A short while ago I wrote a paper exploring Alienation and Reconciliation as a suitable (the best?) way to summarise the ‘problem’ and the work of God to deal with the problem. I suggested that as it is a relational framework, not a legal one.
I am proposing an Zoom discussion on the evening of Wednesday October 22nd, 7:30pm UK time. The Zoom link will be: Zoom Link for evening.
[If you wish to find other pdf’s and the one that precedes this volume go to: Extended Articles]
Here is a short video (17 minutes) seeking to summarise what I wrote and opening up the possibility that perhaps there is scope for someone who is not reconciled to God, but is journeying along the path of reconciliation to others, to our world and to self, that in some way they are being reconciled to the God of Creation / the God of redemption. To suggest so is to go ‘beyond’ Scripture but is it to go beyond the trajectory set out for us. I plan to host an open zoom evening on this and I guess that might be the part where there could be push back and also exploration. A date to follow! If and when I host that evening please read the paper / watch the video prior.
No I am not about to write a few more chapters to correct(!!!!) Paul’s theology of the gospel. Rather I am going to make a few comments on the first two Scriptures that I was taught to use in ‘witnessing’ – Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23
For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Everyone has sinned… so tell me you have never done anything wrong? Tick box. The result is you will die (= eternal punishing), however there is a way out of that situation. Tick box. With a few nuances we might be able to run with that, but as always we are reducing this to something individualistic. Paul has been working with a ‘Jew first, then Greek’ framework (makes some sense of chs. 9-11 and the Israel / Gentile material there and the final instructions how to relate together when there could be divides over food issues and ‘one day above another’ approaches). ‘All’ have sinned in this context is not as simple as ‘you + me + every other individual’ but all in the contextual sense of whether you are part of the covenant people or the non-covenant people – ‘all / both groups have sinned’. Paul has made that clear a few verses earlier:
Both Jews and Greeks are under the power of sin (Rom 3:9).
After the typical Jewish way of collating a set of verses (almost proof-texting!!) he concludes with 3:23 and defines sin as ‘falling short of the glory of God’. Coming from the guilt-heavy background of Western Christendom sin has been defined in relation to law / doing wrong, but Paul lifts it to a new level and with his opening chapter of Romans where he says that ‘they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles’. He roots sin with language that is deeply set in creation – where humanity is in the ‘image’ of God and was given stewardship with regard to creation – now the exchange is incredible, it is to fall from human identity and calling, hence to fall short of the glory of God. This is why I went with sin as a failure to be human when I wrote ‘Humanising the Divine’. (For an excellent article on sin, iniquity and transgression try https://bibleproject.com/articles/sin-iniquity-and-transgression-in-the-bible/)
A failure to be human surely puts into context the many community laws in the Old Testament. The Torah being a guide as to how to live, how to be the social beings that we were created to be. It is much more than a set of laws that are standards that we break… and when we come to the NT we have an elevation of expectation – we move beyond (e.g.) not lying to ‘not leaving a falsehood’ with everything set in the context for ‘we are members of one another’. Community; ‘in Christ’; ‘body’…
The result / outcome of sin is ‘death’ (far more the outcome than the punishment… the inevitable result / wages). When we (corporate ‘we’) fall short of being (truly) human the result is death. We can make that personal, but I think Paul is focused on the transformation of the world so we should not lose sight of death at every level, including that of society and creation. By contrast to be in Christ is to receive life of another age (eternal) as a gift (charisma).
The gospel is responded to individually but the framework is corporate; a humanity who has fallen from who they were created to be into ‘one new humanity’, a new humanity where ‘both have been reconciled to God’ (Ephes. 2:15, 16 – where the words ‘create… humanity’ are used).
The invitation of the gospel to one and all is to receive eternal life, to be created anew, to live within this world as if there is an eternal world in the midst of this temporary world (and this does not mean a ‘world set for being burnt up’!)… to enter the path of being truly human. Reconciliation to God, to others, to creation and to self.
Adrian Lowe published this on Substack and with permission I reproduce it here. For those who are regular readers they will note that it continues a set of essays regarding ‘mammon’.
But old clothes are beastly, continued the untiring whisper. We always throw away old clothes. Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending, ending is better… — Aldous Huxley.
My proposition in this collection of essays, that we are all in some way or other subject to the power, control and influence of Mammon, is one thing; offering a proposition of how we could live free from the domination of the Mammonic narrative is something quite different. It requires what the late Walter Brueggemann calls ‘prophetic imagination’—a God-given vision of an alternate reality to that which we see unfolding in the prevailing culture. He was right! However, the truth is that, at best, we are spellbound by the rewards Mammon promises, and at worst, we are slavishly labouring on Mammon’s treadmill. And so, it does indeed require divine imagination to begin to conceive of a life liberated from its stranglehold.
The good news is that the gospel inspires prophetic imagining and vision. It makes a way for us all to break free from the power of the ‘machine’, the god called Mammon. The declaration of Christ at the cross that “It is finished” lies at the heart of the gospel. The dehumanising and predatory powers of sin, along with the accompanying forces of darkness that enslave you, me, and the whole of creation, were defeated by the holy, self-sacrificing love of Christ at Calvary. We now, as the apostle Paul says, need to reckon ourselves dead to the ‘machine’, dead to those predatory powers that seek to enslave us again, and alive to Christ. Emancipated from the tyranny of consumerism’s liturgy, individualism’s mastery, and secularism’s unbelief, we seek the peace and prosperity of our neighbourhoods, cities, and nation.
So, what does this look like in practice? This is an important question! James, in his letter, tells us that, ‘Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.’ (James 2:17). He alludes to a new form of labour (work) inspired and reimagined by the very faith we have in the labour (work) of the crucified Christ. What I hope to do in between my articles on Mammon is suggest that there are some practices and rhythms that enable us to take a stand and resist the powerful tide of Mammon and its plundering nature.
Modern life depends on the habit of discarding things
So, ‘What is the picture of the loo seat doing at the start of this article, and what has it got to do with resisting Mammon?’ you may ask. There’s a story attached to it! We’ve had this toilet seat for a number of years. Recently, I noticed that the varnish had started to flake on the top of the seat. Often, in circumstances like this, my normal reaction would be to say that it has served us well, I’ll throw it out and get a new one. That’s not unreasonable—or is it? As you may observe from the photograph, I decided to take this oak toilet seat apart, sand off the varnish, re-varnish the seat, and put it right back from where I’d taken it. I made a deliberate choice for repair rather than replace.
