Confessing Evangelical

In the recent discussions about Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book, The Cost of Discipleship, one point that came up was the question of how we hear Christ's call to follow him. The point was made, correctly, that there is a difference in how we encounter Christ after his ascension into heaven.

Setting aside (please!) the question of whether there are flaws in Bonhoeffer's conception of discipleship and following Christ - though I would draw your attention to the very pertinent comments from the man himself, as posted by Pr William Voelker in an earlier comments thread - I found the following passage very powerful on this question of how we hear Christ's call today.

In chapter 27, at the start of his section on "the church of Jesus Christ and the life of discipleship", Bonhoeffer is describing the questions that crowd in when we consider the issue of how Christ calls us today. How can we take the experiences of the disciples, or the paralytic, or Lazarus, as examples for us today? Which of the various models of discipleship found in the gospels are we to adopt for ourselves? How can we know we are truly following him rather than following our own whims? Bonhoeffer writes:

There is something wrong about all these questions. Every time we ask them we are retreating from the presence of the living Christ and forgetting that Jesus Christ is not dead, but alive and speaking to us to-day through the testimony of the Scriptures.

He comes to us to-day, and is present with us in bodily form and in his word. If we would hear his call to follow, we must listen where he is to be found, that is, in the Church through the ministry of Word and Sacrament. The preaching of the Church and the administration of the sacraments is the place where Jesus Christ is present.

If you would hear the call of Jesus you need no personal revelation: all you have to do is to hear the sermon and receive the sacrament, that is, to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen. Here he is, the same Christ whom the disciples encountered, the same Christ whole and entire. Yes, here is already, the glorified, victorious and risen Lord.

Hence our concern when reading the gospels, or any other scriptural passage, is not to pick and choose examples, but to look to Christ and listen to what he is telling us through a given passage of Scripture:

It is therefore abundantly clear that we cannot play off the various accounts of the calling of the disciples against other parts of the gospel narrative. It is not a question of stepping into the shoes of the disciples, or of any other of the New Testament characters. The only constant factor throughout is the sameness of Christ and of his call then and now...

The Scriptures do not present us with a series of Christian types to be imitated according to choice: they preach to us in every situation the one Jesus Christ. To him alone must I listen. He is everywhere one and the same.

To the question - where today do we hear the call of Jesus to discipleship, there is no other answer than this: Hear the Word, receive the Sacrament; in it hear him himself, and you will hear his call.

If there were only one gift that the Lutheran church could give to the wider church of Christ, it would be this: its conscious awareness of our participation in the church's ministry of preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments as an encounter with the living Christ, rather than merely involving the communication of information about Christ. That has certainly been the insight for which I've been most grateful since joining the Lutheran church.

Indeed, Bonhoeffer's words in this chapter left me reeling when I read them last night. I'd made attempts to read Discipleship on various occasions in the past 13 years, but had previously ground to a halt fairly early in the book. Reading chapter 27, however, I found myself wondering what would have happened if I'd read it ten years ago. It would have blown my mind, I should think. And probably saved me a lot of difficulty and confusion. And/or caused some...

Labels: bonhoeffer, discipleship

In my previous post, I suggested that Bonhoeffer's treatment of the Lord's Prayer provides additional evidence against any charge of legalism - whether that is legalism in the sense of outright works-righteousness, or in the sense of mixing law elements into the gospel.

What I had in mind was his treatment of the petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors". Bonhoeffer writes:

Every day, Christ's followers must acknowledge and bewail their guilt. Living as they do in fellowship with him, they ought to be sinless, but in practice their life is marred daily with all manner of unbelief, sloth in prayer, lack of bodily discipline, self-indulgence of every kind, envy, hatred and ambition. No wonder that they must pray daily for God's forgiveness.

Note that this puts paid to any notion that Bonhoeffer is presenting sinless perfection, or even a certain level of legal obedience, as a condition for fellowship with Christ. We ought to be sinless, but in reality two things are true about us: we do live in fellowship with Christ, but at the same time we commit real sins that need real forgiveness. Simil iustus et peccator.

But here we hit a snag, namely the condition the prayer imposes on our forgiveness, and which Jesus reiterates in Matthew 6:14,15, immediately after the text of his prayer:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Here, surely, is an opportunity for Bonhoeffer the legalist to bring the hammer down upon us again. The condition is quite simple and straightforward; Jesus means what he says; there is no escape. And indeed this is what Bonhoeffer appears to start to say. However, he then takes this thought in a radically different direction from that which one might expect:

But God will only forgive them if they forgive one another with readiness and brotherly affection. Thus they bring all their guilt before God and pray as a body for forgiveness. God forgive not merely me my debts, but us ours.

Note in particular the word "thus": it is because we are required to forgive others that we make this prayer corporately. In other words, the corporate nature of the Lord's prayer, its nature as a prayer of the church, means that it is its own fulfilment of the condition in this petition. As we pray this petition together, at that point we are actually forgiving those who have sinned against us by drawing them into the same prayer. The fact that the old self may spring back to life immediately after our prayer and resume its hatred and unforgiveness is neither here nor there.

Bonhoeffer makes the same point in his exposition of verses 14 and 15:

As a summing up Jesus emphasizes once more that everything depends on forgiveness of sin of which the disciples may only partake within the fellowship of sinners.

Again, this is as far from legalism as it is possible to get. This condition is not aimed at driving us to attempt its fulfilment by our own interior efforts to attain a "forgiving" state of mind; it is pointing us towards the place in which that forgiveness of the sins of others is made concrete and actual, the place in which we acknowledge that those around us are sinners and yet continue to live in fellowship with them: the church.

Labels: bonhoeffer, discipleship, forgiveness

Rick Ritchie has been arguing (1 | 2) to the effect that Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship is legalistic, that Bonhoeffer sets up a standard of perfect discipleship as a condition of salvation in a manner that amounts to works-righteousness.

This is obviously a pretty serious charge to level at a Lutheran theologian. It's one thing to say that Bonhoeffer over-emphasises law at the expense of gospel - I'm reserving judgment on that one until I've finished the book - but I do think the allegation of legalism is misplaced.

For example, in chapter 14 ("The Hidden Righteousness"), Bonhoeffer considers the apparent tension between Matthew 5, in which we are told to:

"let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven"

and Matthew 6, in which Jesus tells us:

"do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing".

How to resolve this apparent contradiction between the visible and hidden aspects of discipleship? Bonhoeffer's answer is, in my view, critical to understanding the argument of his book:

The first question to ask is: From whom are we to hide the visibility of our discipleship? Certainly not from other men, for we are told to let them see our light. No. We are to hide it from ourselves. Our task is simply to keep on following, looking only to our Leader who goes on before, taking no notice of ourselves or of what we are doing.

