George Herbert on the Liturgical Year

While we’re having a George Herbert extravaganza, here is an extract from Izaak Walton’s The Life of Mr George Herbert. He describes how Herbert instructed his congregation, and he mentions in particular instruction regarding the liturgical year (including Lent), which mirrors the explanations given to the people of Israel that they were to keep various feasts in order to remember, and be thankful.

He instructed them also what benefit they had by the Church’s appointing the celebration of Holy days and the excellent use of them; namely, that they were set apart for particular commemorations of particular mercies received from Almighty God; and (as Reverend Mr Hooker says) to be the landmarks to distinguish times; for by them we are taught to take notice how time passes by us; and that we ought not to let the years pass without a celebration of praise for those mercies which those days give us occasion to remember…

And he instructed them that by the Lenten fast, we imitate and commemorate our Saviour’s humiliation in fasting forty days; and that we ought to endeavour to be like him in purity.

George Herbert: Lent

George Herbert writes of Lent, the authority of the church, the attitude Christians should have towards her, and the benefits of Lent contrasting with the harm of excess as a discipline wherein we may meet with Christ our God and be renewed by him. He warns simultaneously of the harm of the church imposing excessive obligation during the season, and of rejecting the practice simply because people have kept it wrongly in the past. Finally, Herbert sees Lent as an opportunity for doing good to others.

Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is composed of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev’ry Corporation.

The humble soul composed of love and fear
Begins at home, and lays the burden there,
When doctrines disagree.
He says, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandal to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.

True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unless Authority, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it less,
And Power itself disable.

Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fullness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheums,
Revenging the delight.

Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodness of the deed.
Neither ought other men’s abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.

It’s true, we cannot reach Christ’s forti’th day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Saviour’s purity;
Yet we are bid, Be holy ev’n as he.
In both let’s do our best.

Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
That travelleth by-ways;
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
May strengthen my decays.

Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
As may our faults control:
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlour; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.

George Herbert on Pastoral Ministry – Being

Today being the Lesser Festival of George Herbert, I thought I’d resume posting on his aims in ministry. The traditional question about ordained ministry is whether it is about being or doing. Is it about fulfilling a function, doing a job, or is it about who you are? As with many of these either… or… questions, I think the answer is, ‘Yes… Both… and…’ George Herbert’s vision for ministry reflects the emphasis in the New Testament that the person and character of the minister is of paramount importance; indeed, it is this which gives a man’s ministry its power, and when this is not there, his work will be to no avail.

Herbert reminds us first of all about those who are in the universities ‘in a preparatory way’. These are they, says Herbert ‘whose aim and labour must be not only to get knowledge, but to subdue  and mortify all lists and affections, and not to think that when they have read the Fathers or Schoolmen a minister is made and the thing done. The greatest and hardest preparation is within for, ‘unto the ungodly saith God: Why dost thou preach my laws, ad take my covenant in thy mouth?’ Psalm 50:16 (A Priest to the Temple, chapter 2: ‘Their Diversities’). This is why ordination training is not just about getting a theology degree and obtaining the tools necessary to teach the Bible, but is about formation.

‘The country parson,’ says Herbert, ‘is exceeding exact in his life, being holy, just prudent, temperate, bold, grave in all his ways.’ In particular, he endeavours not to be a stumbling block in his parish, avoiding covetousness, greed and niggardliness amongst those who know the value of money through their hard labour, and avoiding excessive luxury, in particular, in drinking: ‘It is the most popular vice into which if he come he prostitute himself both to shame and sin, and by having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness he disableth himself of authority to reprove them.’ In particular, the parson is to be a man of his word: ‘Because country people (as indeed all men) do much esteem their word, it being the life of buying and selling and dealing in the world, therefore the parson is very strict in keeping his word, though it be to his own hindrance, as knowing that if he be not so, he will quickly be discovered and disregarded; neither will they believe him in the pulpit whom they cannot trust in his conversation. The parson’s yea is yea, and nay, nay.’

Moreover, Herbert was no gnostic. The body matters. A pastor’s personal hygiene is important. Perhaps incongrously, Herbert by means of a simple conjunction, concludes his discussion about a minister keeping his word thus: ‘And his apparel [is] plain, but reverend, and clean, without spots, or dust, or smell, the purity of his mind breaking out and dilating itself even to his body, clothes and habitation’ (ibid. chapter 3: ‘The Parson’s Life’).

Herbert’s parson is to be charitable and hospitable. He is very conscious that his life is meant to be an example to his flock and he can draw upon the lessons he has learned in his discipleship to disciples others. The importance of a parson’s holiness of life is not to be divorced from his teaching ministry. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. ‘The country parson’s library is a holy life, for besides the blessing that that brings upon it, there being a promise that if the Kingdom of God be first sought, all other things shall be added, even itself is a sermon. For the temptations with which a good man is beset, and the ways which he used to overcome them, being told to another, whether in private conference, or in the church, are a sermon. He that hath considered how to carry himself at table about his appetite, if he tell this to another, preacheth; and much more feelingly, and judiciously, than he writes his rules of temperance out of books. So that the parson having sudied, and mastered all his lusts and affections within and the whole army of temptations without, hath ever so many sermons ready penned, as he has victories (ibid. chapter 33: ‘The Parson’s Library’).

