Camp bookstall

Dear person organising our camp bookstall,

You might find the following helpful:

The Good Book Company re: camp

10ofthose.com

"Ever thought about having a bookstall at your camp? 10ofthose could help - we can provide a range of biblical and relevant books, Bibles and tracts on sale or return and all at discount prices for your camp. For more information please email john@10ofthose.com or call the office on 01257 278570."

The thoughts of The Vicar's Wife

More than Caring and Sharing

John Cox's new book More Than Caring and Sharing: Marking a Church School Distinctive (Kevin Mayhew, 2011) has just dropped through the letter box and I look forward to getting into it.

Cox is a recently retired Diocesan Director of Education.

He argues that Christian schools should be not exclusive but distinctive. That distinctiveness is more than caring and sharing, or even Christian values. It is fundamentally a matter of beliefs about God, being human, the church and the world that are then worked out in Kingdom values such as justice, forgiveness, gratitude, generosity, truth and love.

An introductory chapter deals with the history and origins of C of E schools and chapters also critique the Every Child Matters agenda and give suggestions for RE and collective worship.

The book aims to help head teachers, governors and parish clergy.

The Good Book

I bet A C Grayling's so-called Secular Bible won't be half as good as the real thing.

There's a fine line between ambition and hubristic blasphemy.

The blurb talks about it: "going back to traditions older than Christianity, and far richer and more various"

We shall see!

In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and kowledge (Col 2:3).

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen. (Romans 11:33ff)

Lost

It would appear that my friend Jonty Allcock has written a book on the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) aimed at teenagers. Dan Green says its a good read. Better order a copy.

Towards a humbler science

Although its not cheap and I fear I may not agree nor find it entirely inteligible, this might be an important new book for Dawkins et. al. to get their heads around. It also might have some important things to say about the difficulty of proving causation. Discussion of it on Radio 4's Thinking Aloud made me wonder to what extent causes might (just) be thought of as God's habits or the way he likes to do things, as a rule, though I don't know what the authors would make of that idea as compared to convetional scientific orthodoxies, which they regard as unproven and perhaps unprovable. One of the authors described himself as agnostic but he said that he thought it was absurd to claim that science somehow ruled out faith.

2nd most read book in the world ever?

According to Glen, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I'm assuming no. 1 is the Bible!

REAL

Classically the Church of England is Reformed and Evangelical. The historical formularies of the C of E unmistakably take such a position. But there is great (and not so great!) variety within Anglicanism today and much confusion about what it means to be an Anglican - not to mention what it means to be Reformed or Evangelical!

For these and other reasons, The Church Society's new Reformed Evangelical Anglican Library, edited by Rev'd Lee Gatiss is to be welcomed. They've kicked off with some Whitefield and I look forward to seeing what the subsequent publications will be.

Why I'd Like To Be An Atheist

While we were on holiday I enjoyed reading Peter Hitchens' The Rage Against God (Continuum, London / New York, 2010) - 168pp, which is a response to the New Atheists (Dawkins et al) including Hitchens' own brother, Christoper, who wrote God is Not Great.

The book is very engaging and readable. Interestingly personal without being egotistical or gushy.

As I remember it, some of it read like a hymn to a forgotten England, an England which was the product of Christendom, the Bible and The Prayer Book and so on.

Peter Hitchens was more or less brought up as a Christian but rejected the faith as a teenager. He is particularly revealing on the cultural atmosphere that encouraged him to do so and perhaps some of the corruptions of Christianity such as baptised patriotism or a cult of Churchill that he was reacting against. Hitchens describes how he thought himself too clever to believe and especially how attractive it was to embrace atheism, since at a stroke duty and accountability were gone. Without God there can be no real should or ought.

Hitchens cites W. Somerset Maughan's hero, Philip Carey, in the autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage. On his denial of God, we read of Carey:

He was free from degrading fears and free from prejudice. He could go his way without the intolerable dread of hell-fire. Suddenly he realised that he had lost also that burden of responsibility which made every action of his life a matter of urgent consequence. He could breathe more freely in a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously, he thanked God that he no longer believed in him. [quoted in Rage, p8]

Hitchens says:

... my excitement was undimmed. There were no more external, absolute rules. The supposed foundation of every ordnance, regulation, law and maxim from 'don't talk after lights-out' and 'give way to pedestrians on the Zebra crossing' to 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'. 'Thou shalt do no murder', 'Honour thy father and thy mother' and 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me' was a fake. ...