We must be unaware of our own righteousness, and see it only in so far as we look unto Jesus; then it will seem not extraordinary, but quite ordinary and natural. Thus we hide the visible from ourselves in obedience to the word of Jesus.

This is, of course, quite the opposite of legalistic self-righteousness, or of an inward-looking search for assurance based on the evidence of good works in one's life. As Bonhoeffer continues:

All that the follower of Jesus has to do is make sure that his obedience, following and love are entirely spontaneous and premeditated. If you do good, you must not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, you must be quite unconscious of it. Otherwise you are simply displaying your own virtue, and not that which has its source in Jesus Christ.

Such a self-forgetful existence can only be the consequence, not the cause, of our fellowship with Christ:

Once again, who can live a life which combines chapters 5 and 6? Only those who have died after the old man through Christ, and are given a new life by following him and having fellowship with him.

In other words, Bonhoeffer's exposition of Jesus' words is intended to be descriptive of what the life of the believer looks like (however imperfectly), not prescriptive of a standard to which we must attain as a precondition of salvation. As such, he is saying nothing more than is found in Article VI of the Augsburg Confession - "this faith is bound to bring forth good fruits" - or in Melanchthon's chapter on "Love and the Fulfilling of the Law" in the Apology.

But what of those of us - namely all of us - who fail to meet the exacting standards laid out in the sermon on the mount, whose faith at times seems so short of "good fruits"? Does Bonhoeffer leave us without hope, crushed by the standards of discipleship imposed as a new law upon the believer?

Quite the contrary, as his exposition of the Lord's prayer in the following chapter demonstrates. But that is for another post.

Labels: bonhoeffer, discipleship

This item from The Onion made me laugh: Northeast Stunned By Freak January Snowfall.

That's exactly what it's been like in south-east England for the past couple of days: temperatures "plunging" to around freezing point, gardens and roads buried under 1.5 inches of snow, children almost managing to make snowballs...

Labels: let it snow let it snow let it snow, the onion, winter

An intriguing suggestion for a Bible-reading programme from Cerulean Sanctum, involving reading entire books at a single sitting and spending a month reading only that book. I think I'll pass, myself, but it's still an interesting approach.

Over the past few years, I've used (intermittently) a slight variant on the M'Cheyne Bible Reading Plan that is aimed at reading the OT over two years and the NT in one year. I find this a less frenetic approach than trying to read the whole of the Bible in a single year.

But I've come to the conclusion that, as Dan Edelen puts it, while M'Cheyne is a great saint, "this doesn't change the fact that his Bible-reading program's not all that good". If you do the whole thing (OT in a year, NT twice each year) then you'll either collapse under the strain or else read in a very superficial manner. Plus, with my own "50%" approach, the strictly sequential approach meant reading all four gospels in the first three months or so, then the psalms for another three or four months, and then clattering through the rest of the NT in the remainder of the year. Not ideal: the months spent in the psalms become a bit of a slog, and by December I've almost forgotten what the Jesus of the gospels is like.

And then there's its complete detachment from the rhythms of the church year. For example, the readings for 25 December are 2 Chronicles 30, Revelation 16, Zechariah 12:1-13:1 and John 15, none of which is what you'd call particularly "Christmassy".

A number of Lutheran bloggers have been commending Pr Weedon's plan for using the Lutheran Service Book's assigned readings and psalms, together with a daily reading from the Book of Concord. The problem with the LSB's plan, however, is that it doesn't cover the whole Bible (unless you read the optional "fill-in" readings, which can mean reading several chapters at a single sitting).

So the plan I'm currently using is the St James Daily Devotional Guide published by Touchstone Magazine. For each day there is assigned:

• an OT reading (normally a full chapter);


• an NT reading;


• a reading from one of the four gospels; and


• psalms for morning and evening.

Notes are provided for some days, with further notes available online (though I don't generally use these).

The overall aim of the plan is to read the OT over the course of two years, and the NT in a single year, which is the sort of rhythm I was aiming for anyway. I tend to read the NT and gospel in the morning, and the OT reading at night, but the notes suggest other approaches.

Some "pros" of the St James plan:

• the readings are a good length, and I've found it particularly helpful to read the gospels in shorter, more concentrated chunks rather than racing through a chapter at a time;


• the plan means you read from the OT, NT, gospels and psalms every day, which I think is a very healthy approach; and


• the plan provides a devotional framework in which to use the readings, with suggested forms of intercession and other prayers. Hence it can function as a "mini office".

Against that, the main disadvantage so far is a tendency to switch and chop a little more than I'd like, rather than just reading each book sequentially. For example, the NT readings over the past seven days have been: Hebrews 6:11-20, 11:1-12, 7:1-10; Romans 4:13-25; Hebrews 7:11-19; Galatians 4:21-31; Hebrews 11:13-22, 7:20-28. The gospel readings have been more regular, though.

On the other hand, that approach does allow for some helpful pairings of passages (e.g. pairing Genesis 22 with Hebrews 11:13-22). I'm also hoping this will help achieve what would be a very useful aim for me: to maintain a habit of regular, systematic Bible reading, without getting constantly hung up over "how far through" I am, how long it is since I read this or that book.

Overall, I'd say if you're looking for a plan that covers the whole Bible without turning into a gallop, that takes account of the church year, and that keeps you in daily contact with all the main parts of the Bible (not least the psalms and the gospels), then this is well worth a look. The annual subscription is $14 for the US/Canada, $20 for the rest of us.

Labels: bible reading, devotion

See, barely a proper Lutheran at all...

Labels: quiz

I've just started reading The Cost of Discipleship, after Pete mentioned Bonhoeffer in the comments to my previous post. I've previously tried to read this but failed to finish, partly because it is very strong meat indeed, partly because I was baffled by a lot of the specifically Lutheran background and terminology.

The first chapter, with its attack on "cheap grace" ("grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate") certainly makes a lot more sense now I've been a Lutheran for a couple of years. Take, for example, a paragraph like this:

So long as our Church holds the correct doctrine of justification, there is no doubt whatever that she is a justified Church! So they said, thinking that we must vindicate our Lutheran heritage by making this grace available on the cheapest and easiest terms. To be "Lutheran" must mean that we leave the following of Christ to legalists, Calvinists and enthusiasts - and all this for the sake of grace. We justified the world, and condemned as heretics those who tried to follow Christ.

Ouch.

