Theology – Page 34 – Perspectives

You’ve got to laugh!!

Posted on 12th February, 201812th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Mammon with a voice!! A loud voice at that. Gayle and I had to make some choices this past week, the exact nature of which is inappropriate to put here, but having heard the voice of Mammon shouting loudly, ‘Not enough!!’, we then had a choice to make which if we followed it would involve making us less capable of confronting Mammon on its terms. Choices though, when possible, need to follow convictions. So we went ahead and made the choice.

Having acted on it as we drove back home, we reflected on Jesus and his radicality.

1) Take the money and knowingly give it to a thief to look after.
2) Send out the disciples instructing them to take nothing. You won’t eat unless they feed you. And to compound things, because there are wolves out there I will send you as their food (lambs).

You just got to laugh!! Not a strategy to win the popular vote. Maybe we could write him off – after all what does a 30 year old know about such issues? The idealist will grow out of it.

In that context though… heal the sick, cast out demons, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead. Proclaim the kingdom of God has come near.

You just have to laugh. The whole situation is crazy. Yet maybe we got to laugh at ourselves when we realise how little of the Jesus message we have understood.

Although I will post this a day after the post on Mammon’s loud voice, I wrote them at the same time. If a part of the puzzle is relational, another part has to be laughter. A good healthy dose of laughing at ourselves, of the madness of taking ourselves too seriously, as if we could change the world! A healthy dose of laughter at the teachings of Jesus, so that we are a little more vulnerable to them gaining an entrance to our hearts.

‘He who sits in the heavens laughs.’

Essential Kenosis

Posted on 11th December, 201711th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I have always leaned toward ‘Open Theology’, ever since meeting Gordon Olson who taught in many YWAM schools in the 70s. I visited him in California in 1976, stayed in his house and used his library. He had in those days the best library on Charles Finney and many books on Open Theology. Clark Pinnock, who moved from being a Calvinist to being a key figure in articulating Open Theology likewise influenced my thoughts. However, for me, the best writings to date are from Thomas Jay Oord, and his articulation of God’s love as uncontrolling is both releasing and challenging (in what sense is ‘God in control?’).

Oord has made a short introductory video of ‘Essential Kenosis’. If it whets your appetite then his book ‘Uncontrolling Love’ you just know is the one you want for Christmas!

No denial – he was human

Posted on 1st December, 201711th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Often evangelicals will fight the battle over the divinity of Christ. And too many times pulling on material that is not as strong as it might at first appear. ‘Son of God’, for example does not necessarily mean divinity, as this was a term applied to Israel. Divine qualities do not necessarily imply an identity of deity. The early followers came at things from the other end. This Jesus was human… and came to terms with ‘what kind of person is this that even the winds and waves obey him?’ Human but at another level all together. This extraordinary human then is seen as the Messiah, the Promised deliverer. But I suggest they did not see him as ‘divine’ and certainly not as ‘the second Person of the Trinity’. They had a journey from knowing that he was (truly) human to in what sense was he ‘God’.

The journey of the evangelical is often the other way. He is ‘God’, but in what sense is he human? The early followers seemed to make their journey, I am not convinced that all evangelicals make their journey.

It is interesting that John in his letters strongly argues for the humanity of Jesus as an acid test:

This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world (1 John 4:2,3).

If there is a denial of his humanity (come in the flesh) that is a manifestation of the spirit of antichrist. Not if there is a denial of his divinity! Of course John is pushing back strongly against the Docetist heresy, but nevertheless the emphasis is incredible.

The humanity of Jesus is so key. God affirms humanity at every point. The resurrection, where the rebirth of the Universe is initiated, with the refusal to leave the physical body in the tomb is the greatest ever affirmation of humanity’s value to heaven.

His humanity means…

that any maturity I will reach is through the path of becoming yet more human. Of moving from humanity being created in my image to being shaped by his image, the only truly human one.
I need to sacrilise all of life that enables humanity to live life.
I need to demonise anything that dehumanises.
I need to see people, no longer after the flesh.
I honour all who work for humanity’s future, as expressed in this life, for it is this-life expression that will determine that-life expression (see my last post).
I do not see my identity along the lines of any elitism, be that ethnicity, class or gender.