Enlightened self-interest was the evolutionary foundation of good behaviour. I did not have to [do] anything I did not want to do, ever again. I would therefore be 'happy' because I was freed from those things whereof my conscience was afraid. My conscience was in any case not to be relied on where my desires were stronger, or my fears greater than my promptings. I could behave as I wished, without fear of eternal consequences, and (if I was cunning and could get away with it) without fear of earthly ones too. And I could claim to be virtuous. Unlike Philip Carey, I did immediately recognise that some of the virtues could now be dispensed with, and several of the supposed sins might turn out to be expedient if not actually delightful. I acted accordingly for several important and irrecoverable years. (p9)

Rev'd Douglas Wilson is blogging his way through The Rage, by the way.

Lifted!

I've just finished reading Sam Allberry's book on the resurrection, Lifted! (IVP), which was out this January. I must say I've thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been a very busy week with the Passion For Life Mission and at times I've been whacked out, but I've come back to Lifted! with enthusiasm and gone away encouraged.

Sam has a very lively engaging style. The book is packed with striking expressions, illustrations and anicdotes. Yet there is real theological substance here too.

In a way, the book is a series of mini-expositions and I would have liked a Scripture index so that I could more easily steal the headings!

The resurrection was at the heart of the apostolic preaching and it is often neglected today, sometimes from a wrong-headed desire to keep the cross central, when of course the cross and the resurrection belong together. One necessitates and explains the other. They are not rivals.

The biblical message of this book has the potential to be profoundly life changing. It is worth reflecting on the resurrection as God's affirmation of the physical and bodily, when Christianity is always in danger of being perverted into gnosticism. Or think of Jesus' resurrection body as the pattern both for our resurrection and what we might call the resurrection of the cosmos. This world will be transformed and renewed as Jesus' body was, so all that we do in this world matters.

Here are my jottings from the book:

The resurrection is more than the happy ending of the Easter Story

It’s not just the big tick after the big cross

“The resurrection changes everything. It guarantees our forgiveness, empowers us to change, and gives us a hope for the future and an urgent mission in

the present.”

(1) Assurance

The resurrection shows that Jesus’ payment for the sin of the world has been accepted by the Father.

The payment has been received with thanks.

The resurrection assures us that Jesus was who he claimed to be.

Acts 3:15

The resurrection “reveals and confirms his [Jesus’] four-fold identity: the Son of God, the Christ, the Saviour and the Author of life. The resurrection shows Jesus was exactly who he claimed to be.”

(a) Son of God

Ps 2:7

Rm 1:4

(b) The Christ

Acts 2:36 quoting Ps 110:1

(c) Saviour

Acts 5:30-31

(d) the author of life

Acts 3:15

Jn 11:25

The resurrection assures us of what Jesus has done

Rm 4:25

1 Cor 15:17

“the resurrection is the consequence and demonstration of our salvation because death is the consequence and demonstration of our sin.”

Death as the wages of sin Gen ; Rm 6:23

(2) Transformation

United with Christ

Spiritually raised now (Col 3:1), physically raised at Final Day (Rm 8:23)

Rm 4:17

God gives life & new life

1 Sam 2:6

Ez 37

Ps 16:10

Phil 2

God gives us resurrection life. “With it we enjoy a whole host of newness: new life, new perspective, new conduct, new power and new ambition. Resurrection life changes everything.”