But what I really wanted to quote from that first chapter was Bonhoeffer's thoughts on Luther's phrase "sin boldly" (pecca fortiter), as mentioned in my last post (and which I have posted on before). This phrase is often misunderstood (by people who have clearly never read another word of Luther!) as demonstrating Luther's belief that Christians are free to sin with impunity, as the ultimate in cheap grace. As Bonhoeffer puts it, summarising these objections:

Is this the proclamation of cheap grace, naked and unashamed, the carte blanche for sin, the end of all discipleship? Is this a blasphemous encouragement to sin boldly and rely on grace? Is there a more diabolical abuse of grace than to sin and rely on the grace which God has given? Is not the Roman Catechism quite right in denouncing this as the sin against the Holy Ghost?

Bonhoeffer's response is that it all depends on whether we regard pecca fortiter as a founding principle for the Christian life, or as the final answer to which we find ourselves forced at the end of our attempts to obey Christ; that is, whether we see it as "the data" or as "the answer to the sum":

Taken as the premiss [for our doctrine of grace], pecca fortiter acquires the character of an ethical principle, a principle of grace to which the principle of pecca fortiter must correspond. That means the justification of sin, and it turns Luther's formula into its very opposite.

For Luther "sin boldly" could only be his very last refuge, the consolation for one whose attempts to follow Christ had taught him that he can never become sinless, who in his fear of sin despairs of the grace of God. As Luther saw it, "sin boldly" did not happen to be a fundamental acknowledgement of his disobedient life; it was the gospel of the grace of God before which we are always and in every circumstance sinners. Yet that grace seeks us and justifies us, sinners though we are.

Take courage and confess your sin, says Luther, do not try to run away from it, but believe more boldly still. You are a sinner, so be a sinner, and don't try to become what you are not. Yes, and become a sinner again and again every day, and be bold about it.

But to whom can such words be addressed, except to those who from the bottom of their hearts make a daily renunciation of sin and of every barrier which hinders them from following Christ, but who nevertheless are troubled by their daily faithlessness and sin? Who can hear these words without endangering his faith but he who hears their consolation as a renewed summons to follow Christ? Interpreted in this way, these words of Luther become a testimony to the costliness of grace, the only genuine kind of grace there is.

The contrast is between "grace interpreted as a principle, pecca fortiter as a principle, grace at a low cost", which amounts simply to "a new law, which brings neither help nor freedom"; and grace as "a living word, pecca fortiter as our comfort in tribulation and as a summons to discipleship".

Labels: bonhoeffer, luther, sinning boldly

The thing about the sermon on the mount is, just when you think you've managed to rationalise your way past the Lord's more troublesome injunctions, you run slap into a sheer rock face like this:

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

Matthew 5:38-42

Many people seem to have a general feeling of benevolent warmth towards the sermon on the mount. You know the sort of thing: "I'm not the sort to go to church, but I do try to live by the sermon on the mount." Most Christians, likewise, would probably regard the sermon on the mount as the template to which we should aspire in our own lives.

But that general hazy sense of the sermon on the mount as "great moral teaching", practical guidance for the Good Life, soon disappears once you start to attend to what Jesus is actually saying.

Take a look at that quote above. Do you live by that? Do you refuse to resist an evildoer, turn the other cheek, give a plaintiff more than they are suing you for, give to everyone (or anyone?) who begs from you or asks to borrow from you? Do you even want to? Can you even begin to contemplate what the effects would be of living like that even for one single day, what a wreck that would make of your lifestyle?

Passages like this show us two things. First, that part of the purpose of the sermon on the mount is to pound into oblivion any notion we might have that are capable of living by its teachings. If we're honest with ourselves and with the sermon's contents, we don't even want to. It exposes that all we can do in this life is to "sin boldly".

But this leads on to the second point, which is that the sermon on the mount exposes our lack of belief in grace. We may say we believe that "God saves sinners", but we don't mean real sinners who commit real sins. We need to listen again to what Luther tells Melanchthon in his infamous "sin boldly" letter:

If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.

We find this a hard lesson to take. Yes, God will have mercy on me, a sinner. But that's because I'm a special kind of sinner. I'm the sort of sinner who only commits the sort of sins that Christians commit, not the sort who commits real sins like everyone else commits.

As Michael Spencer pointed out a couple of days ago, this is why so much of the church is so ambivalent (at best) towards the celebrated "plagarizer (sic), theological liberal [and] adulterer", Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. As Michael put it:

Here’s one time we can tell the culture to look at a flawed person and see the grace and power of God, and we won’t.

Is this because we are simply dealing appropriately with proper concerns about Dr King? Or is it because, when it comes down to it, we don't feel comfortable with the idea of the grace and power of God being manifested through a flawed person - and a properly flawed person at that, a real sinner with real and terrible sins, not just "OK for Christians" sins. (Please note I am not taking a position one way or the other here on the truth or otherwise of the allegations made against Dr King.)

Perhaps it's appropriate that Martin Luther King's name includes that of Martin Luther: another real sinner with real sins, who polarises opinion so strongly precisely because we find it so difficult to conceive of "proper sinners" being the means by which the grace and power of God work among us. So either his sins or his achievements must be downplayed, according to taste.

This morning's gospel reading (from the St James's Daily Devotional Guide) was a familiar one, but my mind got snagged on the last sentence in a new way:

‘Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.” But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be “Yes, Yes” or “No, No”; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

- Matthew 5:33-37

I'm so familiar with the first half of that last sentence - "Let your word by 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'" - that I've tended to let my eyes glide effortlessly over the second half: "anything more than this comes from the evil one".

As so often with the sermon on the mount, it all seems so reasonable until you actually concentrate on what Jesus is saying, at which point you are tempted to say, "Whoa! Steady on there, a minute!". I mean, it's one thing to say, "Don't go around making extravagant oaths; just stick to a simple 'yes' or 'no', and stand by your word". That's the sort of thing that Great Moral Teachers™ say all the time. Makes perfect sense. But to go on and say that those additional oaths that people use every day are satanic? Wow. That's a bit strong, don't you think?

So I was trying to think through why Jesus might have used such strong language to describe these oaths. It occurred to me that one clue to this can be found in another incident in the gospels, in Luke 12:13,14:

Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’

When we swear by God's name - and all oaths, as such, are sworn by God's name, whether expressly or by implication, as Jesus makes clear in verses 34 and 35 - we are asking God to be "judge or arbitrator" in our own private affairs; to take sides in our own interests. By implication, we are bringing God down to our level, even putting him at our disposal, turning him into a means for attaining our own ends.

Now, of course God is concerned about the minutiae of existence, with not a sparrow falling to the ground without his noticing it. The gospel itself is about God's self-giving, self-emptying love in entering into our world rather than standing aloof from it. But there is all the difference in the world between receiving as a gift God's loving, self-giving concern for every aspect of our lives, and snatching it for ourselves like a spoiled child who (in WH Vanstone's words) "[takes] as a right that which should be received as a gift".