King of glory, king of peace,
who called your servant George Herbert
from the pursuit of worldly honours
to be a priest in the temple of his God and king:
grant us also the grace to offer ourselves
with singleness of heart in humble obedience to your service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Reformation in the Ashmolean

To celebrate the development work going on at the Ashmolean museum, a new set of images has been produced highlighting some of the objects in the collection. These are due to go on hoardings in October, and it also seems that they may well appear on Oxford buses. If they do, they will certainly beat the atheists’, “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.’

The picture above shows Laurence Fox holding the band that held Cranmer, Colin Dexter wearing his manacle, and Kevin Whately holding the key to the Bocardo gaol. On Fox’s head are written the words ‘Cranmer watched from the prison as flames consumed their bodies. His turn to die a martyr was yet to come.’ Dexter’s forehead bears the words, ‘Latimer said: ‘play the man; we shall this day by God’s grace, light such a tourch in England as will never be put out’.’ The text on Whately’s forehead reads, ‘Cranmer said: ‘I have sinned, in that I signed with my hand what I did not believe with my heart’.’

Wow.

(HT: Peter Sanlon at Grace City; see also this page and this page on the Ashmolean website.)

Lent

‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ – Genesis 3.19

We see in the Scriptures that salvation means new creation. Israel was redeemed from slavery in Egypt and brought into the Promised Land, and for them that meant, among many other things, a new way of marking time ordered by the events of salvation. This is a type of our salvation through Christ the true Israel, and as Christ has died, risen, and ascended, and so been given all authority in heaven and on earth, this means that the way we mark time is different now. On a grand scale, we divide the whole of time into Before Christ and Anno Domini (in the year of the Lord). On a smaller scale, we mark each year, not by the old pagan feasts and seasons, but by feasts and seasons shaped by the life of Christ and the redemption he wrought. One such season is Lent. The people of Israel kept the Feast of Booths to remember that they lived in tents in the wilderness when God rescued them out of Egypt. In fulfilment of this, we keep the forty days of Lent, which corresponds to the forty days in which Jesus fasted and was tempted in the wilderness and, as the true Israel, remained faithful and did not grumble, as the people of Israel did and so were judged. It is around his character and example that we are to be formed.

Now we need to keep Lent in a way that is not only faithful to the godly wisdom of many generations of the church (because we are catholic), but is also faithful to the Bible (because we are Reformed and Evangelical). In Israel’s calendar, there was only one day in the year in which fasting or afflicting oneself was commanded: the day of Atonement (Leviticus 16.29-31). Other penitential seasons were kept as Israel was unfaithful to her Lord and so incurred his judgement, but the promise of the New Covenant is that the seasons of fasting will become seasons of feasting, of joy and gladness (Zechariah 8.19). Now, full redemption long expected will only at Christ’s second coming in solemn pomp appear, and so in his absence, the church is still expected to fast. ‘The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days’ (Luke 5.34).

Lent is a season that happens very much under the shadow of the cross. Because the events of Passiontide and Easter are so precious to us as the heart of the gospel, when Jesus our Lord was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification (Romans 4.25), and we want to celebrate them properly, it is right to spend time in preparation. While we should be mortifying the misdeeds of the flesh all year round, while we should be seeking God’s forgiveness for our sins daily, while we should be letting our light shine before men all the time, it is right as we look forward to Passiontide and Easter to take this opportunity for  a time of focused self-examination, for a renewed denial of one’s sinful nature, for a renewed dedication to the study of the Scriptures and to good works. That is what Lent is really about. It is not about giving up cigarettes and alcohol for a couple of months. Indeed, the people of Israel were commanded in during the Feast of Booths to ‘take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees’ (Leviticus 23.40) – something worth thinking about. This kind of religious show with no substance behind it – which is what Lent so easily becomes – is precisely what the prophets (Isaiah 58.3-5) and Jesus (Matthew 6.16) condemn. The elements of ritual are to be accompanied by the seeking of opportunities to relieve the oppressed, to pour oneself out for the hungry (as Jesus poured out himself for us sinners), to clothe the naked (Isaiah 58.6-12). That is what Lent should look like.

Finally, the imposition of ashes on the first day of Lent is perfectly Biblical. Ashes are a Scriptural symbol of penitence (Matthew 11.21) and a reminder of our own lowliness and mortality – ‘I who am but dust and ashes’ (Genesis 18.27) cf ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return’ (Genesis 3.19). Marking out the sign of the cross on one’s forehead with the ashes (made from burning last year’s palm crosses, of course) reminds us that we are keeping this season as Christians, and that it is because sin was dealt with on the cross that we who return to the dust because of sin will be raised to everlasting life. Just make sure you wipe the ash off straight after the service (Matthew 6.17).

