Helaire Beloc & the Archbishop

Did you know the immensely prolific Helaire Belloc (whose name I'm not sure I can spell) wrote not only comic verse but also biographies of Cranmer and Cromwell, amongst others?

Belloc says Cranmer’s Collects are the kind of things people give their lives to write.

The biography is apparently quite moving and a good fun read.

Apart from MacCullouch’s peerless Life, MacCullouch thinks Pollard’s biography is the outstanding one.

Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, his Book of Martyrs, is worth a read as in Elizabethan Archbishop Matthew Parker’s, The Antiquity of the English Church (orig. Lat.), which gives an account of all 69 Archbishops of Canterbury going back to Augustine. Parker was the 70^th.

Ian Paisley’s bed time reading

According the author, MacCullouch’s Thomas Cranmer: A Life was apparently on Rev’d Dr Ian Paisley’s bedside table.

Cranmer a Europhile, not an Anglican

Professor MacCullouch says Cranmer was a Europhile, which is a pity. Cranmer’s second wife was a German. Martin Bucer’s Strasburg was the closest relation to Cranmer’s Canterbury.

Paraphrasing the great Professor: Cranmer, the effective Father of Anglicanism, was very un-Anglican. He has no enthusiasm for Cathedrals or choral evensong. He did not believe in an Anglo-Catholic doctrine of the apostolic succession of the clergy. He was an enthusiast for clear thinking and thoroughgoing double predestination. He did not expect the Prayer Book to fossilise but to be further Reformed and he wanted a book more radical and evangelical than the eventual 1662 BCP was to become.

Cranmer would have been appalled, Professor MacCullouch said, by the idea that Anglicanism is a via media (middle way) between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism for you can’t have a via media between AntiChrist and Truth.

Cranmer was a Reformed Evangelical and his church has been hijacked. He wouldn’t be happy with the good old C of E.

The Sanctification of Scripture

Professor John Webster has suggested a doctrine of the sanctification of Scripture. (Holy Scripture: a dogmatic sketch, chapter 1: ‘Revelation, Sanctification and Inspiration’). The Bible is a human text set apart by God for God’s purposes.

Okay, but is it progressive or positional / decisive sanctification? Surely the latter. (see Peterson, David, Possessed by God – who argues that the Bible speaks of our sanctification in positional terms: we have been sanctified).

I understand (I think from Liam Beadle?) that Professor Oliver O’Donnovan has suggested that a doctrine of the election of Scripture would be better. (If anyone knows where he’s said this in print, I’d be most grateful for the reference).

Okay, the Bible is chosen by God and planned before the creation of the world by him. It is predestined and decided by him.

But is the election of the Bible more like the election of the believer or the election of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the True Believer?

Come to that, is the sanctification of the Bible more like ours or Jesus’?

The words of the Bible are chosen and set apart without sin or imperfection, not chosen from it or despite it. They do not stand in need of cleansing for they are clean already. Words are a good created thing. They are chosen on their merits, we are not.

The Bible is much more than merely human words set apart and / or chosen by God. It is the very words of God in human words that he has planned, chosen and set apart for his purposes.

The Primary Theological Task?

Professor John Webster says:

A dogmatic account of the nature of Holy Scripture can, of course, have only a modest role, ancillary to the primary theological task, which is exegesis.
(Holy Scripture: a dogmatic sketch, p3)

Exegesis? The primary theological task?

Exegesis is perhaps the first theological task. We proceed from the understanding of the Bible. Although we might need some prolegomena and some presuppositions.

But maybe exegesis is the first theological task. The Bible is our one supreme authority. The text of the Bible must govern us in all things, including the frameworks we inevitably bring to the text. Our old friend the virtous spiral rather than a vicuious circle.

Maybe exegesis is the first among equals, with systematic theology, pastoral theology, church history and so on.

But exegesis is certainly not the first theological task. Not the pre-eminent or supreme theological task. Not the goal.

Preaching, prayer or praise are more like the primary theological tasks.

Let’s have exegesis at an early stage. But let’s have it in its place.

Once in a life time opportunity

It'll soon be:

01:02:03 04/05/06

North / South Divide

If there are only two options, North or South, then the Welsh must surely count as honorary Northerners. After all, the valleys are hardly the home counties.

But not according to Oxford University, apparently.

In the 13th century, all students at the university were divided into Southerners and Northerners, with a proctor for each group. The river Neme in modern Northamptonshire divided the nation. If a student came from Scotland, he was classed with the Northerners. If he came from Wales or Ireland or was French, or from anywhere else at all, he was classed with the Southereners.

The university eventually decided to drop the idea of the two groups because they kept fighting and occasionally killing one another.

G. R. Evans, John Wyclif: Myth and reality (Oxford, Lion, 2005) p72

Female Ordination

Here's a thought from Peter Leithart's Easter Musings on Genesis 29 on pastors as queens:

Rachel, importantly, is introduced as a shepherdess (the only woman so designated in Scripture, so far as I can find). Shepherd-shepherdess-flock = King-queen-subjects = Christ-church leaders-church members. Pastors are Rachel, bride-shepherds who minister in the name of the Chief Shepherd. All ordination is female ordination.

Spelling Names

Both regular readers of my blog may have noticed that spelling is not exactly my strong point.

My parents were prescient on this point: they were going to name me Christopher, but they thought I wouldn’t have been able to spell it!

Marc (NOT Mark) has proved tricky at times: it's neither short for Marcus nor French, but the Welsh spelling. We don’t have a “k”, but we muddle through: “dd” and “ll” are obviously much more useful letters.

At least my name’s not Wyclif (or Wiclif or Wycliffe). According to Gillian R. Evans' very interesting looking new biography, there are over twenty spellings of Wyclif’s name recorded - though sadly she doesn't list them.

John Wyclif: Myth and Reality (Lion, 2005), p.9.

Mission Lines

We had a good time on our college mission.

Here are a couple of lines I thought I might plagarise:

Going to church doesn't automatically make you into a believer any more
than going to MacDonalds makes you into a hamburger.

And,

If you turn to Jesus, he promises he'll accept you whatever you've
done. You might have so many skeletons in your cupboard that you've had to buy a
new cupborad: you can still come to Jesus.

And, if this is not too cheesey:

Jesus came to replace the love of power with the power of love.

Justification by Christ alone

"... the meaning of justification: God has declared all those who believe the gospel to be in the right, and no one will be able to overturn God's verdict. Justification by faith is after all the ground of assurance, not of justification itself. We are not justified by faith by believing in justification by faith; we are justified by faith by believing in the gospel, by believing (that is) in Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord of the world. When we understand justification, we gain, not justification itself, but assurance. God who has called us in the gospel has declared that we are members of his family, and he will not let us go.... on that final day God will reaffirm the verdict already issued on the basis of faith."

Tom Wright, Romans for Everyone, volume 1 (London, SPCK, 2004) p.160

NT For Everyone

Tom Wright is writing a guide to every NT book for everyone – and he seems to have almost finished. It’s a noble project which will be of service to the church.

I’ve just finished reading Paul For Everyone: Romans part 1: chapters 1-8 and it’s been good stuff. It’s made me want to read Wright’s big commentary on Romans (in the New Interpreter’s Bible – though I’m not so sure I need the other works in the volume), and I’ve ordered a few Tom Wright books from Amazon (on Scripture, Discipleship, The New Perspective, Basic Christianity etc.).

There are lots of resources for NT studies at http://www.ntwrightpage.com/, including some articles by Craig Blomberg, Rich Lusk, Mark Horne and Douglas Wilson that look worth a look.

