Going too far? #6

Time to come back

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I’ll make my this my last post that pushes toward / beyond a sensible boundary! I am very conventional on the return of Jesus and am currently putting together some youtube videos and notes to go with them. Just to be clear: conventional in the sense that there does not seem to be any variation within the NT on that hope. Probably does not need to be said, but certainly am no ‘secret rapturist’, don’t fit into any of the ‘post / pre / a-millennialist’ schools, do not see that there is an antiChrist predicted. In short very little in the NT where we see with clarity about what is (wrongly) termed the ‘end times’. Anyway end of my conventionality – let’s stretch the elastic!

One thing I have to address first that does not have much to do with the Bible and any prediction is that without some intervention we are making such a mess of our planet (the ‘house’ God gave to us to live in) that there will be an ‘end’. Certainly the end of civilisation as has been. In the past few posts I have dropped in a little line about the bees – over the past 10 years or so I have been praying (maybe not as fervently as I could) about the bees. They are under threat and we need them to survive – for our sakes, for their sakes and for creation’s sake. If God did not destroy Nineveh because of the cattle it does not seem unreasonable to pray for the survival of the bees. If we are going to survive we have to see a MAJOR shift in our economic structures, with a bending of resources toward climate issues. It might take the reality of the crisis to bite even deeper for this to happen… if that does not happen then as there is no evidence biblically of the planet being destroyed we are certainly back by necessity to a conventional parousia. Jesus came first time round ‘at the fullness of times’, the point when there was no future, Jew and Gentile without hope, so maybe any return will be when there is no future. However, if we who have access to the name of Jesus swing a prayer or three in the direction of the bees, the climate, and the economic structures (OK maybe we need to go beyond three or four prayers on that one), maybe we will get much extended time. Let’s assume one way or another we get extended time.

Believers holding space for the gifts of humanity to come through; believers insisting that powers in the heavens that pollute, oppress and dehumanise back away; believers who no longer see anyone according to the flesh; believers who take responsibility for the future rather than make the ‘drag them out of the burning building’ as the central paradigm… If that were to happen maybe we could move into what might have been (maybe and might be!!!) Paul’s follow up to his ekklesia in every city phase. Then maybe with climate change, economic structural change, people before profit, witnessing to Jesus (way beyond evangelising) there could be a steady transformation, a steady increase of the presence of Jesus (the core sense behind the word parousia), more people finding faith, more of those who don’t find personal faith finding the vision for the future being something they wanted to buy into (as per the Asiarchs who did not find faith in Acts 19), then maybe the ‘return’ of Jesus could be a little different to what I think – after all if many of the ‘believers’ / Jews of Jesus’ time did not see how Jesus of Nazareth could be the expected Messiah it could well be that some of us might also miss it this time round.

One of the big push backs on the above is the ‘resurrection’ of those who have died, yet there was among some Jews the belief that the resurrection of the faithful would be over a period of time, not something that happened in one moment of time (a minority view).

Pushing the elastic to breaking… we see huge shifts in the body of Christ, that results in huge shifts to the economic system, that invests time and energy into the climate issue (the bees buzz a little louder), and the increase of the presence of Jesus becomes evident, humanity moves toward being new humanity, resurrection of those who were faithful begins… blah blah… but to be honest I think the elastic has snapped. Too far, Martin!

It is hard for me to read Scripture any other way than there will be a moment, the ‘trumpet’ will sound, the dead in Christ will come with him to the planet (the historical contextual meaning of ‘caught up to meet the Lord in the air’), those who are of Jesus experience mortality being clothed with immortality, that we enter the ‘eschaton’… but that might not be the end for it is never termed the ‘telos’ (goal).

See, when all is said and done, I am pretty conventional. However, there is something about continuing to work as if Jesus is not about to return (while holding on to the hope of his appearing) that is healthy.

Footnote: earlier this year I wrote about ‘new currency’, currency wars etc. The next few months might give some evidence of this – if so, new currency is not the key, but maybe it could stimulate us to pray for a new economics?

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Going too far? #5

The elastic is stretching!