For more reflexions on Lent from a Reformed, Evangelical perspective see the following, on the Rev. Toby Sumpter’s weblog:

Why Lent?
Lent is for Joy

The Fate of Communion (another long one)

In The Fate of Communion (Eerdmans, 2006), Ephraim Radner and Philip Turner respond to the actions of The Episcopal Church of the United States of America, culminating in the blessing of same-sex unions and the consecration of practising homosexual bishops, looking at the forces shaping TEC’s conception of itself and mission, and exploring a possible way forward for the Anglican Communion. This book is slightly dated now, being written shortly after the publication of the Windsor Report, and more water has passed under the bridge since then, with the convening of GAFCON, the publication of the Jerusalem Declaration and the establishiment of a Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans representing one possible direction in the current crisis, as well as the ongoing drafting of an Anglican Covenant. Nevertheless, this book provides an important background to understanding the current situation, and a framework with ongoing relevance for considering future possibilities. The vision of the authors is that the worldwide Aglnican Communion should remain precisely that: a communion of national churches, with shared beliefs, worship and ministry, rather than a federation loosely associated for pragmatic purposes.

With the right to the free exercise of religion but the prohibition of establishment of any religion offered by the US Constitution, TEC has presented itself as an enlightened alternative to Evangelical Protestantism and Roman Catholicisim, embracing new learning and experience attuned to the culture around it. TEC has been shaped by the liberal culture around it, in which no single notion of what is good can possess the public square; rather, there are individuals with needs and rights whose identities (including, even especially including, their sexuality). This inevitably generates competing claims and the issue is how to order these competing preferences. For TEC, then, issues regarding the ordination and consecration of practising homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions are issues of justice, with justice being about having the right to express one’s preferences. Moreover, by the very nature of its beginning, America has adopted the role of Cain’s children, with a fresh, new world spreading out in front, wherein to work and build and shelter, going back to a young, primordial start, forgetting the redemption that has come through Christ, the Last Adam, and the way this manifests itself in American society has also shaped TEC and its message:

As Joseph Needleman said, in the context of an examination of the Shakers, “America is the land of zero. Start from zero, we start from nothing. That is the idea of America.” And from an explicitly Christian perspective, that outlook has impelled among Americans a consideration of human existence not in historically shaped terms, but in terms of permanent “originals,” of Adam and Adam’s family. Here, then, I simply assert the scriptural character of American religion in practical terms: as the experienced enactment of this consideration and search for the “primordial,” however, defined, the American religious character has involved itself in the constant tracing and retracing, not of the Christian Church’s life, not of the Body of Christ, itself a renewal of the human race in time, but of Adam’s progeny, of Cain and of the children of Cain. The very fixation of American experience on beginnings and re-creation represents a return to the moment in which humanity stands on the brink of violence, to choose it or, in ignoring it, to be captured by it anew (pp. 31-32)

In considering how we should proceed in the current crisis, the book moves on to the process of apprehending the truth. Radner, while not wanting orthodoxy to be seen as a wax nose, and while not wanting to relativise truth, nevertheless questions the usefulness of the concept of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy, he says, ‘refers to a measure for some articulated belief in and praise for God, rightly ordered for human life in a divine relationship’ (p. 61), and the content of that orthodoxy is given in particular communities, or by recognised authorities; given the multiplication of Christian authorities and communities, appeals to orthodoxy lack meaning. Instead, he contends that we should remember that there is an element of the “not yet” in the church’s experience. The church is in the process of apprehending the truth. How is that process to occur? A conservative approach takes seriously historical reality and experience, recognising human imperfection, not denying the forces, but not viewing change as necessarily being a virtue. In contrast, for liberals, time has a governing principle or rule, which can be applied to decisions we make: change is good. For the authors, it is difficult to see how communion can exist with a liberal view of orthodoxy, and they declare themselves to be Christian conservatives with regard to orthodoxy. Indeed, this conservative character has informed Anglicanism’s approach to truth, and is an approach peculiar to life in communion.

Where does authority lie in Anglicanism? Radner contends that Cranmer’s founding ethos was one of formative scripturalism, of scriptural immersion by God’s people. His liturgical project was based on the model offered by antiquity, not so much for liturgical forms or doctrinal substance, but for the ordering of the worship of God’s people such that the whole Bible was read by them. As the Bible’s content saturates their common hearing, their common life is ordered. This contrasts with a number of other models of authority, including confessionalism, which is of interest because confessionalism is precisely the route down which some Anglicans have chosen to go in the current crisis since this book was written. But while standards such as the Thirty-Nine articles help in the apprehension of the witness of Scripture, they were never without controversy and they represent the rule of faith and practice of a particular community at a particular point in the past. Why should these standards in particular define Anglicanism? Radner and Turner are critical of the way that Anglicans have tended to avoid theological reflection and dialogue by simply accepting the co-existence of views which are actually incompatible. This of course destroys the idea of a communion of churches and results inevitably in a federation. The authors contend that the solution for the resolution of the issue of defining the boundaries of acceptable diversity whilst maintaining integrity lies not in the citing of scriptural proofs, creedal or confessional statements, appealing to political or legal authority, developments in society or history, but in the power of the Holy Spirit allowing ‘disputes affecting ecclesial integrity and tolerable diversity [to] take place in the midst of a scripturally formed people who hear the whole of the Bible in particular historical circumstances and in the midst of an ordered fellowship of worship and prayer… a community whose life is rooted in a shared will to unity and shaped by Christ’s cross… by means of a protracted, free, and open theological debate in which mutual correction is both expected and welcomed… by political authorities in a cohesive manner that inhibits changes in practice until wide agreement about “novelties” has been reached… within a wider “conciliar economy” that places limits upon the “autonomy” of any given parish, diocese, or province within the Anglican Communion” (pp. 116-117).

