Theology – Page 36 – Perspectives

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.

Gospel or caricature?

Posted on 9th May, 201616th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Scot McKnight recently referred to Josh Butler’s second book: The Pursuing God: A Reckless, Irrational, Obsessed Love That’s Dying to Bring Us Home and summarises the (caricature / gospel) themes in the book, saying it is an ‘atonement theology for a postmodern world’:

Caricature: Jesus stays at a distance and tells us how to get clean.
Gospel: Jesus gets dirty, in order to make us clean.

Caricature: God can’t stand to be in the presence of sin.
Gospel: Sin can’t stand to be in the presence of God.

Caricature: Lost means you need to go find God.
Gospel: Lost means God’s coming to find you.

Caricature: Jesus emphasizes how to be good.
Gospel: Jesus emphasizes the goodness of God.

Caricature: Jesus bearing our punishment is an act of divine child abuse.
Gospel: Jesus bearing our punishment is an act of divine love.

Caricature: The Father is cold, distant, and unengaged at the cross.
Gospel: The Father endures the greatest sacrifice of all the death of the Son.

Caricature: Sacrifice is how you clean yourself up so God can stand to be with you.
Gospel: Sacrifice is how God cleans you so you can stand to be with God.

Caricature: Wrath contradicts God’s love and is inappropriate for his character.
Gospel: Wrath arises from God’s love and deals honestly with our world.

Caricature: The Trinity is an abstract doctrine with no relevance for today.
Gospel: The Trinity changes everything—the Father, Son, and Spirit are a holy communion of love who invite us to participate in their eternal life.

Caricature: Jesus is the one and only way we go out to find God.
Gospel: Jesus is the unique and decisive way God has come to us.

Caricature: God prefers the polished, pretty, and put together.
Gospel: God goes after Nazis and whores, victims and oppressors, to make them his people and his bride.

Caricature: The church is a collection of individuals pursuing God together.
Gospel: The church is a body of people through whom God pursues the world.

Not a bad set of contrasts!! Maybe the atonement I would like to tweak?

The fullness of times

Posted on 31st March, 201616th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Why did Jesus come when he came – why not much earlier, circumvent Abraham, Moses etc.? Assuming – based on Scripture which helps with assumptions!! – that God’s intention was always that of Incarnation, why the ‘delay’ in coming? In Galatians there is the phrase ‘when the fullness of times had come’:

In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal. 4:3-5).

An inadequate interpretation (and a very modernistic one) was that when there was the Pax Romana, effective transportation and communication in place and so the gospel could spread easily as a result that Jesus came at that opportune time. So the fullness of times is reduced to a pragmatic issue! However, writing to the ‘we’ (Jews) the fullness of times was when there was a bondage to the elemental principles (ta stoicheia). He goes on to strongly chastise the Gentile converts in Galatia for being influenced by the Judaisers and through their influence turning to the Jewish law. Before conversion they were enslaved to non-gods and now in turning to the law they were only going to be enslaved again to worthless elementary principles (ptocha stoicheia – same as before with the derisory ‘poverty stricken’ added). Jews and Gentiles alike in bondage to these ‘elemental spirits’.

So the fullness of times seems more related to a level of bondage than to anything practical. It was when there was domination at a level that enslaved the whole world, with even the Jews subject to the law in a non-liberating, enslaving relationship.

Jesus came, I suggest, at a time when there was the maximum amount of slavery to binding principles (elemental spirits) that manifested to dominate and crush all, Jew and Gentile alike. In coming at that time, Jesus, came to redeem the slaves at their low point in order to not simply set the slaves free but to destroy the yoke of slavery once and for all. Had he come earlier this slavery would not have reached a level of fullness whereby it could be fully broken. Jesus was born under the law (Jewish), born of a woman (human so not only for Jews but also for Gentiles, for all of humanity) at a time when all things were in place for the total domination of humanity. That domination is maybe best described as ‘bio-power’ – the consuming of human life itself (yes I am listening to, and maybe learning from, Gayle as she writes up her dissertation!!!).

Consuming is where it all began to go wrong, and that initial consumption of the forbidden fruit leads eventually to the inevitable consumption of human lives. Jesus the only true human allows himself to be consumed, rather than consume. He is consumed by the powers – religious, political, economic, demonic – for in eating him they can become like God, or better they can dispossess God and fully set in place a rebel government based on ‘might is right’. The submission of Jesus, to death, even the death on the cross is what breaks this power, it establishes love within the world and throughout all of creation. Love proves to be the currency that opens the door to freedom. Not power, not appeasement but love.

