion sign against the things of before, but sometimes we ignore the yellow sign and continue in our old ways because we forget (we are sinful), sometimes we deliberately refuse to follow the 'road closed' sign and we are deliberate in our transgressions, sometimes we cover our tracks, we replace the cones so that no-oe knows we have gone the wrong way. Whatever we do, we need to be aware of this, repent and remind ourselves constantly that there is a road that is closed to us now. The old life is dead and we shouldn't behave in ways associated with it, we must die to that life and rise to the new one in Christ. This is what happened to us at our baptism. There is the risen us with Jesus alive and we will one day catch up with that redeemed person.

We sang great, vibrant worship songs and exchanged the peace, really glad to all see each other again - it was lovely.

As I learnt from Mark Russell, CEO of the Church Army, in celtic theology, the celts had a term, a "thin place" where the space between heaven and earth feels smaller. For me, St John's College is a "thin place".

Where's your 'thin place'?

A worm ate my tweets

How weird does that sound? The way we all communicate these days is definitely interesting and rather odd. I'm quite enjoying twitter and my blog has become very helpful and cathartic.

But about the worm...I found I had lost so many tweets, it was as if updates for the last few days just weren't being shown but now I understand that accounts were contaminated by a 'worm'. Well, I really don't understand any of this, only that it all sounds typically Eden/fall like. There really are no safe spaces. The worm eats my tweets, the snake crawls up the tree to the apple.

This also leads me to reflect on blogging too. I have been very open about the fact that I blog to my DDO and my church and my friends. It has put me in touch with so many Christians throughout the world. It has really helped me to access a diversity of opinions on a huge number of topics and more particularly about those which I have found my life touched by.

However, there is always a slight apprehension too that accompanies any explanations I make about my blog. Primarily, I have to deal with the vulnerability it entails. I spouse opinions which might change or at least become modified, it sometimes feels very unnerving, that one day, I might look back on all the things that I have written about here with a sense of wonder, bemusement or hilarity. I might not recognise shades of myself expressed herein, in much the same way, one might come across a diary one kept as a 14 year old and just laugh, hardly recognising oneself.

I also worry that people might think I will blog about them. Do they reveal things to me, trusting that I will not broadcast it to the world? Well, they only have my word on this. I also try to blog only about my own experiences and the theological issues I explore on the web and in studies and at college. There is though a problem with this too. You end up wondering if sharing your thougts with the world is rather a self-indulgent thing to do. People might wonder what makes you think anybody would be in the least bit interested. Now, in a way, this is an easy one to deal with. It's all about your thoughts because you can not speak from the perspective of others and you promised them you wouldn't blog about them, the other is that if people do not want to read it...they simply 'turn off the laptop and go and do something less boring instead'.

25 years ago I used to watch 'Why don't you'...now I'm wondering if we shouldn't all turn off our laptops instead but I don't think its going to happen soon.

Do you remember this programme?



I could only find the theme tune.

This scratches a few itches

Becoming Christ: The Vocation of Women in Theology and Scripture Marie Noonan Sabin Bristol, Maine


I like this for what it elegantly expresses about the often politicised 'bridegroom' imagery in the Bible; for what it says about mutuality and for how it fleshes out again that idea of God and his womb. There was quite a bit of reaction generated on an earlier post of mine to my use of this imagery.

...Being a person in the image and likeness of God ... involves existing in a relationship, in relation to the other “I"....Gen 1:26 means not only that each of them individually is like God as a rational and free being. It also means that a man and a woman, created as a “unity of the two” in their common humanity, are called to live in a communion of love and in this way to mirror in the world the communion of love that is God...this mirroring, this likeness to God [is]‘a call and a task.’ ...to be human means to be called to interpersonal communion, to be mutually for the other...Out of this mutuality...there develops in humanity itself, in accordance with God’s will, the integration of what is “masculine” and what is “feminine”...also develops an understanding of ‘personhood’ out of this ‘call and task’ to live for others: ‘Being a person means striving toward self-realization . . . which can only be achieved “through a sincere gift of self.” . . . To say that a human being is created in the image and likeness of God means that he is called to exist for “others,” to become a gift...The ultimate expression of this self-giving... is the vocation of motherhood: ‘Like a mother, God “has carried” humanity, and in particular his chosen people, within his womb; he has given birth to it in travail, he has nourished it and comforted it (cf. Is 42:14, 46:3–4)’.

This is an essay written in response to words spoken by the Pope, available at SAGE journals. SAGE journals are offering free trial access to the whole lot until April 30th, by the way.

I enjoyed Rob Bell's 'She' for his exploration of the womb imagery in the Bible.