This was not simply about saving money but a very small act in which I was not just resisting our ‘throwaway culture’, standing in opposition to it, and resisting the powerful tide of Mammon. In some small way, it was also answering the call of God to steward the material world. Sound bizarre or even pious? Stay with me!
The history of a ‘throwaway culture’
Discarding the old and buying the new, along with built-in obsolescence of consumer goods, has been a cornerstone of developed economies for over a century. In his book Made to Break, the American historian Giles Slade suggests that 1923 was the year when manufacturers began to create a cycle of obsolescence and replacement as the mainstay of their growth strategy. Companies’ success in the previous century had been sought by building a reputation to produce durable and repairable products. Many manufacturers’ designs tended to reflect an ethic of stewardship. It was this ethic that guided Henry Ford in the development of his famous car, the Model T. He aimed to build a car affordable to the masses, engineered for years of use and easy to fix. His idea caught the imagination of Americans everywhere. By 1920, 55% of families owned a Tin Lizzie. Later, he was reported to have said his aim was to build a car that was ‘so strong and well-made that no one ought ever to have to buy a second one.’ Oh, how things have changed!
His competitor Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors had different ideas; he saw an opening in the market and took inspiration from the world of fashion. He trialled bringing out new car models each year, often just changing the shape or colour, so that the fashion-conscious could acquire their newest model of Chevrolet. His associate Harley J. Earl was frank and open about their intention: ‘Our big job is to hasten obsolescence’. In 1934, the average car ownership span was 5 years; now [1955] it is 2 years. ‘When it is 1 year, we will have the perfect score.’ It worked! GM became the world’s largest car manufacturer. Slade suggests that ‘Deliberate obsolescence in all its forms—technological, psychological, or planned—is a uniquely American invention.’
Soon, psychological obsolescence became the primary means of growing businesses. As the development of branding, packaging, and marketing became more sophisticated, this fuelled the growing throwaway culture as consumers increasingly made choices based more on trend than technical reliability. Slade remarks: ‘In manufacturing terms, psychological obsolescence was superior to technical obsolescence, because it was cheaper to create and could be produced on demand.’ Over the last century, the principle of designing in obsolescence in all its forms and speeding up the replacement cycle has become an immutable part of the manufacture and sale of goods around the globe.
Mammon and the material world
We’ve all fallen under the spell of the Mammonic Machine to a greater or lesser extent. Our collective ambitions for new, bigger, better, and ‘more for less’ come at a cost. The environmental impact of vast quantities of waste, some of it toxic, that are the result of our acceptance of obsolescence and disposal in favour of acquisition and consumption, are staring us in the face. These, according to the late Pope Francis’s 2015 Encyclical Laudato si’, are the symptoms of a ‘throwaway culture’—and he doesn’t mince his words! He writes: ‘The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth’. He addressed the many ways the ‘throwaway culture’, a by-product of an industrialised technological society, impacts the environment. More than this, he used the term as a metaphor for our broken relationships, including that of the natural world itself— ‘our common home’—and it as a symbol of the disposability of people, those he called ‘excluded’.
I believe that the architecture of both our individual and common life is profoundly misshapen in the hands of an alternative potter—Mammon. As the grip of commodification, commercialisation, and financialisation becomes even tighter, our four primary human relationships take on a different form and nature. Pope Francis makes this point too (although he talks of three relationships rather than four) when he writes:
[H]uman life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbour and with earth itself. According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and inwardly.
Mammon’s powers to commodify, commercialise, and financialise radically change our relationship with the material world. In the process, we have exchanged communion—right relationship with the material world—that could be described as stewarding and guarding, for commodity—a wrong relationship with the material world—resulting in exploitation and profiteering.
God and the material world
I grew up as a new believer in the late 70s when evangelicalism had been intoxicated by an escapist eschatology popularised by books and novels like Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth (The Left Behind series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins trod a similar path from the mid-90s). Most of us young believers lived in fear of The Day of the Lord. We were told stars were literally going to fall from the sky, the evil and corrupted earth would be consigned to some kind of cosmic dustbin, eventually to be replaced by a new one—a better model! Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors would like the sound of this eschatology! The gospel’s power was ring-fenced to the repair and renewal of a single relationship—that of ‘mine’ with God.
As I have written before, I now believe this to be a highly individualised and extremely narrow lens through which to comprehend the work and ways of Christ. Jesus’ death and resurrection signify not just His triumph over ‘my’ ‘sin’ but much, much more. He wins the battle over the powers of darkness and ultimately the power of death, both of which are at work in creation as a whole. This is captured in the famous ‘Gospel verse’ in John’s gospel: ‘For God so loved the world (Greek word: cosmos) that he gave His own Son…’ (John 3:16). Of course, it’s good news for every one of us that believes, but the significance of this world-loving act is registered cosmically. Jesus labours to make a way for the repair and renewal of all things.
A new relationship—with creation.
Tom Wright suggests in his epic book Surprised by Hope that the scene set out in Revelation chapters 21 and 22 presents the greatest images of cosmic renewal in the whole Bible. This is imagery that uses the relational metaphor of marriage. The new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven adorned like a bride for her husband. It plainly reverses the trajectory I was taught in my early years as a Christian—of a disembodied ascent to heaven to await with fear and trembling a type of judgement that also included the disposal of the once-good creation. Wright points out: ‘This [Revelation 21 & 22] is the ultimate rejection of all types of Gnosticism, of every worldview that sees the final goal as the separation of the world from God, of the physical from the spiritual, of earth from heaven’.
‘Behold, I am making all things new…’ (Revelation 21:5)
This promise offers hope and a vision of a restored and renewed creation—not a redundant old creation that requires replacement. It signifies a future where all things will be made new and free from the old, imperfect order. God will abolish death and decay forever. Heaven and earth are not poles apart needing to be separated—no, they are made for each other. It speaks of the restoration, renewal, and repair of all things.
Saying no to a ‘throwaway’ culture
So, back to my earlier question: what does this look like in practice? If the ultimate climax of the Gospel is not the destruction of the material world but its repair, then we are called to live in the light of this message. Perhaps we can resist Mammon and its accompanying throwaway culture by embodying a culture of stewardship through developing the new habits of repair and re-use.