The authors consider the role of the bishop at the current time, and how episcopal ministry ought to lead to the health of the communion.  They suggest a return to a more classical notion of authority which is embedded in Anglican formularies, a notion which is becoming alien to the West, and differs from the actual expectation of bishops regarding what their ministry is about. Having authority is a means of social control, but differs from the idea of domination in that those who have authority govern with the assent of the governed and act on behalf of all, but nevertheless have the right and obligation to require obedience from those under them, even if they disagree with particular justified decisions they make:

In short, authority is a way of investing power with moral and religious accountability. It is a way of ordering power within a community in such a way that the power of the community itself is augmented and directed to purposes acceptable to the community as a whole. Within the classical tradition, and in contradistinction to our own most immediate perceptions, authority does not separate ruler and subject; rather it links them in a common bond of fundamental belief and in a common form of life (p. 140).

This contrasts with the perceived understanding of authority by those in TEC. The focus has shifted from maintain peace to ‘prophetic witness’, but not a prophetic witness, like that of the Biblical prophets, which called the people back to the covenant and the blessing that characterised the common life of the people for the people’s own health, but a witness in which bishops are not advocates for the people as a whole, but for some small segment, some interest group within that body, even for protecting the rights of individuals. This is corrosive to the idea of communion. For what it is worth, whatever other criticism people may choose to level at him, Rowan Williams has, I think, been admirable in his use of authority: while he has, I gather, made it clear in the past that he believes committed, faithful, stable homosexual relationships are within the bounds of Christian holiness, nevertheless he has not used his office to push that agenda and promote that cause, but recogising the disagreement over this which exists within the Communion, he has worked hard as Archbishop of Canterbury to preserve the unity and health of the Communion as a whole. In considering the relationship between that authority and the Hookerian formulation of Scripture, tradition and reason, the authors acknowledge:

[T]hey are points of reference to which, within the churches, those invested with authority and those under authority may or must make reference to justify the course of action they recommend, mandate or follow. They have authority in the sense that they are necessary or common points of reference for determining the way people who share a common life ought to move through time. They do not have authority, however, in a political sense. Their authority is one that provides authorization for those with authority and those under authority but their authority is not one that can make a political decision and issue a command (p. 152).

The authors are critical of the way this triad of Scripture, tradition and reason have been understood in recent times – Scripture as first among equals or one amongst many – an understanding which Hooker would have rejected out of hand. These are not three largely independent legs of the stool of Anglican authority. Scripture has been the primary and sufficient source for the testing the stewardship of those in authority and the demonstration that those who exercise such office have done so in God’s name.

In recent years, other legitimising points of reference for the exercise of authority in the church have been added and used in ways Richard Hooker would neither recognize nor approve. For Hooker, doctrine was to be established on the basis of Scripture. Reason was thought to yield moral truths open to all people of good will. These truths were in no way thought to be opposed to the witness of Scripture. Rather, they were simply “republished” by its authors. For its part, tradition was a minor matter, referring as it did to those aspects of life of the church that had a venerable history and were not to be changed unless shown to be contrary to the witness of Scripture or contrary to the light of universal human reason. Experience, our current favorite (sic) source of moral and religious knowledge, was not a category Hooker would have separated from reason. This separation is, in fact, a product of the romantic movement (p. 156).

The bishops, the authors suggest, should ‘call a spade a spade’ (p. 158) and point out to the church the circumstances in which it exists and call for self-examination and repentance among the churches, as well as for serious theological work, and they can model the practices and attitudes in their own deliberations – Christ-like attitudes – which make for peace and holiness as examples to the body as a whole.

III

On this, the occasion of my weblog’s third birthday, I thought it meet and right to go back and explain its history and my reasons for maintaining it. I am aware some people are suspicious of weblogs, particularly when they deal with theological matters, because of a fear that they are simply fora for airing one’s own – sometimes ill-formed – views without due processes of research, criticism and review.