CBMW's response to 'She' by Rob Bell is actually very weak in its criticisms of Christians explorations into this presentation of God. All it can say is because similar images were used to describe men in the Bible, we can not hold them as ways which have us helpfully understand God. I don't follow the sense of this at all. David is a man but God is not a man.

so beautiful and painful

Image competition winner

Winner for image competition:
Tim Goodbody

The beauty and perfume of a rose is a picture of the joy of relationship with Jesus, but to enter into this relationship - to turn the flower towards us, may involve pain. Sometimes it is painful for us, as we face up to our own sins, in approaching Christ; the thorns on the rose's stem are a picture of these, yet as we grasp them the rose's beauty makes our sacrifice worthwhile.

Display your prize:I found this interesting for how it turns our language and assumptions around. Whilst Tim admits it's a little palagian, it makes us think. We too 'sacrifice' in following Jesus because of our love of the sacrifice he made for us.

And just when I thought I had made my mind up about PSA a storm buffets and blows me about

What to do with this?

A Call to Men

Wanted to bring your attention to this beautifully written testimony
And this one

Had a 'shack' of a day

Just the joy, not Mack's sorrow, though. I decided to read 'The Shack' today. I like to read books in one sitting if I can. It really captured my imagination, not so much empowering my faith, although it did at times, but challenging it in several ways.

I read for an hour in the car on the way to my parents'-in-law house. I reached the part in the book where Mack smells the delicious cooking of Papa inside the beautiful wooden house and meets the trinity in their glorious manifestations for the first time. We arrived. I put my book in my bag. I was greeted by my father-in-law, a gentle man with twinkly eyes, very few words (doesn't speak good English) and even though, of course, he's male, something about him reminded me of Papa and how Mack describes her. I have to add at this point my father-in-law, however much I love him, does not remind me of God. Papa and God are very separate beings for me.

Anyway, I digress...My mother-in-law seated us immediately at a table with a yellow and white cloth and brought in roast duck, amazing roast potatoes and sweet, sweet gravy. It all smelled beautiful and tasted delicious and I had only eaten a banana for breakfast and so my hunger heightened its flavours. I was taken to Papa's cooking in the novel and all the amasing things that Mack delights in tasting.

After lunch, we then sat in her small but beautiful garden, just bursting with colour and fragrance and basked in glorious hot sunshine as our two children rode their bikes up and down the pathway. We then went for a walk in the wild scrub-land, behind her house and there were these prickly plants, very sharp to touch but smelling amazingly of coconut, almost the smell of pina-colada and I had just been reading the part in the book where Sarayu takes Mack into the beautiful but seemingly chaotic garden and they pick together the most amazing and unearthly plants.

I guess this is all going to sound rather sickly sweet now but back at home, my mother-in-law played English and Polish hymns on her keyboard and then we all hoisted ourselves back into the car, with children falling quickly to sleep in the back for the journey home.

I read on the way home and because my day seemed to echo some of the events in the book, was quite glad to be back on my sofa at home before I read about Mack's car-crash ;). Of course I realise that the seeming echoes were the results of my lively imagination but somehow the book heightened my appreciation for my day and the people I shared it with, which has to be a good thing.

I have had a really beautiful day.

There were certain parts of this book which were meaningful for me. I thought it was quite well written because very sensuous and I enjoyed where it took my imagination. Some people will find it hard to read, I think because it calls upon the reader to suspend their cynicism and celebrate, rather than find embarrassing, the huge range of emotions that we feel as human-beings. Mack's tears drench the pages as you read and you have to accept his emotional displays.I thought it ended too suddenly with a wrapping up of the inevitable, which might have been better fleshed-out. I also felt there was an interesting blend of the illuminating with the very unorthodox but that it would be a good place to take non-Christians who feel that the Bible is intellectually beyond them because they come to the Bible with a great many incorrect preconceptions. If 'The Shack' leads people to the Bible then that is its real triumph.

Anyway, some of the things that I found helpful and not so helpful (there are plenty more but it would take for too long a post)

On page 121, "Papa" says,

...we have no concept of final authority among us, only unity. We are in a circle of relationship, not a chain of command or 'great chain of being' as your ancestors termed it. What you're seeing here is relationship without any overlay of power. We don't need power over the other because we are always looking out for the best. Hierarchy would make no sense among us. Actually, this is your problem, not ours.

I think this makes for a good response to theologians like Carson, Grudem and Ware who insist that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father, although of course you can never refute theologians with fiction, only with the Bible itself, so I am over-stating the case here. The word subordinate smacks of inferiority and no matter how much they speak of ontological equality, their descriptions of the relationship in the trinity just do not communicate that this is the case to me. Just in case, you think I don't think that the incarnate Christ was submissive, I do. Christ says that the Father has sent him; Jesus states that he does not know when the end will come, and that only the Father knows this. Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane for the Father to allow the cup to pass, but submits to his will and goes to the cross. However, this hierarchy only exists on earth and not in Heaven where we see in Revelation that the Son and the Father share the throne.

'We are indeed submitted to one another and have always been so and always will be. Papa is as much submitted to me as I to him, or Sarayu to me, or Papa to her. Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect.'