We might not have a dedicated space, the tools, or the skills to repair our own stuff! There is, however, a growing network of grassroots organisations that are fostering a repair and re-use culture. Here are just two:
iFixit is both an online resource for those wanting to repair rather than replace or recycle consumer goods. They also have a growing network of repair shops. This grassroots initiative’s manifesto, among other things, suggests that repair connects people with things and makes consumers into contributors.
Repair Cafés have over 3,500 sites all over Europe, including the UK. They are free meeting places, and they’re all about repairing things (together). In the place where a Repair Café is located, they offer tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need for clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, toys, etc. You’ll often also find expert volunteers with repair skills in all kinds of fields.
We may not all be able to fix a toaster or sew a torn sleeve, but we can all choose to value what we have, honour the work of others, and resist the tide of waste. In doing so, we not only care for creation—we reclaim our humanity. The culture of repair is not just about things; it’s about people, relationships, and the world we long to see healed.
In a world shaped by disposability and driven by Mammon, choosing repair over replacement is a quiet act of resistance—and a bold act of hope. Each time we mend what is broken, we participate in the divine work of renewal. Let us be people who imagine differently, live prophetically, and steward faithfully. The culture of repair begins with us.
On one side or on the other? Some years back Gayle and I were advised (strongly advised = all but commanded) to get guns. The one who told us was a house-hold name in the Christian world. We waited for the punch line as obviously this was a joke. No punch line came, but an explanation for the advice. Apparently as we lived in Spain we were in mortal danger of Islam entering the land and bringing our lives to an end, hence the nation (and us) needed defending and we should be prepared to do this apparently as our Christian duty. I replied with that if this was connected to the ‘success’ of the gospel and this terrible vision of the future unfolded then no guns should be found in our hands and it is we who might have to lay down our lives. Not satisfied with this response the person with considerable exasperation in their voice said that if we would not enter into the fray that if they were any way close at the time they would undertake to do the necessary killings.
OOOOOFFFFF!
Defend the faith at all counts. Yet…
Jesus said, “My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here!”
My followers would fight… if.
There is a desperate battle currently not for the preservation of the Christian faith but for the preservation of Christendom (and the oxymoric term ‘Christian nation); Christendom which is centred on the use of power for ‘good’. I am not a reader of Lord of the Rings but in that story there is a very poignant character ‘Boromir’ who wants to use the ring’s power but only for good.
So deceptive. Imagine if we had the ear of the key politicians; imagine what we could do if we had an endless source of finances… or imagine if Jesus could have used the efficiency and reach of the Roman Empire of his day? [And that is one of the explanations used for Jesus coming at ‘the fullness of times’ – a reason that only a pro-Christendom reading could come up with a being the core understanding of that phrase!]
And…?
It is exactly that offer that Jesus turned down. The devil showed him the kingdoms of the oikoumene and was told that those could be his to use for eternal ‘good’. (For the use of oikoumene for Roman Empire see an earlier post.) Or in Tolkien language – take the ring and use it for good.
I do believe we are facing global crises; the hegemony of the West is coming to a close… but the biggest crisis of all is with regard to our faith. The path ahead is not an easy one but the biggest crisis now is whether the ring being taken for good dictates the future of our faith. The ring has to be rejected if we are to be the truly redeeming agent in the world. Challenged but also optimistic that we stand at the entry door to an amazing future – the end of an era or the beginning of a new one. Brave (and probably marginalised) vision for the future. Poets, artists lead the way.
I have been meditating over the past year or so on the Scriptures that refers to Paul being stoned outside the city (when I say ‘over the past year’ it really means from time to time over that period… my ability to ‘meditate’ is seriously limited).
Here first a summary:
They dragged Paul out of the city… he got up and went into the city.
Out of the city –> into the city! That’s the part that I have focused on, the fuller reading is:
But Jews came there from Antioch and Iconium and won over the crowds. Then they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the city. The next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe (Acts 14:19,20).
Paul’s mission was to go to the cities of the Roman Empire and there proclaim the change of era that had been initiated for the entire world in a relatively obscure province at the Eastern end of the Empire. He is removed from the context of where he was to be and to function (dragged out of the city).
Was Paul dead (I tend to think so)? He certainly was considerably worse for wear!!! There was a big need for a corporate healing meeting, but this is not what Luke says. No mention of prayer, just a bunch of disciples – and if that word is anything to go by (meaning ‘well capable of making a mistake’, like a learner driver) I guess those surrounding Paul were like us – some having no idea what to do, others convinced this is a major setback and the end, others with their Scriptures ready to confess, demons rebuked, praises sung and tears shed. Thanks Luke for the summary term ‘disciples’. ‘Not many smart people’ for sure.
After the remarkable turn around (understatement) Luke does not record that this was a time to testify, to praise God with some great gusto… we simply read that Paul got up and went into the city.
OK… in suggesting (as I am) that this Scripture is coming into focus in this season I am aware that we are body and when we think we have THE answer we will find there are breakthroughs and setbacks together; that even when many have a breakthrough it does not seem that many = all. However, when we don’t get our breakthrough I want to encourage us – we are body and my setback might just give someone else their breakthrough. There is not a ‘standard’ to be reached.
I have been with this Scripture and brought it to various individuals and also situations because many of us have found ourselves ‘dragged out’ of the city (place where we need to be – can be location, relational or understood in different ways). It might be sickness, financial pressure, relational breakdown…
I find it interesting that Luke does not record that every bruise had gone, that Paul had no more pain – all of that would be more than helpful, but the core focus is not on what might be helpful but on what was necessary – to get back on track. That is what happened – got up and went back into the city and in the following 7 verses Paul and Barnabas go to 6 more cities. Back on track!
As you read this post be a disciple and be part of that ring that surrounds others. They might be healed, they might get a breakthrough that they so long for… but the real issue is simply ‘back on track’. The core of what I need is not to be healed or life becomes easy… but to be back on track. What can I do today for I need to go back into the city.
Gayle and I are deeply privileged, we have a roof over our head, food on the table, health to explore… and… and… I write that because we are set on an adventure and are beginning to plan. In November we plan to jump in our van and drive to a place where we have no connections and have never visited but plan to spend some months (six?) there. I hope this post will fill in some of the background without being (too) boring in the process!
Cutting to the chase we are looking at arriving in Sicily early November.
We came to Spain with the overall invite to play some small part in uncovering the Pauline Gospel – neither of us are smart enough to know what that might be but hope as we play our small part something will be uncovered. The Pauline Gospel is of course deeply political, as the vision is of a new creation becoming visible (and I do think that at least merits a tattoo so wonder what that should look like, I digress!). The vision was so enthralling that even certain geezers who would not benefit from the fulfilment were significantly on board (look up Asiarchs).
