some quick thoughts on models of atonement

1. sacrificial (salvation is bought by blood) – the nature of God is presented here as one who demands blood sacrifice, but the OT states that God demands obedience rather than sacrifice.
2. judicial (salvation through punishment on our behalf) - often presented as a way of reconciling justice and holiness with the mercy and love of God, but unpopular in post-Christendom context as Christianity is moving away rather than towards the seat of power and judgement (but perhaps this can be reconciled).
3. merit (salvation Christ won favour of God) – to what extent does Christ have to win the favour of God for our salvation (marcion theology).

- vulnerable to questions concerning the definition of sin (wrong done to fellow people but ultimately to God) criticism of deontic models which make God seem petty.

4. exemplary (set an example for us) – fails to deal with sin as an ontological reality.

5. participatory – through participation in Christ’s death and resurrection we become alive to God in Christ Jesus. Our person is changed as we put off the old person and become a new person (the old person is morally culpable). I fear this either lends itself to a dualistic (Gnostic) understanding of human nature, or to a bizarre metaphysical proposal.

6. a hybrid of the participatory model that recognises salvation deals with the ontological and relational problem whilst our sin is dealt with as a deontological problem through Jesus suffering in our place.

- in this theory of atonement biblical language of ransom, suffering, and sacrifice remain valid and are supported by a true and Trinitarian understanding of God’s nature, whilst the emphasis remains upon the relational within the participatory model. And of course none of this denies the significance of Christ’s death as a witness and example of resistance against the domination system.

Religion and Politics- what to do?

Please note- I struggled to write this because it really cuts to the heart of who I am as a Christian, who I want to be, how I want to live, and how I want others to learn to live as well, it also leaves me wondering whether there is a viable Christian political agenda- on the right or the left.

I think the religion and politics issues are really dangerous- as an evangelical it often hurts me to be characterised as a greedy, wasteful, arrogant, persecuting bigot. I think we as a church have a duty to respond to issues of poverty, global warming (and other green issues), and militarism (the myth of redemptive violence). I’m not sure how we can set these issues apart from our views on homosexuality, euthanasia (or assisted dying), and Christian education and formation.

Our secular governments trust in economic policies that protect our individual economies nurturing stable growth these policies set other nations (some of the worlds poorest) at a disadvantage economically. As Christians, we may want to criticise these policies but if we legislate against the policies the secular American wheat farmer goes out of business someone else pays the cost of our political agenda- the result is bitterness towards the Christian theocratic agenda and towards Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

I was speaking to a Canadian who works for the Commonwealth, yesterday, focussing on world health issues (most notably HIV AIDS). We discussed the Christian role in combating the aids pandemic across Africa; he noted that in some countries the church is providing 50% of the overall health care. It is an amazing testimony to Jesus Christ who healed lepers, reconciled community and outcast, and preached an alternative lifestyle that the Church continues to be Christ’s hands and feet and voice in the contemporary world. However, you can’t legislate for community reconciliation or Christian moral values these things come about as we accept the discipline of the Father, follow in the footsteps of Jesus and receive renewal through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Consider another situation ‘global warming’ at the moment, our nations are placing blind faith in further scientific and technological developments save us from an environmental catastrophe. We might want to say as the People of God actually living God’s way and being good stewards of the earth will save us from global melt down. But, it depends where you put your trust and in whom you put your trust for many the cost of following Christ with our natural resources is far too high- so how do we work this out?

We can either trust in our democratic right by legislate against homosexuality, bad stewardship (or what we perceive is bad stewardship) of the environment, assisted dying, and health care. Alternatively, we can pursue the Christian theocratic agenda through the Church, which acknowledges Christ as its head. In this situation, we provide an example to the world of good (faithful) sexual ethics good stewardship, good palliative care (and good dying), good (holistic) health care.
I know it is a difficult choice, particularly when it means allowing for suffering (perhaps that’s what it felt like for God when he allowed us to go our own way), but it is surely the better way for a people who believe that there is both judgement and life after death.

What do you think? Is there a way to square the circle that I haven't seen? What does it mean to live 'in' but not 'of' the world?

On Giving One’s Life

A homily for Remembrance Sunday

In contemporary society, the notion of sacrifice is unpopular to have a cause to live and die for brings to mind fundamentalists, extremists, and terrorists. Our understanding of sacrifice is tainted by these dangerous individuals who seem to have such reckless disregard for life, even their own lives.