I like this for the way it captures the Bible's egalitarian teaching, for sorry, no matter how many Christians hold to Male headship, where Grudem insists that Head means authority, I disagree. Reading the scriptures with a hierarchy in the trinity which in itself entails a hierarchy amongst the genders is, I believe, a result of our fallen state! It is to Male headship, as Grudem describes it and Piper expounds it as a necessary reason for him to literally catalogue roles for men and women, that I fail to be convinced.

However, Young goes on to describe how the trinity submits to us, which I do not believe is orthodox.

These are some of the quotes which cause me theological discomfort:

"I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy cure it".

I agree in part with this but I also hold to a more solid idea of God as judge.

On page 63, the author remarks,

In seminary [Mack is a seminary graduate] he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners' access to God was mediated and controlled by the intellengentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges?

I have a much higher view of scripture than this and believe (I think) it is inerrant, although as yet 'inerrant' doesn't quite describe exactly for me what I think of the Bible. I think the word I want to use doesn't exist or I haven't found it yet.

The quote highlights the fact though that we do intellectualise something which God wanted to make abundantly clear to all his children and this saddens me, although I know I am guilty of it, because, as well as it feeding my soul, the Bible challenges and stimulates my intellect and curiousity and has me searching for ways to package and interpret it and turn it into doctrine - a shame in a way.

This quote also helps me to deal with a teaching I find very wounding and that is the teaching of cessationism. Where I have encountered this teaching, I have also encountered a near refusal to believe any of the testimonies which people share of their encounters with the Holy Spirit.

According to "Papa," Jesus did not even have power within himself to perform miracles (pp. 98-99). Papa says Jesus is simply the first to live fully out his relationship with Papa, something that we all have the ability to do, but choose not to do so.

This doesn't seem orthodox really.

Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptist or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don't vote or are not part of any Sunday morning religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved.

I have an unshaleable belief in Jesus as the 'way, truth and life'. Although, as yet, I am not fully comfortable about what this means for Muslims and Buddhists etc but this is because I am also aware of God's love for Buddhists and Muslims and so I am a long way from reconciling my theology and feelings on this one.

Interestingly, there is something akin to Barth's universalism here:
I am now fully reconciled to the world." When Mack tries to clarify that Papa means those who will believe in God, Papa responds, "The whole world, Mack. All I am telling you is the reconciliation is a two way street, and I have done my part, totally, completely, finally."

And there is something akin to patripassianism in presenting God with holes in his wrists.

It also presents a somewhat skewed version of redemption going on which puts too much power into humanity's hands, as if we release something in God enabling him as a consequence to forgive:
Mack must forgive the man who murdered Missy. "Mack, for you to forgive this man is for you to release him to me and allow me to redeem him."

Just some of my thoughts on 'The Shack'. I like to think that if I was 'far off', it might have made me want to get to know God. I enjoyed the journey that it took me on but it also made me feel quite protective (ridiculously) of the beauty of God's word, almost as if I need to defend it against possible false teaching. I am aware of course that God is big enough not to need me to defend him.

I recommended this read to my book group (Christian? Not sure? Do not proclaim to be so), so I am wondering what their reactions will be to the book. I will find out next Friday when we discuss it.

Here's Driscoll on 'The Shack' much that I agree with, although hints here about his theology re the genders which I know he fleshes out elsewhere and I disagree with


Here's W P Young in response to some of the criticisms

So chuffed to have written my theological reflection

What do you think? - will be tweaked before next DDO meeting.

Theological Reflection on Mission and Evangelism

CRE8 (11-14s Youth ministry)

A Bible verse which sustains my youth ministry is Paul's to the Corinthian church, in which he explains how he adapts himself so that he might reach the people to whom he is ministering. (1 Corinthians 9:20-21)

Sharing the gospel of Christ, to teenagers has had to begin with a demonstration of Christ's love through actions rather than proclamation. There has been a careful development of a relationship of trust, essential as a foundation and this has had to be put in place before anything else. I have had to get alongside them and enter their world, just like St Paul.

CRE8 was launched in September 08 but not under that name. We described ourselves as 'Your space, your place' and discussed with the teens how they saw their identity forming.

Today's youth culture is suspicious of 'authority figures', and does not want to have to fit itself into a programme for this is often the culture of their schools and so something which they do not want to see repeated in a social space.

At school, the ethos in place is one to which young people must adapt themselves. Christ is more patient, in that he does not expect transformation to be immediate, his is a gentle leading through love and an invitation to a life of more freedom. It isn't chastisements which motivate transformation, as it might be in school, it is the anticipation of a fuller life, in which, in becoming all that God wants us to be, there is only more joy and less frustration. This is the atmosphere in which we are hoping to nurture the spiritual journeys of these young people.