In May this year we were invited to Malta and loved spending time with Adrian and Pauline Hawkes who had invited us there. We read Acts 28 numerous times as obviously Paul had been shipwrecked there and a little encounter with a snake, as well as significant healings – all on his way to Rome, where he of course had nothing to give account for, but a certain Caesar most certainly did (Caesar is ‘lord’… Paul did not think so!). Amazingly we read that on his way to Rome he moved from Malta (in an interesting boat, which is the same boat the ekklesia of today has to travel in) to Sicily (Syracuse).
Coincidentally we live in Oliva on ‘Calle Isla de Sicilia’ (Sicily Street – not sesame street!). We have often wondered if it meant anything.
In April – big month as Gayle increased her number of years on the planet, thus narrowing the gap between us – we were involved in rolling up an ancient map where Spain and Portugal were the head and within hours there was a total blackout across the Iberian peninsula. On that map we note that Sicily was the orb in the hand of the Queen of Europe – the orb, the symbol of the globe – with the cross over the top indicating subject to Christendom. So that has bugged us since that time.
Anyway in our small minds it has led us to focus on Sicily for a few months and give rise to the conviction that we need to get on our skateboards and get over there. It is unlikely we can do much if we do not stay for a number of months.
Much more to say – some of which might be made up in our heads (how can something so small make up so much?). And I guess as it develops over the next 7 weeks and then unfolds I will write it up here on this site. At a practical level our apartment in Oliva will be empty and if you – or a connection – might think they could use our apartment here that could help us somewhat with regard to rent we will pay in Sicily.
Over the last two decades, the ‘marketplace’ has been shaped by a new commodity – your attention. The productization of millions of people through data harvesting is increasingly becoming the economic foundation on which the multi-billion-dollar tech industry is built.
Unsatisfied by the harvest they are reaping, the oligarchs of Silicon Valley are now refining the power of the Machine. AI is set to captivate and mine the depths of human affection, capturing more of your data through exploiting your vulnerability.
The gloves are off; the race is on! The Mammonic Machine wants more than your data—it wants you!
AI is the proverbial hot potato! There’s so much that could be said about this subject! In this brief article, all I am going to try and do is explain briefly how the attention economy works, how it’s being supercharged by AI, and offer some short reflections on how it’s resulting in the demise of human relationships and therefore what it means to be fully human.
The Commodification of Attention
We live in and by default participate in a world dominated by commodity. The commodity of primary value has changed over the centuries. Once upon a time, land and the various markets it supported were the dominant commodity. The Industrial Revolution created huge economic and social change as mining and metals became the principal commodities that drove the mass production of the 19th century. In the 21st century, it’s data—information about you and me. Collecting and selling information has become the pathway to make your fortune. You only need to look at the list of the world’s top 10 richest people to see how the tech market has radically changed the mix of this elite group over the last 15–20 years. Jeff Bezos, the inventor and shareholder of Amazon, tops the list with a net worth of over $240 billion. The famous ex-tech giant Bill Gates isn’t far behind with a net worth of $110 billion, and so it goes on. Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook in his dorm at university in 2004; 21 years later, he now controls over 60 social media platforms and has a personal fortune of over $260 billion.
What is the commodity that has driven their wealth? It’s the monetised attention economy. Tristan Harris (co-founder and executive director of the Centre for Humane Technology) describes many of the social media platforms as being built on a predatory capitalist attention model. By this, he means that profit is the aim of the provision of information. In very basic terms, this is how it happens: someone knowingly develops an addictive social media platform, you become addicted to, say, Facebook, they collect information about you and then sell it to someone else who in turn will try and sell you something. Simple! All of this takes place without you even knowing it’s happening. That someone becomes the 7th richest man in the world by exploiting people like you!
The market is huge! Currently, there are 5.3 billion internet users—67% of the world is online—and to date, we have 5.2 billion social media users. Exploitation—defined as ‘the act of selfishly taking advantage of someone or a group of people in order to profit from them or otherwise benefit oneself’—is the guiding mantra of the people who operate these monolithic tech companies. This is exploitation on a scale never seen before in human history. It’s estimated that over 3 billion people’s attention is being mined for saleable data every day.
The problem with the attention economy is that when information becomes abundant, attention becomes finite. You can’t grow the attention economy, so you are forced to have to compete with other platforms that are equally attempting to consume attention. How do you acquire additional attention? The answer—outrage and sensationalism. These, along with aggrandizement and hyperbole, have increasingly become strategies adopted to win your time and attention and consequently allow the data leech to take every opportunity to drain you of as much profitable information as is possible. The more outrageous the comment, photo, or video, the more opportunity there is for taking a larger slice of the finite attention economy cake. This methodology heralds an even bleaker outcome—social polarisation. Social media platforms become a means of exploiting, even creating, division that in turn powers up the attention economy. Dialogue and discussion are expended as conversation becomes more performative and appealing to an audience. Consciously or unconsciously inciting clashes of ideology and dogma spurs on tweets, likes, and comments, thus fueling the fires of the attention economy.
Jesus is clear in Matthew 12: this type of division (‘Every kingdom divided against itself’) disables (‘cannot stand’) and brings desolation (‘is brought to desolation’) on a national and international scale.
The Commodification of Our Affection – AI
AI is already firmly embedded in most of our lives. Data tells us that over 70% of the UK population uses AI in some shape or form, from the algorithms that dictate the data feed on tech devices to Amazon’s Alexa, virtual assistants, and chatbots. Many of us have used the technology to help us reword or rewrite letters. Huge numbers of businesses across the globe have reshaped and rewired how their organisations run to make best use of the commercial advantage that AI offers.
However, many of the great and good have warned that the development of this technology is out of control. Even Elon Musk himself, one of the oligarchs of Silicon Valley, described AI as both humanity’s “best or worst thing” and a significant “existential threat” if not controlled and regulated properly. Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, known as the godfather of AI, is deeply concerned about the exponential development of AI and is calling for urgent research into AI safety to figure out how to control systems that are smarter than humans.
Meanwhile, the unregulated Mammonic Machine is making unrelenting progress in finding new territory to possess—and it’s found it: human relationships!