So instead of offering up our lives, we seek to preserve them, pickling ourselves with beauty products, visiting the altar-less temples of health spas, and when that fails to save us many undergo the surgeon’s knife. In this world of immortal youth, death is chased from view; confined to high walled cemeteries where the bereaved, those for whom death is no longer an anathema, go to remember. Still for the world outside those places of remembrance, death is the elephant in the room, the final taboo.

Then we have a day like today, a moment in which the rules are suspended; where the sacrifice and death are bought out from behind high walls and paraded through the streets. It is today that we remember the courage of those who gave their lives for our future, and paid the ultimate price for our freedom. And for some of us we look back on a time we cannot remember, a time when people believed in a cause, in black and white, in right and wrong.

Still for us outside these moments of remembrance, causes, and the sacrifices made on behalf of them, are dangerous shadowy rumours whispered in private meetings at the dead of night. Instead, we safe people seek comfort and convenience, far be it from us to sacrifice our security for the cause of another, let alone our lives.

However, it is ironic given our distaste of sacrifice that we end up making the greatest sacrifice of all marginalising the foreigner, oppressing the poor, denying the dispossessed their rights. So, today we remember those who sacrificed their lives for us and we receive God’s challenge to us, inviting us to stake our lives on His altar.

To the United Reformed Church

I think we are at a stage nationally where we will have to close church buildings, move congregations and focus resources. I know to some that sounds callous but we are getting to the point where our current model of ministry won’t work- we simply don’t have the money or ministers and to carry on as we are will be impossible within the next ten years. It is no good to have a mentality of maintenance for decline; it is time we took the bull by the horns cut the ministers, projects, or church buildings that are a dead weight around our necks and resourced innovative new initiatives, church plants, and flagship congregations.

It is time we sought visionary leaders rather than the church management- our ministers are not called to serve churches they are called to serve God and ordination recognises this call. It is this fact that makes ministry a vocation rather than a job! It is time we learnt to release and support ministers for mission rather than insisting they do ministry- ‘the way it has always been done’. We should recognise that missiology drives ecclesiology not the other way around i.e. the church is the motor for mission not the destination of mission.

I am a believer in ecumenism, but not ecumenical partnership driven by falling numbers and closing congregations. It has to be a mission orientated ecumenism; it is my belief that this is far more about organic, grass roots projects than organisational union. The most successful ecumenical initiatives have not been formed institutionally, but they have developed through cooperation for mission. In every case, they involve people giving up the desire to insist people come to our church and start thinking about our church (Catholics, Protestants, and Pentecostals) going to them.

The west, in the twenty-first century, has to be one of the most challenging times in which to be in Christian ministry. I know it has been said before that the church is in decline and young man there is no guarantee that you will be in ministry in twenty years time etc. etc. It is my belief that this is now true unless ministers are released to mission led ministry and unless ministers have the ability to meet the demands of mission led ministry then they may not be in ministry in twenty years time. I know there will be those who accuse me of negativity, of despair, of pedalling self-fulfilling prophecies but believe me that is not my intention. I am just convinced that the church will live on and the fact that God is still calling people in the ministry of the URC is proof that the church will live on but whether it will be called the United Reformed Church or have the same structures of the URC is in doubt.

I want to finish this with a final plea to ministers and to churches please be mission minded, serve without expecting reward, love those who seem unlovely, and seek the Kingdom above all.

A Christian's Job

I was recently asked what my role as Christian was and here is my reply-

I think the best place to start is to explain a bit about myself and my perspectives on life. I am an evangelical Christian but I live in the United Kingdom and like most British people I am bemused by much that passes for evangelical American Christianity.

1. because it presumes that the proper subject of Christian ethics is America rather than the Church.

2. because it strikes me that a truly evangelical Christian faith has more to say about the poor and the oppressed than human sexuality.

I suspect that much of the conservative wing of the church is captive to a politically partisan and non-Christian ideology. I could be described as 'postmodern' in some circles as I do not place much stock in universal foundations for knowledge- for example during the Tsunami villages who saw the sea retract in Indonesia fled to the mountains because ancient stories suggested this was a sign of impending disaster- in many contexts we would laugh at their superstitions but how true do we know those myths to be now.