The vision which empowered the creation of the youth group was of a wall, with bricks, not all cemented quite correctly but with Christ as its cornerstone. I reproduced this within a computer graphics package and the church prayed around it for a few weeks. Where there were gaps in the mortor, there was a definite light shining through and this was and still is the light of the Holy Spirit, under whose guidance we act. We need to adapt constantly to the teens we meet and can only do this in confidence, if we trust that God will work through us and be in our planning and in our relinquishing of those plans when it is appropriate. Through collaborative prayer and brainstorming, a fellowship has developed amongst the group's leaders so that we are now working more with one heart and one mind and are all sensing together when it would be better to change activities or prolong reflection time.

The relationship with these young people is a dynamic one and it changes from week to week, depending upon their circumstances and experiences; depending upon who attends and the chemistry amongst a particular group of people. We do not turn anyone away and can not predict group size or the balance of ages or genders.

And so over two terms our identity is establishing itself. A vote took place to decide on our name with suggestions from the children. Their identity, their name, is therefore one which they have decided. Afterall, God loved Adam enough to invite him to name the animals.

We play team games, eat together and have a short reflection time which we anticipate will develop. We make use of mediums with which the children are familiar and use IT to present slide shows, graphical displays of slogans or attention grabbing questions or we examine film clips to initiate discussion. We explore what the children think before we begin to consider the world from God's point of view.

When I am surprised by these young people's opinions or experiences, I remind myself that God isn't; that he knew them before he formed them in the womb and has a plan for their lives (Jeremiah 1:5), in which it has become my great privilege to participate. Jesus also shapes the theology of this ministry (Mark 10:13-15). Seeking to be as inclusive as he is, I hope to communicate just how precious these young people are to God.

I do believe...

...in Penal Substitutionary atonement. The atonement is multifaceted. The Bible testifies to Christ's triumph over evil - he is victor. His sacrifice is also exemplary, in that we too are to take up our cross and become Christ-like and the resurrection is still for me the central event of the gospel, for herein lies our hope but I do believe that penal substitution is at the heart of the atonement. God's wrath is not in opposition to God's love. Hatred is the opposite to love not wrath. Righteous anger is powerful and surely all of the most marvelous acts of liberation and justice would not have happened without righteous anger being a part of the spectrum of emotions which motivate people to do great things for the betterment of their fellow men and women. I believe that a caricature of penal atonement has been created. I believe that PSA has been championed too often as the only way of looking at the cross and I believe that PSA has become associated with a larger doctrinal package which also on many occasions is anti-women's ordination and pro-preaching depravity and wrath at the expense of hope and love. It is time to rescue PSA from itself, shake it free of the negatives with which it has become associated. This is not child-abuse - how can it be when we behold the beauty of a triune God. This is God sacrificing himself in the Son so that all our sin can be wiped away. If Christ did not exchange my sinfulness for his righteousness on that cross and take the punishment in my place, then how am I ever, by myself, going to be able to stand in God's presence. If God looks at me and sees the righteouness of his Son, what amazing grace is this. If he doesn't then my works will never make me righteous enough to approach him - I might as well give up now.

Because Christ submitted in obedience to his father's will, we are not required to submit to suffering when it is unjust. We should not be women trapped in violent relationships, we should not be children who accept abuse, we should not allow others to marginalise us. We should rise up just like Christ. We should turn that righteous anger we feel into something beautiful and life-giving, just like God did. Through Jesus' suffering we have life to the full, this is the life we should lead.

When I survey....

I went to FoG this evening which is our Focus on God service at church on a Sunday evening at 7pm. It involves modern worship songs, a time of reflection and a DVD and then creative prayer stations where we can either direct prayer into particular situations or just be still and wait on God and I found it very moving. Our silver cross on the alter was topped with a small crown of thorns and I was captivated by it as we revisited the events of Good Friday with a reading from The Message. As the words were spoken, I kept thinking about the images from this film-clip, which have stayed with me ever since I watched it. I was thinking about all the people who, Christ-like, have laid down their lives for others.

The most unbearable sentence I think that Christ ever exclaimed for me, as it probably is for many Christians, is when he shouts "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" It is at that point that I feel quite overwhelmed by the fact that my sin bore down upon Christ at that point and left him so bereft of his father. Words can not express the emotions that this part of the story expose. This is Christ in his most painful moment. The Father's momentary neglect of his Son because of his love for his Son and us is difficult to contemplate. It constitutes a very uncomfortable moment.

Thanks to God these are not his final words and instead they are the ones where he commends his spirit into his Father's hands. They are 'at one' again. I find it just astonishing that I need never fear going through this rejection. That Jesus did this for me and you is just staggeringly awesome. I can not do anything, no matter how terrible, to cut me off from the love of God. This is what our saviour secured for us. In the Daily Office, we make use of Psalm 51:11 and 'Cast me not away from your presence,and take not your Holy Spirit from me'. But really we can rest secure that this will never happen if we believe in what Christ achieved for us at Calvary.