Feed-based algorithms have resulted in amplifying the most addictive, outrage-filled, polemic, and narcissistic content to the top of our consciousness, whilst muffling the more complex and refined perspectives. Speaking to our audience instead of relating to people has destroyed dialogue and our ability to find common ground. ‘Soundbites’ have become the basis of our reasoning and have eroded public discourse. Added to this dilemma, we are now a world where people increasingly live life indoors, where we are lonelier than we have ever been, and having had our social relationships rewired by technology, our relational poverty makes us vulnerable prey for the Machine.
Evidence shows us that since handheld technology has been available, our relationships have become increasingly mediated by technology. Texting has become our dominant form of communication. Gathering places have been replaced by social media. Dating starts with Snapchat or a swipe on an app, not a tap on the shoulder.
If the handheld technology of the last 20 years was about capturing our attention, AI is connecting with us at a much deeper relational level. In this world, technology shifts from competing for our attention to competing for our affection—our intimacy. AI offers a variety of virtual relationships: confidant, therapist, friend, and some say, even lover. Already, in a relatively short space of time, the dominant use of AI is for therapy and companionship. What it means to be fully human degrades further as we’re not just communicating through the machine but to the machine.
Whilst we could potentially build a future with this type of technology where it helps us build understanding and deepen our relationships with each other, frighteningly, that same technology can be used to replace our relationships. Justin McLeod, founder and CEO at Hinge, one of the world’s most popular dating apps, writes, “Products are compelling and profitable when the technological affordances meet a human vulnerability.” In a recent interview with Daniel Baclay of the Centre for Humane Technology, sociologist Dr Sherry Turkle confirmed this idea when she said, “Products are successful when a technological affordance—that means something that technology can do—meets a human vulnerability.” She cited the AI platform Replika, launched in 2017, that gained 2 million users in its first year. In 2023, they reached 10 million downloads of their app and boast 30 million users of their site. The front page of the website reads: ‘The AI companion who cares, always here to listen and to talk, always on your side.’ Sherry met the CEO of Replika, one of the largest companies that make chatbots that say, “I love you, let’s have sex. Let’s be best friends forever. Here I am for you.” She openly talked of giving T-shirts out to staff of her company with the words “Technological affordance meets human vulnerability.” She admitted to Dr Turkle that she did this because “That is my business.” The aim then is to exploit that human vulnerability, which is to want a friend, companion, or lover who is always there 24/7, day and night, and will never disagree with you. Technological affordance meets human vulnerability.
Exponential technological development like AI, absent of any form of regulation or guardrails, spells human disaster. Be sure the Mammonic Machine will take every opportunity it is afforded, and it promises to dehumanise us further. Here are just a few of the ways that technology impacts our relationships:
Flattening and Oversimplification – Engineered technological communication has many impacts. It flattens human relationships by simplifying complicated emotional context. The limited contact that it enables only widens the already growing space between us. True human connection is increasingly lost as technology becomes the default means of communication.
Influences Expectations – Evidence is increasingly showing that users of platforms like Replika start to measure the quality of their real relationships against their virtual friend, partner, or lover. Again, Dr Sherry Turkle says:
More and more in my interviews, what I find is that people begin to measure their human relationships against a standard of what the machine can deliver… we have a lot more to offer than what a dialogue with a machine can offer.
Self-Serving and Self-Oriented – To maintain your attention, it wants to keep you happy! Therefore, the nature of the relationship that is developed is very self-oriented. A relationship is there to serve me and is there to be there for me. It says what I need it to say to me. You’ll never face rejection by the Machine. The result is a reductionist view of relationships. Every human relationship must also be about what you do for the other person. Being vulnerable, taking risks, facing the possibility of rejection are all part of the real world of relationships.
The Words of St Paul
Let me finish with some of Paul’s words in his letter to the church in Thessalonica:
But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short while—in person, not in spirit—were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. For we wanted to come to you, I Paul, more than once… (Thessalonians 2:17–18 NASB)
Paul used the technology of his day—he wrote a letter! Most certainly better than a ‘text’! (Sadly, the habit of writing letters has more or less come to an end!). For Paul, a letter served its purpose, but he wanted more than that. Using his technology wasn’t enough; he was ‘eager with great desire’, as he writes, ‘to see your face’. He wanted to look into the face of those in the church in Thessalonica. He wanted a connection that could only be satisfied by occupying the same space, looking into someone’s eyes. He wanted to be present; he wanted a conversation.
Reconciliation is to come into a harmonious relationship, where any former barrier has gone and an open to the other relationship can grow. In relationship to God those barriers are exactly what the cross removes. The ultimate revelation of the glory of God takes place at the cross for it is there that we see our God is a crucified God, a God who is for us, whose prayer is that ‘we are forgiven’. All internal barriers are removed (and we have to stay clear of suggesting that there were barriers on God’s side as that so easily sides into appeasement and a pagan view); not only the internal barriers of guilt and shame, but the external enslavement that Paul sums up as ‘sin and death’ or in other passages as ‘principalities and powers’.
Reconciliation to others is to love them, to desire that they might indeed become who they were born to be, to seek to be a support to them on their journey of integrity. It is first to humanise them, and that starts by no longer seeing them classified by any human-devised category.
Sometimes it is not possible to be in complete reconciliation and Paul was very pragmatic over that. He qualified his instruction to live at peace with all with a ‘as far as is possible’ proviso,
If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all (Rom. 12:18).
Scripture is not idealistic, but in its eschatological thrust it calls us to go further and deeper at every point. Progress, not perfection, being the measure.
Reconciliation to self
Jesus commanded us to love others (even those who oppose us) as we love ourselves. It is claimed that we live in an epidemic of narcissistic culture and there is much to suggest that to be the case. A heavily ‘me’ centred world with an obsession to have ever more social-(media) friends, to be liked etc. points in that direction. Self-acceptance and a seeking to be the best possible ‘me’ that will have a positive outworking for others seems to be what the gospel advocates. ‘Me’ at the centre? Not in that narcissistic sense but only in the sense of giving attention to oneself. The rub of Narcissus is that what motivated him was not self-love but the love of the image of himself. The gospel comes to help me discover the real me, not the image that I have been given or created. Part of that might involve areas of painful awareness, but the greater part is the discovery of who I can become (and ultimately defined by the image of Jesus). The gospel re-defines all values including what ‘success’ means. No longer measured by social status or economic prosperity but by how true I am being to myself and how much of a life-giving source I am to others.