In terms of ethical decisions I am not convinced that what is possible and permissable (scientifically or democratically) is necessarily what is best theologically. However, I do not believe that forcing others to live by theological convictions that they do not share with Christians is helpful or justifiable.

So what do I think the way ahead must be- well it involves freedom of religious conviction (not pluralism nor deism or atheistic civil religion, rather plurality). In the education system this may either involve more independent religious schools (Muslim, Hindu, Christian etc.) or freedom of religion within institutional schools.

I think that banning expressions of worship for fear that it offends others represents an infringement upon civil liberties. I am not saying that such people should be forced to pray or join in but nor do I think people should be stopped from expressing their faith. I am convinced that not having faith in the spiritual or in a personal creator God is not a default or neutral position and the continuing growth of Christianity worldwide seems to testify to this fact.

In a sense I am saying that it is not my job to submit my faith to your measurement of truthfulness. Instead, it is my job to live by my faith in such a way that people commend me for integrity of character and sincerity of conviction. My job far from being to justify my own lifestyle choices is to resist justifying them to accept that they are different from others around me and to resist conforming to a monocultural (atheistic or pluralistic) understanding of life.

In this way I hope to commend my faith to others. The Amish community's recent reaction to the Carl Robert's murders is a good example of this faith in action. It is my belief that there exists a most excellent way and I am attempting to walk it.

The Emerging Church Manifesto

Well I've always been scared of being considered moderate so heres to saying good bye to the chances of that happening!

It is time to cut the froth, the coffee and candles, turn off the Apple Macs, and grasp the serious theological vision of thinkers such as Lesslie Newbigin and Stanley Hauerwas. We are living in an alien culture and social order, and we have given in to worshipping the false god of technological, capitalist, democratic government. It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the lie that to be ‘in the world’ means we must participate fully in a western democratic society, in its technological developments, in its financial structures (and the often dubious benefits of those structures), and in its politics.

In Christendom, we entered into a pact with secular society (a kin to buying horses from Egypt or yoking oneself with the unbeliever) and we are living with that legacy. It was a bit like a suzerainty treaty and the state was our suzerain, meaning the state always had the upper hand (and led us around by the nose). For a long time this compromise worked for the church, we established schools, built hospitals, we were highly thought of in society, our bishops represented us in the House of Lords and the common man was expected to attend ‘worship’. The problem is that after 1500 years, the Local Education Authority no longer feels the need for our input education, the Local Health Authority manages our hospitals, and people don’t want or have to attend church. It is clear now that our social order is governed by principles opposed to those of Jesus Christ.

It is so distressing to see that the church has lost so much influence in society and yet I am glad that the compromises we made are out in the open. I am pleased because we now have the opportunity to build a church that is more faithful to its Lord. However, we may have to start from scratch because the established ‘church’ or ‘churches’ remain fatally compromised both financially, legally, and politically. I also think that this time is going to be far more difficult than it was the last time because we have to compete against the schools and hospitals the secular state annexed and corrupted. However, we were part of the glue that held society together and without the religious sponsorship social order will continue to decline and the government will get increasingly prescriptive.

In contrast to this approach, the Christian community will not be ruled by force but by commitment to participation within a common life together. It is from this closer communion that we will establish hospitals and schools that will compete with secular institutions. In a Christian hospital, you will not be offered an abortion but alternative support and care, not that people have to accept this they are welcome to go elsewhere. In a Christian hospital, you will not be offered the right to assisted euthanasia but better palliative care to enable you to die with dignity (nor will it be necessary to prolong your life using technology when you feel it is your time to go home). In Christian schools, we will not give spiritual development apart from practical disciplines and education, instead we will teach that although science suggests that the world is evolving due to the ‘survival of the fittest’ our faith teaches us to care for the poor and the weak.

In short, we will provide hospitals that minister holistically to whole people rather than distinguishing falsely between the body and the spirit. The emerging church will provide schools that teach children about the material and spiritual world in which we live (the future church will not be deceived by dualistic notions). It will no longer be said that the ‘emperor rules in time and Christ in eternity’ because the Christ’s kingdom will be now and not yet.

One last comment, as I sit back and reflect upon this manifesto for the emerging church it occurs to me that the state will not like the church of the future, we should expect persecution but worse than persecution we should expect to meet our Constantine… we must be clear we have learnt our lesson- the only suzerain we need is our Lord Jesus Christ. So let us renew our covenant with God and never make the same mistake again.