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

This post is a stretch for me; it is a follow on from yesterday. If we should not be obsessed with ‘who is in and who is out’, and that salvation is salvation to purpose, so for example ‘he will save his people from their sins’ is not a ‘he will save all who respond from eternal damnation’. It was first concerning ‘his people’ (Jews – the context for Jesus ministry and the early chapters of Acts so we cannot legitimately simply take texts from there and make them universally applicable beyond their context). Second it is a saving from their sins – the failure to live covenantly which meant living with responsibility for the world (and with benefits). Salvation was then to do with truly being part of a covenant people living in line with heaven – our citizenship is in heaven – for the sake of all others. Salvation to a purpose. If there is an ‘in’ and there is an ‘out’ that is a God-call not one for us to make. For the record, I think most evangelicals will be called ‘in’ as God is a God of great mercy… however, not my call.

Yesterday, why ekklesia – for the sake of one and all, taking responsibility for wherever it is located.

How effective will that responsibility be? How long is a piece of string, or to use the analogy from one of the early comments on this series – how far can this elastic stretch without breaking? Could it stretch as far as including those who are not (now what word would I use? saved?) as part of the new humanity? Or maybe as ‘not fully’ part of the new humanity? In other words what level of transformation might come?

I know a reply can be made with ‘all our righteousness is as filthy rags’ but that again is a Scripture to Jews who were ‘doing’ rather than ‘being’ in relationship with God. We can’t simply make it universally applicable to someone who is ‘doing good’ – after all that is what God was ‘doing’ in the beginning, so there has to be some element of that being reflective of God – image and likeness of God.

We should not write humanity off – God doesn’t, we shouldn’t, though the devil seeks to do so at every turn.

I have no clue as to how far the elastic stretches; I think though we can – and we who are ‘saved’ can – eat, rest and pray for one and all so that health, goodness and a little more of heaven is expressed. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we discovered the elastic is more stretchy and also stronger than we ever thought. I think that might be a better approach than setting ourselves up as the judge of who is in and who is out. And I suspect the buzz from the bees might add their approval to the shift.

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Going too far? #4

But why an ekklesia?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Paul seems intent on seeing an ekklesia in every significant city / area within the oikoumene (‘civilised’ land – most commonly used of the territory governed by an empire). In those cities there was already an ekklesia, maybe if we gave it a modern twist, a city government, a body of people who took on the responsibility for the shape, culture and values of the city; they were focused on enabling the city to a better future.

With Paul’s language it is not surprising that the initial understanding was not that he was calling people to raise their hand and pray the sinner’s prayer but that he was presenting a political vision for the oikoumene, indeed for the kosmos. And when he bodly called those who responded ‘the ekklesia of Jesus’ in that city that political understanding would have been re-enforced. Adding to this that the word ekklesia, in the Greek translation that was in common use, translated the Hebrew word qahal – used of the people when they were called to act in response to God. Seems to me that ekklesia has a lot to do with purpose and a purpose related to the wider community setting. If the Imperially endorsed ekklesia were to take responsibity for the city, to ensure that (e.g.) Corinth was a copy of Rome (headquarters), then the Jesus’ ekklesia had a responsibility to work toward (e.g.) Corinth being modelled on heaven (headquarters). This being the understanding behind Paul saying that ‘our citizenship (passport?) is in heaven’. It has nothing to do with going to heaven when we die, but a lot to do with here and now, not a much later idea to do with there and then.

So far no issue raised but as I am suggesting ‘going too far’ – although this time I do not think it is too far.

Paul was focused on getting something in place. He wrote to the Corinthians that if only their faith would increase he would no longer need to be working with them. His apostolic work would have been complete, that of laying a foundation so that they could get on with the work, the work of enabling heaven on earth, or within that part of the oikoumene that they carried responsibility for. What did Paul have in mind once that first task – an ekklesia in every city – had been accomplished?

We can have many debates on ‘church as shaped by the New Testament’, but I think we are probably missing the point. Why an ekklesia? Maybe Paul had something in mind once ‘their faith’ had increased, something beyond church as caring community? I think so, but then again he might only have had sight of the first level of strategy, in reality it does not matter too much what he saw or didn’t. What does matter is what do we see?