This aspect of the humanity of Jesus is what has caused us to understand that if someone can truly see the value of people, they are ever so close to seeing God. They might be a professed atheist – and on that we have to ask what is the ‘God’ they do not believe in – but they might have more sight on God than the person who ticks all the ‘Jesus is God’ boxes but can only see others as objects. Maybe to see, and truly see, humanity is to see God… to see Jesus is to see who this God truly is. ‘If you have seen me you have seen the Father’.

Pure Speculation

Posted on 28th November, 201712th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

There are beliefs that are pretty much clear in Scripture, though not without being challenged (what Scriptures / canon are we referring to and how do we interpret those Scriptures). There are others that are less easy to defend so allow me a speculation… though it is a ‘pure’ one so must be OK! Speculative in parts it may be but it actually reflects more than that for me – it is a belief, maybe not an absolute core one but a very important one that shapes a lot of my approach.

I have always been interested in eschatology. Brought up with an implicit secret rapture perspective, later adopting a restorationist viewpoint (five-fold ministry, church growing to a mature bride etc.) and now… Abandonned the unsustainable secret rapture viewpiont, along with a future antiChrist, literal millennium, but maybe still influenced by aspects of the Restorationist viewpoint which of course lends itself to progress (‘God is doing a new thing in our day’).

Most eschatologies have a deliberate or an implicit set of ‘untils’ involved. (Dispensationalist:) the world carries on until… until the scene is set with ‘wars and rumours of wars\’, Israel in her land, gog and magog poised, oh and don’t forget the EU! (Restorationist:) until the church reaches maturity for Christ is coming for a bride without spot or wrinkle. The weakness of the latter is it is hard to avoid the final mature generation being the bride, with the question remaining concerning the identity of the former generations of saints. I too have an ‘until’.

I have an until partly to try to find an answer to why the Lord has not returned. His promise is delayed as he wishes all to come to repentance not wishing any to perish (2 Pet. 3:9). Unless we hold to a universalist perspective the longer the delay the more who perish. The longer the ‘delay’ the more opportunity for repentance, but are there other factors?

I consider the work of Christ to be the finished work of Christ but it is not the finished work. ‘As the Father sent me, so I send you.’ ‘I make up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.’ ‘Of all that Jesus began to do and to teach…’ We cannot add to the work of Christ, but we can flow from it. We cannot lay another foundation, we cannot actually construct the building but we can (and must) contribute the materials for the project.

Matthew’s Gospel is one of fulfilments. He loves to quote Scriptures being fulfilled and it seems there is an overall framework to his Gospel from the opening lines with ‘the genesis of Jesus to the closing lines of the Great Commission that echo the words of Cyrus in 2 Chronicles 36 and his ‘great commission’ to send Jews back to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. The Great Commission is reasonably well known (Go, make disciples…) but Cyrus words less so. I will quote them below, and they are all the more remarkable as 2 Chronicles was normally the final ‘book’ of the Jewish ‘bible’. (Law, prophets and writings.) The opening words of Matthew’s Gospel echo the first book, the closing words the final book. Truly Matthew is writing to show that there are fulfilments of Scriptures and of Scripture. Here are Cyrus words:

This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up, and may the Lord their God be with them.

All kingdoms… go up… with them… // All authority… go into… I will be with you – all seem to be deliberate parallels.

The Jews re-entering the land were commissioned to rebuild the Temple, ironically something that the radical Stephen said was never desired by God! Jesus sends his disciples out to get to work on the rebuilding of the Temple, not in Jerusalem but somehow of living stones, regardless of ethnic background across the planet. This is our task that as yet is unfinished.

So that is my ‘until’.

So when will this happen? Here is the little twist. The building does not come up visibly from the earth but comes down from heaven from the throne of God. God is the builder. The building is in heaven waiting a manifestation here. The materials though are provided from the earth, the ‘gold, silver and precious stones’ are mined and deposited in heaven as we work.

Christ came at the fullness of times – when Jew and Gentile alike had no hope. He took the curse of exile so that there might be an outpouring of the Spirit on both the Jew and ‘those afar off’. His return, parousia, will come at the fullness of times: when sufficient material has been mined.

Now a little more, cos all the above is straightforward for me, but I have been making a few more speculations these past weeks. What if the age to come (in the sense of the New Jerusalem) could be a little unfixed. It will be complete, but maybe there could have been more. If art is needed has enough real quality art been ‘mined’? What about the films in the age to come – do we have enough material so that…

Yes, now we are in the realms of speculation. But this is the sphere of hope. Love is primary, but faith and hope are vital.

