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Month: April 2012

2

Published on 2 Comments on There's Nothing 'Adult' About Porn

A repost from two years ago...

Over the summer we got Sky Sports so I could watch the Ashes (I still think I should ask for a refund).

One morning I turned on to watch some highlights and caught the end of  'Aerobics Oz Style.'  I immediately laughed remembering the show from my youth in Australia.  As I recall, the whole thing was basically an ultra-gay fitness instructor in ultra-pink lycra teaching ultra-fat housewives to star-jump.

But it seems Aerobics Oz Style has changed.  The gay guy in spandex has been replaced by 5 supermodels - part silicone, part botox, part peroxide, all legs and boobs and hair and teeth - gently stretching in the Australian sunshine.  I stood there holding my remote - my laugh of recognition turned into this boyish burble.  "Hur hur hur- the purdy laydies with their purdy hair, hur hur."  After a few seconds of slack-jawed, misty wonder I snapped out of it and changed channel.  But I couldn't help asking myself - What just happened?  How did I go from grown-up to idiot boy in the space of 5 blondes?

Well here's my quick answer: when women uncover themselves to serve passive men some fundamentals of masculinity are reversed. Or to put it another way: pornography turns a man into a child. (I'll leave to one side women and porn here - though that needs thought too.)

Think about it:  A man is meant to go out from himself and win a bride.  He is meant to proactively serve an actual flesh and blood woman with real and costly service.  He - and he alone - is to uncover her nakedness (a common biblical phrase, see Lev 18) and enter into a deep oneness, not only of flesh but of soul and spirit also.  The woman is to be discerning, to give herself only to the one man who lays down his life for her.  She is to warmly receive him (and him alone) with single-hearted faithfulness.

But then, what happens with the man who indulges in pornography?  He doesn't go out from himself but turns in on himself.  He pursues nothing but his own desires.  He woos no-one but himself.  He is not the active servant, he is the passive recipient.  He doesn't uncover her nakedness, she indiscriminately uncovers herself.  He doesn't engage her mind or heart but merely consumes her flesh.  This image calls forth nothing from the man except his credit card details.  And the habituation of this selfishness will only shut him down further.  Pornography turns a man into a child.

Which is why the male icon of the porn industry pads around his mansion in his jim-jams.

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Published on Leave a comment on Bible by the Beach – LATE BOOKING OFFER

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6

Published on 6 Comments on Twit-bits

You'll have noticed my blogging output aint what it was.

Part of the reason is my recent discovery (which you all made years ago): most of my blog posts are nothing more than tweets inflated by a hefty dose of soap-box rhetoric.

So, for those not subscribed, here are some rants limited to 140 characters...

- What's the first thing Lazarus saw after rising from the dead? The tear-stained face of Jesus.

- Just seen Apprentice 1: Starting out calling your team "Phoenix" is a particularly supralapsarian move.

- I'm always hearing "Such and such a place is spot on theologically, they're just quite unloving." Nonsense. They Must be wrong theologically

- If u just preach hell as future threat u concede that hell aint essentially Christlessness & it aint that bad. #hellisnow #john318#rom118

- Christ's work does not 'make possible' a relationship with God. If that were true all our work would be ahead of us...

- ...Christ's work renders all our work as filthy rags - including the work of 'having a relationship with God.'...

- ...Christ IS my relationship with God...

- ...Which is why atonement debates over "Penal Sub" vs "Christus Victor" are inadequate. Deeper still is Christ's *ontological* achievement

- ... Or to put it another way: Christ aint just my slaughtered goat, nor just my scapegoat. He's my high Priest. And He's sat down!

- I want to write a book on Luther, from "Bondage of the Will" to his dying words. I'd call it "Choosers can't be beggars."

- Jesus is not calling you out of comfort into service. He's called you from cocoons into real life.

- Maybe u thought you were sacrificing comfort in order to be godly. Actually Christ was removing your chains and giving you joy. Phil 3:1-11

- Why we don't connect in conversation: we spend our time Proving ourselves, Protecting ourselves and Pleasing ourselves.

- Sick of 'Jesus is Lord' interpreted according to Caesar. Didn't Jesus explicitly define His Lordship in opposition to the Gentiles? Mk10:42f

- If you think 'I AM WHO I AM' is about divine self-sufficiency, remember: It's spoken by the LORD's Sent One (Ex 3:2,14)

- For every use of 'gospel' as adjective I want 3 explanations of the noun & if u bang on abt gospel-centred by golly u'd better centre on it

- Ever noticed: James Cameron's (& the popular) cosmology is the reverse of Bible's: the Abyss is friendly, the heavens have malign 'Aliens'

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You can subscribe to my Tweets here.