Church as healing community, as all-embracing of those who are open to the embrace of the love of heaven, is a wonderful reality, and exchanging that for a purpose driven, law-demanding group of dysfunctional people on a mission would be a disaster. There must always be a place for those who have been broken by the oppression of ‘sin’. Gayle is convinced John the disciple of Jesus had special needs, and ‘The Chosen’ presents Matthew as somewhere on a spectrum that we consider is not ‘normal’! There is space for all of us who don’t fit. A place for everyone, and not a place provided we get all our issues sorted and then can become some sort of warrior. However… you knew there would be an ‘however’.

There has to be something in evidence among ‘us’ that we take responsibility for where we are located.

I consider that with respect to the Bible we have to be ‘post-Pauline’, we need to follow the trajectory that we can see in his writings.

To be ‘post-Pauline’ we will not be un-Pauline. But we will need to move beyond getting dogged down in ‘church’ debates; moving beyond drawing firmly in the dust a line of who is in and who is out. If we are willing to draw in the dust as Jesus did (with the woman caught in adultery) we will touch the dust of humanity and challenge all religious judgements while calling people to their true humanity.

Losing the small vision of getting more people on the inside of our box, but encouraging the small people so that their faith will grow. Those who are serving but have no understanding of demonic powers should not be dealing with demonic strongholds – surely that is an area of responsibility that is ours. Removing powers that have dominated and restricted forward momentum so that good people can serve – our task. Painting a vision for a future that is not based on past inadequate foundations. The sky (heaven?) is the limit.

Paul seemed to have a level of vision (and a vision for the whole of the oikoumene) that he presented daily in Ephesus that got the attention of those who held supremely endorsed Roman authority to ensure that Ephesus (and the wider Asia Minor) was mirrored on Rome.They had not submitted to the ‘Jesus as personal Saviour’ message but had been impacted by ‘Jesus as the Saviour of the world’ message. Maybe if we focus too much on the ‘Jesus as personal Saviour’ message we might find that people wander in darkness without a clue about what a new heaven and earth might look like; maybe if we focused on ‘Jesus as the Saviour of the world’ people might find their way to Jesus as personal Saviour. Maybe then (and I think is possible) that the bees might buzz with anticipation that they will survive.

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Going too far? #3

A little breather

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Thanks for all the comments thus far, and I loved the language that Rob used in his comments as to how far the elastic might stretch. I am pretty conservative in my beliefs, certainly at least on the central ‘fixed’ points, but am convinced that scripture pushes us to engage with some of the internal debate we read of within those pages and that ‘right doctrine’ is far more about right living in relationship to heaven and to earth than it has to do with my professed beliefs. I am glad that we do not have to work out too much more, and certainly that I have not been elected to join the final jury – way beyond all our pay grades, for sure!!

The return of Jesus is a fixed point – but what might that be? I will post on that soon, just aware that we can so easily fall into the trap of knowing what that will look like being absolutely sure we will not get our interpretation of scripture wrong unlike those who could not understand how a crucified messiah could possibly be the personal visitation of God! In all my conservativeness on (e.g.) the parousia I need to take note that there are likely to be some major surprises, and on my stretching of the elastic I need to make sure that it does not get disconnected from where it connected.

What I am convinced about was that Paul (one of my heroes… I see he perfected some of my weaknesses and his focused strengths leave me knowing I need to ‘beef up’ – all personal reflections that probably reveal too much of my misfitedness!!) believed the Gospel that brought Jesus to die in Jerusalem, as no prophet could die outside of the religious setting, was the key to unlocking all of creation. I have no idea if he had sight beyond AD70, but we certainly must. Maybe he thought it would all end with the Fall of Jerusalem, maybe he thought that would be the marker that Rome (and all the other Romes since then) would also fall, be re-shaped and be some kind of tentative image for the New Jerusalem vision. By that I do not mean anything close to the conversion of the emperor and the Imperial forces being the servant of christianising its subjects. If, as I suspect, that Paul did not see the ‘end’ as being the fall of Jerusalem, I think Paul had a long-term vision. No conversion of the emperor would satisfy, but the removal / transformation of structures that reward the opposition to the arc that I wrote about yesterday. The work of the powers (earthly and heavenly) is to dehumanise, and to reward all who dehumanise… Reduce humanity to a number and be rewarded – buy and sell.