Jesus' exposure of the true motive behind our oaths - the desire to put God at our disposal and in our power, to lay hold of his concern for us as a right rather than receiving it as a gift - helps us to see why it "comes from the evil one".

Labels: biblical ethics, biblical interpretation, sermon on the mount

This was previously part of the post which appears above this, but I've separated it out to avoid derailing the main point of that post on a discussion about oaths in court.

What I said at the end of the preceding post was as follows:

This also helps us to see why, despite Jesus' words in this passage, the church has historically accepted the use of formal oaths in legal situations. An oath sworn in court emphasises that the human justice of the court derives from the justice of God himself; it is a means by which the witness sets aside their own selfish interests in favour of the interests of truth and justice, rather than a means by which the witness invokes God as a servant of the witness's own interests. (Of course, even an oath sworn in court could be sworn with such motives, in which case Jesus' stern words would continue to apply to it.)

Thomas then left a comment suggesting that this explanation

...smack[s] of the same long-winded explanations we Christians always give when we find good reasons to do what we want in spite of the clear command of Jesus

and suggesting that:

If one must take an oath to testify in court or fulfill some otherwise lawful and moral duty (and not everything demanded of us by the authorities will fall under that heading), then let's at least have the guts to 'sin boldly' and not wring out lengthy self-justifying examinations of our decidedly mixed motives.

I think Thomas has a point about the skill and expertise Christians have long demonstrated in side-stepping Jesus' more awkward commands. Whether that applies in this case, given the other examples of oaths being used without complaint in other NT situations, is a different matter. Further discussion is welcome in the comments.

Labels: biblical ethics, sinning boldly

I've been more confessing than usual, over at Lifehacker (one of my favourite sites). Yes, I am "reader John" who has a problem with "intercrastination" (i.e. wasting time at the transition between two tasks). Some useful suggestions in response.

Labels: lifehacks, productivity

Excellent talk by Richard Stallman, father of the free software movement, explaining what "free software" is and why it matters.

Stallman explains that Free software is software that - regardless of the price you pay for it - offers the following four freedoms:

• Freedom 0: the freedom to run the program however you wish.
• Freedom 1: the freedom to help yourself. That's the freedom to study the source code and change it to do what you wish.
• Freedom 2: the freedom to help your neighbour. That's the freedom to copy the programme and distribute the copies to others when you wish.
• Freedom 3: the freedom to help your community. That's the freedom to publish or distribute a modified version when you wish.

These freedoms can seem rather abstract. 99% of us don't/can't "study the source code" to any useful purpose or modify/redistribute the software we use. Why should we care whether the software we use is "free" or not?

Stallman explains using a very helpful analogy, with recipes. "People who cook enjoy the same four freedoms in using recipes", Stallman points out:

The freedom to cook the recipe when you want. That's freedom zero. The freedom to study the ingredients and how it's done, and then change it. That's freedom one. Cooks frequently change recipes. And then the freedom to copy it and hand copies to your friends. That's freedom two. And then, freedom three is less frequently exercised because it's more work, but if you cook your version of the recipes for a dinner with your friends, and a friend says "that was great, can I have the recipe?" you can write down your version of the recipe and make a copy for your friend.

It is "no coincidence" that the same four freedoms apply to recipes and computer programs, because:

...programs, like recipes, are works that you use for practical work. You use them to do something. When you use a work to do something, if you're not in control of it, you're not in control of your life. And if you can't share with other people, you're forbidden to be part of a community.

This then goes some way to explaining the passion that has driven Stallman and the free software movement, the moral indignation against proprietary software:

Imagine how angry everyone who cooks would be if some day the government says "From now on, if you share or change a recipe, we're going to call you a pirate, we're going to compare you with people who attack ships, and we're going to put you in prison for years because that's forbidden cooperation". Imagine the anger that there would be. That anger is at the basis of the free software movement too. We want to have freedom in using our computers.

Stallman goes on to look at how free software has particular value in developing countries, in contrast to proprietary software which represents a new "colonial system":

What does it mean if your society increases the use of non-free software? Well, that's software which nobody in your city, unless you happen to live in just the right place in the World, nobody in your city is in a position to understand it, maintain it, adapt it, extend it, or do anything with it. It's just like the old colonial system where the colonial power had all the industry. They made all the technology and the people in the colony, they just had to buy it, and they weren't supposed to understand anything or make anything...

That's what proprietary software is like. This is not sustainable development. It's not appropriate technology. This is a technology of dependence, and dependence is exactly what that system is all about. It's keeping people helpless.

Proprietary software can also be compared to an addictive drug, including the methods in which it is marketed to people. The first few doses are offered at zero or reduced price; after that, you (and your employer) have to pay full whack:

[Sellers of non-free software] say to schools: "We will help you by giving you these gratis copies of our non-free software so that you can turn your students into addicts of our software" Why do I use the term addicts? Because they develop a dependency on this software and then after they graduate, you can be sure they are not going to be offered these gratis copies anymore because it's only the first dose that's gratis. Once you're addicted, then you're supposed to pay, and then also, of course, the companies that these graduates work for, those companies are not going to be offered gratis copies.

So, essentially, what these software developers are doing is they're recruiting the schools into agents to lead people into permanent lifelong dependency.

All this is more important than arguments over whether proprietary or "open-source software" offers lower "total costs of ownership" or provides better functionality. Stallman dislikes the "open source" paradigm, arguing that it is simply "a way of promoting software that usually is free but without mentioning these ideals".

Open source advocates prefer to point to free software as way to "have powerful, reliable, convenient software and get it cheap". As it happens, this is true, but the problem with casting the argument in these terms is that this is a battle Microsoft is capable of fighting (perhaps even winning, in many cases), by arguing (however disingenuously) that its software offers better value or is of a better quality than "open source" alternatives. In contrast:

When we say the goal is to live in in freedom and to be allowed to cooperate with other people in a community, they can't say they're going to offer us more of that, cheaper. They don't offer that at all, they're not even competing with us. They're out of the running. Once you decide you want to live in freedom, they are out of the running.

Labels: free as in freedom, free software, rms

So, I got tagged by Al96 in the "contemporary theological works"/"best contemporary theology" meme. Well first off, let me reiterate that I don't do tag memes97. I also dislike the self-consciously "canonical" nature of the question posed:

Name three (or more) theological works from the last 25 years (1981-2006) that you consider important and worthy to be included on a list of the most important works of theology of that last 25 years (in no particular order).

