culture – Page 10 – Christ the Truth

God is a Haggler

GlenFebruary 4, 2010January 30, 2014Leave a comment

God is a Haggler. He wants us to haggle.

What do we feel about that?

Here's a website offering to take the cringe factor out of your financial exchanges. Instead of negotiating with a real, live human being, you can simply click a button in the privacy of our own home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PfggfGIRP4

Are you from a haggling culture?

I wonder whether the way we shop and the way we pray are linked. I'm used to fixed prices, no negotiations, no back and forth, no give and take, in and out in 18 seconds, the less chat the better. And my prayers? Are they just as clean and clinical? Do I know what it is to haggle with God?

Here's audio from a 10 minute talk for our prayer meeting last night.

Click below for the rest of the text.

...continue reading "God is a Haggler"

The strange new world of the bible

GlenJanuary 30, 2010January 30, 2014Leave a comment

What do you see when you look up?

This?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0lxbzgwW7I

or this:

ht Mark Meynell

A theological revolution occured early last century when Karl Barth turned from his liberal protestant heritage to jump with both feet into "the strange new world of the bible" (the title of an early book of his).

Have you jumped in, or only dipped your toe? It's a very hard thing to do.

It's so hard, you might just need Mike Reeves, Michael Ward and CS Lewis as guides. So if you haven't listened to this brilliant podcast - do so forthwith.

Who sounds sillier – Stephen Baldwin or Richard Dawkins?

GlenJanuary 28, 2010Leave a comment

Stephen Baldwin has been ridiculed for his comments on Celebrity Big Brother regarding evolution. He said:

If we're descended from apes, how come there are still apes?

Ok, a misunderstanding of the theory. But is the theory more or less silly than the misunderstanding?

Here's Richard Dawkins answering the very objection Baldwin makes. See if you can watch it with a straight face:

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0F4FBLJRE"]

What we have here is a Professor of Zoology faced with a line up of four apes and an accountant from Swindon. And he refuses to identify the odd one out. The whole story he invests his life in says that none are superior to any other - all are equally well adapted to their environment. It's just 4 monkeys and Pam sitting in a tree - M-U T-A-T I-N-G.

To say that Dawkins has put Baldwin right is like saying:

Ohhh. Sorry for thinking your theory was nuts. I thought you believed in alchemy. Now I realize you have a magical goose to lay your golden egg.

Truth for sale

GlenJanuary 25, 2010Leave a comment

As spotted yesterday in an airport bookshop. Sorry for the blur, I was in a hurry.

Note the section.

More than a million dead

GlenJanuary 22, 2010Leave a comment

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.

My sermon on Mark 13 from last year

Carolling in the Name of… 3

GlenDecember 21, 20093 Comments

Finally. The success they deserve - Rage Against the Machine have the UK's Christmas number 1.

And for those who have been following the exploits of this feisty four-piece, it's more apt than you know.

It all began when Zachary Ragg formed his little beat-combo Ragg and the Be Cleans. They hit the road, playing the usual tent crusades and church picnics. But while their lyrics were outstanding, soaked as they were in the best of Patristic and Reformation theology, their rap / heavy metal fusion (birthed in the Anfechtung of their Lutheran heritage) was often lost on the good church folk.

Their career took a decisive turn when Sony snapped up the talented young boys and re-branded them as Rage Against the Machine.

From that point onwards, young Zachary's profoundly Christian lyrics were altered by cynical producers riding the wave of 90s angst. But Christ the Truth can now reveal the original words to 'Killing in the Name.' We reproduce them here with comments in the hope that its Christmas wonder can be reclaimed.

The song is introduced with its own title:

Carolling in the Name of...

So sacred is the divine Name the Be Cleans dare not speak it. And yet they unfold His majesty with a moving ode to His divine kenosis:

Now the One who works forces

Is the same who bears crosses

So taken is Zachary with this Christmas meditation that he dwells on the theme at length. Then, with a discernably Lutheran slant, he launches into a stunning exegesis of Galatians 3. He addresses Israel under the law, hammering down upon them the slavery in which they are bound:

And now you do what they told you

And now you do what they told you

And now you do what they told you

And now you do what they told you

Soon the antiphonal response will be added, pronouncing the divine judgement:

And now you're under a curse

And now you're under a curse

And now you're under a curse

And now you're under a curse

The tension builds until we find release in Christ's marvellous exchange:

He Who dies - He justifies

He wears your bad - now the chosen: white

He justifies - He Who dies

He wears your bad - now the chosen: white

After this chorus of exultation in Christ's substitutionary work, the Be Cleans recapitulate their meditations on Galatians 3. Soon all is resolved as they turn to Galatians 4:4. With ever increasing certitude, Zachary takes on the role of the incarnate Christ, born of a woman, born under law. Now, from within our humanity He fulfils the law and reverses the curse. He pronounces His benediction in words reminiscent of Hebrews 10:7 -

Bless you, I now do what I told you

Bless you, I now do what I told you

Bless you, I now do what I told you

Bless you, I now do what I told you

The excitement of the Be Cleans reaches fever pitch and who can blame them? Christ has come, He now shoulders the burden, the curse is reversed, slaves are turned to sons. The final line from Zachary proves le mot juste - what else can we do but adore the condescension of this Great Shepherd of the brethren!

Brother-Flocker!

The mission of the church

GlenDecember 10, 2009Leave a comment

Check out this definition of the church's mission.

‘The Church's commission, which is the foundation of its freedom, consists in this: in Christ's stead, and so in the service of his own Word and work, to deliver to all people, through preaching and sacrament, the message of the free grace of God.’

That's it. That's the mission of the church. Proclamation.

Now, without cheating, see if you can guess where this comes from. And when.

Any guesses?

Well maybe you think these are the words of some one-eyed fundamentalist, divorced from any pressing social or political needs. Perhaps you think this definition represent a cowardly retreat from the social and political realities of the day?

Well the year was 1934, the place was Germany and this is article 6 of the Barmen Declaration - the document that founded the German Confessing Church.

And into that context, this determination to view the church's mission simply as gospel proclamation proved to be the most provocative political challenge possible. This is precisely because it refuses to engage with the world on its own terms. The Nazis are confronted because the Confessing Church occupies itself with its one true Fuhrer (Christ), its one true Reich (God’s Kingdom) and its one true commission: delivering ‘the message of the free grace of God’. Far from creating an ‘ecclesiastical ghetto’ for the Confessing Christians, this single-minded determination to let the Gospel set the agenda for the Church brings it into its most significant contact with the surrounding culture.

Barmen is profoundly political. But it is so by refusing any other agenda but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing could be more explosive.

A few years later, Karl Barth (who authored Barmen) was back in his native Switzerland. (Interestingly it was his lectures on preaching that were the last straw for the Nazis, the Gestapo bursting in and forcibly deporting him. Apparently his last words to his students on the train platform was the admonition: "Exegesis, exegesis, exegesis!") Anway, a young pastor from Brandenburg wrote to him in distress. He had been sacked after preaching against Mein Kampf from the pulpit. The pastor expected sympathy. Instead Barth replied that the pastor had made a "decisive mistake":

Your job, when you stand in the pulpit, is to again make well the sick church of Germany. That can be done only by the Word alone. You are to serve that Word and no other. But you can’t do that if you seize on Mein Kampf… Was it not a shame, each minute that you wasted with this book instead of reading the Bible? (William Willimon, Conversations with Barth on Preaching, p248-249)

Interesting huh?

Pollutants or Prayer? What changes the climate?

GlenDecember 9, 2009Leave a comment

Ok, I'll get off the subject soon enough. Just a little test for us all, inspired by Heather's comment.

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My Name humble themselves, and pray and seek My Face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. ” 2 Chronicles 7:13-14

"Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." James 5:17-18

So what causes climate change, pollutants or prayer?

Cue howls of disbelief. Choruses of "medieval superstition!" Derisive laughter...

Yeah, yeah. Get it out of your system. But seriously... Which is it? Pollutants or prayer?

And of course you say, 'It's not an either-or.'

Well... even when it is a both-and, it's by no means a symmetrical 'both-and' is it? Prayer can change the climate quite apart from the levels of Co2 in the atmosphere.

And really - who's running this show? Christ or carbon?

Cue more mocking and incredulity. I hear your protests: 'Don't be ridiculous Glen, typical overstatement! The sovereign Lord still works via means and agents. He might well say to the waters 'This far and no further' but He uses gravity to do the job. Same with climate. He's Lord of climate change, but He oversees it according to cycles and seasons and constants and laws.'