New life

Eph 2:1-10

New perspective

Col 3:1-4

New conduct

Eph 5:8, 11-14

Colossians 3:5, 8–10

Acts 4:32–35

New power

Romans 8:9–11

Romans 6:5–14

New ambition

Phil 3:10-11

(3) Hope

Not wishful thinking / uncertain

Rm 5:5

1 Pt 1:3

Mistake 1: The mistake that the resurrection has already taken place (2 Tim 2:17-18)

(a) Wrong to think: We have it all now

Perfectionism, prosperity, health, wealth – believe it and receive it, name it and claim it – if you don’t the problem is your lack of faith

(b) Wrong to think: This is all there is

Mistake 2: There is no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:12)

1 Cor 15:14-19

Jesus is the first of many

“It is clear, then, that the basis of our hope as Christians is the resurrection of Jesus. As we look back at the basis of our hope, we are then able to look forward to what is the content of our hope: bodily resurrection in the future.”

Rm 8:11

Look at nature nature:

(i) put death in, get life out

1 Cor 15:36

(ii) what you get out wasn’t what you put in

1 Cor 15:37-38

(iii) God is, of course, able to give things the appropriate kinds of bodies

1 Cor 15:39-41

Look at the risen Jesus

1 Corinthians 15:49

Philippians 3:21

Continuity & discontinuity with Jesus pre-resurection body

1 Corinthians 15:42–44

Perishable, dishonourable, weak, natural bodies will be transformed

Resurrection hope for creation

Frustration & Promise

Rm 8:19-22

Discontinuity

Rev 21:1, 5

Isaiah 65:17

Isaiah 11:6–9

Continuity

“God says, ‘I will make all things new’, not ‘I will make all new things’.”

Genesis 9:11

Matthew 19:28

Persevere

1 Corinthians 15:58

(4) Mission

Acts 17:30-31

The exaltation of Jesus

Phil 2:5-11

The reality of judgement

Rm 1:3-4

Daniel 12:2

John 11:25

Acts 4:1-2

The necessity of mission

Mt 28:19-20

Philip Pullman and Jesus

Thanks to Rev'd Richard Perkins for mentioning that Philip Pullman, of His Dark Materials fame, has a new book due out in two days time called The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ (Canongate Books).

Here is the Amazon UK blurb:

This is a story. In this ingenious and spell-binding retelling of the life of Jesus, Philip Pullman revisits the most influential story ever told. Charged with mystery, compassion and enormous power, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ throws fresh light on who Jesus was and asks the reader questions that will continue to resonate long after the final page is turned. For, above all, this book is about how stories become stories.

It sounds as if Paul might be cast as the real baddie of the piece. Pullman says:

By the time the gospels were being written, Paul had already begun to transform the story of Jesus into something altogether new and extraordinary, and some of his version influenced what the gospel writers put in theirs...

Paul was a literary and imaginative genius of the first order who has probably had more influence on the history of the world than any other human being, Jesus certainly included. I believe this is a pity

The idea that Paul distorted the message of Jesus is neither original nor sound.

As Perks points out, New Testament scholar, Revd Dr David Wenham, has written a definitive study of the relationship between Jesus and Paul Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity. You can hear Wenham speak in Balham on 9th May.

Medieval Bookishness

Lewis argued "the overwhelmingly bookish or clerkly character of medieval culture." They loved their authorities, their manuscripts.

Every [medieval] writer, if he possibly can, bases himself on an earlier writer, following an auctour: preferably a Latin one. This is one of the things that differentiate the period almost equally from savagery [with its oral culture] and from our modern civilisation [where knowledge depends, in the last resort, on observation].... But the Middle Ages depend predominantly on books. Though literacy was of course far rarer then than now, reading was in one way a more important ingredient of the total culture. (Discarded Image, p5)

Since Lewis wrote that, books have no doubt seen a greater decline at the expence of TV and the interweb. Knowledge now depends on Google.

They [medievals] are bookish. They are indeed very credulous of books. They find it hard to believe that anything an old auctour has said is simply untrue. (p11)

The lost art of reading

In the LA Times for 9th Aug, David L. Ulin urges us not to obsess with the news, the latest tweets, blogs or Facebook updates, but to slow down, sit down, focus on a good book and become absorbed in it.

HT: Iain Clements, somewhat ironically on Facebook!

Success

I am very much enjoying Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success (UK editionL London, Penguin, 2009). Interesting, stimulating, unusual.