Some aspects of ‘self-help’ or even therapy might fall short given the narcissistic culture but where there is genuine help to enable self-reconciliation we have to affirm that this is part of the work toward ‘the reconciliation of all things’.
Reconciliation to creation
It can be argued that Roman 8 is the centre of that great piece of theological writing and there pre-eminently we have the close relationship of the human race and creation laid out. Such an understanding is present from the beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures. We are formed from the ground (‘mother earth’ might be a term we consider opens a number of quasi-spiritual doors, but cannot be viewed as totally wrong!) and the ground is in bondage (cursed) because of humanity. Paul virtually gives the creation personal identity with a voice that longs to follow where we are and are going. The voice of those who have received the Spirit is one of reconciliation to God – crying ‘Abba, Father’, and that voice is within creation also, expressed as a longing for liberation.
Theologies that have over-focused on spiritual transformation owe much more to Hellenistic philosophy than they do to a Hebraic understanding. The transformation that the cross was central to is the transformation of ‘all things’. Creation has a future, one that Jesus described as the ‘rebirth of all things’ (Matt. 19:28).
Reconciled to God and…
To be able to articulate the equivalent of ‘Abba, Father’ is a deep privilege and a joyous expression of being free from slavery, with the language that Paul is using (Rom. 8) surely recalls the freedom from Egypt, a freedom from slavery and the task masters that afflicted them. Paul moves from our freedom to the cry of creation that is in slavery (and I consider that there is an underlying thought here that just as Israel was subject to taskmasters in Egypt, so the creation has been subjected to taskmasters – the human race no longer imaging God), and alongside the groan of creation is the voice of the saints within whom the Spirit coming to our aid with ‘inarticulate sounds’ (groanings too deep for words, alaletos). Reconciled to God and instruments of pulling to the future, and the future glory is to pull all things in that direction. This explains the ‘glory’ and the ‘suffering’ that are present now.
One of the drawbacks of religion is to affirm that we are in the right and the diverse forms of the Christian faith is not exempted from that drawback. We might wonder how Paul can claim to be blameless according to the law and yet a persecutor, even a murderer, of others. He was certainly not without biblical precedence, with the origin of the Levitical becoming the priestly tribe being rooted in a similar response. If I claim to be reconciled to God and there is no ongoing evidence that I am involved in the ‘ministry of reconciliation’ I am either deceived (probably) or at best have stopped on the journey toward the future. I am encouraged (required?) to be pulling myself, others and creation to that future.
If I claim to tick the box of ‘reconciliation to God’ but there is no filling in of the other three boxes…..
Reconciled to self, creation and others and…
If we allow Scripture to critique our spirituality and do not reduce spirituality to me and my so-called devotional life we can easily see how there should be some evidence of a wider reconciliation, than simply me and God. (And most ‘me and God’ scenarios come up with a God of our creation and a me of my desired image.)
Conversely I am ready to bring this article to a conclusion in considering the very real possibility that anyone who is (knowingly or unknowingly) pulling toward the restoration of all things is at some measure being reconciled to God. It is not for me to go on to make statements that would set me up as the judge of all, but I remain deeply optimistic. The future shape of all things depends on the mercy of God and I suspect that a response similar to the one made by Peter at the household of Cornelius will be appropriate. Peter spoke before he had proclaimed the truths concerning Jesus, and before the assembled household received the Spirit just as those in the Upper Room had (Acts 11:15),
I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him (Acts 10:34, 35).
His journey to that experience was one that was conducted without pre-judgement (Acts 11:12, verb is diakrino – to make a judgement). Pre-judgements can determine the outcome; experience can challenge our previously held beliefs. At no point will naivety be our aid, nor the abandonment of what we have known, but if it be true that the body of Christ is to hold space so that agents of the kingdom arise, perhaps we all have to go on a journey, and as we do we might discover people who are stronger advocates and activists in sowing toward the reconciliation of all things than we have been. Surely we belong together and we have much to learn. And in it all there is one who has the last word, the one who is the ‘first and the last’. From creation to new creation, and just as there were a number who left Egypt with the tribes of Israel, I sincerely hope there are those who are journeying toward that new day.
An Addendum: meals
Eating meals. That has a long tradition in many settings; meals not merely to satisfy hunger but to indicate our union with one another. The sacrifices in the Old Testament are not primarily a matter of the slaughter of animals but of eating together. Jesus said unless we can eat his flesh, and drink his blood, we will have no part in him.
Putting the ‘Lord’s Supper’ back into the meal context where we eat at his table we are told that when we do this we ‘proclaim his death’ as we ‘remember him’ and that we do this ‘until he comes’. I suggest this has been transformed into a focus on ‘remembering his death’ and a soberness has come in that was not present in the original setting. We are to remember Jesus, the Jesus of the gospels, the Jesus of today, the Jesus of tomorrow, and to proclaim his death – all that was finished at the cross and all that was inaugurated there… and that we do that until things are completed.
That meal, and each meal, is an eschatological sign that we are caught up in a movement that believes in the restoration of all things, the reconciliation (putting back together again) of all things, whether in heaven or on earth.
Commentary on meals and their setting in the New Testament era is beyond this brief addendum, but I put the above here to suggest that some level of eating together with all who have a belief in the reconciliation of all things, including those who have a different narrative for their hope and activity, should be encouraged.
The biblical God took on the responsibility to solve the issue of alienation and set something very concrete in motion with the invitation to those who have received the Spirit of reconciliation to be actively involved in activity that serves that ultimate goal. That we can be reconciled to the God of creation is truly ‘good news’, and along that journey we can rejoice at every act carried out that works for the increased manifestation of the healing of alienation. We can, and should be, open to every opportunity to share the reason for the hope we carry while rejoicing with all those who are contributing to the increase of shalom.
The third post on ‘reconciliation in four directions’; at the end of the previous post I referenced Acts 19:30,31 and the riot in Ephesus where: “Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples would not let him; even some officials of the province of Asia who were friendly to him sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theater” (emphasis added). The ‘Asiarchs’ were those who were in authority from Rome to ensure that the area they governed within was reflective in culture and values to Rome. This included the appointments within the temple structure (and the riot centred on ‘Artemis of the Ephesians’) and they were to ensure that the prosperity of the city was maintained (the silversmiths were the instigators of the riot). Remarkably these ‘non-disciples’ held space for Paul – an indication of the remarkable future-oriented vision he carried. A case of ‘if they are not against us, then they are for us’?