Anyway, I reckon Wright on Romans did good to my soul. The little readings are only 4 or 5 pages and there’s a fresh translation and a useful glossary. Often Wright kicks off with an anecdote or set piece illustration, which I didn’t think always worked. I sometimes wanted him to get on with it. But the book is, on the whole, readable and engaging. No study questions are included but this might be the kind of thing you might want to put into the hands of your home group leaders.

I know some of The Banner of Truth boys aren’t crazy for Wright and The Briefing has some reservations, I think, but I’m not sure I’m convinced this particular Bishop of Durham is really a dangerous heretic.

Amusing book about telly

I’ve just finished reading:

Postman, Neil, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Methuen, London, 1985)

Postman’s polemical essay is often well expressed and has some striking statistics and amazing anecdotes. His concern is mainly with US culture and the book feels a bit dated – there’s no mention of the internet, for example – but its well worth a browse. Below are some of my favourite bits.

Postman argues that we have moved from a print-based culture, which valued exposition, to a TV culture, where all our public discourse is now a matter of amusement and entertainment. Image is all and coherent thought is dying. We a heading for a Brave New World:

“… in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” (p2)

“Big Brother”, of course, has an added reality TV resonance for us, which wasn’t part of Postman’s authorial intent!

Huxley feared those who would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism (p2), the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Part 1

1. The Medium is the Metaphor

Las Vegas as a metaphor of our current national character and aspiration (p3)

“… how we are obliged to conduct our conversations [e.g. through the medium of TV] will have the strongest possible influence on what ideas we can conveniently express. And what ideas are convenient to express inevitably become the important content of a culture.” (p6) forms determine content (p7)

“… this book is an inquiry into and a lamentation about the most significant American cultural fact of the second half of the twentieth century: the decline of the Age of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television.” (p8)

The 2nd commandment prohibits image making

Northrop Frye: “the written word is far more powerful than simply a reminder: it re-creates the past in the present, and gives us, not the familiar remembered thing, but the glittering intensity of the summoned up hallucination.” (p13, Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (Toronto Academic Press 1981), p227)

2. Media as Epistemology (p16ff)

a great media-metaphor shift has taken place in America: printing press – coherent, serious, rational; TV – shrivelled and absurd (p16)
Not an objection to junk TV but to TV when it aspires to the high (p16f)
Truth must come in its proper clothing if it is to be acknowledged (p23)

3. Typographic America (p31ff)

New England settlers’ commitment to the written word – Bible – Luther on printing press (p33)
Conversation / preaching as spoken written text (p43) – impersonal / oratorical literary speeches

4. The Typographic Mind (p45ff)

“much of our discourse today has only a marginal propositional content” (p51)

reading encourages analytical management of knowledge (p52) – sequence, argument etc.
“the predispositions of a cultural mindset” (p52) – print culture: serious, logical, ordered, rational intelligence, content – Age of Reason (p53)

Jonathan Edwards’ reasoned literary sermons (p55f)

commerce / advertising (p59) – once appeals to understanding in words but now turn to pictures and slogans (p61)

the monopoly of the printed word in the 18th & 19th CC (p61)

“… most people could read and did participate [in the culture’s conversation in 18th and 19th C America]. To these people, reading was both their connection to and their model of the world. The printed page revealed the world, line by line, page by page, to be a serious, coherent place, capable of management by reason, and of improvement by logical and relevant criticism.” (p63)
mature citizenship required sophisticated literacy (p63)

“For two centuries, America declared its intentions, expressed its ideology, designed its laws, sold its products, created its literature and addressed its deities with black squiggles on white paper. It did its talking in typography, and with that as the main feature of its symbolic environment rose to prominence in world civilization.
The name I give to that period of time during which the American mind submitted itself to the sovereignty of the printing press is the Age of Exposition. Exposition is a mode of though, a method of learning, and a means of expression. Almost all of the characteristics we associate with mature discourse were amplified by typography, which has the strongest possible bias toward exposition: a sophisticated ability to think conceptually, deductively and sequentially; a high valuation of reason and order; an abhorrence of contradiction; a large capacity for detachment and objectivity; and a tolerance for delayed response. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, … the Age of Exposition began to pass, and the early signs of its replacement could be discerned. Its replacement was to be the Age of Show Business.” (p64)

5. The Peek-a-Boo World (p65)

New idea in middle of 19th C that “that transportation and communication could be disengaged from each other, that space was not an inevitable constraint on the movement of information.” (p65)

Nation / continent wide communication compared with collection of regions (p65)
Morse – Telegraph brings unified American discourse (p66)
Typographic Man
Telegraph introduced irrelevance, impotence and incoherence to public discourse (p66)
Context free information not serving a purpose in social or political decision making or action but novelty, interest and curiosity (p66f) – information a commodity (p67)
Penny newspapers treated the irrelevant as news (p67)
News no longer functional information (p68)
An abundance of decontextualised information (p68) – information-action ratio altered
Permanence and continuity of books – part of a conversation with the past, require time (p71)
News a series of exciting headlines / slogans (p71)
Development of photography (p72)
Cf language / words – abstract etc & photography - only speaks in particularities, concrete representations of objects (p73) – not ideas / concepts not internal, unseen, abstract – here and now
Language gives comprehension & coherence
Photography no argument, no should have been or might have been (p74)
Photography atomises the world – not part of a story (p75)
Daniel Boorstin – “the graphic revolution” (p75)
“the new focus on the image undermined traditional definitions of information, of news, and, to a large extent, of reality itself.” (p75)
cross word and quizzes – Trivial Pursuit – inventing a context to use our useless information for entertainment (p77)
Telegraph, photograph, radio and film: “Together, this ensemble of electronic techniques called into being a new world – a peek-a-boo world, where now this event, now that, pops into view for a moment, then vanishes again. It is a world without much coherence or sense; a world that does not ask us, indeed, does not permit us to do anything; a world that is, like the child’s game of peek-a-boo, entirely self contained. But like peek-a-boo, it is also endlessly entertaining.” (p79)

On entertainment: “… we all build castles in the air. The problems come when we try to live in them.” (p79)
TV: Image and instancy
“We are by now well into a second generation of children for whom television has been their first and most accessible teacher and, for many, their most reliable companion and friend.” (p79)
TV the command centre of our culture (p79) and a meta medium – directs not only our knowledge of the world but also our knowledge of ways of knowing about the world (p80)
TV the status of Myth in Ronald Barthes’ sense of the word (p80) – a not fully conscious way of understanding the world that is natural to us, not problematic
TV has become our culture – we rarely talk about TV, only what is on TV
TV as background radiation fall out of big bang we no longer notice (p80f)
Rest of book: the epistemology of TV – how TV’s way of knowing is uncompromisingly hostile to typography’s way of knowing – TV promotes incoherence and triviality – “serious television” is a contradiction in terms – TV about entertainment (p81)
“Television… is transforming our culture into one vast arena for show business.” (p81)

Part II.