Maybe I am going too far… However, there is a fundamental question about the continuity / discontinuity element of the age to come. How like this one? How radically different? If there is a very real element of continuity then we need art, politics, education, business that is so reflective of heaven’s values, otherwise we will continue waiting for the parousia, or we could have had an even better age to come.

No, not an advocate of Christendom!!

Posted on 9th November, 201712th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Had a few responses to the post ‘Toward the vacuum’ and also Steve Lowton re-posted it on his facebook page soliciting a few more comments. In the post I was both reflecting back on the dream from years back on the opening up of the façades, the response of a number of believers in the public sphere and the danger of the ‘familiar’ being our default response. In the post – now some 8 years on from the dream – I suppose there were a few paradigms that crept through that I am becoming increasingly aware of. So I thought I would outline what I think they might be below.

Surprisingly (!!) I am not an advocate of Christendom. I have been too heavily influenced by anabaptism, the new church movement and the like to be in that camp. I see Christendom as an aberration of the apostolic faith, not as some sort of fulfilment of eschatological hope. And given the nature of God (another paradigm here) this does not mean that God did not use Christendom… he works in all things for a purpose. His work ‘in’ does not mean his approval ‘of’.

Paradigm 1: the church is here for society

The primary role of the church is not to evangelise society (keep reading…), but to, as witness to God, create / fashion / hold a shape where something redemptive can fill it. It is our responsibility as royal priesthood to stand to mediate the presence of God to the world and to allow the world to grow up into a healthy space. This is not a) withdrawal to a spiritual realm (sorry to one stand of anabaptism there) nor b) to impose some kind of theonomy on the world (sorry to that strand of Calvinism, Reconstructionism, Kuyperism, 7 mountains etc.). The latter is ultra-Christendom. Not all come to faith, but there are those who will grasp the Jesus’ values and fill space in a Jesus-like way, even if some of those were to be atheists. (I see this in the reference to the Asiarchs in Acts, for example.) The former (a withdrawal) is to deny the intensely political nature of the Gospel. Not political in the sense of party politics, but carrying an all encompassing vision for society. The kind of vision we have been trying to capture with the word ‘convivencia’.

(Now don’t read ‘don’t evangelise’ into the above but do read ‘some evangelism is not a witness’.)

Paradigm 2: the world is not the church

My background of course left me very clear on that… however, the two realms are related. One has been redeemed, the other, not being evil but fallen, is there to be redeemed. The church that resorts to the familiar and does not connect with the era in which it is placed and participate with God’s redemption of the world might not be able to fully own the term ‘church’. Church is political (the ekklesia of Christ in every geography was a provocative term when the cities of the empire already had their ekklesia shaping the city and future). We have to somehow engage with the tension that not everything is in Christ but everything is in God. In him we move, live and have our being…

In Jeremiah 22: 16 Josiah is honoured because

He judged the cause of the poor and the needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? says the Lord.

The chapter begins with a call to:

Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Jeremiah did not say that Josiah’s behaviour was indicative of someone on the way to knowing God, nor that someone who knows God will seek to behave in this way. His words are too strong for that. Someone behaving in that way is showing the evidence that they know God! (And Jesus promise was not that people who followed him would know God… but that they would know who this God was.)

Paradigm 3: God is not in control

A little strong maybe? But what on earth do we mean by ‘in control’. Love and partnership have to be the ways in which we understand God at work in the earth, not omnipotence. Love means he is at work. It means he will work in and through whatever he is given. But he does not act in isolation – we are partners with heaven.

In all the above I am not an advocate of Christendom, I do see a distinction between the church and the world. I am not looking to Christianise society, but to heavenify it. That kingdom that comes from heaven does mean that convivencia has to manifest. Space for those who are not believers in Jesus to express their gifts for the sake of others. It means any wall that is built is a sign of failure, that any bridgebuilding will mean we are trampled on from both sides.

Updated beliefs… maybe

Posted on 17th May, 201715th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Beliefs are difficult to define at times. Do we mean ‘core doctrines’ or ‘a way of looking at the world’. Theology kind of covers both I guess, and the more honest person has to acknowledge that one’s beliefs are also shaped by experience, personality and our ‘insides’ in the sense of what is really going on inside us at a conscious and sub-conscious level. It was an interesting reflection to go over the ten posts of what I still believe, and also to realise that in these past years there have either been (inevitable?) developments or changes along the way.