My weblog started during my third year at Brasenose College. Third year was a slightly odd year for me. Most of my friends were in the year above me, and so a considerable number left when I entered my third year. Prior to that, I would often be part of a group that went to Chequers (or for some reason the Mitre) after FOCUS (the student Bible study group at St. Ebbe’s) on a Thursday, or to the Radcliffe Arms after OICCU on a Saturday, or to some other notable establishment after the 6.30pm service on a Sunday evening, or back to my set in College, or to someone else’s room, and almost invariably these would be occasions for good-natured (usually), informal, wide-ranging theological discussion. During that third year, when much of this group had moved on, I was made aware of the weblog as a medium for articulating theological reflexions, largely I think, by Matthew Mason’s Mother Kirk, and I set up one of my own, first Christ and Covenant (Reformed, moi?), which became Ad Trinitatem when I moved to WordPress because it looked nicer.

This weblog should be conceived, then, as an extension of those evenings around a table in a public house, or over very greasy pizza from Pizza Hut in III.8. Having not yet had any formal theological training, I am not pretending that I am writing well-crafted, authoritative, theological arguments based on detailed research. This is a place where I comment on interesting things I have seen in Scripture, describe books that I have read, enthuse about doctrines that have excited me, and try and convince people about infant baptism, for all who will listen (and to be honest, writing things down and clarifying my own thinking is as much for my benefit as anyone else’s). Just as I found those evenings instructive, and corrective, and broadening, and hope that I encouraged others as I was encouraged myself, so I hope that articulating my thoughts on this weblog is a help to somebody, and I am delighted when someone pulls up a virtual stool and joins the conversation. I continue to think it is worth writing posts and receiving comments only because I hope that in a small-back-room-corner kind of way, some real part of the saints’ ministry of speaking the truth to one another in love (Ephesians 4.12-16) is going on here.

A final comment on the current name of this weblog, Ad Trinitatem, ‘to the Trinity’: it was Packer, I think, who wrote (quite possibly not originally) that all theology should lead to doxology. We are to present ourselves, our souls and our bodies, as living sacrifices, and we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The name Ad Trinitatem expresses my desire that all that is written here be an act of worship to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Having Your Cake and Eating It (Warning: Long Post)

It is with some trepidation that I begin to write a review of the Bishop of Durham’s new book, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (he writes faster than I can read!) when he inveighs against the discussion surrounding his work on weblogs:

‘Go to the blogsites, if you dare. It really is high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging. Bad temper is bad temper even in the apparent privacy of your own hard drive, and harsh and unjust words, when released into the wild, rampage around and do real damage… I have a pastoral concern… for anyone who spends more than a few minutes a day taking part in blogsite discussions, especially when they all use code-names: was it for this that the creator God made human beings?’ pp. 10-11

I have read and heard a small amount about the New Perspective on Paul and Wright’s position prior to reading this book, but was really none the wiser about what he was actually saying. This book is Wright’s response to Dr. John Piper’s critique of his theology, The Future of Justification, and although I haven’t read Piper’s book, I bought it because I thought that in it, Wright would clearly explain his position in such a way that I could finally understand what he was on about. One of the comments about the book reads: ‘Although it is intended especially for those familiar with the debate between the various scholarly perspectives on Paul, it is in fact a straightforward and reasonably succinct exposition of Tom’s interpretation that incorporates a defence of his approach to Paul in general, and his exegesis of specific passages in Galatians and Romans in particular.’ I was not disappointed.

What this book first did for me was blow out of the water any suspicion I had that the general evangelical uneasiness about Tom Wright (and, at times, outright anathematisation of him) had any basis in reality. He affirms robustly evangelical shibboleths (or should that be ’sibboleths’?). He is in no way imperilling anyone’s salvation, either his own or others. ‘John Piper and the tradition he represents, have said that salvation is accomplished by the sovereign grace of God, operating through the death of Jesus Christ in our place and on our behalf, and appropriated through faith alone. Absolutely. I agree a hundred percent’ (p. viii). And again: “This faithful obedience of the Messiah, culminating in his death ‘for sins, in accordance with the scriptures’ as in one of Paul’s summaries of the gospel (1 Corinthians 15.3) is regularly understood in terms of the Messiah, precisely because he represents his people, now appropriately standing in for them, taking upon himself the death which they deserved, so that they might not suffer it themselves… Sin was condemned there, in his flesh, so that it shall not now be condemned here, in us, in those who are ‘in him’”(p. 84). And yet again: ‘How does… faith arise? Have we not backed ourselves into a corner where ‘faith’ of this sort as become a ‘work’, a really good, indeed striking and remarkable, ‘religious’ attitude wich then commends itself to God? Not at all… [O]ut of sheer grace, the word of the gospel, blown on by the powerful wind of the spirit, transforms hearts and minds so that, although it is known to be ridiculous and even shameful, people come to believe that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead’(pp. 184-5). Indeed, it is Wright’s evangelical commitment that drives his methodology and leads him to draw the conclusions he does. Luther and Calvin are his examples in practice:

Ever since I first read Luther and Calvin, particularly the latter, I determined that whether or not I agreed with them in everything they said, their stated and practised method would be mine, too: to soak myself in the Bible, in the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, to get it into my bloodstream by every means possible, in the prayer and hope that I would be able to teach scripture afresh to the church and the world. The greatest honour we can pay the Reformers is not to treat them as infallible – they would be horrified at that – but to do as they did (p. 6)