The presentation of the atonement as satisfaction to God (his honour as per Anselm, or the law and justice as per the Reformation) falls far short of the NT presentation. What is missing in the world is the presence of God, and at the cross ‘God was in Christ’ going to the depths so as from the lowest point to the highest point there could be a filling of all things with his presence.

The fullness of times – the hold that the powers had is gone.

Could we again be coming to a fullness of times? Could there be the complete re-imagining of the body of Christ in and through the earth to stand redemptively so as humanity does not totally self-destruct on the forbidden fruit?

Preaching to whom?

Posted on 28th February, 201616th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

In a few weeks time we will be part of a small group of people coming together for a couple of days to share our journeys in Spain with the backdrop of ‘what is the Gospel?’ to give some shape to our sharing. Thinking through what the gospel is presents quite a challenge – or maybe coming to terms with what was the ‘Pauline gospel’ is where the challenge lies. We know what a version of the ‘evangelical’ gospel looks like and that shapes our lives to one degree or another.

This year I have set out a Bible reading pattern that is a new one for me, and this morning it sets me Romans to begin with. Of course, Romans is where we find the clearest (?) presentation of the Pauline gospel. It is the clearest but not all parts of it is clear to us! It is great where Paul begins and he is pretty much straight into it with his ‘I am not ashamed…’ statement. The section before that is what struck me this morning with his expression of desire to get to Rome where he anticipated there would be the impartation of a spiritual gift and a mutually beneficial interchange. Then he seems to sum up his desire with this phrase:

So I really want to preach the good news also to you who live in Rome (Rom. 1: 15)

Taken at face value he is not saying I want to preach the good news to those who are outside the Christian community (an evangelistic crusade?), nor that he wants to train the church so that they together can evangelise the city. He wants to preach the gospel to the Roman believers. (We could translate the whole phrase as ‘evangelise’ the church as he simply uses one verb.)

This is not a normal evangelical approach. Train in evangelism, take an evangelistic meeting – those we can relate to, but preach the gospel with no-one there who is needing to raise their hand? Food for thought… what does Paul have in mind when he wants to evangelise the Roman church?

I suspect there are depths yet that have to be dug out with respect to the apostolic gospel that will mean that our evangelical interpretation is only the tip of the iceberg. Maybe the Alpha course is aptly named… just a few more letters in the alphabet I think?

What do we know about omniscience?

Posted on 21st February, 201616th March, 2018
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

God is traditionally: omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient.

Omnipresent: a definite

As far as I can work out I can affirm omnipresent in that s/he is present in the now everywhere. Hence when we try and appeal to Einstein and relativity as a means of suggesting God has to be outside of time I think it fails for omnipresence reasons. There is no ‘delay’ in time for God such as for us with light reaching us now being actually from the past. We experience an event now that happened then. There is no such experience for God. It is also interesting that there is no suggestion that the (chronological) future is experienced now. The miracle of the resurrection is though that the (eschatological) future is experienced in the now. And events ‘reserved’ for the future could take place now – for example the resurrection of ‘many saints’ in Jerusalem along with Jesus, the firstfruits, on the resurrection morning. An event took place that elsewhere seems unequivocally to be reserved to take place at the parousia.

Omnipotent: but what does that even mean?

Omnipotence, if we want to keep that category, it needs to be qualified. I touched on this in an earlier post, and also referred to a post by Boyd that suggested that God could have made a creation that did not allow choice, and he even seemed to suggest that s/he could also have programmed us to believe we were making choices. That is based on a ‘God can do / God is free to do whatever s/he chooses’ – an omnipotent God without boundaries.

There is a tricky element for those of us who wish to centre God somewhere different to ‘he (and I think we can drop the s/ this time) is bigger than all others and subject to no-one so whatever he decides is what is right. Might is right.’ We who want to make the centre outpoured love face the issue of, if God could do no other than love in what sense is that freedom? Does s/he love because of choice? And if there is no choice in what sense is that truly ‘love’? As much as it might confuse me I think I have to go with God is love, maybe with the proviso that love was an eternal choice. His nature is love… hence s/he loves. I see this as no different to our future. The choice to sin in the sense of being able to make that choice will have gone, not because we have lost the ability to choose, but because we have become like him (Jesus). All bugs will have been removed, the hardware will not crash, we will become what we were intended to be. (Please remove the machine type language, but I think you get what I mean. Healing of humanity brings us to the place of true holiness, true love.)