6. The Age of Show Business (p85ff)

TV not an extension of or servant of a literate culture (p85f)

“What is television? What kinds of conversations does it permit? What are the intellectual tendencies it encourages? What sort of culture does it produce? These are the questions to be addressed in the rest of this book…” (p86)

Technology and medium (p86)
Technology is not entirely neutral – contains an inherent bias / agenda (p86f)
TV as a medium in America the focus here (p87)

“In watching American television, one is reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s remark on his first seeing the glittering neon signs of Broadway and 42nd Street at night. It must be beautiful, he said, if you cannot read. American television is, indeed, a beautiful spectacle, a visual delight, pouring forth thousands of images on any given day. The average length of a shot on network television is only 3.5 seconds, so that the eye never rests, always has something new to see. Moreover, television offers viewers a variety of subject matter, requires minimal skills to comprehend it, and is largely aimed at emotional gratification. Even commercials, which some regard as an annoyance, are exquisitely crafted, always pleasing to the eye and accompanied by exciting music. There is no question but that the best photography in the world is presently seen on television commercials. American television, in other words, is devoted entirely to supplying its audience with entertainment.” (p88f)

“… what I am claiming is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. Our television set keeps us in constant communion with the world, but it does so with a face whose smiling countenance is unalterable. The problem is not that the television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether.” (p89)

“… entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television.” (p89) – for our amusement / pleasure- even news (p89)

““good television” has little to do with what is “good” about exposition or other forms of verbal communication but everything to do with what the pictorial images look like.” (p90)

“Thinking does not go down well on television, a fact that television directors discovered long ago. There is not much to see in it. It is, in a phrase, not a performing art.” (p93)

TV aims for applause not reflection (p93)

“I do not say categorically that it is impossible to use television as a carrier of coherent language or thought in process.” (p93)

“The single most important fact about television is that people watch it, which is why it is called “television”…. It is in the nature of the medium that it must suppress the content of ideas in order to accommodate the requirements of visual interest; that is to say, to accommodate the values of show business.” (p94)

“… television is different [from films, records and radio] because it encompasses all forms of discourse…. Television is our culture’s principal mode of knowing about itself. Therefore – and this is the crucial point – how television stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly to be staged.” (p94f)

“… the message of television as metaphor is not only that all the world is a stage but that the stage is located in Las Vegas, Nevada.” (p95)

“The nature of its [our culture’s] discourse is changing as the demarcation lines between what is show business and what is not becomes harder to see with each passing day. Our priests and presidents, surgeons and lawyers, our educators and newscasters need worry less about satisfying the demands of their discipline than the demands of good showmanship. Had Irving Berlin changed one word of his celebrated song, he would have been as prophetic, albeit more terse, as Aldous Huxley. He need only have written, There’s No Business But Show Business.” (p100)

7. “Now… This” (p101ff)

The “Now… This” world view is the offspring of the intercourse between telegraphy and photography. TV nurtured it and brought it to a perverse maturity. (p102)

News as entertainment (p104) – “… a news show as a stylized dramatic performance whose content has been staged largely to entertain…” (p105) – music – 45 sec segments – commercials (p106)

“… embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication, featuring a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction. In aesthetics, I believe the name given to this theory is Dadaism; in philosophy, nihilism; in psychiatry, schizophrenia. In the practice of the theatre, it is known as vaudeville.” (p107)

“… television is the paradigm for our conception of public information…. television has achieved the power to define the form in which the news must come, and it has also defined how we shall respond to it.” (p113) – the total information environment begins to mirror television (p113)

As in Trivial pursuit, facts are a source of amusement (p115)

8. Shuffle Off to Bethlehem (p116ff)

Because of the bias of TV “… on television, religion, like everything else, is presented quite simply and without apology, as entertainment.” (p119)

Not everything is televisable and that which is televised is transformed (p120)

TV offering people what they want (p123): “… Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.” (p124)

“… the power of a close-up televised face [of a preacher], in colour, makes idolatry a continual hazard. Television is, after all, a form of graven imagery far more alluring that a golden calf.” (p125)

“There is no doubt… that religion can be entertaining. The question is, By doing so, do we destroy it as an “authentic object of culture”? And does the popularity of a religion that employs the full resources of vaudeville drive more traditional religious conceptions into manic and trivial displays?” (p126)

9. Reach Out and Elect Someone (p128ff)

Reagan: “Politics is just like show business.” (p128)

“… in America, the fundamental metaphor for political discourse is the television commercial.” (p129)

Politicians “have become assimilated into the general television culture as celebrities.” (p135)

TV commercials offer viewers an image of themselves (p138) – men make their gods in their own image (Xenophanes) – “Those who would be gods refashion themselves into the images the viewers would have them be.” (p138)

TV a present tense medium – diminution of history (p139f): “With television, we vault ourselves into a continuous, incoherent present.” (p141)

“To paraphrase David Riesman only slightly, in a world of printing, information is the gunpowder of the mind; hence come the censors in their austere robes to dampen the explosion.” (p142)

George Gerbner: “Television is the new state religion run by a private Ministry of Culture (the three networks), offering a universal curriculum for all people, financed by a form of hidden taxation without representation. You pay when you wash, not when you watch, and whether or not you care to watch.” (p143)

10. Teaching as an Amusing Activity (p146ff)

Sesame Street (1969-)
“… television’s principal contribution to educational philosophy is the idea that teaching and entertainment are inseparable.” (p150)

“We might say that there are three commandments that form the philosophy of the education which television offers… Thou shalt have no prerequisites…. Thou shalt induce no perplexity…. Thou shalt avoid exposition like the ten plagues visited upon Egypt. ” (p151f)

11. The Huxleyan Warning (p160ff)

The spirit of our culture shrivelled by becoming a burlesque (p160)

We watch Big Brother by choice (p160)

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversations become a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.” (p161)

“Those who speak about this matter must often raise their voices to near-hysterical pitch, inviting the charge that they are everything from wimps to public nuisances to Jeremiahs. But they do so because what they want others to see appears benign, when it is not invisible altogether…. Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture’s being drained by laughter?” (p161f)

“Television… serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse – news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion – and turns them into entertainment packages. We would be better off if television got worse, not better. “The A-Team” and “Cheers” are no threat to our public health. “60 Minutes”, “Eye-Witness News” and “Sesame Street” are.” (p164f)

“The solution must be found in how we watch.” (p165)

Americans must begin talking back to their televisions (p166) – asking questions breaks the spell

“… questions about the psychic, political and social effects of information are as applicable to the computer as to television…. I believe the computer to be a vastly overrated technology…” (p166)

“… in the end, he [Aldous Huxley] was trying to tell us that what afflicted people in Brave New World was no that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” (p168)

Tom Right?

N. T. Wright, with his advocacy of a “New Perspective on Paul” and women bishops is a controversial figure. Its heartening to note that in the Spring 2006 edition of Churchman, he repeatedly identifies himself as a conservative evangelical:

When faced with a text [such as 1 Timothy 2] bristling with exegetical problems
(not least with words that don’t occur elsewhere in early Christian literature)
my primary duty, as a good conservative evangelical who believes in the
God-givenness of Scripture, is to proceed with caution and to obey the
Reformation principle of not expounding one passage of Scripture in such a way
as to set it against others.

Replying to Gerald Bray’s previous editorial, Wright says:

The article then turns a corner and asks for parallel structures and evangelical
bishops, citing the present Bishop of Lewes [Wallace Benn] as the only one who
can be called ‘a genuinely conservative Evangelical’. Let me first register an
objection, already implicit in what I’ve said, to the hijacking of the latter
phrase. When Dr. Bray and I were young the phrase ‘conservative evangelical’ was
defined in terms of certain beliefs, particularly the inspiration and authority
of Scripture and a certain view of the atonement. Since I haven’t changed my
views on either of those topics, why should I now find the phrase used in such a
way as to exclude me?

You Must Be Born Again, O Israel!

It’s my birthday on Thursday (6^th April) and, God willing, I’m going to be giving an evangelistic talk to a holiday club for seniors on John 3v7: “You must be born again”.

If this is right, and there seems to be something in it, John is primarily talking about the resurrection of Israel.