The book has two broad sections. In the first, Wright sets the context for the discussion, before turning to a more systematic exegesis of the relevant books and passages in the second section. He wants to show us that salvation is not just about individuals getting to heaven when they die, but that it is about God’s restoration of the whole world by dealing with sin and death, of which the salvation of individuals is a part. God is at the centre, not us. He wants us to see that Paul’s doctrine of justification comes as part of the narrative of the whole Bible, of God’s plan through his covenant with Abraham, and through Israel, for the whole world. He wants us to look at the first-century questions the text is answering, not sixteenth-century ones, themselves conditioned by a mediaeval conception of merit. He wants our view of Paul to be grounded not in tradition (not even in Reformed tradition) but in the text itself. Israel, while physically back in the land, is still in a state of exile in the first century. He shows us the right place of the Mosaic law, given to a people already redeemed. Indeed, the Lutherans, whose conception of the law is entirely negative, given merely to condemn us and drive us to Christ, have much to answer for in the way the law has come to be viewed. All this has to be seen, too, in the context of an expectation of God’s judgement of the world, vindicating his people, putting the world right at the Great Assize. Wright is also concerned that we don’t just turn to Paul’s epistles for proof-texts in support of our systems, but that we look at what he says in context, and let that determine how we take words like ‘justification’. David Jackman would be pleased: Bible words have Bible meanings. Finally, Wright is keen that our doctrine of justification is fully Trinitarian, and not binitarian, neglecting the work of the Spirit. This is all good and uncontroversial, and one gets to the end of the introduction edified, but wondering just exactly Wright is disagreeing with here. Conservative evangelicals, who in many ways look affectionately to Piper, do not have a problem with the Bible being about God’s fulfilment of his promise to Abraham, or the fact that the coming of Christ means an end to the ongoing spiritual exile, nor do they have difficulties with the idea of salvation not being about going to heaven when we die, but about God’s new creation. Indeed, we’re so keen on that that we forget that we do go to heaven when we die!

Laughable excuses

They gave it [gold] to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.’ – Exodus 32.24

As with Aaron in the verse above, there are places in Scripture (and the narrative of Jonah is another good example) where people are frankly so stupid in trying to cover up their sinful behaviour and avoid its consequences that one can only laugh at how they ever thought that would ever work. Of course, then we find we are actually laughing at ourselves.

Clean Hands

“Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” – Psalm 24.3-4

As I prepare for marriage, I need to prepare for fatherhood (I am aware that children often come about as a result of marriage: I have delivered babies – actually, the women were delivered, but that’s another matter) and I am paralysed with fear at the thought of some two-year old wiping his jam-smeared hands on my trouser-legs. This aversion to dirt and mess goes back a long way: at playschool, I always used to get the helper to do the things that required one to get one’s hands dirty – glueing, painting and the like. Nor is this issue relevant only for those who are more likely than others to be fathers. It is relevant for those who have godchildren, or whose friends have children, or who are in ministry situations that bring them into contact with the wee filthy beasts.

Now I am not suggesting a return to the rituals of the Pharisees. Our Lord did not reply positively when the Pharisees and the scribes asked him “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Of course, the issue there wasn’t hand-washing per se, but their hypocrisy in masking their distant hearts and departure from God’s commandments with rituals that they had made up themselves). But in the verse above, and the many others like it (Psalm 18.20, 24; Psalm 73.13; James 4.8 ) clean hands are closely associated with a pure heart. Clean hands are hands that have not sinned, and this condition flows out of a pure or a clean heart. What someone is like on the inside will eventually show on the outside. Clean hands, therefore, are an outward picture of being clean on the inside. Both the inside and the outside matter. We are not Gnostics.

So my suggestion is that when a child is running towards you with arms outstretched, about to introduce the remainder of his luncheon to your vesture, you should (carefully) stop them, take them to wash their hands, and teach them that Jesus has washed them clean on the inside so that they can climb God’s hill and come close to him, and so they need to be clean on the outside as well. And then they can hug you. Indeed, given that human fatherhood is meant to reflect God’s fatherhood (Ephesians 3.15), the picture of a son needing to wash his hands when he approaches his father is an excellent way of teaching children that they need to be washed by Jesus if they are to approach God.

Finally, you could even teach them this verse, so that when you see them wandering about with jam on their hands, you can say, “Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?” and the response will come – as if liturgically – “He who has clean hands and a pure heart.”

Inheriting the Earth

I came across the following striking comment on Peter Hitchens’s weblog post on home-schooling (no, I’m not in the habit of reading the Mail, but I do read Hitchens’s weblog without shame – he’s probably no more conservative than I am anyway):

I was recently asked to sign a petition by an agitated teacher who was upset that she was losing her job as the local school was being closed due to lack of numbers? When I pointed out that the reason there were so few children was that she had spent the last 20 odd years telling all her pupils that it was important to pass exams and leave the community to go to University and that none had come back to have children and contribute to the village, she was dumbfounded and unable to speak as she realised what she had done. There’s more to life than exams and qualifications.