We take bread and wine proclaiming his death (why did he die?) until he comes. The past and the future together, giving us a trajectory for now. The trajectory has not changed (or maybe it has, but the trajectory that the cross sets has not changed). I am totally agnostic about what will be transformed prior to the parousia but I am totally convinced that our hope and vision can be set on that trajectory and not be deviated by ‘but what a mess this all is and it is getting worse’. It might be getting worse, but the Gospel says it can get a whole lot better!

I had a call yesterday where someone was saying that child trafficking is now one of the biggest ‘trades’ taking place. That is a sad sign of things getting worse than ever, and I am thankful for all who are involved in responding to this heinous sin. Without diminishing in any way the awefulness of this I write tentatively that it is a sign of the end of an age. As an age passes sins that were present in ‘acceptable’ seed form manifest in full sight. Money, fortune and prosperity make the world go round… and round… till it is unhitched from its axis. Child sacrifice has always been based on sacrificing the future for present prosperity. The gods (Moloch) will reward us today with bountiful crops as those that we should be working to give them a future are sacrificed. Our economic systems have worked toward this – reversing the order that there ‘will always be seedtime and harvest’. When one is sold the lie that one can have today what we have not sown for yesterday we are reversing how we are to work with creation… and it spins off.

Crisis… it is here, but the doorway that indicates transition has always been labelled ‘crisis’. I do believe we are headed toward the end of an era. Maybe that end will mark the end (certainly the fall of Jerusalem was ‘the end of the age’), maybe it will mark the end of an era, where Jerusalem is not our home nor our hope, but the world becomes our one and only place of habitation and we have a hope for the world; that we do not lift a glass to say ‘next year Jerusalem’ but raise a glass concerning the world that has been occupied by alien forces and we say ‘next year the kosmos, the world, the ktisis, the creation’).

Not to get distracted we can get on and pray for the restoration of the bee colonies (a Gospel prayer), for the smart scientists to come up not simply with vaccines and cures, but healing for the eco-system. Pipe-dreams? Could well be, but the elastic can stretch a long way, for the death of Jesus that we proclaim encompassed from the highest point to the lowest – all of creation, visible and invisible.

The elastic has a stretch and a non-breakability inbuilt as the embrace of God is eternal and universal.

Paul lived pre-AD70; I might be living pre-end-of-an-age. His vision went beyond AD70… what about ours? There will always be ‘seedtime’. And if there is ‘seedtime’ there will always be ‘harvest’.

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Going too far? #2

'Theory' of Evolution

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I have heard so many people say – OK evolution claims to be a theory… that is all it is, a theory. Correct, however the term ‘theory’ in the world of science is used slightly more firmly than we might think. Data considered and weighed is then used to put together a ‘theory’ – something that best fits the data. A bit like a court case where there is no film footage of what took place, interrogations are made and then the jury have to come to a conclusion – we might term their decision is based on a ‘theory’.

I am not a scientist, far from it, and there are those who are scientists who are certainly very unhappy with the ‘theory of evolution’; I have no basis to enter into the debate. Perhaps though with a little bit of understanding of ancient myth stories and genre I would certainly be very negative about trying to defend a young earth / 6 day creation in any literal sense. Hence I am not opposed to evolution – as indeed are many Christian scientists, take for example the book The Language of God by Francis Collins. He being one of the main team of scientists who pushed the understanding of the gene code and as a result embraced both an evolutionary understanding of ‘creation’ and a firm belief in God the Creator.

What is at stake is not the theory of evolution vs. a theory of creation (a theory based on a rather pre-determined approach to an ancient text) but a belief in the God that is revealed in Jesus or a denial of that God.

So here is a thought that might well be going too far!!!

If God is the author of life – does the life that is released inevitably move toward an expression of that life as ‘the image of God’?