So can I still give my talk from that text calling for individual sinners urgently to believe in Jesus that they might be personally regenerated and enter Christ’s heavenly kingdom, or does it need a speedy rethink? Would it be better to say: believe in Jesus and you will be grafted into the re-born people of God, the True Israel?

The former certainly seems the more accessible message, once you've decoded the jargon. The latter seems to call for a grasp of the whole plot-line of Biblical theology. No, on seceond thoughts perhaps both are equally alien to your average unbeliever.

What do you think, talk team?

Mmmm.

They Work For You

There seems to be so much to protest about in the current government, these tools might help:

They Work For You - http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ - lets you find out about your MP and search everything said in the Commons since 2001 by key word, or for an MP or constituency. “Jesus” got 87 mentions, “Mohammed” 199.

Public Whip - http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/ - lets you search how MPs voted by name, postcode, constituency or subject.

Write to them - http://www.writetothem.com/ - allows you to email for fax your political representatives.

These clever things were set up by the (largely volunteer?) boffins at mySociety - http://www.mysociety.org/ - who "build websites which give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives”.

You can keep tabs on what the Bishops in the Lords are up to with these. We could use similar things for General Synod and the House of Bishops, if there’s a techy with lots of spare time....

John 2 talk – evangelistic interpretative maximalism?

I’m due to give an evangelistic talk on Jesus’ turning of water into wine (John 2) on Monday and am puzzling away over the significance of this first of Jesus’ signs and how much of it I should try to explain in 15 minutes over supper.

I fear that “interpretative maximalism” might seem like “making it up” to my hearers. The exegetical rabbits might seem to pop out of the hat. Looking at the text might be like squinting at one of those magic eye books: is the supposed picture really there? How much Bible-study-proof of every point is needed and how much of it can your average non-Christian bear without nodding off into the crème brulee?

Any thoughts (and illustrations!) most gratefully received.

My one sentence summary so far is already a bit of a mouthful. It might be something like:

Trust in the transforming power of Jesus’ perfect cleansing death and you can be confident of the great joy of God’s heavenly kingdom.

Here’s some of the way I got there:

This sign (v11) reveals Jesus’ glory (v11). Jesus’ glory in John’s gospel is above all his death (17:1). Jesus’ coming hour (v4) is his cross (7:6, 8, 30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 16:32; 17:1).

With the institution of the Lord’s Supper, wine will become a sign of the blood of Christ shed for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28).

The wine replaces the water of Jewish ceremonial purification (v6). The number 6 suggests the imperfection and incompleteness of ritual cleansing (in contrast to the perfect number 7).

The wedding feast is a biblical description of the great eschatological wedding feast of the lamb (Matthew 26:29; Revelation 19:7, 9).

Wine is suggestive of joy and gladness. It is a luxury for rejoicing. Jesus is no kill-joy.

Assuming all the water is turned into wine, Jesus produces an extravagant, abundant supply: about 150 gallons, 570 litres or 750 bottles (c.f. John 10:10).

Jesus makes better wine out of water than men can make out of grapes (v10). Jesus’ creative power is suggestive of the fact that he is God Himself.

The correct response to the sign is to believe in Jesus (v11; 20:31).

But how to try to say everything? I could speed-talk. Mmmm.

What's Up My Street?

The Up My Street website is a convenient source of local info and the odd interesting insight.

I've just been looking up the ACORN profiles of the place I live and the place I'm off too on mission. Hypothetically speaking, the site might also be a useful short-cut for the college Community Survey Project too - not that you'd want such a thing!

About ACORN

ACORN stands for ‘A Classification Of Residential Neighbourhoods.’ There are approximately 2 million postcodes in the U.K. (the average postcode being shared by around 14/15 addresses). The marketing-data firm CACI has produced this classification to include every street in England, Scotland and Wales, fitting them into 17 distinct groups, which, in turn, contain 56 ‘typical’ ACORN neighbourhood categories.The basic idea is that streets of broadly similar people are grouped together. Your postcode is assigned to the type which is the best match with the unique characteristics of your street. Please note that the description is for the type as a whole, not your specific street. When your street matches a type it doesn’t mean the description applies to you, as an individual.

Here's the profile for the Oak Hill College postcode (N14 4PS). It doesn't entirely sum up the typical Oak Hill student.

Often, many of the people who live in this sort of postcode will be affluent urban professionals living in flats. These are known as type 15 in the ACORN classification and 1.17% of the UK’s population live in this type.

Neighbourhoods fitting this profile are found primarily in London (Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, Merton, Kensington and Chelsea, Richmond-upon-Thames and Ealing) as well as in Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh. Here is an overview of the likely preferences and features of your neighbourhood:

Family income	Very high
Interest in current affairs	Very high
Housing - with mortgage	Medium
Educated - to degree	Very high
Couples with children	Low
Have satellite TV	Low

These people live in affluent urban areas, where large attractive houses have often been converted into flats. Whilst many do own their home, the proportion of rented accommodation is relatively high.

People in this type are very highly qualified; one in four have postgraduate and professional qualifications. They work in professional and senior managerial occupations, with many spending very long hours at work.

Most residents are either young singles or couples. There are very few children and those there are tend to be under five, which suggests that young families move on from these areas.

As one of the highest earning types, they have relatively high disposable incomes. They invest in a broad range of products including high interest accounts, ISAs, and stocks and shares. They are comfortable using the Internet to do their financial research.

In the winter, this type is the most likely to go skiing. They will then take at least one other holiday which is usually foreign and often far flung. When at home they take advantage of the range of theatre and arts available to them from living in the city. They also enjoy good food and wine, both at home and in restaurants.

They are interested in current affairs and are very likely to buy a daily paper, which they probably read as they commute to work. They usually choose from The Guardian, Independent, The Times and Financial Times. At the weekend they like The Sunday Times and Observer.

Evangelical Economics

Here are some jottings about evangelical perspectives on economics (about which I am very ignorant).

There are a few good quotes from Samuel Gregg, David Chilton and Stephen Perks, some thoughts on Ron Sider, the Jubilee, fair trade, taxation, the charging of interest and a bit of bibliography.

Cartoon Confusion

The Church in Wales has published a magazine with a cartoon of the "prophet" Mohammed, which it has now quite rightly recalled.

The Archbishop of Wales has written to all the magazine's subscribers asking them to return the offending publication and informing them that they will be sent a replacement version, which does not contain the unfortunate material.

The cartoon apparently “satirizes Mohammed by depicting him sitting on a heavenly cloud with Buddha, and Christian and Jewish deities.” (?!) The other religious figures say to the “prophet”: "don't complain...we've all been caricatured here".

Yes, the cartoon is offensive and should be withdrawn.

But surely it is offensive to our only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Is the cartoon not rather flattering to Mohamed and optimistic about his eternal destiny, given that Jesus said that no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6)?

Perhaps the Church in Wales should concentrate on standing up for the honour of King Jesus.

The relevant BBC news article is here.

Tony's Absurd Housekeeping

I don't know anything about economics, but it seems to me that Stephen C. Perks is right to say that "borrowing represents one of the more absurd aspects of government policy".

Given that the government seems to feel free to set tax rates at whatever exorbitant level it likes, if it's short of cash, why not a tax hike? Borrowing seems like ridulous politically oportunistic short-termism. Could it be that Tony doesn't want us to know how much of our money he's actually blowing?

Government loans don't seem to come cheap. Perks says:

In 1992 the government raised nearly 11½ per cent of its revenues from borrowing. It spent more on funding this debt in interest payments (7 per cent of total expenditure) than it did on law and order (5½ percent of total expenditure) and nearly as much as on defence (just over 9½ per cent of total expenditure).

