Category: pastoral theology

My broadband's down for a while so I'm just emailing this in from my phone. I won't be able to write or respond for a bit but I will be getting your comments.

So why don't you help me out with something I'm thinking through: How should we go about enthusing Christians for evangelism?

Any thoughts?

When I was at Oak Hill, John Frame's "Doctrine of the Knowledge of God" was referred to by students as 'The greatest book in the world ever'.  Oak Hill was that kind of place.  But more and more, through people like Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll, I'm hearing Frame's stuff - particularly his perspectivalism - cited in reformed circles.  If you've never heard of Frame or perspectivalism, skip this post.  I'll get to some implications in a follow up.  For those who are all too interested here's a longer essay I've written on his Doctrine of the Knowledge of God.

But for the low-down, his big idea goes something like this...

As finite creatures we don't see things from all the angles like God does.  But our perspectives are neither untrue, nor are they the whole truth.  They aren't competitive, they actually cohere.

So in Frame's doctrine of God, he talks about the triad of God's authority, control and presence. Though we might view these 'Lordship' attributes as different, Frame would say they are ultimately identical in the simple divine essence.  We have here a concept of the one and the three but it's not exactly the trinity.

When we view epistemology through this triadic lens we see that knowledge involves a knowing subject, the known object and the norms by which the object is known.  This generates the existential perspective, the situational perspective and the normative perspective.

Again the key to Frame's multi-perspectivalism is that these three perspectives are not competing realities as though any need to be given priority. They are complementary perspectives on the one unified reality.

And this can be helpful when, for instance in studies of ethics, you get turf wars over whether duty ethics (the deonologists) should rule the roost with their norms.  Or whether outcome-focussed ethics (the utilitarians) should claim victory for the situational perspective.  Or maybe the existential angle is best and the virtue ethicists should win.  But no, says Frame, they're not competing claims but integrated perspectives.

It's a neat concept and you can put it to a thousand uses.  So you might hear Driscoll speaking about leadership in terms of Prophets (normative), Priests (existential) and Kings (situational).  And we need all three to operate effectively.

Or you'll hear Keller talk about sermons needing to be doctrinally proclaiming Christ (normative), motivating personal growth in grace (existential) and aiming at cultural transformation (situational).

It's not the worst idea in the world.  But I think it's got real limitations.

It's one thing to see triads everywhere (they are - it is the Lord's world after all).  But it's not obvious that these 'threes' should be united the way Frame's Lordship attributes coinhere in the simple divine essence.  I won't get into divine simplicity here but for now let's just note that there's a more fundamental triad.  And the unity of these Three is emphatically not perspectival.

To see the Father, Son and Spirit as perspectives on the one God is modalism pure and simple.  Frame knows this and admits as much here.  But he argues that the Persons are not less than perspectives on the one God, but more.  I would say that they are something quite different and that it's too much of a flirtation with modalism to think perspectivally at all about the Persons.

No the ultimate Triad is united perichoretically not perspectivally. Perichoresis means the mutual indwelling of the Persons.  And the great difference with perichoresis is that the Three maintain their distinctions all the way down.  They don't become a singularity in some simple divine essence - rather the divine essence is eternally what it is as the mutual indwelling of these concretely particular Persons.  Most importantly, the Three co-exist in structured, (functionally) hierarchical, non-reversible relations.  This means that there is a particular Beginning that you have to make with the relations and a particular Way that they inter-relate.

It's not that you look to the Father who reveals the Spirit in the power of the Son.  No quite definitely you look to the Son in the power of the Spirit to reveal the Father.  There is a particular starting point and a particular way to proceed.  With perspectivalism you can start anywhere and proceed how you like as long as you cover all your bases.  Not so with perichoretic relations.  Starting points and methodologies become all important.  There is a Way in and a Way to proceed.

So what?  That's for next time...

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We've been talking about forgiveness tonight in our bible study group.  Some wonderful honesty and mutual encouragement.  Wrestling with forgiveness is at the very heart of understanding and living out the gospel of Jesus.

We were studying Matthew 18:21-35.  I find it really helpful to put some modern-day figures on the money involved.  Ten thousand talents - let's call that a hundred billion pounds.  A hundred denarii?  Let's call that £5000.  Now five grand is not nothing.  If you cost me five grand I will be mighty peeved.  But only until I remember the hundred billion.  And that's how forgiveness works.  It's always costly.  A hundred denarii aint nothing.  But first appreciate the hundred billion.  Then cancel the five grand.

But as we spoke of how difficult forgiveness is, it struck me where a lot of our (ok, my!) problems come from.  So much stems from refusing to face the damage done to us.  We dare not stare it full in the face and say "You robbed me of five grand (or even five million!) and I'm never getting it back."  We don't feel we have the resources to take such a hit.  So instead of facing the loss head on and drawing on our resources in Christ we convince ourselves that the five grand is not gone for good.  It can't be gone, it's all we had.  So we consider it as an outstanding debt.  And we make them pay.  In tit-for-tat and slurs and cold shoulders and the mental equivalent of voodoo dolls.

And whilever they are a debtor making repayments forgiveness is just not an option.  We've bought into a repayment model and cancelling the debt is unthinkable.  But once we face the debt as a straight out loss we can say "Dang, it's cost me.  Now what?"  And that's really the position of us all when we are wronged.  The devil loves to tell us - "You haven't really lost out for good.  You can recoup your costs here, let me show you how."  But the devil is a liar.  You have lost.  It's gone and it's not coming back except by the redeeming hand of Christ.  But for now you need to appreciate the loss as a loss.  A dead loss.  Not bruised and battered.  Dead.  And it can only become gain in the hands of the Lord of Resurrection.

Because once you've faced the loss you then realise your options.  Bitterness/ hard-heartedness/ revenge is an option which involves its own costs.  On the other hand there's 'taking pity, cancelling the debt and letting them go' (Matt 18:27).

The one option you don't have (and never did have) was recouping the loss. But only once you've faced the loss are you able to make the decision that can free you (and them).  You've lost out and nothing will change that.  Now you've got to choose how to handle that loss.  The devil's way will cost you dearly.  But Jesus says "I know a way of handling this loss that will free you and free them and put you in touch with the power of my cosmic redemption."

It begins by acknowledging your own debt. Enjoying the hundred billion.  Facing the loss of the five thousand.  And then it continues in taking pity, cancelling the debt and letting go.  In the end that's the only way to handle the loss.

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Recently I got a job as an evangelist working with Revival in Eastbourne and beyond.  I won't jump into the role with both feet until my curacy at All Souls, Eastbourne ends (Easter 2011).  But the idea is to stay a member at All Souls and work with churches in the town and further afield (invitations happily received!).

The organisation has a proud history with Eric Hutchings founding the work 60 years ago.  They haven't had a dedicated evangelist on board for some time so it will be an opportunity to develop a ministry with the backing of a staff team and many committed supporters.  The Lord is good.

Initially I will focus on working with interested Eastbourne churches, enthusing and equipping the leadership and laity.  I'd love to establish a little school of evangelism and start building a team.  There's a lot of scope for town centre open-air work and park-bench evangelism (Eastbourne is the retirement capital of the UK).  It'd be great to produce resources for the wider church through books and videos and other web avenues.  And I'd be pushing on doors to see whether larger-scale interdenominational evangelism might be possible here or abroad.

All good fun.  Praise Jesus!

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