Definitions are not always helpful. The term ‘evangelical’ is often qualified by an adjective such as ‘post-‘, ‘progressive-‘ or ‘historic-‘. This illustrates the situation. We can claim to be an evangelical if you mean ‘….’ or deny being one if you mean something else by the term. In 1995 Robert Johnston delivered a very helpful paper to the American Theological Society where he addressed the issue of ‘Orthodoxy and Heresy: a Problem for Modern Evangelicalism’. In that paper he described a shift from a previous approach of ‘bounded-set’ thinking to ‘center-set’ thinking. With the former approach life was easy. Draw a square – all who subscribe to the beliefs inside the square were orthodox, all outside were heretics. ‘Center-set’ described a couple of key questions that were at the centre:

By what means is a person reconciled to God?
By what authority to you believe and teach what you believe and teach?

Answer to the first question is ‘Jesus and the cross’, and the second one ‘the Scriptures’. Having answered those two questions in that way does not determine how far one travels in a given direction. The answers could result in ‘only those who are truly born again of the Spirit and are baptised’ are reconciled through to universalism. It could lead to ‘seven day creation in 4004BC’ to ‘evolution’. Hence the paper – how do we determine what is ‘heresy’.

The Bible itself does not always help us. I am so glad that we are not called to blind obedience to a book but to follow a Person. And when we look to the book we have to wrestle with issues of interpretation. It seems the Bible forces us to do this. Jehu is commended for fulfilling the will of God and wiping out Ahab’s evil house at Jezreel (2 Kings 10 ‘You have done well…’ – v.30), yet in Hosea 1:4 Israel is to be punished for the blood shed by Jehu at Jezreel. Did he fulfil the will of God (2 Kings and the prophetic words through Elijah) or were his actions to be judged as per Hosea? Not easy when they are both in the same sacred volume, but I am glad the difficulty is there, it at least helps when wrestling with the genocides of the Old Testament. It has been interesting to read the dialogues between Greg Boyd and Derek Flood. Both take a christocentric approach to Scripture, both refusing to accept that (the OT) God is a God who endorses genocide, but they take different approaches to solving the issue due to how they interpret Scripture. Challenging… and I love the problematic situation that is presented to the inerrantist when faced with someone from Crete in a court of law!

‘Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?’ (I leave out the oath bit there as I like to take some key parts of Scripture very seriously!)

‘I do,’ replies the person from Crete.

‘Objection’, shouts the lawyer who is a fundamentalist Bible believing in a very strong inerrantist kind of way.

‘This person is from Crete, and all those from Crete lie. I have that on the authority of Scripture.’ (I won’t give the reference but check out Titus!!)

‘Ah yes but this is only authoritative and inerrant as originally given. Put them under a lie-detector and then we can call a church council and announce that the Scripture in Titus is not as originally given…’

OK, I stop but I was having a little fun there. My point is we have a book we have to wrestle with and it requires that I be less dogmatic than I would like to be on certain situations.

I am certainly 100% evangelical if Robert Johnston’s two questions are sent my way. So when I push some directions in the next few posts I am not ready to be put out of the fold just yet. I will try and centre in on areas that seem to have become more central to me as far as both understanding the journey thus far and in setting a direction to come.

Oh and for the record I don’t think all Cretans lie!

Positions of power

Posted on 15th May, 201715th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Following on a little from the previous set of posts I have a few tentative comments to make about holding a position of power as a believer. The Anabaptist background, when pushed to an extreme, repudiated all positions of secular power, and certainly the critique that comes from those quarters about the corruption that is inherent within many positions of power carries weight. The opposite viewpoint is the classic expression of Christendom. We need believers who can rule justly, and this is often expanded to mean along ‘biblical lines’. I, of course being a moderate, would wish to avoid all extremes!

History tends to show that the ‘good’ people once in power become corrupt. Gayle and I have followed closely the journey of a protest party that is the second largest political party in Spain by membership. We have asked if such a party can ever healthily become the governing party, or is the purpose of their being in existence to be a protest, an opposition? Being in power is not as easy as one thinks, there are powers that rule beyond the rulers (‘the great city that rules over the kings of the earth’). Of course in the light of the previous posts this would be a whole aspect that I believe we as believers are called to shift. There are powers that rule, and once we receive a mandate the outworking is almost always top-down and rather than decentralise power it seems to pull resources back to the centre.