Tomorrow...

Come eat with me, it's time to rest
With blood and body you'll be blessed.
Surround me now and share and speak
For pain is climbing to its peak.
For just a while, be still, accept,
All your struggling's now inept.
Please! Jostle not for fame and power
My life drains to its final hour.

So now be still in swaddling heat
And let me tend to hearts and feet,
I'll wash away the grit and sand
Of journeys we've made over land.
This life of three and thirty years
Will then be marked with blood and tears.


I'll soon no longer need to eat
Or sip this wine so smooth and sweet.
I'll fast before the feast begins
So light before the weight of sins.
For tomorrow is a day for mourning,
Where once you loved, you'll soon be scorning.
Where once you cleaved unto my breast
You'll cringe and crumble with the rest.
You'll drop your cloaks to run still faster
And fling betrayals at your master.
You'll deny you ever knew this man
Who stands before you bread in hand.

So break it now, I'll soon be broken.
I'll reside forever in this token.
Feast on me, I am the life,
Cutting through your fear and strife.
Thirst no more but drink this down
Behold my head without its crown
Gaze upon my sun-bruised skin
Soon to be splintered with your sin.

If only you could understand
What must befall the Son of Man.
You glance too quickly and eyes depart
In close inspection of your heart.
Think not upon the darkness there,
I come to cleanse this temple bare,
I come to reconcile you now
You know it too but daren't ask how.
The answer kills and then revives
To give you new and perfect lives.
You'll be redeemed; a new creation
So carry me out into every nation.

The points of my cross go in every direction
Mine is a death for a resurrection.
Yours is a life for a mission like mine
Of the coming Kingdom, you're a living sign.
So set your glass down now, come with me to pray
Tomorrow will prove the most beautiful day.

'And tomorrow it gets worse...'

This is worth a listen
Three-minute Theologian reflection

Psalm 22
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel. ^a]"

In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.

They cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by men and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

"He trusts in the LORD;
let the LORD rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him."

Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you
even at my mother's breast.

From birth I was cast upon you;
from my mother's womb you have been my God.

Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.

Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

Roaring lions tearing their prey
open their mouths wide against me.

I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted away within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.

I can count all my bones;
people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.

But you, O LORD, be not far off;
O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

Deliver my life from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dogs.

Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the congregation I will praise you.

You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

For he has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.

The poor will eat and be satisfied;
they who seek the LORD will praise him—
may your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,

for dominion belongs to the LORD
and he rules over the nations.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.

Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.

They will proclaim his righteousness
to a people yet unborn—
for he has done it.

A very awkward evening

A couple of years ago, I went to a really embarrassing dinner party. Chicken was on the menu and we were in the middle of the Bird-flu outbreak so my husband refused the chicken, then chocolate cake was for pudding and being 'overly religious' at the time, he'd given it up for lent, but after a kick under the table from me, decided Jesus really wouldn't have minded. Our daughter was with us due to a lack of babysitters and was crying constantly because she was so frightened of the friend's pet dog. Another guest at the dinner party knocked over a glass of wine, which ended up emptying its contents onto my plate of chicken. The host declared - 'well, that's the final straw' and rushed off into the kitchen. It was all very embarrassing. I was reminded of this meal tonight as I thought about the last supper.

Profound in the extreme as the events of the last supper are and beautiful and soteriological, I had, nevertheless, cause to reconsider the last supper tonight as I reflected on how we have all experienced the tensions and betrayals in friendships, bitter-sweet as they often are (we were never invited back to dinner in the incident above) and I've been thinking about how we prayerfully meditate on all of the details of the crucifixion, as of course, we should, but perhaps have a habit of sentimentalising the last supper, stripping it of some of its real grittiness. We concentrate so much on the elements of what is shared and the symbolism of the eucharist as Jesus prepared us to remember him in this way and do not always pay enough attention to the dynamics of the relationships that existed around that table.

This is a great read from Thinking Anglicans:

There has been a desire amongst many Christians, at least since the time of the Reformation, when the full Gospel story became available in the vernacular, to re-create the Last Supper as faithfully as possible. The intention was to be more faithful to the Lord’s command to ‘do this in remembrance’.

Alongside this was surely a feeling that it must have been wonderful to be in the presence of the Messiah on that night, listening to his words, and receiving the bread and wine over which he had said the blessing.

But if we look at the occasion it appears in many ways to have been a most uncomfortable evening. It opened, in John’s Gospel, with Peter’s refusal to have his feet washed. He almost prevented Jesus from completing this invaluable sign to his Church. Next came the moment, brought to life by Leonardo’s painting, where Jesus announced to his disciples that one of them would betray him. They all look around, wondering who has been accused. That moment was beautifully portrayed for me this year in a children’s passion play. As Jesus began to walk around the table, saying ‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread’, one of the disciples leapt up and fled from the table saying ‘I’m not really hungry. Don’t give it to me!’ An uncomfortable moment indeed for all. In their drama, when Jesus gave the bread to Judas there was a visible loosening of tension in the other disciples as if this idea had been going through all their minds. The departure of Judas only made the occasion worse, as everyone was filled with foreboding. Perhaps the party would be broken up in minutes.