The Political Economy of the Christian State (Kuyper Foundation, 2001) p203f citing United Kingdom Accounts, 1993 edition (HMSO)

Preacher: King or Politician?

Colin Wright argues that Elders ought to get to sit down for preaching in his interesting article Restoring the Idea of the Throne to Christian Preaching on The Kuyper Foundation website.

Though we might find some things to quibble over, Wright has some worthwhile reflections about how thrones might benefit preaching, for example, making it more like authoritative teaching than histrionics or haranguing.

Here’s a taste:

In this essay I want to put forward an idea that will seem novel. It is not really novel, but its neglect for centuries by Christians will make it appear so. The 'novel' idea is this: That preaching - preaching in church, that is - should be done from a seated position and not from a standing one. It should nearly always be preaching from a throne and rarely preaching from a platform.

This flies in the face of centuries of tradition, in Reformed and non-Reformed churches alike. It is the pulpit that has been the arena of the preacher. Interestingly, the word pulpit is derived directly from the Latin pulpitum, whose definition in a standard dictionary is,

. . . a staging made of boards, a scaffold, platform, pulpit, for public representations, lectures, disputations; and esp. as a stage for actors.

This idea of the pulpit is now sacrosanct, and any attempt to tamper with it will be ill-received - especially by those who preach. Nevertheless, I believe there is a good biblical warrant for abandoning the idea of the pulpit in favour of that of the throne. If we are to truly follow our motto as Reformed Christians - ecclesia reformata reformanda est (the reformed church is always reforming) - then we must be open to reforming even the most cherished of traditions.

Peter Tatchell

The BBC and the radio listings seem to have accepted pro-gay activist Peter Tatchell's re-branding of himself as "Human Rights Campaigner".

Reformed Theonomists?

John Frame has some sensible things to say about the highly polemical debate between Theonomists and other Reformed theologians here. He argues that theonomy and a more conventional Reformed third use of the law approach – what is the catchy title for that view, by the way? - are points on a spectrum of how commandments are to be applied today.

Here are some useful bits:

Theonomy can be defined simply as adherence to God's law, which would make all Christians, especially Reformed Christians, into theonomists. Here I define the term more narrowly as a school of thought within Reformed theology which prefers literal, specific, and detailed applications of Mosaic civil laws to modern civil government. The word "prefers" gives us some leeway. At points, the theonomists, like the rest of us, apply the law only in general and non-literal ways….

Clearly theonomy so defined is not a clear-cut hermeneutic which prescribes the answer to every exegetical question. Theonomists differ much among themselves as to how the civil laws are to be applied. …the difference between theonomists and more conventional Reformed thinkers is not sharp but fuzzy. Rather, theonomy as defined above is an emphasis, a tendency….

Historically, Reformed thought has shown elements of both relatively theonomic and relatively non-theonomic emphases. I do not believe that either approach may claim unequivocally to be "the Reformed position." Of course, Reformed people are not antinomian. They believe that Christians are governed by God's law, and that includes the Old Testament. But Reformed exegetes including Calvin have varied greatly as to how literally and specifically they apply the details of the Mosaic legislation to their own situations.

Both Bahnsen [Theonomist] and Kline [more conventional view] make broad, bold programmatic statements which they modify considerably in their detailed discussions. This happens to such an extent that in my opinion their bold programmatic statements do not really or fairly represent the views they are presenting. In actual fact, they are much closer together than their rhetoric would suggest.

I’m not so sure Frame is right when he suggests that:

I suspect that few of us would disagree with theonomy if it were simply presented as a future ideal. Sure: if the postmilennial hope is realized and the world-society with its institutions becomes largely Christian, then most of us would find very attractive the prospect of living under something like the Mosaic civil law.

No doubt we would all say we want to see the social justice witnessed to in the Mosaic law implemented, but I imagine Reformed Postmillers might differ very considerably over how "like the Mosaic civil law" the ideal statute book will be. Even if we follow Frame’s advice, cut out the insults and accept the clarity of his fuzzy-thinking, there’s still a debate to have.

Legalism!

Perhaps we can be a bit quick to cry "legalism!" when the law of God seems uncomfortable.

David Chilton tries to clarify what legalism is and is not in Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators, his response to Ron Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, in which Chilton often has the polemics at full volume:

Legalism cannot be defined simply as rigorous obedience to the law: after all, Jesus Christ obeyed the law fully, in its most exacting details – and He, certainly, was no legalist. The true legalist is the person who subscribes to one or more of the following heresies – ideas which are roundly condemned in Scripture:

(1) Justification by works…. The only basis of salvation is the finished work of Jesus Christ, in fully satisfying the demands of God’s law, and suffering its penalties, in the place of all His people….

(2) The requirement of obedience to Old Testament ceremonial law… These received their completion in Jesus Christ, and are no longer literally binding upon us. There is a very real sense, of course, in which we still keep these laws: Jesus Christ is our priest, He is our sacrificial atonement, and we cannot approach God apart from Him. Thus, in their real meaning, all these laws are observed by all Christians….

(3) … The requirement of obedience to man-made regulations. (Romans 14; Colossians 2)

(4) Another form of legalism … is confusion of sins with civil crimes. There are many things the Bible condemns as sins, for which there is no civil penalty attached…. Where God has not provided examples of legislation, we may not legislate. To do so is legalism….

The antinomian is opposed to the authority of God in human affairs. While he may cloak his humanism in a garb of extreme religiosity (as did the Pharisees) or “radical Christianity,” his primary goal is to abolish God’s law and replace it with his own laws. He wants to be “like God, knowing [i.e. determining] good and evil.” On the surface, antinomianism and legalism appear to be diametrically opposed; in reality, they are both rooted in the sinful attempt to dethrone God. (pp22-24)

Gary North

You've got to love the spirit with which North writes. Here's a random example:

I am not advocating the legalization of prostitution, pornography, or the sale of cocaine to eight-year-old schoolchildren in exchange for homosexual favours. What I am saying... is that we do know the general outline of what an explicitly Christian political economy would look like.

Clouse, Robert G., (ed.) Wealth & Poverty: Four Christain Views of Economics (IVP), p161

Well, thanks for clearing that up for us, Gary!

Although its US focused, there's all sort of wonderful stuff on North's website including his tip of the week, the latest outrages of the government. Enjoy!

Daddy State Becomes The Heir

inheritance tax seems to me a particularly wicked tax on saving and dying. This form of compulsory wealth redistribution is very like theft, especially as the assets / money being taxed was very often taxed when it was earned too.

The average UK tax burden which, considering all forms of taxation, is, I believe the best part of 40% is surely excessive. It is interesting to note that in 1 Samuel 8:15, God warns against the king who will take a whopping 10% of their production in their taxation. And recall that Pharaoh, the great tyrant, took 20% (Gen 47:24-26).

But surely the state needs all this cash is levels of service are to be maintained? The answer is for the state to do much, much less.

Rushdoony argues that:

The state, moreover, is making itself progressively the main, and in some countries, the only heir. The state in effect is saying that it will receive the blessing above all others. It offers to educate all children and to support all needy families as the great father of all. It offers support to the aged as the true son and heir who is entitled to collect all of the inheritance as its own. In both roles, however, it is the great corrupter and is at war with God'’s established order, the family.