Gladwell argues that success is of course due to talent, but we often underestimate the importance of hard work and opportunity. More important still are culture and community. This isn't great news for us, but its fantastic news for our great grandchildren if we can manage to stay put and keep in touch.

Our Father

Recently I preached 4 sermons on The Lord's Prayer. I haven't opened it, but if I had had it at the time, I certainly would have read Rev'd Richard Coekin's new book, Our Father:Enjoying God in prayer (IVP, 2009), which is due out on 17th July and was handed out free to the lucky customers at EMA.

Home

Amazon have kindly informed me that Marryline Robinson's Home (Virago Press) has won the Orange Prize for Fiction (by a woman published in the UK). Since I very much enjoyed Gilead I've ordered a copy. Here's a bit of blurb:

Reviews from Amazon.Co.Uk website:
'Her fiction attends with rapt attention to the "dear ordinary" breathing fresh air into the long-standing debates of American Protestantism' Kasia Boddy, DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A quietly moving novel of faith and forgiveness.' Amber Pearson, DAILY MAIL 'So finely wrought as to make the work of her more productive contemporaries seem tawdry by comparison ... The cadences of her prose have a resonant authority more like that of a great music rather than language. The effect is utterly haunting. The bad news is that is makes all other writing seem jejune for ages afterwards' Jane Shilling, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'This is certainly a novel about faith and love. However, it is also a meditation on doubt and fear ... There is both a subtlety and a simplicity about her most powerful themes. She asserts the elusiveness of perfection, the foolishness of sever self-judgement and the unavoidable necessity of having to suffer in order to love ...The beauty of HOME is that it does not offer the counterfeit currency of certainty but proffers the under-valued coin of hope. That is its glory, too' HERALD 'Compelling' OBSERVER 'One of the saddest books I have ever loved' Sarah Churchwell, GUARDIAN

An exciting new book on Scripture

I received Revd Dr Timothy Ward’s Words of Life: Scripture as the living and active Word of God (IVP, 2009), which looks excellent, to review for Ecclesia Reformanda today. Pleasingly, “the Reformation maxim ecclesia semper reformanda” gets quoted with approval on p14.

The blurb on the IVP website, where you can also read an excerpt, is here.

And why bother to read a book before reviewing it?!

I dare not criticise a book which…

Peter Adam calls “… a landmark…. … splendid…. I thank God for it.”

Paul Helm calls “… very fine…. …. well-written, clear-headed, thoughtful and judicious”.

David Jackman says its “important”, so you better read it!

Donald Macleod calls it “a great read and a sterling work of scholarship. … comprehensive … rich … Text-book and treat”.

J. I. Packer calls it “well-informed and thoroughly thought through…. Rarely has a book on this subject stirred me to such emphatic agreement and admiration.”

Jonathan Stephens calls it “brilliantly conceived, academically aware and beautifully written.”

You get the idea! Now get the book! Only £6.59 on Amazon UK.

Fortunately, I’m not anticipating having to disagree.

There’s some stuff on the Bible’s view of the Bible and later on the kind of doctrinal headings you’d expect (necessity, sufficiency, clarity, authority) and it looks like you’ll get interesting stuff along the way (Preaching and a clear Bible; Diverse interpretations and a clear Bible). The book is practically oriented and particularly appealing is the chapter on ‘The Bible and Christian life: the doctrine of Scripture applied’ where there’s stuff on the church, preaching, the Spirit and the aim of Bible reading.

Revd Tim Ward is a Vicar in Leicestershire who trained at Oak Hill, no less!

Dr Ward knows his onions when it comes to the doctrine of the Bible. His 1999 PhD from Edinburgh under Kevin Vanhoozer resulted in Word and Supplement (OUP).

Devoted followers of Dr Ward’s work may wish to know that “earlier versions of some parts of this book have been previously published in” Word and Supplement; The Word Became Flesh; Reformed Theology in Contemporary Perspective and Spirit of Truth and Power. (p10)

Sadly no subject index – though at 186 pages its not a long book and it looks easy to find your way around.

In my copy there’s a sticker which says “ERRATUM Please note that all page number entries in the indexes [author & Scripture, that is] should be increased by 2.”