Luke’s gospel has another tension: the dispute which broke out among the disciples about which was the greatest. Perhaps it was this rivalry which led to the sign of the washing of feet.

As we look at the way the evening unfolded, we find the disciples so wrapped up in their own personal agenda that they were hardly able to grasp the significance of what was happening. Few of us can ever have attended a dinner party among friends which actually turned out to be so difficult.

Their dispute, the anxiety not to be found in the wrong, Peter’s protestations and denials all add to make this a most painful but memorable evening. Clearly this memory of the disciples’ selfishness and lack of care stayed with them. Along with it was no doubt a profound regret that in Jesus’ hour of need they had not been able to rise selflessly to the occasion and give him their support.

Certainly, in our remembrance of the Last Supper, we would not wish to recreate the feelings which were around then. Fortunately, from the very first the Christian Church has not sought to replicate that Supper. Our holy day is Sunday, not Thursday. It is the day the witnesses to the resurrection found that the risen Christ came to them, offering from the first Easter Day the opportunity of forgiveness and a vision of their life and communion together.
Posted by Tom Ambrose on Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Song to calm nerves

Having a vulnerable moment

Need a little prayer please, actually make that a lot.

I've just read through the 'Going to a Bishops Advisory Panel' booklet and I'm feeling over-awed. Can I really satisfy all of those selection-criteria? Can I present an interesting item for debate? What am I going to write about for my theological reflection? How practical or theological should it be? Should it be about something local? Should it be about something I've lead or been involved in? If I write about ministry with youth or children, am I going to get pigeon-holed? I don't feel a calling to youth and family work but this is the type of work I've been most involved in to date. How do I convey a calling to ordained ministry through this reflection? Do I need to do that here? I'm going to have to complete A Personal Inventory, give a presentation and be interviewed about three times or more at BAP. It all sounds so gruelling.

Why is it all suddenly happening so quickly? Am I ready?

I have all the passion, the willingness to surrender my life to all this and follow God's lead but can this person – me, satisfy those people – them (BAP) and if I do not, what will happen to me? I think I am having a bit of a panic. Time to go to bed with much prayer before-hand – oh – and a bowl of 'Rice-crispies' – that always helps :)

NOTES TO SELF

I need to make sure that my requirement to write on the atonement for college doesn't eclipse my preparation for Bap.

I need to make sure that my requirement to prepare for Bap doesn't eclipse my journeying to know God through prayer and Bible study.

I need to make sure that my desire to journey to know God through prayer and Bible study, doesn't actually prevent me from spending time with the people who are made in his image - my friends and family or stay too long with the books instead of outside in the splendour of his creation.

Holiday Club - a family affair

Just delivered our Easter holiday club for the under 5s - hubby and I - good fun! There was a calm atmosphere and no tears, which was great. I met the new arrival, a friend from the Friday group 'Nick's Chicks' brought her new baby boy. All went according to plan with my old laptop lasting all the way through until the last song when it crashed.

We showed a Youtube version of The Three Trees which they all sat glued too - I was worried it was a bit long and we took the children around our interactive Easter experience where they could climb through the tomb and pop out the other side to a cheer of Hosanna!


There was harmony amongst everyone. Our eldest joins the 5-11s club and our youngest joins our group and so it's a real family affair. Depending upon where God wants me to be, if I am successful at Selection Conference I'll give this up and concentrate on college and the development of the church's youth group. In September my own children will no longer be 'the under 5s' - how time flies. If I don't make it at selection conference, it's good to know that I can always continue with all these projects at our local church - it's great fun!

This week's image competition

The photo was posted in a photo album by "kumiko" on the site Picasso Web Albums.

It's the weekly competition for Christian reflection on an image.

Entries need to be written up in less than three sentences and they need to be about the Christian life in some way.

Winners can display this badge on their site.
Our last winner was Jody Radical Evangelical.

It is hoped that the ideas will be used to develop part of a scheme of creative prayer station ministry resources.

The stones will cry out

Oh flips, here we go again...

Has anybody read Bruce Ware's Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

I bet Wayne Grudem is one of its biggest fans.

Here's Terry Virgo's reaction to it under the ironic heading 'Each member fully God'

'Very carefully he argues that each member of the Trinity is not one-third God but fully God, with each member having every essential attribute of God equally and fully. Nevertheless, he establishes the Biblical truth that though they are co-equal, the Father in His position and authority is supreme among the persons of the Godhead. The Father sends the Son and exalts the Son and gives him His all-surpassing name. Ware relaxes into the vernacular, stating, ‘The Father gets top billing as it were.’