The Civil Rights movement used to say:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Wow… that takes faith. A long arc, but bending always toward a future that is different to one around us, always bending toward justice. What if life (OK let me go too far, before I pull back) begins as a single cell, but there is evolution? Where will the ‘arc’ of life move to? Will it inevitably lead to ‘at last an expression of life (human) that we can say is ‘in our image, after our likeness”? I kinda like that. Death exists but life is stronger than death.

So pulling back into real life, and away from pretending to be some psuedo-scientist. I think I am on to something. Submit to the process, go with the life of God and there is an arc, even if it is a long one, of pulling humanity toward being the image of God. True at a personal level, could it be true at a universal level?

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Going too far? #1

Beyond the Bible?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I am going to make a few posts that might provoke a ‘this is too far’ kind of response. No worries… fixed points help us travel further than we might otherwise. I walked up a mountain in Italy – higher that Ben Nevis (Scotland) with our dog. It had some paths, but not very clear, and I certainly got myself somewhat lost… however there was a farm house that I had noted on the way up that acted as my guide, and showed me I was now the wrong side of a valley going back down the side of the adjacent mountain. OK – get the point? We can wander and get lost, but if we keep some fixed points we will be able to make a few adjustments in our wanderings.

This first post is one where I think I am no where near in danger of wandering off on another mountain and finding that I have no way of knowing how to get home! I will put it boldly first and then invite you to wander a bit with me:

We have to go beyond the Bible, or
the Bible is not the final word.

Put boldly like that it is amazing what reactions can come, and then I think – and those who object? Why then be happy with ‘pulpits’, ‘ordination’, ‘bishops’, ‘seminaries’ etc. Somewhat beyond the Bible methinks. So we really should not object. Most of what is acceptable that is beyond the Bible comes through tradition, ‘church’ tradition. I want to push in a different direction, and I want to do so as I see developing revelation and understanding within Scripture itself. Very evident with Jesus – you have heard it said, but I say to you… And the change with Jesus is beyond profound. He was either deceived at an incredible level (the Scriptures pointing to him!) or he has to be placed central, with Scripture moving out of the category of timeless truths disembodied from history / culture, to a record of an unfolding story of a people of faith on a journey recording that journey with at times a stronger and at other times a fainter line pointing to the revelation of God in Jesus, and therefore necessarily pointing away from itself. A sign is not the arrival point and at times signs can be confusing (just ask us we tried to follow google maps these past weeks at some crazy junctions!). We can find ourselves with a ‘phew we are still on the right path and direction’ to other times ‘well that was a bit of a dirt path, but here we are back on track’. That is the richness of Scripture – the internal disagreements are so enlightening as they tend to be the ones that expose our personal internal disagreements. (Could this be why the entrance to the kingdom that we favour is ‘you must be born again’ over ‘go sell all you have’? Both statements spoken to an individual – one religious and one rich.)

Surface, and at times deeper than at surface level, disagreements within the pages should alert us to look deeper than wave a few favourite verses around. The God who gave instructions about the death penalty certainly did not abide by those instructions in the Cain / Abel story (nor in the ‘repeat’ in the Jesus / Barabbas story). And as mentioned above – the Jesus approach that overturned / went beyond Scripture with his ‘but I say to you’.

The Gentile mission (Paul) went beyond what they understood. They went beyond Scripture. Of course that can be justified with ‘the Scriptures are apostolic’. I remember well the various lectures on the New Testament where the big issue was of seeking to root the books in either ‘written by an apostle’ or ‘someone so connected to the apostles that they are writing with apostolic authority’. Why? Seems that was a belief imposed on Scripture not coming from Scripture. And this has come through in certain charismatic views of prophecy where (I paraphrase) the apostles of the NT write without error and are the partner to the prophets of the Old Testament – thus prophecy of the NT is not at the same level as prophecy of the Old… (Not substantiated by the testimony of Scripture, so friends of the ‘Gospel Coalition’ this one does not get my vote and I suspect it is supported by (yet again) an imposition on Scripture.) Oh how I love to pontificate!