In the Old Testament, we see that when the people of Israel took possession of the land of Canaan, it was apportioned out to the different tribes and within those tribes to particular clans (Joshua 13-21) and that this was to be their perpetual inheritance. If during times of poverty, someone sold part of their inheritance, it was to be redeemed by a kinsman, or bought back by the seller, or eventually returned to the seller in the year of jubilee. If the people were faithful to the Lord their God, then the land would be blessed: the rains would come, the crops would grow, the trees would bear fruit, the vines would yield grapes, they would eat their bread to the full and they would be secure, at peace, protected, and able to lie down at night without fear (Leviticus 25-26). This was salvation. The Promised Land was meant to be a land and a civilisation transformed and restored to what it would have been like in Eden, and in the world before the fall, through God’s people living out the implications of their rescue.

Since the coming of Christ, the inheritance of God’s people is the whole earth (Matthew 5.5), over all which Christ has been given total authority, and which he commands to be discipled through baptism and teaching (Matthew 28.18-20). If this commission is to be fulfilled, then we need to learn from the principles of Israel’s life in the Promised Land, which was meant to be a type, a foretaste of this. If the gospel is faithfully preached in a town, and people are converted, and they are then taught to bring up their children (if the Lord blesses them with marriage and children, rather than with singleness) in the faith, that’s great: people will be saved from hell for heaven and the new creation, and their lives will be transformed as they are salt and light in their families, neighbourhoods, workplaces and so on. As the opening comment – in a non-Christian, non-church setting -  illustrates powerfully, this transformation will not be sustainable and there will be no lasting impact if those people move away, or their children go off to university, and then do not return to the community in which they were brought up, and work and raise their own families there. In time more people may come to the town and come under the sound of the gospel and be converted themselves, but there will be no transformation of the culture of that town, no building on the foundation of the faithfulness of the previous generation. We need to rid ourselves of the idea that everyone has to go to university, that a person’s place in society is measured by the numbers of letters after their name. People are different. We are made in the image of a Triune God. An university education is not for everyone.  In relation to this, we also need to stop the trend of making training for trades into university degree courses. I had a conversation with a retired nurse in which we concluded that nursing in hospitals (which is not to be denigrated and thought inferior to medical practice) has deteriorated since it became a university degree course. We need to affirm the value of apprenticeships and learning a trade and practising that trade locally. And those for whom university is the best option, should also be reminded that they do not have to move to London and become management consultants, lawyers or hedge fund managers, but ought seriously to consider whether to return to the communities in which they grew up and raise their own families there. We need to recover the sense of belonging to a particular place. Then there will be generations of Christians working for this company, in that shop. Then Christian businesses can be set up and passed down the family. Then Christian schools – and dare I say it, colleges, hospitals and doctors’ surgeries – can be established. And that will have social, economic, educational, moral and health implications.  That is how a place can be transformed by the gospel. That is what needs to be preached. We need to think generationally.

This was how the Puritans and their successors thought, with their optimistic eschatology, and long view of history:

Because of their outlook upon the future all the Scottish missionary leaders took the long-term view in evangelization, that is to say, they did not regard the number of individual converts in the present as the first consideration, but rather that energy should be deployed in work which would have the maximum influence upon nations in subsequent generations. Accordingly Alexander Duff, though few could have surpassed him as a popular preacher, gave his best time in India to education because he believed that the schools, if thoroughly based on Scripture, would change the tone of society and be nurseries for the Church of the future…

Alexander Duff put the case with his own characteristic forcefulness:

‘We think not of individuals merely; we look to the masses. Spurning the notion of a present day’s success and a present year’s wonder, we direct our views not merely to the present, but to future generations. While you engage in directly separating as many precious atoms from the mass as the stubborn resistance to ordinary applicances can admit, we shall, with the blessing of God, devote our time and strength to the preparing of a mine and the setting of a train which shall one day explode and tear up the whole from its lowest depths.’

In Africa this same long-term view was equally prominent in all Livingstone’s planning. Early in his career he had to choose between concentrated missionary endeavour among the individuals of a small tribe, or the opening up of Africa – surveying the Continent, locating healthy sites for mission stations, paving the way for a civilisation which would break the horrors of the slave trade and which would, by commerce, introduce a new social economy, using the products of the country to the best advantage. Livingstone followed the wider policy, not because he overlooked the need for the conversion of the individual – indeed ‘probably no missionary in Africa had ever preached to so many blacks’, – but rather because conviction compelled him to lay the foundation for broader results in the Africa of the future.

The Puritan Hope, Iain. H Murry, pp. 180-1

It is just worth concluding by saying that this is of course not absolute, and it is quite right that some individuals and families move from where they grow up to another area and act as a nidus for gospel proclamation and living, and lay a new foundation for future generations there.