A bit like all these lists by music journalists who feel unable just to say what records they like and have to dress it up as "the 100 greatest albums of all time as objectively and judiciously evaluated by us experts".

On the other hand, I couldn't resist having a crack at the question. Entirely voluntarily, you understand ;-).

Now, I am not a theologian in the academic/professional sense, and if I tried to give an objective and judicious assessment of the worthiest works of academic theology over the past quarter-century then I'd fall flat on my face. So I'm going here for books that have either been highly influential (for good) on the church at large, or are saying things that I personally believe the church needs to listen to more:

1. On Being a Theologian of the Cross, by Gerhard Forde (1997)

In an age in which, step by step, the theology of glory is moving forward, liddle by liddle it's taking ground, this book is a great reminder that a true theologian is one "who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross" rather than in "works as perceived by man"; that the cross of Christ is the great triumph over triumphalism; that the words "Jesus is Lord" don't just redefine who our Lord is, but redefine lordship itself. As Forde puts it, there are two stories that we can tell about ourselves: the "glory story" (which is the one we prefer) or the "cross story", which we find in the gospel.

But that's not why I've put Forde's book on this list. The most valuable part of Forde's book, for me, is his reminder that Luther did not talk about "the theology of glory" or "the theology of the cross" in his Heidelberg Disputation, but about "theologians of glory" and "theologians of the cross". "The theology of the cross" can easily become merely a slogan of crusading orthodoxy, something by which we congratulate and reassure ourselves that we are not like other people who have a theology of glory. Of course, the result of this is that "the theology of cross" becomes a means by which we ourselves operate as theologians of glory, assembling neat rows of theologically-correct propositions. But as Luther said, "The cross alone is our theology", and Forde calls us to take seriously what he meant by this.

On reconsidering all this while preparing this post, I realise how very far away from this ideal I am, and how far out of my depth I am even talking about this. So my true reason for including this book is because I think the whole church, myself as much as anybody, needs to take much more deeply to heart what Forde is saying in this marvellous little book. Though I suspect the Christian blogosphere, for starters, would become a much quieter place if we did. "Whereof we cannot speak...", and all that.


2. Gospel and Kingdom, by Graeme Goldsworthy (1981)

OK, onto slightly easier ground, here. Goldsworthy's 1981 book (another slim volume, like the Forde, at less than 120 pages) introduced "biblical theology" to the conservative evangelical world (that's "biblical theology" in the technical sense of "understanding the progressive history of God revealing himself to humankind through the whole Bible", not as in "theology that is in accordance with the Bible"). If you walk into an Anglican conservative evangelical church (whether in Sydney or the City of London) and hear the phrase, "God's people in God's place under God's rule" - and you will, sooner or later - then that is Goldsworthy's influence at work.

But Goldsworthy's book shouldn't just be for Sydney(esque) evangelicals. He is wonderfully clear in showing how to relate the Old Testament scriptures to Christ, providing tools to realise in practice the teaching that "Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, is the heart and center of the Scripture and therefore the key to its true meaning" (Explanation of the Small Catechism (PDF), q.4). Read Goldsworthy and you will never again treat the Old Testament as a random grab-bag of moralising object lessons (1 Samuel 17 as an example of "how to defeat your own personal Goliaths", that sort of thing). An illuminating and liberating book.

This article by Goldsworthy provides a useful summary of his argument in Gospel and Kingdom.


3. The Cross of Christ, by John Stott (1986)

OK, I'm now going to wildly contradict myself by mentioning a book that emphatically teaches a theology about the cross. Sue me.

But if we're talking about "important" theological books from the past 25 years, then Stott's magnum opus surely has to qualify. His lucid exposition of the cross of Christ as "divine self-satisfaction through divine self-substitution" has, I'm sure, been hugely influential in helping shore up the crumbling evangelical commitment to penal substitution as central to our understanding of the cross. Stott persuasively answers the main objections to this doctrine, rebutting the cruder exaggerations of this teaching ("cosmic child-abuse", as some who ought to know better have put it), and going on to show how the cross of Christ should be central not only to our theology, but to the whole life of the church.

My own view is that, while "penal substitution" may not be the whole story about the cross - being a theology about the cross, rather than the cross as our theology - but where it is denied or downplayed, there is a great danger that all the other aspects of the cross lose their meaning too. Why is the cross a triumph over sin and the devil? Because Christ bore our punishment in our place, robbing the devil of his hold over us. Why is the cross a supreme symbol of God's self-giving love? Because it wasn't just a futile gesture, but the means by which our loving God, in Christ, was reconciling the world to himself through this sacrifice for sin. If I throw myself under a bus, that demonstrates my love for you only if I do it to save your life, not if I do it simply as a dramatic symbolic demonstration.

But I digress. There you go, anyway, three books that I personally consider deserve to be called "important", and not an NT Wright among them. How's about that then, boys and girls?

Now, as I say, I don't "do" tag memes, so I'm not going to tag anybody now. However, if you also feel like participating voluntarily in this exercise, then please feel free to do so either on your own blog or in the comments here. The first three to let me know (in the comments or by email) that they've done so will get "retro-tagged" after the event...

Retrotags: Aardvark.

Labels: canonising, contemporary theological works, memes, retrotagging

I couldn't let Christmas pass without posting this wonderful Christmas hymn by Frank Houghton. I was playing the organ at our old church this evening, and this was the closing hymn. What a great way to end the Christmas season:

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love's sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love's sake becamest poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love's sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenward by thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love's sake becamest man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.

The hymn is based on one of my favourite Bible verses, 2 Corinthians 8:9, and is sung to the tune FRAGRANCE, a gorgeous French carol tune (of which a snippet can be heard as track 14 here; a fuller version, in a not-to-my-taste-but-it'll-give-you-the-idea arrangement, can be heard here, MP3).

Frank Houghton was editorial secretary for the China Inland Mission (now OMF), and he wrote the hymn in the aftermath of the savage martyrdom of two missionaries, John and Betty Stam, who were beheaded by bandits in China in 1934 (their three-month old daughter miraculously survived, unnoticed by the bandits). The Stams' great-nephew, Chip Stam, takes up the story:

The news of these sorrows had reached the mission's headquarters in Shanghai. Though this was a very dangerous time for both the Chinese Christians and the foreign missionaries, Frank Houghton decided he needed to begin a tour through the country to visit various missionary outposts. While traveling over the mountains of Szechwan, the powerful and comforting words of 2 Corinthians 8:9, "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor," were transformed into this beautiful Christmas hymn.

I already loved this hymn, but the "backstory" only adds to its power. Had it been written in comfortable, western safety, this would already be a great hymn. But how moving it is to think of a hymn so full of the love of God being written in circumstances of such precariousness and fear.