Moving forward quickly… to be biblical we need to be immersed in, but not drowned by, the text(s) and allow the forward flow to carry us to and through uncomfortable territory. We can be carried beyond Scripture, but it has to be on the same trajectory; we might repeat parts of the story, but a continual repetition might simply lock us in a ‘chapter’ that has already been written. If I am unable to recall earlier ‘chapters’ I will lose the plot, the story. I need the fixed points, the characters, the drama, the flow. But then?

The tension is that the biblical ‘story’ (story-line) holds the answers as they point to Jesus, but if we use the story (the text(s)) to be the end in themselves we will use yesterdays answers and seek to apply them to today’s issues. And on the latter issue highly dangerous when we try and explain biblical discussion and uproot the discussion from the story – such as with the cross of Jesus and the ‘wrath’ of God.

Where could this take us… maybe quite a bit of wandering, but come on there are mountains to be climbed and sight to be gained of a landscape that we have not seen clearly into.

I am provoked by Paul – apostolic writings if ever there were any! He saw ekklesia. Did he see what might lie beyond his passion to get an ekklesia in every place where there was already an ekklesia. What should follow after (I assume there was an ‘after’) there was a community who understood they were (with all their faults – that is grace!) the chosen ones to take on board the future shape, culture and health of what was within their territory? Did he have sight on that? But probably more importantly do we? And then we could explore what territory might mean today – simply geographical? Boundaries and times are in the biblical story – now where might we wander if we keep our eyes on the fixed points?

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Una pausa?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Reports

Been a while since I posted… well some 7,000kms on the road – Valencia –> France –> Italy –> Switzerland –> Germany –> Switzerland –> Galicia –> home. Great to be away and awesome to come home even if 37°C is just a little too hot. On the road, computer said ‘My time is over’ so I was not about to write a bunch of posts on my phone. But a good pause – always time to pray, talk with my companion (oh yes the one called, Gayle!), refocus etc., and at the same time holding our breath as the election in Spain took place while we were gone – outcome could have been a lot worse!!

Our main involvement while away was for Gayle to hold, with others, a ‘sanctuary’ in Italy. A safe place for anyone connected to ‘Authentic’ to explore being together, share life and stories. I am amazed at the outcome with genuine transformation. I am also deeply interested to journey with this as those of different faith / no faith get involved – one of the passions I have currently is to discover how can we be inclusive and enable people to encounter (or journey toward) the Jesus who uniquely is the image of the one true God.

In a post-Christendom Europe (so much more like the culture of the NT – maybe the answer to prayers that have been asking for a NT-type expression of faith??? I think so!) the question of how people encounter Jesus without the trappings is ever so central. If we want something that is not boxed, and something that touches those outside the box there is only one alternative – go outside the box. Cornelius did not meet Peter (and through Peter, Jesus) in Joppa… but Peter met Cornelius who met Jesus in Cornelius’ home. In the old days we might have talked about the ‘anointing on the house’, but it is now time to find the anointing that is on Cornelius’ house – and it seems to be an anointing for revelation as Peter said ‘Now I perceive…’

Big days… endless possibilities!!

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A belief in transformation?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I was asked a little while back – so what do you believe about ‘transformation’ of this world? A huge question and one on which I would like to write something much fuller on one day soon-ish. Also an interesting question as one has to try and see if there has been an evolution of a belief or a U-turn or a change of direction. For sure I once knew so much and now????

I will try and enumerate points in brief and hope that I will be clear enough to be understood and show enough about where I am at:

I am pretty conventional on the parousia – a personal return that brings about the reconciliation of all things without a set of events that precede (event commonly spoken of such as ‘antiChrist, tribulation etc.’). However, given that we might totally miss the thrust of the NT on this (same as many expectant Jews could not see the hope of Messiah being fulfilled in Jesus), I am also open to the parousia being somewhat different to what we might expect… with the resurrection of the dead in Christ being central to that future hope: that was always the hope in both testaments. So on the ‘return’ of Christ I do not subscribe to some triumphalistic (commonly called post-millennial) return.