The loving submission of the Son is clearly stated, standing in stark contrast to modern man’s insatiable appetite for complete equality in every respect. Each is equal but each has a different role to fulfil, thus providing a matchless example for the roles of men and women – equal in value but different in function.

This is a superb volume. As Christians we uniquely believe in the Trinity. If you would like more light shed on this fundamental truth, let me encourage you to get your copy of Bruce Ware’s excellent book.'

Looks like we're back into the old territory of ESS again potentially, (Eternal subordination of the son).

I pre-suppose that this is what I would find here which means this book will not easily make it onto my 'wishlist'!

I'm starting to think certain things about Newfrontiers churches.

Jesus as epistomological starting point

Can Human Reason defend the faith?

I am quite Barthian in that I believe everything starts with Jesus. God is over and above reason and science and rationale. I loved reading Justin Martyr who, in chapter 54: The origin of Heathen Mythology in THE FIRST APOLOGY OF JUSTIN, described how all the things that man-kind has ever expressed to know have their origin in Wisdom, Logos: the pre-existent Christ, it's just that humanity has not for most of time and history been able to understand from where their knowledge has its origins and it has become twisted by sinfulness.

Now some of the task of apologetics in proclaiming the Good News to people involves working with facts, history, reason - man's ways of ordering and understanding his world. Of course, these things will always fail to convince and indeed no-one can be convinced to believe. Faith works with something different but perhaps something not altogether opposed to reason, just different, nevertheless.

Perhaps unlike Barth, we are not to feel overly worried about our apologetic method. Even Jesus met the sceptic half way, presenting facts. He met with Thomas the doubter (John, chapter 20) with such grace. As a people involved in apologetics, we can meet the skeptic half-way. Jesus met Thomas thus - touch my wounds he offered. Thomas doubted, we will too. The historical task is a little like Jesus in his engaging with Thomas where he was at. We need to meet people where they are at and welcome their questions and allow for our own questioning too. Jesus allows for it and provides for it.

If we meet the resurrection with a renewed sense of wonder this Easter, we should ask Jesus to show us afresh the wounds in his hands so that we might understand anew the real fleshiness of his suffering and resurrection and therein understand all the better our own.

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

SHINE

Oh my Lord, I'm a bubblin' over

Offended by gushy, charismatic Christians.

Turn away now!

Wow - God is so good. I just want to praise him.

I have been to the PCC AGM at our church and it was so spirit-filled. God just gives me pudding with heaps of custard on top that I wasn't expecting (that's a current picture I keep receiving at the moment, that and a glowing coal in my right hand - any interpreters?). Anyway, the pudding - yes. Our meeting was soaked in prayer and worship and I just feel like telling the world about the place where I worship. So I will.

There is something moving where I go and it is the Holy Spirit. I realised two things tonight while I was in prayer with people. The first was just how much the Holy Spirit has softened my heart. The words 'humble and contrite heart' kept buzzing through me and I am very conscious that I have such a huge way to go. I understand the gap between the person I am and the redeemed person I am in God's imagination and I know I am sinful (I have past hurts which haunt me) but if I only dwell on my sinfulness, I can not give God the glory for what he has done already in my life. I have come such a long way.

You see I can remember the time when other things gripped my heart and I was hardened and resistant, praying felt uncomfortable and embarrassing. I didn't know what to say or what to ask for. I didn't know God very well but now God has put it on me like an addiction - he is a magnet to which I am hopelessly attracted. I love him.

I have had another picture recently of a stream 'contained' and there are corks blocking up the holes and I really think a cork or two came loose tonight and flips, you know, it was the PCC AGM - it's ridiculous! Imagine what it's going to be like at New Wine - I can't wait.

The cork that came loose was the one that has me be 'just a bit too overly polite' to God, a bit too 'all around the houses with my words', the apologetic and hesitant but 'only if it's your will Lord' voice. Well, hopefully I might have done something about that voice - or rather he did.

I can ask, it's okay! God is a giving and a generous God and don't you just love those topping ups? And it's okay, we can ask for the Holy Spirit to empower us, to testify to our spirit that we are children of God and he does. Thank you Lord, thank you.

Okay - I'm done. You can stop looking away now. Amen!

Oh, flips here we go again...

Is there an alternative, equally clever exegesis to this one?

Sometimes I just want to make something up, with some wonderfully long words and throw as much Hebrew in there as I can (can't) but this is just my sinful ego. Just when I think I can accept as an integrity this idea that male headship is what some Christians hold to, the repressed returns (Freud) and I'm embroiling myself in gender issues again.

Complementarians love to support their theories with the minutae, it seems so legalistic. Why can't they be more christocentric in their reading of scripture - Jesus' ministry questioned all the systems of power and submission - isn't it a disciple's job to liberate the oppressed so that the only reign they submit to is the Lord's - a reign which truly frees? With this kind of thinking in our churches, no wonder it's still a difficult place for women!