12

Published on 12 Comments on What should we placard before the world? I've forgotten…

A friend of mine is very supportive of my ministry but is passionately opposed to parachurch organisations.  He makes many different arguments, but here's an argument that might persuade me (though I haven't heard him make it)...

If a local church rented advertising space on the side of a bus, what slogans do you think it would run with?

Anything like "Not Gay, Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud.  Get over it"?

I'm not saying they're wrong. I think the reification of 'sexuality' as an unchanging marker of personal identity deeply undermines our humanity.  I think the elimination of choice (such that one in unable to be ex-anything) is akin to Islam's apostasy laws!  I think the ad's censorship betrays the deep intolerance of many so-called liberals.

But, but, but, when those behind the ads say that the controversy was a God-send, I have to wonder whether they're mission lines up with mine (which I hope is Christ's!).

INTERVIEWER: You couldn't buy this level of publicity, now that it's been banned...

REV LYNDA ROSE: We couldn't, one has to wonder whether God is not perhaps active in this. It wasn't our intention to provoke this situation... The publicity is obviously good.  (From Channel 4 News)

Lynda, maybe the publicity's good for you.  Speaking as an evangelist, let me tell you it aint so good from where I'm sitting!

And it just  makes me wonder, who gets to be a spokesperson for Christianity in the world?  The church, right?  But when does the church lose it's voice and get drowned out by interest groups?  Certainly the media can't tell these things apart - and I can't blame them for it.

It seems to me that our public face needs to be a lot more aligned to both Head and body!  Otherwise local churches (and parachurch evangelists!) are going to have to pick up the pieces.

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was placarded as crucified. (Galatians 3:1)

Published on Leave a comment on Happy Friday

Some Adam Buxton goodness.

The last few videos on escaping to the shed nails masculinity better than anything I've ever seen!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2o4W4-ULjM]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9sJVJMiYM]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvul3DC4l4E]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-ZnPE3G_YY]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM6xbDX5iHU]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNzT14U0EQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn5BeflRi_E]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqsPsPuvgIk]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z2NuqjlNiY]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBeO7i7JQGk]

2

Published on 2 Comments on More than a million dead [repost]

I first published this a week after the Haiti earthquake in January 2010...

Since the earthquake - more than one million have died worldwide.  150 000 per day.  Every day without fail a Haiti-sized disaster strikes.  This is not to play down the horror of this crisis.  It's to awaken us to a daily horror that we accept all too readily.  56 million people - that's almost the whole UK population - return to dust every year.  And I will be one of those statistics.  Sometime this century.  I live on a fault line every bit as treacherous as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone.  No house could ever be structurally sound enough.  This world will be the death of me.

'Not one stone will be left on another, every one will be thrown down' said Jesus about the house of God (Mark 13:2).  This was just the start of a top-down judgement.  First the flesh and blood House of God was torn apart on the cross.  Then the brick and mortar house of God in AD70.  One day it will be God's house - the whole cosmos - that comes crashing down.  The stars from the heavens, the sky torn in two, the moon turned to blood.  It's scheduled for demolition.

Can you imagine how the disciples would have viewed the temple after Mark 13?  For the next 40 years they would visit the temple (e.g. Acts 2:46) but they would never again be taken in by its 'massive stones' and 'magnificent buildings (Mark 13:1).  They knew it was about to be shaken to its foundations.

We know that earth and heaven will be shaken (Heb 12:27-28).  And in the meantime, we see portents.  Earthquakes (Mark 13:8).  This is the world that we know.  Tsunamis destroy, volcanoes erupt, plagues devour, cyclones flatten, wildfires rage and the very earth upon which we stand quakes.

But here's a surprise.  Jesus doesn't call these 'death-throes'.  He calls them 'birth-pains'. (Mark 13:8)  Because the demolition to which we are heading is, in fact, a palingenesia - the renewal of all things. (Matt 19:28)  This top-down judgement is for the sake of a top-down resurrection.

We're heading towards 'the end' - the goal of all things (Mark 13:7,13); summer (v27); the cloud of His presence (v26); gathering (v27) and the power and glory of the Son of Man (v26).  We're heading for a new heavens and new earth - a kingdom that 'cannot be shaken' (Heb 12:28).

May this earthquake awaken true compassion in us - (here are some places to give money).  May the Body of Christ speak boldly of the Redeemer from all evil (Genesis 48:16) and demonstrate His suffering love in the midst.

But may we also reconsider our own precarious position.  This ground is not solid.  Not right now anyway.  It will be shaken and it groans under the weight of sin and curse.  It will rise up to strike me down and swallow me whole.  Yet so often I marvel at the 'massive stones' and' magnificent buildings' of 'this present evil age.'  I cosy up in the demolition site.