‘Tickets to heaven’ are not what the gospel is centred on for two reasons – going to heaven when one dies is not the goal, nor are we the ones to decide who is ‘in’ or ‘out’. By all means we share our faith, and people need to be able to ‘borrow’ / ‘use’ our faith and benefit from that. Hence conventional understandings of ‘revival’ with a major influx of people to come to us and tick the same belief boxes as us is equally not the thrust of the NT. I see the context in which Paul worked as understanding that the body of Christ (ekklesia, if you like) was a body of people who took responsibility for the future of their setting. Responsibility for the wider setting in which everyone belonged, even those who did not come to personal faith in Jesus. I am deeply thankful for every person who finds personal faith and the living reality of a relationship to the God of heaven yet with much of that emphasis it furthers the separation of the them / us, and the strengthening of any ghetto. ‘Salvation’ is God’s part not a cultural experience, hence the emphasis on responsibility for the wider setting.

That responsibility involves serving at a human level, and at a spiritual level that of clearing the ‘heavens’ of everything that would pollute the context and obscure God. It does not involve the necessity nor the desire for Christians to occupy the x% of the ‘mountains’. Indeed this being the Christendom model that (my simplistic view) changed the whole nature of the gospel is something that I think is basically toxic.

We face huge challenges that are manifesting at the level of climate change (how long do we have?) and the huge displacements of people. Those issues (and other critical ones) are deeply sobering when we talk of ‘I believe in the transformation of the world’.

We will see (will = are seeing!) huge changes in our lifetime. The world will look so different in another 20 years. How different? Certain elements of transformation will be forced on us. OK… so what do I now believe?

We ONLY have a mandate to pray, work, relate and position ourselves that ‘your kingdom come’. Speculation about ‘Jesus coming soon’ we should not confuse with the hope of the New Testament (‘even so come Lord Jesus’). We should anticipate that there is a God in heaven who answers prayer.

I do see a connection between the many prayer journeys of the past few decades and the future. The answer to prayer is not always what one anticipates… the path to the ‘God come’ might not be the expected and ‘here they all come to our meeting’ but could well be (and will increasingly be) and here go those who carry that personal relation to Jesus into the world, embracing it, being changed by it, and as they are changed so is the environment and the people.

For me nothing has changed at the level of ‘here comes God transforming the world’. Well maybe what has changed is whether ‘we’ have an important and recognised position in it all. I pray today as I did more than a quarter a century ago for the transformation of cities, regions and nations. The difference is I am not counting the numbers who will occupy seats on a Sunday inside various buildings. I look to hear the voices from the streets that are calling out what is obvious wisdom for the future; I look for a sharing wider of a vision for the future that points to the future.

Transformation? Yes bring it on. And some amazing outposts of it here, there and everywhere – though perhaps not so likely to be centre-stage and visible where old paradigms (christendom) dominate.

I still look for change, for transformation. I do not see that we have any other mandate than to pray and work toward that vision. Maybe we will need a ‘conservative’ parousia along the way, but if that is not coming (we have misread… correction I have misread the NT) we still are focused on getting as close as we can to ‘the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and Christ’.

All the above is a great stimulus to getting out of bed in the morning!

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Re-alignment of borders?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I read over the weekend about Orkney exploring an alignment to Norway rather than the UK, and a number of people sent me links to the article:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/02/orkney-could-leave-uk-for-norway-as-it-explores-alternative-governance

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-66066448

Ah well post-Brexit it might give me an opportunity to get a ‘passport of the Orkney kingdom’ and solve some of the issues with travel in Europe (though we have none as we are permanent residents of Spain and are about to leave for Italy by road this week). Though it would be smart to have a passport shared by only a few thousand people – and I need all the help I can get to be smart.

A number of years ago I prophesied, while in Orkney, that the council was going to be pulled into meetings with Scandinavian countries! One of those times when in my head it was ‘crazy… a small island and proper countries – not going to happen, Martin’ but hey-ho I spoke it out.

I have no idea where this all goes, but for a while I have been contemplating Paul’s little discourse in Athens:

From one ancestor he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us… Since we are God’s offspring… (Acts 17:26, 27, 29).