However, governance is not wrong. A head teacher, the management in a hospital, and many more examples are needed. So I do not believe the extreme end of the Anabaptist type approach is feasible, while at the same time seeing the Christendom approach to be the very source for many of the global issues today. Here then are some tentative thoughts:

By nature most positions are fallen. We do not need to idealise them, nor demonise them. Any engagement has to be with the purpose of redemption. That redemption could lead to the very position disappearing, or being radically transformed, but either way the flow will be of resources and benefits to the marginalised.
To engage redemptively means there will be compromises. This is particularly true of any form of legislation. There is not a perfect legislation. Read OT laws!! They are not perfect but culturally moved Israel as a people in a better direction.
Probably women are better equipped to occupy any seat of power. We see this in Spain with the two mayoresses, one in Madrid and one in Barcelona. The shift away from the centre and top-down is remarkable. We also see in Spain a former expression of power held by women that was anything but de-centralisation. So it is not women per se, but a feminisation of power, a way of handling it that is probably needed.
There are wonderful examples of people sitting in a place of power but the direction set, by design or default, is of emptying the seat of its power. The current pope or archbishop of Canterbury seem to be there in that way. I have a good pastor friend who is so set on empowering those in the congregation he openly said to me that ‘of course this will not serve the growth of the church’. Well perhaps not by traditional ways of counting.
Alongside compromise there is probably also a rhythm that has to be adopted of taking initiative and then release. Of tentatively pulling on the power and generously releasing it.
If God releases to us and we have not grabbed it, a position that has power invested in it,
we should not shy away from it, but receive it cautiously and work within it so that the maximum benefits can flow to the margins.
If such a position is not opened up, we also can learn how to help shape those seats to carry more potential for redemption through how we live and pray.

In contrast to Caesar’s (Domitian) throne with him seated at the centre and 24 advisors around him, John records in Revelation 4 that he saw:

At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.

And the one worthy to open the future was none other than the Lamb slain. A pattern in Revelation is of hearing something (I heard… ‘The Lion’) is clarified by what is seen (I saw… ‘A Lamb’). The challenge to our involvement is that of following Jesus. The western world is in crisis. Probably in part brought on by prayer. The opportunities are enormous. I do not see the pathway as down either of the two extremes I started with, but the messy and sacrificial path that the Lamb pioneered.

Provocative or what?

Posted on 16th March, 201715th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

We have recently begun some research on the overthrow of the Islamic (Moorish) rule of Spain, a rule that lasted some 700 years. Yesterday we were put in touch with an extended article in the Guardian on this very thing and last night ordered the book, the reviews of which suggest it will be invaluable to our research. Again and again when the timing is right the information needed just seems to surface. Pursuing a repentant journey on this will be necessary and might cause just a few questions, as there are not a few who see the Crusades and the defence (e.g.) of Malta as truly ‘Christian’. Constantine and subsequent Christendom not being an aberration for a number of them.

The other extreme can be to spiritualise the message of Jesus in a way that makes it non-political. This is something that we cannot see as possible from the NT. The message, indeed the very terms, such as ‘gospel’, ‘son of God’, ‘ekklesia’, ‘kingdom’ and even ‘repentance’ are deeply embedded in a first century political culture. We would need to make the actions and words of Jesus non-culturally applicable and somehow ‘timeless’. We know we are not supposed to take a text out of context, but what is more important is not to take a (the) life out of context.

The entry into Jerusalem was certainly very provocative. Many scholars suggest that there were two entries into Jerusalem on that spring day. From the east came Jesus into the city, cheered on with the cries of ‘Hosanna’. Most of his followers were not the elite and powerful. On the west side of the city entered another, Rome’s representative, Pilate. One proclaimed the kingdom of God, the other the kingdom, power and glory of Rome. The entry of the Roman governors of Judea had become standard practice for Jewish festivals. As Jerusalem swelled with the huge influx of people, so Rome, probably both for practical reasons (increased security) and political reasons (an opportune time to flex muscle) always increased their mighty presence.