May we wake again to the reality of a whole world under judgement.  May seeing these deaths re-ignite our hatred of death.  Every day the tragedy of Haiti is repeated the world over.  But mostly we try to ignore that the last enemy is swallowing everything we love!  Let us wake up and snort with indignation at the grave the way Jesus did (John 11:33-38).

And then, through the lens of His resurrection may we look to the most audacious hope - a new Haiti, secure, prosperous, radiant, gathered under the wings of the Son of Man, every tear wiped away by the Father Himself.

The non-Christian can hope for nothing greater than 'safer' buildings on the same old fault line.  And as they labour admirably for this, many will ask why God does not seem to be cooperating with their desire to pretty up the demolition site.  They plan to build some lovely houses on this sand and they imagine God to be standing in the way of their saving purposes.  Of course it's the other way around.  And of course it's we who have a small view of redemption.

The Lord has a salvation so audacious He can call earthquakes 'birth-pains'.  (As can Paul - Rom 8:22).  Certainly they are birth-pains.  But they are birth-pains.  Jesus has a redemption so all-embracing that it will include even these evils.  It won't simply side-step Haiti, or make the best of a bad situation, it will (somehow!) lift Haiti through this calamity and birth something more glorious out of the pain.

We know this because Jesus began the cosmic shake-down with His own destruction.  And He was perfected through this suffering (Heb 2:10).  His death (Matt 27:54) and His resurrection (Matt 28:2) were attended by earthquakes - they were the original earth-shattering events.  And through this death and resurrection was birthed a new creation reality beyond death and decay (1 Cor 15:54-57).  Where the Head has gone, we will follow, and the whole creation with us.  And as Christ bears and exalts the wounds of His own suffering into eternity, somehow the evils of this last week will also be caught up into resurrection glory.

I don't pretend to know how and I don't pretend that this answers our grief or our questions.  It's the answer of faith and not sight.  But, unlike the answer according to 'sight', this answer takes us deeper into the tragedy - we all face this fate (Luke 13:4-5!).  And it points us much higher to its redemption.

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My sermon on Mark 13 from last year

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5

Published on 5 Comments on Trinity and Islam

Here's a talk I gave at the Plymouth University mission earlier this year.  It was entitled "Three in One, have Christians got God right?"  We invited the Islamic Society along, so it definitely had a Muslim audience in mind (though the talk is not exclusively pitched at that audience).

Here's the introduction...

Listen to two very different voices from very different times and places.  They have one thing in common - a deep dislike of the Doctrine of the Trinity:

The first is from Thomas Jefferson:

“When we shall have done away with the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus; when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since his day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples.”  Thomas Jefferson

The second is from the Quran:

Allah is one, he does not beget nor is he begotten and there is none like him.  Surah 112

Do not say ‘Three’  Surah 4:171

No son did Allah beget, nor is there any god along with Him: (if there were many gods), behold each god would have taken away what he had created and lorded it over the others!  Surah 23:91

Incredibly different times, places and cultures.  But a real unity on this issue - they find the Trinity incomprehensible, if not blasphemous.

But tonight I want to say that the Trinity is the only thing that will make sense of your world, yourself and of God himself.  You might think that the Trinity doesn't make sense.  I want to say that without the Trinity life doesn't make sense.

Let me begin by asking you a question, What do you think was there 'in the beginning'?...

Audio

Powerpoint Slides (these would be helpful if you want to listen, or if you want a quick view of the talk)

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61

Published on 61 Comments on Stephen Fry offers good advice on depression – by ditching his atheism

It was six years ago yesterday that Stephen Fry wrote a now famous letter to a fan on the subject of depression.  You can read the whole thing here.

In the letter he likens depression to the weather:

Here are some obvious things about the weather:

It's real.
You can't change it by wishing it away.
If it's dark and rainy it really is dark and rainy and you can't alter it.
It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.

BUT

It will be sunny one day.
It isn't under one's control as to when the sun comes out, but come out it will.
One day.

It really is the same with one's moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. They are real. Depression, anxiety, listlessness - these are as real as the weather - AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE'S CONTROL. Not one's fault.

BUT

They will pass: they really will.

Spoken like a true believer!  Indeed, spoken like the Christian author Tolkien: "it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer."

But Fry isn't a Christian and he doesn't believe that "this shadow" is a passing thing at all.  If Fry was consistent he'd say,

'The sun will come out and then go back in, and then explode and consume the earth in a terrifying fireball.  None of this is under your control.  But everything will, most certainly, get worse.

All the best,

Stephen.'

I really like Fry's letter.  I think it was wonderfully thoughtful and very helpful.  Be he has a choice.  He can have his atheism or he can have an answer to depression.  He can't have both.

And for Christians, surely this is the ground on which to engage atheism: pastoral theology!

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