Quite a dense bridge-building apologetic in those few words. We are all one people and are ALL God’s offspring – estranged children perhaps might be appropriate, hence at a God – human level reconciliation has to be at the heart of the cross, not such motifs as payment nor punishment.

In the fumbling around there can be a certain amount of accidentally finding ‘him’ (so difficult to get the right pronouns for ‘God’ who is neither male nor female, but what we might term both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’)… so we do not need to take a hyper-oppositional stance to all religions and philosophies. And… back to Orkney in a kind of way…

The boundaries and times for the peoples so that… The boundaries have a purpose, so that there can be a God-search. What if many boundaries are really not the ones God intends? Then the God-search could well be obscured.

War has changed boundaries over and over again – witness currently in Ukraine or Sudan and a host of other places – and I doubt that most of the resulting boundaries are the ones God intends. So here is my thought that has been here for a while – we are going to see a number of boundary shifts and re-alignments. Not the re-alignments to give us back our sovereignty (sub-text: exclude people… even OT-wise with Israel boundaries were to include the alien, widow and orphan), but the re-alignment for human to human relating in well-being and for the ‘God-search’ to be under way. Where does it begin? As always for us who profess faith: prayer and alongside all who are of God’s offspring in relating across human-defined boundaries. Maybe we can’t quite get to Norway to exercise that… but I could look across the street; across the faith boundary I have set; across the ‘morally right’ border that keeps me clean.

To close a short sentence from a WhatsApp message I sent a few days ago to a prayer group:

I have little clarity… I know that Jesus did not promise that he was the way to God, but the way to the God that (seemingly) many people already know but not intimately (‘the way to the Father’), but beyond that I know there are paths we have not trodden nor understood.

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So, maybe, and I think very probable

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I kinda think – hence the title – that we are in a time of ‘collapse’. Much is shifting and here are a few perspectives I have held for some time… we are seeing a shift from west to east and from north to south. I realise once we have an interest in something we tend to get that ‘fed’ to us, so I need to be a little careful but every day I get feeds around ‘new currency’, ‘a shift from the dollar as global currency’, ‘the BRICS are planning xyz’. I don’t know if the term ‘collapse’ is too strong, and I don’t know if it is appropriate what that might look like. Certainly foundations are being shaken.

Jesus spoke into another time when foundations would collapse… and those foundations were understood to be ‘holy’ foundations:

Not one stone will stay upon the other.

If foundations are shaken / removed / they crumble then what they supported will not remain, the building will at best be filled with cracks if not something more devastating.

A time of shaking brings with it both threat and also opportunity. Threat to what has been and opportunity to embrace what is not fully known nor understood. I suggest we are right at that time. ‘End-time’ language does nothing for me as I think it is so mis-guided, but I do consider that we can legitimately use language such as ‘eschatological opportunity’. That is not for believers to own as exclusively theirs (eschatology is about the world, the planet, creation after all) but surely it would be incredibly helpful if a good bunch of believers were willing to welcome in the unknown and not to retract to a measure of self-preservation.

At a time of collapse insecurities surface and there will be a push to restore some old certainties. To hold on to old certainties might not be totally wrong, for there are values worth holding on to… however, we need to be sure those ‘old’ values are rooted in the irruption of the age to come, or as Paul puts it,

[B]ut a new creation is everything!

Everything!! Old values have to be rooted in new creation values if they should remain as foundational.

There is much talk of Judeo-Christian values and I understand that, but we cannot insist on that uncritically. I love the principles of the law such as it is illegal to maximise profits (come on you know that’s true!), but we have to be careful about what we read in the law – it was given to a nation not to the world, and God very early on clearly did not think the law on capital punishment was one he should follow, evidenced by his protection of Cain.

So I think we need to not simply receive every plea for a return to Judeo-Christian values… some of them are seriously sub-Christian! And… and there is a big and. Values that transform are values from the future. The whole aspect of ‘new creation’ being everything.

There is wisdom from the past, but if we are not careful we can embrace that which holds us back from bringing in the future. We are not looking to restore old certainties.

What would eschatological values look like?

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