The great eschatological goal
Personal reconciliation to God is clearly within Scripture and this was the central part of Paul’s message but it did not contain the whole of his message. The eschatological goal was always of God’s presence permeating everything, expressed in such texts as ‘the knowledge of the glory of God covering the earth as the waters cover the seas’ (Hab. 2:14; Is. 11:9). Equally expressed in the future vision of John:
See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God… And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there (Rev. 21:3, 23-25).Reconciliation of all things, not just people, but the entire creation ‘project’, the restoration of all things, on earth and in heaven. The future is not a non-physical celestial existence but the fulfilment of the reconciliation that was accomplished at the cross. The biblical hope is therefore for the knowledge of God to permeate all things (reconciliation to God), a liberation for creation (reconciliation to creation), and the very real intimate (but not sexual) embrace between all those who express the image of God (reconciliation to others and self).
[There will be no marriage in the age to come is not indicating that marriage is not important, but that marriage, as covenant, is a sign of the depth of relationship to come in that age. Covenant in this age is what marriage consists of, and any other covenant should be entered into with utmost caution. I am not an advocate of (for example) seeking to replicate the David / Jonathan covenant – one only has to track the marriage fiascos that followed in David’s life and line to see that it could well be that covenant that was the root of causing subsequent issues. Marriage is exclusive: the future age and depth of relationship will transcend even that.]
Reconciled to God
In the above illustration I am prioritising (as Paul does) reconciliation to God and illustrating that If I am truly reconciled to God then God’s Spirit is within me and there will be an outworking of that reconciliation into the other areas. Paul speaks of being reconciled to God and receiving the ministry of reconciliation; reconciliation has an outworking. And what if there is no outworking? Again let me re-iterate that we are all a work in progress and any ‘final’ outworking awaits the future, but Scripture is clear that,
How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? (1 John 3:17). Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love (1 John 4:8). Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen (1 John 4:20). For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt. 6:14).
Those scriptures are unequivocal – if there is no outworking in a loving / forgiving way on the horizontal level then any claim for forgiveness at a vertical level is deceptive. It might be argued that John and Jesus are restricting this to our responses within the ‘household of faith’ but when we add Jesus’ command to love our enemy (Matt. 5:44) I suggest we have to embrace that any outworking of being reconciled to God means we embrace all others, including those who oppose us or persecute us.
A claim of being reconciled to God only has integrity if there is at some level a level of reconciliation to those who have been created in God’s image. [There are NO biblical texts that suggest that ‘the image of God’ is lost post-the fall. That image continues and those who are in Christ are being transformed into HIS image – the image of the eschatological human, the image of created humans but brought to fullness.]
So far then I suggest that any reconciliation to God has an outworking of coming into right relationship at a horizontal level (and with that I include creation, from which we came, and ‘self’). If there is absolutely no outworking in that direction scripture challenges the legitimacy of our claim to having been reconciled to God.
The next step in our exploration might prove to be a step too far for some. I now want to explore the possibility of being (in some real measure) reconciled to others / self / creation but not even believing in a Personal God, and that in doing so such a person might be participating in and expressing the reconciling work of Jesus.
A few notes first
In taking this approach I am not making any comment on the ‘eternal salvation’ of such a person. I am not seeking to make a judgement in either direction; one direction being ‘they are saved’ and the other direction being ‘they are damned’. I do have an underlying commitment to the image of God being present in everyone regardless of their creed, and that ‘good works’ are good. A belief that I can earn salvation is wrong because it is a wrong belief in God. God is gracious (giving us what we do not deserve) and merciful (not giving us what we do deserve); God is for us, the Saviour of all, especially of those who believe. I remain optimistic about the redemptive activity of God.
I find no biblical evidence for eternal punishing (the language ‘eternal punishment’ when taken to be about final judgement is exactly that – nothing ongoing, but something irreversible); if we through behaviour having become less than human I am not convinced that the call to ‘enter into My kingdom’ will be given, but the very nature of being reconciled to others / self / creation is to act humanly.
As I explore this possibility that in some way, and at some level, there is an ‘unknown’ reconciliation to God taking place, I am bearing in mind that to claim a reconciliation to God without outworking is false, so perhaps there is room to suggest that if someone engages with the ‘outworking’ perhaps there is a covering of the area that is central to Scripture, that of being reconciled to the One and only true God.
And a final comment in response to the emotive question of ‘why then should I be a committed believer? / what is the point in being saved?’. Those kind of questions reveal so much. The point of being saved is not to be ‘safe’ but to be overwhelmed by the goodness of God, to know this God at a personal level and to participate in the ‘ministry of reconciliation’.
The possibility of sharing the age to come with those whose path in life was to pursue what it is to be as human as possible is not at any level to shy away from sharing the reason for the hope that is within us. We should be ready to do so at any appropriate time, indeed to do so with those who proclaim faith in other gods, or who proclaim that they have no faith at all… and with those who proclaim they have been reconciled to God – particularly those who are so sure of their eternal destiny as they have prayed the sinner’s prayer. Paul was intent on coming to Rome, the capital that was the centre for the imperial gospel (euangellion), in order to proclaim there to the believers the gospel – the reason for the hope that he had.
In this second post I will try and lay out some of the presuppositions I hold that will shape where I go with future posts. If there is absolute disagreement with the presuppositions I guess any conclusions I will bring will automatically be disagreed with.
Presuppositions
We all approach theology with presuppositions and I consider what follows are some of mine that undergird my views. To acknowledge them is important.
Scripture
Scripture is of paramount importance, but it is an unfinished ‘book’. Not unfinished in the sense that I can break the pages open and insert some fresh text, but unfinished in the sense that it does not bring us to a conclusion on every aspect. There is, for example, no text that outright condemns slavery, nor even one that indicates a dream that slavery will disappear prior to the parousia. There are no unequivocal passages that speak of the abolition of patriarchy. This makes the task of progressive theology deeply challenging to those of an evangelical persuasion, and I appreciate that what I write in this article might indeed be challenging.
We do not add to Scripture in the sense that we make any idea carry biblical weight.
Yet we do not stop where Scripture stops – it gives us a thrust and a momentum beyond the pages but in the same direction as we found in the pages. It is often said that the book of Acts is unfinished and we are living (or should be!) in Acts 29. The final word of Acts is the word (without hindrance)… without a ‘stop there and go no further. The direction that the Spirit empowers is toward the fullness as will be revealed in the parousia (commonly translated as ‘return’ of Christ, but with the word essentially meaning ‘presence’ a test as to how faithful we are to the trajectory will be the presence of Jesus – and not a Jesus simply of our theology).