A Right Unity

Am I worrying too much about this? Anglican Mainstream are advertising a conference (which they are sponsoring) called Sex and the City: Redeeming sex today and it is billed as ‘A Judaeo-Christian conference for all’, ideal for clergy, rabbis, psychologists and others. It will apparently help generic ‘religious professionals’. as well as friends and relatives, respond Biblically and pastorally to those with same-sex attraction. For more information, click HERE. Now, don’t misunderstand me: my beliefs about what constitutes Biblical sexual ethics are conservative. Nor do I have a problem with proclaiming the whole counsel of God as it relates to the public sphere. What concerns me, is that a conservative view of homosexuality is becoming a basis of unity for some Christians, rather than the baptismal unity, the unity of the Spirit – gospel unity – to which Paul calls us: ‘There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all’ (Ephesians 4.4-6). As far as I am aware, rabbis aren’t accustomed to confessing the one faith, don’t believe in the ‘one God and Father of all’, ‘one Lord’, ‘one Spirit’, i.e. the Trinity, and aren’t recipients of the one baptism. And there is surely something amiss if we think that the perspective of those who confess the Trinity is going to be the same as that of those who deny it.

Calvin on Augustine on Church Discipline

I’ve been doing a bit of reading on church discipline in preparation for a Bible study on Matthew 18.15-20 for my fellowship group, and Calvin cites Augustine against the Donatists as he explains how discipline should be moderate, and how individual Christians should not take it upon themselves to separate from the church because sin is not being disciplined by the elders as it should. It’s worth noting that Richard Sibbes also referred to Augustine against the Donatists when he dissuaded students and friends from separating from the Church of England in the seventeenth century. Nor should pastors separate, Augustine goes on to say, if they can’t reform everything that needs reforming. While not failing in their obligation to contend for the truth and preach against error in so far as they are able that the church may be pure and spotless, they must still have a high view of the unity of the Church (as enjoined on us by Scripture – Ephesians 4.3), and remain committed to it. Important words to remember here are patience and peace.

Another special requisite to moderation of discipline is, as Augustine discourses against the Donatists, that private individuals must not, when they see vices less carefully corrected by the Council of Elders, immediately separate themselves from the Church; nor must pastors themselves, when unable to reform all things which need correction to the extent which they could wish, cast up their ministry, or by unwonted severity throw the whole Church into confusion. What Augustine says is perfectly true: “Whoever corrects what he can, by rebuking it, or without violating the bond of peace, excludes what he cannot correct, or unjustly condemns while he patiently tolerates what he is unable to exclude without violating the bond of peace, is free and exempted from the curse” (August. contra Parmen. Lib. ii c. 4). He elsewhere gives the reason. “Every pious reason and mode of ecclesiastical discipline ought always to have regard to the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This the apostle commands us to keep by bearing mutually with one another. If it is not kept, the medicine of discipline begins to be not only superfluous, but even pernicious, and therefore ceases to be medicine” (Ibid. Lib. iii. c. 1). “He who diligently considers these things, neither in the preservation of unity neglects strictness of discipline, nor by intemperate correction bursts the bond of society” (Ibid. cap. 2). He confesses, indeed, that pastors ought not only to exert themselves in removing every defect from the Church, but that every individual ought to his utmost to do so; nor does he disguise the fact, that he who neglects to admonish, accuse and correct the bad, although he neither favours them, nor sins with them, is guilty before the Lord; and if he conducts himself so that though he can exclude them from the partaking of the Supper, he does it not, then the sin is no longer that of other men, but his own. Only he would have that prudence used which our Lord also requires, “lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them” (Matth. xiii. 29). Hence he infers from Cyprian, “Let a man then mercifully correct what he can; what he cannot correct, let him bear patiently, and in love bewail and lament.”

This he says on account of the moroseness of the Donatists, who, when they saw faults in the Church which the bishops indeed rebuked verbally, but did not punish with excommunication (because they did not think that anything would be gained in this way), bitterly inveighed against the bishops as traitors to discipline, and by an impious schism separated themselves from the flock of Christ. Similar, in the present day, is the conduct of the Anabaptists, who, acknowledging no assembly of Christ unless conspicuous in all respects for angelic perfection, under pretence of zeal overthrow everything which tends to edification.

- Calvin, Institutes, Book IV, Chap. XII. 11 and 12 (emphasis mine)

Douglas Wilson in England

The Federal Vision
Friday 6th February
7.00 -9.15 p.m.
St. Michael-at-the-North-Gate, Oxford

1. A Federal Vision: Conceptions and Misconceptions
2. Without Compromise: How FV Contributes to a Robust Evangelicalism

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The Future of Children and the Children of the Future
Saturday 14th February
10.30 a.m. – 17.00 p.m.
The Welsh Chapel, Freston Gardens, Cockfosters, London EN4 9LX

A conference on hope and the family: four lectures and question time
With Nancy Wilson on ‘The Christian Home’, a special session for women

For more information, as well as details of a Friday evening session on Christian higher education with Dr. Roy Atwood, President of New St. Andrew’s College, click on http://wilson2009.blogspot.com/.