Labels: christmas, hymns, martyrs, missionaries

Fr Patrick Reardon, in his St James Daily Devotional Guide (which I'm currently using as my daily Bible reading plan) describes the "threefold revelation" of Christ that is celebrated by the Western church at Epiphany:

First, there is the revelation of the newborn King to the Gentiles, in the persons of the Magi... In the Gospel according to Matthew, which alone records this event, it stands parallel to the Great Commission to the Gentiles at the end of that Gospel.

Second, there is the revelation of Jesus' true identity at His baptism, when the voice of the Father bears witness to Him, and the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, testifies further that He is the Son of God.

Third, there is the marriage feast at Cana, at which Jesus did "the first of His signs" and "manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him."

The second of these events, Jesus' baptism, is the focus of the feast in the Eastern church. As for the wedding at Cana, I'd not previously been aware of the connection between this passage and the feast of the Epiphany, though as Fr Reardon goes on to point out, "the lectionary traditions of the West consistently included all three of these events".

While the Lutheran Church's current lectionary spreads these events out over three different days (the feast itself and the successive two Sundays), we sang a hymn this morning that reflects this threefold aspect to Epiphany: "Songs of Thankfulness and Praise" (TLH 134). Hymn 131 from TLH, "The Star Proclaims the King Is Here" also covers all three events, and the fact that this hymn originates from AD 450 shows how ancient this tradition is in the church.

Labels: church tradition, epiphany

From WH Vanstone's Love's Endeavour, Love's Expense, a passage that I'm sure any parent will be able to identify with:

Love proceeds by no assured programme. In the case of children a parent is peculiarly aware that each step of love is a step of risk; and that each step taken generates the need for another and equally precarious step. In each word of encouragement lies the danger of creating over-confidence; in each restraint the danger of destroying confidence.

A risk is taken when the child is allowed to ride his bicycle on the road: when he returns in pride and confidence, the gain has justified the risk. But now there is a new danger of over-confidence, and the child must be warned - yet not so severely that his new-found confidence is destroyed.

In each expression of love to a child lies the danger that it will be exploited and that the child will be "spoiled" by taking as a right that which should be received as a gift: in each withholding of love's expression lies the danger of misunderstanding - the danger that that which was meant to teach will serve only to embitter and estrange.

A happy family life is neither a static situation nor a smooth and direct progression: it is an angular progress, the endless improvisation of love to correct that which it has itself created. Parents will testify that their equal love for two children must express itself in quite different ways; and that what they have learned in bringing up the elder can be no programme for bringing up the younger. The care of children teaches us that the resolute and unfailing will of love becomes active in improvised and ever-precarious endeavour.

The late Revd Vanstone's book is far from perfect - I suspect I won't entirely agree with where he is taking things theologically - but equally his insights into the nature of love, such as that set out above, encourage me to persevere, and to hope that the result is an enriching of my understanding of the love of God (which can so easily be reduced to something rather clinical and mechanical).

Labels: love, parenthood, wh vanstone

I was just dipping into Ysenda Maxtone Graham's fun book from 1993 about the Church of England, The Church Hesitant. Didn't find what I was looking for, but did come across some interesting thoughts on why so many people don't go to church.

She describes the Very Revd Ian White-Thompson, "who is old and good and used to be the Dean of Canterbury", who tells her (emphasis in original):

"You know, a Scottish friend said this to me once, and I've never forgotten it. The reason why people don't go to church is that they don't want to. The reason why people don't go to church is that they don't want to."

Maxtone Graham decided to test this "simple and bleak pronouncement" on 22 people in a pub in Essex one Sunday lunchtime, not one of whom had been to church that morning. Her conclusions from these short interviews make interesting reading (emphasis added this time):

1. People in pubs are approachable and don't mind being asked this sort of question, as long as you convince them that you are not a Jehovah's Witness.
   
   
2. The pronouncement that is lodged in Dean White-Thompson's memory does not go far enough. People don't go to church because it doesn't even occur to them that they might. It plays no part at all in their weekly life or thoughts.
   
   
3. Vicars might get more people into church if they made their presence felt at pubs.
   
   
4. If you ask people in pubs whether they believe in God they become embarrassed and shifty. The question is too large. It is best to change the subject.
   
   
5. More beer-drinkers than you expect were choristers in their youth. But the experience did not make them into life-long churchgoers.
   
   
6. People expect the church to be there and would be horrified if it suddenly weren't. They use it at certain important moments in their life, and it doesn't occur to them to wonder who keeps it going.

Most of Ms Maxtone Graham's book comes under the heading of "fun, but a bit fluffy". But I think point 2 in the above list is one of the most profound and insightful points I've ever come across on the question of church decline.

So much thought, discussion and action in the church relating to outreach is based on the assumption that people are making a positive decision, for whatever reason, not to come to church, and our task is to work out what we can do to persuade them to think again. But I think Maxtone Graham hits the nail on the head: the reason people don't come is because it simply doesn't occur to them that they might. It's not on their radar map.

As for point 6, I fear that the time is not far off when many people might well just have to be horrified. Much of the Church of England (and other English churches; I don't entirely exempt the ELCE either) is on the edge of a demographic cliff, and at some point the whole system could simply collapse, apart from a relative handful of larger churches and maybe the cathedrals. I can't go into an old church these days without feeling an aching sadness at the thought that, absent a drastic turnaround in the fortunes of church and gospel in this country, within a few decades at most the centuries-long story of faith in many of these buildings will have come to an end.

Labels: church of england, eeyore, evangelism

As I've always said, "A tidy desk is the sign of a tidy mind - and who the heck wants a tidy mind"? So I was delighted to read the following from the NYT:

An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat “office landscapes”) and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It’s a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.

Amen! Amen! Amen!

HT: Alastair.

Update: DS Ketelby (whose excellent recent post on "when atheists attack" is well worth reading) emails me to point out this mini-review of a book called A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, in which:

...the authors conclude that there is an ideal level of messiness that makes any system more robust and productive.

A good reminder that disorder can go too far. What we are looking for, people, is a Golden Mean of Clutter.

Labels: clutter, golden mean, productivity, the good life

Given my professed support for free software, copyleft, creative commons licensing etc, I thought it was about time I put my money where my mouth was and licensed the original content on this blog under a creative commons licence.

This isn't because I've previously regarded the content on this site as sacrosanct. My attitude has been, and remains, that you can basically do what you like with it (disclaimer: the preceding sentence is a general, non-binding statement of personal opinion and does not constitute a licence. Oh, I'm such a lawyer, aren't I?). But the creative commons endeavour is one that is worth supporting and publicising, and so I think it is good to make use of the official licences where possible.