So on the west side a visible demonstration of power. Cavalry, foot soldiers, leather armour, shields, banners, golden eagles as standards, the beating of drums. A visible display of power and might. A timely reminder that peace, Roman style, is in the land. Peace enforced through force, and displayed visibly for all to see when necessary through the brutal practice of crucifixion. An open display of power – that was the cross. Another aspect involving a political statement then is Paul’s words in Col. 2:14,15

He took away the weapons of the powers and authorities. He made a public show of them. He won the battle over them by dying on the cross.

A faith statement in the extreme, and an extremely pointed political statement. The cross displayed the ultimate Imperial power, so went the narrative of the Empire. The gospel narrative absolutely negated that Imperial narrative.

From the west came the power of Rome into the city. From the east side Jesus entered on a donkey manifestly fulfilling the entry of a prophesied future king to Jerusalem ‘riding on a donkey’ (Zech. 9:9). This king will not parade weapons of war but rather banish war from the land:

I will take the chariots away from Ephraim. I will remove the war horses from Jerusalem. I will break the bows that are used in battle.
Your king will announce peace to the nations. He will rule from ocean to ocean. His kingdom will reach from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.
I will set your prisoners free from where their enemies are keeping them. I will do it because of the blood that put my covenant with you into effect.
Return to your place of safety, you prisoners who still have hope. Even now I announce that I will give you back much more than you had before. (Zech. 9:10-12).

Rome’s path to peace was through conquest and war (the first rider on the white horse in Revelation). Jesus’ path to peace is through the shedding of his own blood (the rider on the second white horse in Revelation).

Political and deeply provocative. There is a build up over those days. A coin is shown to Jesus when he is asked about paying taxes to Rome. The image on the coin is of Caesar, the divine Caesar, the son of god. His reply is not a ‘there are two realms and never do they mix’. Rather echoing the final words of Mattathias to his sons who had called them to gather the people and avenge the wrong that had been done to Israel, saying

Pay back the Gentiles in full, and obey the commands of the law.

Judas (his son) then subsequently led the Maccabean revolt, cleansing the Temple and refortifying Jerusalem, establishing a new royal dynasty. That indeed was paying back the Gentiles.

Now it is no longer Greece but Rome that is the overlord. Give to Caesar what is his due! Those words could have been taken at the same level as those of Mattathias. An armed rebellion could have been sparked by those words, and I think that was exactly how Judas Iscariot (did he want to live up to that name?) understood them.

Yet it remains that if Jesus kingdom was of this world that his followers would have taken up the sword. His kingdom comes from another source all-together. Deeply political, but the entry to the city was of a different order then, and needs to be so again today.

Two columns

Posted on 13th March, 201715th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

We have a set of questions on our post-it notes and on the wall we have two columns – the right column and the wrong column, or the truth column and the heresy column, the I am a fanatical disciple column and the I have definitely backslidden column. OK I stop now but I wanted you to understand the situation is hypothetical as I don’t actually have any post-it notes to hand.

My first visit to a certain country back around 1990 I was picked up from the airport by a pastor. ‘Glad you are here do you mind if I ask a question or two?’

‘Sure, fire away.’

‘If you had someone come to faith who had gone through a sex-change, then they came to tell you what would your counsel be.’

Pulling on the principle in Paul that ‘in whatever state you are in when called remain in that state’ as a tentative guide I said, ‘I think we start from where we are and work from there.’

‘Yes that has been our approach. There are those in our midst now though who were on the process, have come to faith and have not progressed to an operation. They are uncomfortable with some of our responses. But that is the world we live in. Another question? So assuming we run with your guide, last week I had X come to see me. Born biologically as a man, having gone through surgery, now as a woman, has fallen in love with a man and would like to pursue the relationship. Any perspectives?’

Guidelines are great but I was glad we were simply talking in a car. That Christian community were grappling with those issues for real. So back to the post-it notes! Imagine having to put on the right / wrong columns the set of issues that community was dealing with.

In the isolation of safety and non-interaction with the very real evidences of a fallen world all around us I can quickly put the post-it notes in the right columns. At least to the level of a basic set of issues. And if I sit and talk with people who are struggling day-to-day with deep personal issues of identity (for a host of reasons, and not always because they are ‘damaged’) I find it increasingly hard to determine where all the post-it notes should be aligned.