If therefore we centre God on love, we have to be careful what we then insist about omnipotence. The rules are not made up simply because of power, the limitations within which we have to live (do not consume, but eat of everything except) are not arbitrary rules but a pathway to be able to eat of the tree of life. Similarly there are limitations on God because God is God and there is none other.

I suggest then that the term omnipotent is not too helpful a term. It can lead to a gross immaturity of ‘My God can do…’ with no analysis of what we mean by that; or disappointment when God does not act for us; or we act in the image of the God we serve and power rather than a servant response that is content in the place of anonymity.

Omniscience: what does ‘omni’ mean this time round?

Full omniscience in the sense of God knowing all past, present and future events has been based (often though not always) on God being outside of time. But the bedrock of this view of omniscience is founded either on what has been predestined is known (foreknowledge based on predestination: a common Calvinist approach) or on something termed ‘middle knowledge’. I have memory – knowledge of the past but my knowledge does not dictate the past; God has knowledge of the past and also of the future but in a way that is analogous to my experience of memory. That knowledge of the future does not dictate the future. This leads to the common Arminian approach where the predestination of God is based on foreknowledge.

Now laying on one side that I do not see ‘predestination’ or ‘election’ as being about individual salvation as they both relate to Christ as the predestined or elect one, so all who are in Christ are predestined (their destiny is set) and are elect in him, what do I make of omniscience or in particular absolute foreknowledge?

Let me start with God knows all things that are knowable. But are all things knowable? Many things are easy to predict. If this, then that. Should one have infinite insight then of course the level of the accuracy of the ‘prediction’ would be, at least, very high. The real issue comes with absolute foreknowledge concerning the predictability of future events that involve creatures who are endowed with the ability to make choices. The response of ‘the choices of a free-will creature cannot be absolutely predicted’ has to be offset by, ‘but sadly we are not totally free in our choices’. Even if we react to the implications of ‘the total depravity of humanity’ we can clearly acknowledge that we are all damaged and thus not totally free in our choices – there is the bondage and dominion of sin the reality of which all humans have to acknowledge.

We could also (strangely) say that we can foreknow what God will do – or at least we could if we had a grid to understand what the truly loving choice would be. So perhaps it can be said that God can make a contrasting but equally accurate knowledge of all future human acts? Maybe the one difference in this though is the word ‘truly’. God makes the truly loving choice – always. Humanity is not evil, they are fallen. The adverb ‘truly’ cannot be applied to us – we are mixed, one day good choices, other days bad ones.

For the Calvinist the future is fixed – fixed by decree. Foreknowledge then is absolute. For many of those who are Arminian-biased the future is also certain and knowable, but not so by absolute divine decree. For the Open Theologians the normal response is the future is partly open, with certain things being not open – so some future events are totally knowable, whereas others are not (and this would include the choices made by individuals). The analogy of the game of chess is suggested, the end-game is fixed, the tactics along the way are adjusted, but adjusted perfectly. Thomas Oord (Uncontrolling Love) has gone one step further and taken away the ‘parts are not open’ option. Brave man!!

Unless we dismiss the texts as purely anthropomorphic there are numerous Scriptures where God makes a response to how the people behave. A classic would be in Exod. 33:5

Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a vstiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.

So absolute definite conclusions on the matter of absolute foreknowledge? The only real conclusion is ‘what do we know..?’ But my tentative conclusions would be that given the nature of the world God has created not all future events and choices are knowable. God has perfect knowledge of all things that are knowable. The future is open:

either partly as per Boyd, Pinnock, Sanders et al.
or even totally as per Oord.

Whatever our conclusions, from fixed, partly open to totally open practically we live as though the future is open. We are called to participate with heaven in the shape of the future. I do not read the NT any way differently. I do not read it as a set of predictions about an antiChrist, a one world government etc., but I do read it as inviting us to contribute to the future knowing there will be a future judgement (assessment?) when our contribution will make it through or simply be burned up. I think that is the practical response because I think it is the theological reality. The future is essentially open, with the characteristics (‘no more crying’, ‘no temple’, etc.) fixed, but the pathway is not.

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