Quoted in North, Gary, "Free Market Capitalism"” in Clouse, Robert G. (ed.), Wealth & Poverty: Four Christian Views of Economics (Downers Grove, IVP, 1984), p57 citing R. J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, Craig Press, 1973), p181

North says:

God'’s law is clear enough: The family is the primary agency of welfare - in education, law enforcement (by teaching biblical law and self-government), care for the aged. The church as the agency for collecting the tithe, also has social welfare obligations. The civil government has almost none. Even in the case of the most pitiable people in Israel, lepers, the State had only a negative function, namely, to quarantine them from other citizens. The State provided no medical care or other tax-supported aid (Lev 13 and 14). (p57)

Preaching that changes the world

Here's Gary North's observations about doctrines that can be preached to capture hearts and minds so as to bring about social change:

The most effective social movements of the twentieth century’s masses – Marxism, Darwinian science, and militant Islam – have held variations of the three doctrines that are crucial for any comprehensive program of social change: providence, law, and optimism. The Christian faith offers all three of these, not in a secular framework but in a revelational framework. The failure of Christianity to capture the minds of the masses, not to mention the world’s leaders, is in part due to the unwillingness of the representatives of Christian orthodoxy to preach all three with uncompromising clarity.

North, Gary, “Free Market Capitalism” in Clouse, Robert G. (ed.), Wealth & Poverty: Four Christian Views of Economics (Downers Grove, IVP, 1984) , p57

Sad Statistics on the family

25% of children can expect their parents to separate
About 15 000 children in England and Wales experience the divorce of their parents each year

20% of children live in lone parent households

23% of conceptions end in abortion

40% of births are outside marriage

Quoted by Schluter and Ashcroft (Jubilee Centre, 2005) taken from a review of national statistics in Roberts (2003)

Biblical-Theological Economics

Kathryn Tanner suggests that:

... the whole Christian story is a vision of economy, a vision of a kind of system for the production and circulation of goods, beginning with God and extending to the world, from creation through redemption..... Christianity is every bit as much about economic issues as an account of the way prices are determined by marginal utilities. The Christian story, after all, is a story about God as the highest good, a God constituted by exchange among the persons of the Trinity, a God who aims, in creating and saving the world, to distribute to it the good of God'’s own life to the greatest degree possible.”
(Tanner, Kathryn, Economy of Grace (Minneapolis, Augsburg Fortress, 2005), page xi)

Even if we don't go along with Tanner's program (for a radical economy of grace and non-competitiveness), presumably there could be value in expressing the gospel in economic categories, such as profit and loss (c.f. Matthew 16:26) and cost (c.f. Luke 14:28). Cash conscious consumers can be called to invest in true treasure (Matthew 6:19-21).

Blog Etiquette - and Ethics

What is the etiquette of blogging and what are the ethical considerations?

For example, should people always be quoted by name and sources cited in full or is it acceptable to quote someone anonymously or allude to what they’ve said? Does it depend on whether one wants to praise or criticise?

How public should something be before its bloggable?

And although a blog is publicly available, isn’t rather like saying something behind someone’s back in many situations? When is this wrong?

And is there a sinful desire to have the last word that blogging serves?

What of plagiarism and copyright?

And is blogging a godless waste of time?

Not wanting to waste too much time, I made a quick search for blog etiquette on line.

Although some helpful stuff is included (e.g. remember your blog posts might follow you!; get your spelling right!), surely we can do better than Bella Online with its advice that one shouldn’t lie as you are likely to be found out and discredited.

More of a start is perhaps some blogging principles.

Evangelism and social action fallacies

It is sometimes said that modern conservative Evangelicals have a problem about relating words (evangelism) and deeds (social action), which would be unrecognisable to, say, an ancient Hebrew or many in the Majority World today, who are less dualistic, more integrated in their understanding and not guilty of this false dichotomy.

However, it is clearly true that evangelism and social action can be distinguished. Just to label their separation a false dichotomy is not enough. If they are inseparable, then we must show how and understand carefully how to relate them in practice.

And so what if it is “Western” to sharply distinguish words and deeds? We would not want to fall into a genetic fallacy: even if it is nasty old dualistic Western or Greeks philosophers who divide words and deeds and so on, that does not in itself discredit the distinction – or show us that we should just lump together evangelism and social action somehow.

So Many Questions, Wright?

In his revealing little piece My Pilgrimage in Theology (originally Published in Themelios, January, 1993, 18.2, 35), Tom Wright comments that during his graduate work:

I learned to live with unanswered questions: one of the keys to staying sane and Christian in a lifetime of studying theology is to say ‘I don’t know the answer to this just now, but I’m prepared to wait’. Often the answer comes by an unexpected route, in a form that one wouldn’t have recognized at the original time of asking. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit much needed by theologians.

It’s all worth a read. The Eucharist is interestingly prominent:

I went to Canada in 1981 to teach NT studies at McGill, and to be involved with the Anglican College in Montreal. The Combination was superb: out of the lecture room, into chapel. My view of the Eucharist, which had started at a rock-bottom low as an undergraduate, had received an upward jolt through reading Calvin (yes, try it and see), and had been nurtured through my early years as a chaplain. It finally came together and started to approach that of Paul. . . . Passages I'd not understood before came alive. So did the joy of participating in the richest of all Christian symbols. Alone, I continued to read the NT in Greek and the OT Hebrew day by day, constantly finding a combination of personal address and intellectual stimulation which I have never been able to separate. (I was once advised to keep separate Bibles one devotional and one ‘academic’. Fortunately I took no notice.)

…

And I have the joy, during term, of a regular celebration of the Eucharist at which, again and again, everything else I do comes into focus. I find myself held within the love of the triune God able to receive fresh grace for fresh tasks.

And what does Wright see as “the most significant change of my theological life”?

In 1983 I started work on my Colossians commentary. By the time I finished it in 1985 I had undergone probably the most significant change of my theological life. Until then I had been basically, a dualist. The gospel belonged in one sphere, the world of creation and politics in another. Wrestling with Colossians 1:15-20 put paid to that. I am still working through the implications (and the resultant hostility in some quarters): my book New Tasks for a Renewed Church is a recent marker on this route.

Wright concludes the piece:

Unanswered questions remain. So does the frailty of my human self, as I struggle to be obedient to my multiple callings, both professionally and, more important (though not all Christians see this point), domestically. Who is sufficient for these things? Certainly not this muddled and sinful Christian. The great thing about that is what it does for your theology. The more I appreciate my own laughable inadequacy, the more I celebrate the fact of the Trinity. Without the possibility of invoking the Spirit of Jesus, of the living God, for every single task, what would keep me going? Pride and fear, I guess. I know enough about both to recognize the better way.

The RC doctrine of Subsidiarity

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

“A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.” (Paulist Press, 1994, no. 1883)

This is a vision of hierarchy with preservation of autonomy, non-interference and assistance, with higher authorities helping not usurping the freedom of action of those below them (Gregg, Samuel, Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (Lanham, University Press of America, 2001), p43)

For example, families are primarily responsible for raising children:

“The principle of subsidiarity would suggest that the first call of assistance for… [a parent who is manifestly incapable of caring for his child] is his extended family or, failing that, a group of local parents, and – only in the absence of any other mediating institution (and as a last resort) – the state.” (p43)

Those closest to people in need are most likely to be able to help them – ideally help them to act for themselves, avoiding passive dependence (p43)

John Paul II said:

“By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the welfare state leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase in public agencies, which are dominated more and more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need. It should be added that certain demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need.” (Centesimus Annus, no. 48.) This principle was first formally expounded in Roam Catholic social teaching in Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno (15 May 1931), nos. 79-80. (Gregg, pp44-5)

Don’t cut my Economic Pie: free market & private property

Samuel Gregg argues that Christians would do well to think a little more about economics and bring their theological resources to the public economic debates:

“Should Christians, for example, simply accept that governments may use force to redistribute wealth without continually subjecting this proposition – in each and every instance – to rigorous ethical appraisal?” (p33)