There are core aspects I believe we need to be clear about. The centrality of Jesus and that he alone is the lens to see who God is and what true humanity is called to be. Scripture then is vital for it is from there that we have to draw that image of Jesus – it is the word testifying to the Word. An encounter with the Spirit of Jesus (and not really ‘an’ encounter but continual encounterings) remain indispensable. The above though will not, and I don’t think it is meant to, determine that we will know exactly what columns all our post-it notes will be placed in. Over time some will move to the other column, and quite a few will come off the board and back to the table, and I do not think that is the sign of losing the plot. There is something bigger than rights and wrongs. Here are three that I think are higher up the list of desired outcomes:

A knowledge of God, that is not legalistic but bathed in grace, where we have the confidence to get some of the plot wrong and he will turn a blind eye to that. (I have put that in a way that I need to think about rather than get in my bus and demonstrate how easily I can drive through the gaps in the sentence!)
A humility that is slower to correct than ever before and more ready to listen, realising that resolving things the right way (my way or the highway!) will probably not be the path to the most redemptive solution.
An ability to hear (listen) to those who do not carry my deep convictions. In doing so I might just be witnessing more powerfully than quickly proclaiming truth. In honouring them, I might just be humanising them.

Two crosses

Posted on 24th November, 201616th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

caidos The cross over Franco’s tomb provoked for me a serious question as we went there to pray in the Spring of last year. My question was whether if one uses the cross in a wrong way does it tap into the power of the cross and release that power, but release it negatively – a little like electricity (as a ‘good’ power) lights and heats a house, but if wired wrongly it does not serve well but is actually destructive. Some of that did not fit well with me as the power of the cross is not some sort of abstract power source. God’s rule is kenotic, is self-emptying love, not some sort of sovereign crushing power. But why the cross?

I am considering that we have two crosses which, dependent on which cross is chosen, of course will reflect back somewhere into the nature of the Gospel. There is the Constantinian cross (‘in this sign you will conquer’) that can be placed on the banners and it results in yielding evidence of its power by vanquishing all foes. As such it is aligned to an imperial power, and fits well with Christendom and all forms of getting the right person(s) in power. It was that kind of cross that manifested in the Civil War with Franco being a ‘son of Spain and a servant of God’. His conquering of the land was for the uniting of Spain and the uniting of it under God – a repeat of the ‘Reconquista’ that saw the Muslim rule in Spain end. A ‘Christian’ conquest that fitted with the wider context of the Crusades to rightly align Jerusalem to God. That cross gives us a right of power over and we are vindicated by it when we use force to establish righteousness, as that cross itself is a symbol of power.

The second cross represents a power of a different kind. It does speak of imperial power, but only when used against us. It is carried as an instrument that can be used by others – it is the same spirit as when Jesus sent out the disciples as ‘lambs among wolves’ (guess the favourite meat in the restaurants that wolves frequent?). There is no protection… unless heaven itself is involved. It takes faith to suggest that in the process of living for God that ‘no-one can take our lives from us’ but that the course we are on means we will ‘lay down our lives’ for others. It takes a whole load of faith to believe that such death is not the end, and in that death there is an undoing of imperial power.

The second cross is not the conventional sign of strength. Yet it is through that cross we are aligned to the God of heaven who give us a strength of courage that does not insist on one’s own will.

This (might) have implications for both the Gospel (good news) that we believe in and how we present it. Sovereignty will demand being appeased (Anselm: God’s honour to be restored; Reformers: an eternal debt to be paid). God will have to be bought off somehow. If we respond we will then be on the right side, all others on the wrong side. The cross as satisfying the wrath of God, that wrath being understood in personal terms. If the cross however fully satisfies the love of God, it becoming the symbol and act (when aligned to the resurrection) that fully shows us who our God is, then the work of the cross is to do a deep healing in us, to re-humanise us, to remove the scapegoating of the ‘other’, and to release us as reconcilers for the sake of others. This view of the cross will work more (note the word ‘more’) with alienation, shame and sickness than with ‘guilt’. It will see the necessity of Jesus’ true humanity being for our sake rather than for God’s sake.

The cross is to re-humanise us. The work that has to be undone is that of de-humanisation. The latter we all need to be delivered from. I don’t think the imperial cross can help at any level to re-humanise us and align us with the re-humanising God. Somewhere on the spectrum of the two crosses one seems to me to be a parody of the real one.

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