Now, as I've already mentioned, I am a lawyer, and so naturally I've over-thought this and over-implemented it. My preference, in principle, is for a true "copyleft" licence like the GNU General Public Licence: one that not only allows other people to quote and modify the work, but that requires them to issue derived works under an equivalent licence. But, strictly speaking, that would require any other blogger who quoted stuff off this site to release the relevant post under a CC licence. As I'm trying to hug the coast of reality here, that didn't really seem very practicable.

On the other hand, while it is so fantastically unlikely as to be beyond contemplation that anyone would try to make commercial use of this material, if they do I'd want them to release it on a copyleft basis rather than as a proprietary work.

So (and do feel at liberty to groan, bang your head on your keyboard, weep bitter tears of frustration etc.) I've decided to go for a dual licence. If you are using it for non-commercial use, then I don't care what you do with it provided you attribute the source (see "attribution policy", below). So that's this licence here:


If you are using it for commercial use - and that includes advertising-supported blogs - then please release that work (which, in the case of a blog, could be just that single post if you prefer) under the same (or an equivalent) licence. So that's this licence here:


It's almost too simple, eh? Of course, the advice I'd probably give my clients is to ask how likely it is that I'd sue you if you don't follow these rules, and take a view. But don't expect me to put that in writing.

Oh, and finally: these licences only apply, naturally, to original material what I wrote. Any third-party material is not included within these licences - that material is normally clearly recognisable from the context of the post (e.g. it's an image, or blockquoted, or in quotation marks).

Attribution policy

Just commonsense, normal web practice: if you quote anything off this blog, a link back to the original post would be appreciated. If you quote it in printed format, just the blog address will do (currently http://confessingevangelical.blogspot.com), though the post address or a TinyURL (or equivalent) link is also fine. Basically as long as I get the possibility of some traffic from it, I don't care. ;-)

Labels: copyleft, creative commons, free culture, lawyered to death, licensing

Mark Steyn, while supporting the execution of Saddam, also recognises that it was disastrously handled. In an article entitled Blowing a "hinge moment" of history, Steyn writes:

Given that Saddam was transferred from coalition custody to the Iraqi government only a few hours before his demise, I'd be interested to know whether US authorities proffered any "advice" on the optics: Ixnay on the torture dungeon, maybe in the exercise yard with a couple of Iraqi flags; get the heavies out of the Quentin Tarantino get-up and into some neutral prison-warden garb or Baghdad Airport parking-garage-attendant uniforms; if you have to have victims' loved ones present, go for the widows and photogenic orphans rather than Moqtada's boys. Meta-message: "Time to move on, says Government of Free Iraq", not "Payback's a bitch, says local enforcer."

And, if nobody in the US government came up with any such advice, why not? How come we have a political culture that can produce a content-free party convention down to the nano-second but gives not a thought to hinge moments of history?

Labels: mark steyn, saddam

At 4:37 yesterday afternoon, this site clocked up its 100,000th recorded site visit. Which was nice. :-)

And I promise you I only noticed by accident. No, seriously.

Now,we return you to your previously-scheduled convict-coddling.

Labels: where is boasting? here

A couple of times in the past days, I've come across bloggers blithely asserting that capital punishment is straightforwardly commended/commanded by Scripture. I'm grateful to them for doing so, as it has forced me finally to go back and examine more closely my own opposition to the death penalty, and how that opposition can be squared with what the Bible teaches.

Now, I'm aware this is a bit of a dead-horse topic - and I'm also acutely aware of how divisive an issue this is, and how strong the emotions can be on both sides of the argument - so rather than present The Complete Biblical Argument For/Against The Death Penalty, this post consists of a few short meditations based on my reflections on this issue over the past day or so.

Desert and authority

First, there is no doubt that the Bible teaches that murder deserves the death penalty (see, for example, Genesis 6:5,6). Saddam deserved to die. Timothy McVeigh deserved to die.

Also, the Bible acknowledges the power and authority of the state to impose the death penalty ("the authority does not bear the sword in vain", Romans 13:4).

So is that an end to the matter? Many would say that it is: the murderer deserves to die, the state is entitled to execute him/her, and that's that.

Now we move on to the "but"s...

Scriptural exceptions

There are two striking instances of God himself commuting the death penalty. First, the account of Cain and Abel, where Cain acknowledges that he is subject to being killed as a consequence of his fratricide ("anyone who meets me may kill me!"), but God replies:

"Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance." And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him.

Then we have the account of the woman taken in adultery, where Jesus is asked to affirm the Old Testament's imposition of the death penalty for adultery. I scarcely need to quote the reply that is eventually drawn from him:

‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’

But Jesus' parting words to her ("Go your way, and from now on do not sin again") demonstrate that he is not simply letting her off, any more than God was simply letting Cain get away with murder.

Neither of these texts constitutes a formal abrogation of the death penalty. It is, however, highly telling that we are presented with two instances where God himself is directly confronted with the question of giving offenders what they deserve, and in each case he declines to do so.

Who deserves the death penalty?

Let's return to John 8:7. According to the OT law, the woman deserved to die. Jesus doesn't deny this; he simply invites his questioners to be, as it were, careful where they point that thing. Recall that Jesus, in the sermon on the mount, equates adultery and a "mere" lustful glance; who among us can therefore claim to be without sin in the matter of adultery?

But in the same sermon, Jesus also equates murder and "mere" anger. So in the same way, who among us can claim to be "without sin" in the matter of murder? So when calling for the death penalty for murderers - well, just be careful where you point that thing.

So murder may deserve the death penalty, but who deserves to carry it out?

The authority of the state

Well, the obvious answer to that last question is, "the state". After all, as Paul tells us in Romans 13:

...the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.

However, anyone who argues that Romans 13:1-6 teaches anything "straightforwardly" is I think on very shaky ground. This is a notoriously difficult passage, with its apparent call - on a superficial reading - to submit meekly and without argument even to the most abhorrent and tyrannical regimes.

But what does seem clear is that the purpose of this passage is not to expressly approve the death penalty. Paul is calling on Christians, not to uncritically accept the ruling authorities, but to acknowledge their due status as instruments used by God for restraining evil. In that context, Paul's passing reference to "the sword" is as an instrument and symbol of that status, and does not merely refer to the death penalty - unless we are to say that Paul is arguing only that Christians should obey laws that carry the ultimate penalty, and that we needn't obey laws where "the sword" is not literally involved as the means of punishment.