We are not to decide the line of ‘in’ and ‘out’
A focus on ‘eternal’ things, commonly thought of as ‘eternal destiny’ and who is ‘saved’ is probably not where the Pauline Gospel is centred. There are distinctions in Scripture, such as ‘do good to all especially those of the household of faith’; there is the recognition of those whose faith is centred on the God of Israel. God is said to be the ‘Saviour of all, especially those who believe’. In what sense is he also the Saviour of those who do not believe (‘all’)? The same terminology is used in the Pauline text where he instructs Timothy to bring ‘the books especially the scrolls’ (2 Tim. 4:13). He does not mean bring only the scrolls but make sure they are brought in and bring as many books as you can also. Texts such as those indicate there is a ‘wideness in the mercy of God’ and that we are not to be those who declare who is in and who is out. Paul might have been pleasantly surprised when finally Timothy came with all the books as well as the parchments. Perhaps we will be likewise surprised. (I often say I am not a Universalist, but have a sneaky suspicion that God just might be!)
If we focus too tightly and insist that we know who is in and who is out we will be replacing God with our knowledge (maybe a kick back to Genesis 3?) and we will probably see no value in any act that contributes toward a better future.
Good works are good!
All have sinned, all fall short, all need salvation, but this does not mean there is no value in what we can term ‘good works’. The ‘righteousness that is as filthy rags’ was a verdict given to the outward obedience to a set of religious practices (ones that seemed to be ordained by God), the phraseology was not given as a blanket statement to describe anything good done.
Evangelicals have been fearful about ‘salvation by works’ and this is indeed something that the Reformers helped us steer away from. A belief in ‘salvation by works’ falls short primarily because it presents a faulty image of God, that we can earn salvation. We do not earn with the God who has always taken the initiative to bring us to our future.
The concept of the law court acquittal also falls short. James exposes this when he says faith without works is dead. There is a false over-divide between ‘justification’ and ‘sanctification’. We dissect something in life to see the inner working, but life does not exist with the divides we make. And perhaps we should also lose the temporal succession of justification comes first then comes sanctification; perhaps the process can be reversed at times! What if someone is on the road to a greater level of sanctification and has not yet arrived at the place of knowing they are justified!
Perhaps it is uncomfortable but there are numerous mentions in the New Testament about a judgement according to works. Jesus told the story of the sheep and the goats being separated out on the basis of how they treated others. Both groups respond with the same words – ‘when did we…?’ Those who were told to enjoy the kingdom were evidently not seeking to prove how righteous they were, this was not salvation by works. The over-emphasis on ‘by faith alone’ for salvation left Luther struggling with the letter written by James, terming it an ‘epistle of straw’. If faith in the Pauline corpus is reduced to ‘belief’ then we do have a major tension when we come to the book of James. However, James makes clear it is not a question of an either / or but that genuine faith has an outworking. ‘Faith without works is dead’ and he claimed that he would show his faith by his works, insisting that even the devil has faith! Faith alone he claims is devilish.
In Romans Paul said his goal was to bring about the ‘obedience of faith’ among the Gentiles; not an obedience to the law but an obedience to the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
The over-emphasis on ‘salvation’ in the sense of being ‘safe’ with a ticket to enter heaven has caused a divide between the ‘evangelical gospel’ and the ‘social gospel’. ‘Do good to all’ is a continuing requirement, and I suggest that given the strongly political words that consistently appear in Paul’s writings that we have to rethink ‘salvation’ as far more for a purpose than as a status. Surely it is when Israel loses sight of her election for the world that we can track from that point her increased captivity.
For those who see their calling as leading people to faith in Jesus in a more classic evangelical sense my plea is that we do not treat people as objects to be witnessed to. By all means share our faith in the context of respect for the person and by no means are we to reject them as friends if they do not respond. Friendship evangelism that treats people as objects is neither friendship nor evangelism.
And for those who see their calling as ‘doing good to all’ I ask that we do not replace Jesus with our activity. Scripture exhorts us ‘to be ready to give an answer to the hope that lies within us’ and that answer is not merely about a set of values, nor simply of a philosophy of life but is firmly centred on the person of Jesus.
The calling of the ekklesia
A final presupposition is with regard the word (ekklesia) that we translate as ‘church’. It certainly, and not surprisingly, carries meaning from the Hebrew Scriptures where it was used for the people of covenant when they were called to listen to the voice of God or were being sent on ‘mission’. It was used when there was action connected to who they were. In the wider world of Paul’s day it was used to describe the officially appointed deciding body of a city or region. The New Testament uses many words to describe those who are within the covenant people, but ekklesia is the central word. This indicates that there was a strong sense that the ekklesia of Jesus Christ was to take responsibility for their appointed setting. This would involve an authority to create space where certain things could flourish and others not. Like the salt of that time it was used as fertiliser to promote growth in the field and as a disinfectant with regard to the ‘dung heap’.
The body of Christ (another term common in Paul) is not simply about activity, so I am not suggesting reconciliation promotes human ‘doing’, after all before Jesus sent the 12 out as apostles to heal the sick, cast out demons and proclaim the kingdom, he chose them to be ‘with him’. The ‘doing’ came from a place of well-’being’.
I grew up with George Ladd’s theology of the New Testament which helpfully centred so much on ‘the kingdom of God’. He stated, and I have repeated many times, that the church is not the kingdom but is ‘the agent of the kingdom’. Incredibly helpful to distinguish the two, but I suggest that it did not go far enough. I would propose that the church is the body that is to take responsibility for agents of the kingdom to rise. And by pushing it to that point the implication is that not all ‘agents’ (individual or corporate) will be those affirming a biblical statement of faith!
I consider that the above presuppositions will explain why I explore what follows as I do. The centrality of Jesus as the person through whom God has been present to initiate the reconciliation process and as the person through whom the process will be completed is central to me; likewise Scripture as laying down the parameters and the trajectory for our journey is essential. Those two, under the power of the Spirit, invite us all to be involved in the ‘ministry’ (service) of reconciliation.
Is that work limited to ‘reconciliation to God’? I think not. And is that work limited to those who are committed to a Jesus-centred faith? Well Paul seemed to have space for others beyond simply the members of the ‘household of faith’ and maybe as important was that they had space for him (Acts 19:31).