“The very phrase the market makes some Christians nervous. Though often portrayed in very impersonal terms, the market is no more than the ongoing interaction of freely chosen material exchanges between human beings. Obviously, market transactions do not always facilitate just results. But before Christians dismiss it as a decidedly anti-human phenomenon, it would be useful to gain a greater appreciation of its complexity. Upon doing so, they may well come to the conclusion that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the market economy is the worst of all economic systems – except for all the rest.” (p34)

“In philosophical terms, the case for the market economy draws upon a number of intellectual sources for support. These include:

• the Late-Scholastics (mainly Jesuits and Dominicans) associated with the Salamanca School of the late 15^th and mid-17tf CC;
• British classical economists such as Adam Smith; and
• the ordo liberal school associated with the University of Freiburgh, especially convinced Christians such as the Protestant Wilhelm Ropke and the Catholic Walter Euken, who consciously integrated the natural-law tradition into their proposition.” (p37f)

“Nations that have developed the institution of private property have invariably been rich in material wealth, but this wealth extends also to the sciences, art, and literature. Such flourishing occurs, in part, because private property guarantees that people can rest secure, knowing that the fruits of their creative work are recognised as belonging to them. To this extent, private property helps to promote self-reliance and a certain degree of personal autonomy.” (p38)

Property need not be theft:

“private property does not in itself create a “zero-sum” situation. If one person owns property, it does not mean that another is worse off. In fact, many people are potentially better off when someone acquires property because the acquisition often requires productive action that is morally and materially beneficial to others…. Moreover, the prospect of private ownership provides people with the incentive to transform “useless” resources into productive capital, and then exchange that property in order to satisfy other unmet needs.” (p39)

“Inequality of wealth is not necessarily unfair. Christianity has always affirmed that many factors must be taken into account when thinking about what constitutes justice in the material realm… such as need, merit, willingness to take risks, the function performed by a person, and the contribution made by a person.” (p39)

“… private property is actually a civilizing force.” (p39). It encourages free exchange without use of force, respecting of mutual rights etc.

We must count the costs of interference in the market for the redistribution of wealth:

“Economics tells us that changing the distribution of the fruits of economic activity is a costly business…. For reasons that economists can explain with some confidence, attempts by governments to alter the sizes of the individual slices of the economic pie tend to reduce the size of the pie itself, or at least prevent it from expanding as quickly as it might have otherwise.” (p50)

“… economic growth is the surest way to improve the material fortunes of those at the bottom end of the income and wealth distribution scheme. The best way to achieve some increase in the size of the smallest slices is to make the whole pie bigger. A rising (economic) tide lifts all boats.” (p50)

We must choose between equal-ness / sameness and efficiency / prosperity.

"… we have a substantial body of empirical evidence that favours the free market as a more efficient means of creating material wealth than any other economic system yet devised. Contemporary economists’ support for the free market is based more upon their acceptance of this evidence than upon ideological prejudice.” (p51)

“The market will create wealth with equal ease through the prostitution of women and children as it will through the design and manufacture of life-saving medical equipment. For this reason, many economists have acknowledged the need to place the market economy within a framework of law and upon a particular moral and cultural foundation.” (p51)

Economic Imperialism

Murray Rothbard (of the Austrian School of economics) reflects:

“In recent years, economists have invaded other intellectual disciplines and, in the dubious name of science, have employed staggeringly oversimplified assumptions in order to make sweeping and provocative conclusions about fields they know little about. This is a modern form of “economic imperialism” in the realm of the intellect. Almost always, the basis of this economic imperialism has been quantitative and implicitly Bethamite [i.e. Utilitarian], in which poetry and pushpin [American children’s game?] are reduced to a single-level, and which amply justifies the gibe of Oscar Wilde about cynics, that they (economists) know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The results of this economic imperialism have been particularly ludicrous in the fields of sex, the family, and education.” (from Gregg, Samuel, Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (Lanham, University Press of America, 2001), p33, quoting ‘The Hermeneutical Invasion of Philosophy and Economics’, Review of Austrian Economics 3 (1989), p45.)

Gregg argues that strictly economics is a utilitarian discipline like engineering or dentistry:

“Economists who exceed their mandate do the discipline a great disservice. Responsible economists are those who offer advice, when asked, on how to achieve specific objectives at minimal cost. This ensures maximum material benefit.” (p48)

Homo Economicus & Self Interest

Samuel Gregg, of the Acton Institute, writes about the imaginary construct homo economicus:

An “assumption [of modern economics, influenced by Bethamism / Utitilitarianism] is the anthropological model of homo economicus: the human person as the ultimate pleasure calculator.” (Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (Lanham, University Press of America, 2001), p.12)

The contrived character of “Homo economicus … utterly without spiritual dimension by design, this creature seeks only to maximise personal satisfaction from the consumption of goods and services.” (p13). He carries out a rational cost-benefit analysis of material self-interest. “In short, he is somewhat of a sociopath.” (p13).

Useful as such an analysis might be, we must not forget its limits. Economics is strictly descriptive and predictive rather than prescriptive. The is-ought fallacy must be avoided (p23-5).

Human behaviour motivation is more complicated than a pure homo economicus analysis might lead us to believe.

“… Adam Smith[‘s] … reflections on self-interest in The Wealth of Nations (1776) should always be placed in the context of his earlier, lesser-known work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which speaks of the primary, nonmaterial motivations of justice, benevolence, and prudence, of which desire for honour, respect, social advancement, and wealth are subsets. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that many Christians react negatively to what comes close to being an assertion by some economists that homo economicus is actually the closest approximation of human reality rather than simply an abstract intellectual tool.” (p25)

“Self-interest need not necessarily be equated with selfishness…. Michael Novak reminds us, self-interest is understood as a commonsense duty to oneself.” (p15). Proper self-love is arguably implicitly required by “love your neighbour as yourself” command.

“Christians might rightly object to economists’ speaking on matters of public policy as if the economic calculus were the only legitimate basis for gauging improvements in social welfare, but they go too far when they reject that same calculus as having nothing of value to offer…. The key is recognising that good economics is not synonymous with good public policy. The latter demands attention to a wider set of criteria than the material.” (p27)

“Economic models are similar to maps. Maps provide us with insight into aspects of the truth, they do not, in themselves, capture the whole truth.” (p27) Economics does not tell us where to go nor, on its own, how we ought to get there.

How Many Covenants?

Doug Wilson's book Federal Husband conatins a mini-crash course on Covenant Theology.

Here's a nice bit:

All of these covenants [with Adam, Abraham, Moses, David etc.] were a prelude to the coming of Christ. Believers should not think of separated pacts or contracts throughout history. The believer must think of a growing child, a fruitful tree, a bud unfolding into a flower. We must understand the organic continuity of the covenants. The continuity is found in a Person and reflects the solitary redemptive purpose of God from the beginning of history to the end of it, always expressed in a covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord of the New Covenant now (Heb. 8:6); has always been the Lord of the New Covenant (1 Cor. 10:1-13); and ministers throughout all history (Heb. 9:15).

(Wilson, Douglas, Federal Husband (Moscow, Canon Press, 1999), p.14-15)

Nasty Old Testament "Law"?

The following, from Doug Wilson, is worth considering as an interpretative possibility when the New Testament seems to be polemical against the Old Testament Law:

... we [tend to] misunderstand New Testament refutations of the Pharisaical distortions of the law of Moses. They are commonly assaulted with their own (heretical) terminological distortions (i.e., with words like "law"). But the contrast in the New Testament is not between Old and New; the contrast is between Old distorted and Old fulfilled.