Mmmm fine. That's what I thought you were going to say. I just wanted to see how quickly you said it. As a matter of interest, how immediate was your 'Yeah, but...'?

I'll probably agree with your 'Yeah, but...' I just want to know how quickly it snapped into place. I want to know how strongly it rose to the surface. Because in my heart and mind it springs like a steel trap.

And the place it springs from is not my training in historic reformed Christianity. Oh I can happily use Calvinism to justify it (secondary causes and all that). But I'm pretty sure it springs from enlightenment sources, not reformational ones.

You see I read 2 Chronicles 7, lodge its truths in some cerebral filing cabinet under 'theology', and then return to the real world where principles and programmes and professors and pollutants rule the roost. In the real world iron laws grind out our predicatable fate. And the only difference between us and the 'enlightened' secularist is that we know the name of the One pulling the levers. Right?

Sheesh... Of course by the time you've made peace with this view - the name of the One pulling the levers is so immaterial to the discussion you can afford to drop it entirely. And nothing really changes. Because, let's face it, we we basically reckon the levers pull themselves. Right?

And so here's my little test. Can you say this sentence out loud and for ten minutes refuse every urge in you to clamp down with your 'Yeah, but...':

Ultimately, prayer changes the climate, not pollutants.

Can you linger on this for a full ten minutes? Can you mull over all its radical implications?

Christ not carbon is the determining factor

Here's the deal - if you can remove yourself from the deistic clockwork universe for ten minutes and feel the immediacy and Personality of the biblical universe, I'll let you go to Copenhagen.

Fair?

Ok, off you go. But I warn you, it's a lot harder than it sounds.

How can I be sure of climate heaven?

GlenDecember 8, 2009Leave a comment

Imagine you're in a conversation with someone of another religion. At some point you might ask them: "Are you sure of heaven/Valhalla/getting beamed to the mother ship?" (delete as appropriate).

This is a good question because no other god actually saves. They might talk a big game but they can't be counted on to do the business. And so the follower of this other religion will be forced back on themselves. They'll either openly confess 'No' or they'll be full of bravado and demonstrable good works but the most they can say is, "I hope so." And when they confess their lack of assurance it's enough to bring you to tears. What wicked demon has ensnared you that you may even kill yourself in its service yet have no hope of its favour!?

Well don't we see the same thing with the carbon-cutting gospel? I receive emails from an old university friend (I'll bet many of you get the same ones - his global advocacy group has become massive). But for all the candlelit vigils, the millions strong petitions, the vast sums raised and ambitious goals - the lack of assurance is palpable. Every email ends "with hope." But you just wonder don't you.

It seems to me that even the most committed activist working to tax carbon into oblivion doesn't really think their gospel will deliver. The most optimistic talk of the climate campaigner sounds so much like the devout Mormon who 'hopes' they'll make it. Maybe I'm reading things in here, but I get the distinct impression that deep down their whole fear-driven carbon-cutting works both hide the fact and spring from the fact that they don't think it's going to happen. Not deep down.

Oh they hope so! And they hope it enough to wear themselves out in anxious labour. But there's no assurance.

So how do we preach to the climate campaigner? Let me suggest not by agreeing with their apocalyptic, pseudo-messianic gospel and then adding in a few Jesus extras to get the job done. (You're correct in your assessment of the planet's destiny and true rulers, but let me add in Jesus who helps us to be the saviours!)

No, that's not the way. But not because we have no compassion. We do. It is desperate to see them so harassed and helpless like sheep without a Shepherd. And so the way forwards is to teach them (Mark 6:34). And perhaps especially we might paint for them a cosmic picture of the new heavens and the new earth, the home of righteousness. Not just a reduction in the number of hurricanes, but a crystal sea like glass! Not just preventing the displacement of people groups but their planting in the land! Not just the protection of the trees but their joyful worship! Not the maintenance of adequate food supplies but the richest of meats and wine dripping from the hills! Not alleviation of drought but the Lamb shepherding us to streams of Living Water! Not simply the preservation of lions and lambs but their reconciliation! And a little Child will lead them. We introduce them to this Child and He will calm all fears. Because He is able to deliver on this future. He guarantees it.

Maybe we need to be saying to our climate believer friends "After all this effort, are you sure the planet's going to be ok? Cos I am."

By the way, Paul Huxley speaks much sense on the reasons for scepticism here.