Ward examines the doctrine of Scripture first from the contents of the Bible, keeping in mind the Bible plot-line of redemptive history and the events of the gospel (what some would call a biblical theological approach), then theologically in relation to the Trinity. He hopes thereby to show that the doctrine of Scripture is more than a mere preface or appendix to theology proper, but intimately related to God and his action in Christ.

Lurking in the background is how the written and incarnate Words of God relate and how evangelicals can avoid bibliolatry (p12).

Ward says he will draw primarily on the work of Calvin, Turretin, Warfield and Bavinck, though Packer also gets an honourable mention (p20).

I fear I may be looking for things to quibble with in this book. This is pedantic in the extreme but what Ward calls “that great slogan from the Reformation, sola scriptura (Scripture alone)” (p19) is, according to Tony Lane, strictly speaking a post-Reformation slogan. See Anthony N. S. Lane, ‘Sola Scriptura? Making Sense of a Post-Reformation Slogan’, in A Pathway Into the Holy Scripture (ed. by Philip E. Satterthwaite & David F Wright; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).

As I begin reading the book, I find myself wanting to type most of it out! Here are some bits from the introductions and conclusion:

“Throughout Christian history, the overwhelmingly predominant view of the Bible has been that it is itself the living and active Word of God. To say that the Bible is the Word of God is to say, putting it another way, that ‘what the Bible says, God says’.” (p11)

“… the heart of what I am attempting to do in this book: I want to articulate, explain and defend what we are really saying when we proclaim, as we must, that the Bible is God’s Word. In particular, this is how I want to go about this: I am attempting to describe the nature of the relationship between God and Scripture.” (p13)

“… the words of the Bible are a significant aspect of God’s action in the world. The relationship between God and the Bible is at heart to do with the actions God uses the Bible to perform…. Heb. 4:12” (p14)

“Scripture, by which we mean the speech acts performed by means of the words of Scripture, is the primary means by which God presents himself to us, in such a way that we can know him and remain in a faithful relationship to him…. … Scripture is God in communicative action. Therefore to encounter the words of Scripture is to encounter God in action.” (p179)

“Theologically Scripture is the means by which the Father presents his covenant to us, and therefore the means by which he presents himself to us as the faithful God of the covenant. It is also in the words of Scripture that the Word of God, Jesus Christ, comes to us so that we may know him and remain in him. And it is through the Scripture, which he authored, preserved and now illumines, that the Holy Spirit speaks to us most reliably. All this is what we are saying when we confess, simply, that ‘The Bible is the Word of God.’” (p179)

Pre-Ordination Reading?

Any suggestions for pre-ordination retreat reading? Or indeed any other stuff that a new or newish minister should read? I guess if any new stuff is to be ordered before I go away, I ought to get Amazon onto it soon.

So what might one read?

The Bible, of course. Maybe especially Acts 6, 20; the Pastoral Epistles.

The BCP ordination service, or maybe even CW, I suppose, if we must.

Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers

John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals

Derek Prime, On Being a Pastor

Douglas Wilson, Mother Kirk

Jeff Myers, The Lord’s Service

I’m thinking of taking something I haven’t read yet. Maybe:

Jay Adams, Preaching with Purpose

John Owen, On The Duties of Pastors

Is there anything especially suitable from the early church?

Would Gregory the Great’s Book of Pastoral Rule be good reading?

Something on counselling, I guess: Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands?

I could probably do with spending some more time with the Canons of the Church of England, though I’m not sure how edifying that would be.

Wisdom of the Corridor

By keeping my study door open today I learnt that: "Christian books are a ministers booze and fags"

Ovey, Sach & Jeffery

It has been suggested in the bloggosphere that the great doctors, Oak Hill authors of Pierced For Our Transgressions would make a very good law firm, which given Dr Ovey's BCL etc and the legal arguments of their book may well be the case.

I wonder if they might not go down in history as The Oak Hill Three when the Liberals and Openness types get hold of the book.

Where to put your Koran

I noticed today that the Korans in the Oak Hill library are not on the highest shelf: they were next to Stanley Fish's Is There A Text In This Class? for some reason, which for some reason seemed kinda appropriate.