(Wilson, Douglas, Federal Husband (Moscow, Canon Press, 1999), p.14)

Yous

Yous: a Northern English dialect idiom for the second person plural - :)

c.f. North American, "y'all"

Worthy of incorporation into standard English?

Supper as Covenant Renewal

In my earlier post on the Lord's Supper as Covenantal Renewal, I had stupidly overlooked the Westminster Larger Catechism:

Q174: What is required of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper in the time of the administration of it?

A174: It is required of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, that, during the time of the administration of it, with all holy reverence and attention they wait upon God in that ordinance, diligently observe the sacramental elements and actions, heedfully discern the Lord's body, and affectionately meditate on his death and sufferings, and thereby stir up themselves to a vigorous exercise of their graces; in judging themselves, and sorrowing for sin; in earnest hungering and thirsting after Christ, feeding on him by faith, receiving of his fulness, trusting in his merits, rejoicing in his love, giving thanks for his grace; in renewing of their covenant with God, and love to all the saints.

(emphasis added)

Thanks once again to learned Deacon Matthew (W. Mason) for pointing it out!

Jesus Christ Blasphemy

Tom Parsons mentioned that whenever he hears someone use the words "Jesus Christ" as a blasphemy, he loudly and heartily adds, "Is Lord!".

Sounds like a good, bold strategy that allows one to avoid pathetic whinging while also registering some kind of protest.

Martyrdom & Muslims

It seems that martyrdom is somewhat out of fashion - amongst Christians, if not amongst Muslims.

When was the last time anyone had to hide someone else's clothing (as Origen's mother did) to prevent his martyrdom?

Augustine's enthusiasm for martyrdom as a golden pathway to salvation seems like salvation by works to most Protestants, but then again perhaps giving up one's life to save it, in the hope of the unseen world, is a supreme act of faith.

This is all the more interesting when many Muslim's seem eager to die and earn entry into the paradise they have imagined.

It seems amazing too that we don't see more murders of Christians my Muslims in the UK since "Jesus Christ is Lord" and "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me" would seem in pretty stark contrast to "There is no God but Allah and Mohamed is his prophet".

RC

Roman Catholic? or Reformed catholic?

What else might RC stand for?

Theology in the Second Person

Rev'd Christopher Ash pointed out (at the Latimer Trust Ability & Reliability day yesterday) that the first time someone spoke of God in the third person, the speaker said: “Did God really say?” This seems to be Satan’s characteristic theological voice.

So let’s do our theology in the second person, addressed to God. Like Augustine’s Confessions.

Drinking Habits of Anglo-Catholic Communion

Anglo- and Roman Catholics seem to do something about mixing water and wine in the Supper. Is it to suggest the water and blood that flowed from the Lord Jesus at the cross? To the Protestant mind, does it suggest the water of human good works being combined in a Semi-Pelagian manner with the blood of the saving work of Christ. Either way, mixing water and best wine seems to be a bad thing in Isaiah 1:22 so perhaps we ought to stop it. It tends to spoil good wine, doesn’t it? Jesus seemed to prefer not to pour water into wine but to turn water into wine (John 2:9).

Devaluing The Sacraments

Does it devalue the sacraments or the word “sacrament” to say that the Bible is sacramental (in some senses)?

No. Or at least not necessarily. Rightly done it elevates the sacraments and makes the word “sacrament” more useful because it enhances understanding of them.

Hebrew Distinctions

Dr Thomas Renz suggested (at the Latimer Trust Ability & Reliability day yesterday) suggested that in Hebrew one would characteristically say, for example, “God repents” and “God does not repent” to make a distinction and explain that in some senses God might be said to repent and in some ways he may not. This would be a way of expressing a doctrine of the immutability of God without implying that he is static and inert, without resorting to the kind of exact scientific terminology Systematic Theology has developed. Both methods have their place and we should take care to distinguish when we move towards making value judgements.

Sermons or meditations on Jonah?

Dr Thomas Renz suggested (at the Latimer Trust Ability & Reliability day yesterday) that Jonah doesn’t have a single clear message, or three definitive points for us to take away. Rather, the story of the book of Jonah is designed to get us to reflect in certain ways on particular themes and issues. Obviously this is a “points on a spectrum” type point not an absolute distinction (c.f. the so-called “beard fallacy”), but it still seems a valuable one which ought to affect how we understand and preach the book.

The Grammar of True Virtue

This from Douglas Wilson on verbs of virtue:

We too often forget that in a world in which both good and evil exist, virtue cannot be found in a transitive verb. It is not enough to be told that a man loves, we want to know what he loves. If another man is tolerant, we do not know if this is virtuous or not. What does he tolerate? The same problem exists with the word “conserve.” To say that someone is a conservative does not tell us what they are interested in conserving. Within our lifetimes, we have seen hardline communists trying to conserve the Soviet Union, [and] fanatical Muslims trying to conserve ancient Islamic traditions…. The word itself does not communicate very much.

Jones, Douglas, and Wilson, Douglas, Angels in the Architecture: a Protestant Vision for Middle Earth (Moscow, Canon Press, 1998), p109f.

The Baby, the Bathwater, The Reformation and Mum

Of course the Reformation was a glorious triumph and a much needed return to the Biblical Gospel, but are there ways in which we have thrown out the baby with the bath water?

Jones and Wilson (Reformed Christians) seem right to suggest that any talk of genuine Church authority immediately makes Protestants think of abuses, inquisitions and popes. In an era of thousands of splintered denominations and when anyone can set up a church in their own home, worry about Church authority is like lonely orphans stubbornly avoiding Mum, they say. Mum (Mother Church) has been thrown out with the bathwater; baby sits alone.

Jones, Douglas, and Wilson, Douglas, Angels in the Architecture: a Protestant Vision for Middle Earth (Moscow, Canon Press, 1998), p93.

Science History Lessons

On the idolatry of modern science as arbiter of truth, Jones and Wilson say:

The odd thing is that science has a rather ridiculous track record to serve as such a powerful veto-house of truth. If we think in terms of centuries and millennia, few other disciplines turn inside-out so flippantly and quickly as the natural sciences…. The history of science provides great strength to the inductive inference that, at any point in its history, that day’s science will almost certainly be deemed false, if not laughable, within a century (often in much less time). As the saying goes, if you marry the science of today, you will be a widow tomorrow.

If the history of science were a single person, we certainly wouldn’t let that person drive heavy machinery or carry sharp objects. Nonetheless, he could serve some useful functions. And he might do some better than others. But to set him up as the premier standard and priest of rationality is a bit too much to ask. We need to evaluate science with a more long-term, medieval view.

Just one of the good moments in Jones, Douglas, and Wilson, Douglas, Angels in the Architecture: a Protestant Vision for Middle Earth (Moscow, Canon Press, 1998), p55f.

Wright on Reason as an Instrument!

How about this from Tom Wright, suggestive of the traditional Reformed understanding of Reason as an instrument:

Nor can 'reason' be casually conflated with 'the results of modern science', as though there were a straightforward route, a kind of natural theology, from what we find in a test-tube to what we can and must say about God and his kingdom. 'Reason' is more like the laws of harmony and counterpoint: it does not write the tunes itself, but it forms the language within which tunes make powerful sense.

In all this, 'reason' will not constitute an alternative, or independent, source to scripture and tradition. It is the necessary adjunct, the vital tool, for making sure that we are truly listening to scripture and tradition rather than to the echo of our own voices.

Wright, N. T., Scripture and the Authority of God (London, SPCK, 2005), p88, emphasis added.