Simon Barrow on 'The Cross, Salvation and the Politics of Satire'.

Simon Barrow was one of my first contributors to this blog when it launched in June 08 and I have followed his thinking and thinktank (Ecclesia) ever since. In his essay 'The Cross, Salvation and the Politics of Satire', he is candid about how people assume that if you do not subscribe absolutely whole-heartedly to PSA you have no faith. I keep changing my mind about PSA as I read, fickle creature that I am. One minute I am won over by the plain sense, no-nonsense approach of John Stott and concerned that offense has been generated by a caricature of the theory rather than the theory itself, and the next minute I am recoiling at what I'm being told are the possible side-effects of such a doctrine for Christians who I'm reading have aligned themselves with state over faith, imperialism over the margins, aggression and violence over and against peace, wrapped up in talk of just war ethics and retribution rather than pacificism. I'm ashamed of my Christian heritage and what has been done to others in the name of Jesus. I am concerned when I read letters like this one to a blog I follow:

I thought that I had read somewhere that the relationship of husband and wife was modeled on the trinity, that it was an asymetric submission. Something like this. "The relationship of man to woman is to parallel the relationship of God the Father to Jesus Christ." I thought that some people teach that the wife is equal in being and different in role, just as the Son is equal in being and different in role in the godhead and that there is an authority - submission relationship between husband and wife that parallels the relationship between God the Father and the Son.

But this is worrisome if the role of the Son is to submit to punishment, because then what is the role of the wife and why is this comparison made?

The theology goes something like this. The atonement is the central defining act of the trinity, headship in marriage is based on relationships in the trinity, therefore...

I have not read a good description from those who promote the trinity/marriage parallel...

PS I am a former battered wife, battered in the name of submission by an ostensibly Christian husband, and these images [PSA] are very powerful. The more one talks about God's bruising of his Son along with talking about the wife in submission to the husband's authority, as Christ is to the Father, the less Christianity seems like an viable option to a woman who has been physically bruised.

Maybe this kind of Christianity is not for battered women.

Simon Barrow writes that he expects PSA subscribers' thinking to go like this:
'You people only have a difficulty with penal substitutionary atonement - the idea that God requires the death of his innocent son in order to appease his wrath and be in a position to forgive sinners - because you are faithless. If not, you'd have no problem.'

For the last two days I have manned the cross for our Easter Experience in church which has been visited by children from the local schools. They are taken through the events of Holy Week. I had some interesting questions and reflections from the children, many of whom asked why Jesus died. One boy gave the answer that he died for all our sins, another boy said he died because the Germans killed him !?!

I didn't give them very deeply theological answers to their questions. I explained that the authorities didn't believe Jesus was the King and Son of God he claimed to be and they punished him like a common criminal.

It was very revealing that I didn't say he was punished in our place to satisfy the anger of God. What would you have said to a class of six year olds from schools with no religious affiliation? Did I do the right thing?

Simon Barrow describes how 'only God can establish God' not some theory and Christ's is 'a sacrifice whose purpose is not to shore up some sacrificial system (as so many Christians want, with their retributive 'satisfaction' ideas), but to demolish it...'

Atonement theories. So I keep swinging back and forth. In Church this morning as I waited for my little visitors I read Leviticus and just worried about how I am ever going to communicate whether a defence can be made of PSA in the light of contemporary criticism.

Kate in Serbia

A friend of man, one of those 'we just click' people. She used to be our youth worker. She's now with the EHO in Serbia. True disciple. Makes me feel very frustrated when I have to read and study all the theory, so static and tied to my books and lap-top. Onward Christian Soldier Kate!

Oh My ... Very powerful film to demonstrate the father's love

Wow - this would be a powerful clip for Good Friday. I hope someone uses it.

What a gift of a day

Hooray - woke up today without labyrinthitus. It's a middle ear thing which makes you feel sick and dizzy.

I'm getting there with the atonement theories work. I was starting to plan holiday club for the under 5s for Monday as well last night and this morning went to church to man a station of the cross - the crucifixion and a lot of things became more clear. First of all, the journey there was fab, it only takes five minutes, but to be able to open up the sun-roof because there is sun through the roof! Great!

I realised whilst I stood waiting for the school children to visit my station that no matter how much I need to cram all this theory (for college assignments) into my head, what is more important is being able to explain the significance of the cross to people in every day language that they can understand. It was very refreshing to engage in something that somehow seemed more real than staying inside my house with a pile of seventeen books in front of me on atonement theory.

Also as I looked around our church, I realised that I was staring at my holiday club, that the only children who will not have visited the stations are the village's pre-school children and it's to them we will speak on Monday. Our vicar said we can leave all of the stuff there so that's a real answer to prayer because last night my husband and I had been working out how we would gather the props we want to take the children through the Easter story but it's all there already. Yippee! Result!