Acknowledging that the state is used by God to restrain evil is, of course, a long way from accepting all the claims the state makes for itself. This reading of Romans 13 does seem easier to reconcile with the decidedly ambivalent attitude towards the civil authorities found elsewhere in the NT, not least in the teachings of our Lord himself (as I have posted before at some length).

To put it another way, Paul is telling us that the Roman state's use of the death penalty is an instrument of God to restrain evil. But - given what we are told about Rome in the rest of the NT - do we really want the modern state to model itself on the Roman authorities, or to be used by God solely in the same way as Rome? Should we be happy to think that our modern rulers are nothing more and nothing less than modern-day Caesars? Shouldn't we demand something a little better from them?

The inevitable slavery comparison

Invoking the issue of slavery is the Godwin's Law of biblical ethics. But I do think the comparison is worth making here.

Both capital punishment and slavery (and, for that matter, the divine right of kings) can be seen as being supported by texts in the OT and NT. But, over time, the church's reflections on slavery led to an appreciation of a deeper undercurrent of teaching, based both on specific texts and on a general growing awareness of the dignity of the person.

The same, I believe, can be said of capital punishment, and following much the same arguments. (Indeed, it is difficult to see how most biblically-based arguments in favour of capital punishment - "the plain teaching of plain texts", that sort of thing - could not apply equally well to the issue of slavery. Once again, be careful where you point that thing.)

To return to Romans 13, Paul's call for Christians to respect the civil authority as an instrument of God's restraint of evil cannot be read as a requirement for Christians to support the death penalty in all times and all places, any more than his practical admonitions to slaves not to seek the immediate overthrow of the Roman economic order (while, crucially, condemning slave traders) are to be seen by us as a continuing endorsement of slavery.

Capital crimes and the Mosaic law

When the OT is invoked to support capital punishment, it should be noted that no-one (I hope!) who invokes the OT in this way is arguing that the full range of capital crimes in the OT - adultery, homosexuality, blasphemy, sabbath-breaking, disobedience to parents, etc - should still carry the death penalty today.

Now, I'm aware that even in the OT, murder is singled out for special treatment as compared with these other offences for which the death penalty has now been abrogated. But it's a reminder that applying OT examples and laws to the post-resurrection world is not as straightforward as it is sometimes presented.

And anyway, examples drawn from the Mosaic law and the OT kingdom of Israel fall down because of the unique position of Israel in God's economy of salvation. As someone has argued, "Christians would have to engage in a national idolatry to suppose that all the acts allowed in ancient Israel are permissible in Connecticut".

The Mosaic law is exceptionally rigorous in the standards and penalties it imposes, but as noted above this is due to Israel's unique position under the Mosaic covenant. The Mosaic law is saying, in effect, "Look at what God's requirement for justice looks like when tranposed into a system of civil justice" - as such, it should drive us trembling to God for mercy, not inspire us as a pattern for ordering our own societies.

Conclusion (or not, as the case may be)

I'm aware this has been a slightly disjointed and rambling post. I've made a conscious decision to "think aloud" on this issue, and some of the points I've made have been provocatively stated in order to generate responses that I hope will help clarify my own thinking.

In a sentence, what this all comes down to is the following: "The state can kill criminals in principle; but I do not think it should do so in practice, and I think that position can be supported from the Bible."

Labels: biblical ethics, capital punishment, jesus is lord so caesar isn't, thinking aloud

I had resolved not to say anything here about the recent restoration of public hanging as a symbol of democratic values (other than the odd comment on other people's blogs here and there), but then I read Sam Leith's superb, righteously indignant column in today's Daily Telegraph, in which he takes a rather different line to the "ding, dong, the witch is dead!" tone of most of the Telegraph's coverage of Saddam's death.

"You can't beat a good hanging," Leith begins, before observing that:

What we've been seeing over the past couple of days is the pornographisation of a judicial process. There's no question that Saddam's crimes were terrible. There's no question that, however jury-rigged the legal process by which he was held to account for them, it is proper that he was held to account. But our fever of excitement over that hempen rope is no more than the baying of a mob.

Leith points out that it is "telling" that the announcement of the death sentence was greeted "with far less excitement than its physical enactment". The sentence was the moment that mattered; "the rest is theatre":

And, gosh, how we enjoyed it. The formula was unvarying. "All dignity lost," one or other news channel would intone, "the blood-soaked tyrant of Iraq died yesterday, reduced to the status of a common criminal." Aren't the assumptions underpinning that simply bizarre? It seems to suggest that a "common criminal" is a worse thing to be than a mass-murdering despot – that where he really got his comeuppance was in being taken down a peg or two and dying a chav.

And as Leith goes on to argue, the general assumption that Saddam was humiliated by this process is belied by the footage we have seen:

If we were honest, we'd admit that Saddam conducted himself on the scaffold with all the dignity he could be expected to muster. He refused a mask. He stood up straight. He went quietly and prayerfully to his death.

What was undignified was what was going on around him:

Meanwhile, as a colleague points out, what was happening around him – even though the balaclavas were unavoidable – more closely resembled a gang of provos at work in an Armagh back-room than the sober unrolling of a sovereign state's judicial process. Let's not even begin to think about how these images will play with Saddam's Sunni supporters.

Yes, Saddam was a monster (though, as Leith rightly reminds us, "a monster whom ... the West for a long time supported in full knowledge of the nature of his regime"). But this only amplifies the danger to our own souls, as individuals and as a culture:

Nietzsche's warning that "he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster" has seldom seemed more apt. The rhetoric of a war launched in the name of civilisation has degenerated into the cackling of a tricoteuse at the foot of the guillotine. We should be bloody ashamed.

Too bloody right we should be. And I say this as someone who has been caught up by the "pornography of death" surrounding Saddam's end too much to pass judgment on anyone else for doing so.

Labels: iraq, nothing like a good hanging, saddam

Christopher Idle's booklet, Real Hymns, Real Hymn Books (see previous posts 1 | 2), includes Idle's (highly personal) checklist for assessing a hymnal. Here are his twenty questions to pose to any hymn book you are thinking of adopting:

1. Does it include The old rugged cross?
   
   
2. Does it have There is a land of pure delight and Give me the wings of faith?
   
   
3. Or O valiant hearts? [Note: that's the post-Great War hymn with the infamous line about "our lesser Calvaries", referring to the war dead. If you think American "civil religion" is bad enough, just read the words of this hymn to see what British civil religion looked like, when we still had such a thing.]
   
   
4. Or For the fruits of his creation?
   
   
5. Or When I feel the touch?
   
   
6. Or Forgive us our sins, as we forgive?
   
   
7. Or City of God, how broad and far?
   
   
8. Or All glory be to God in the sky and Glory be to God on high?
   
   
9. Are there plenty of copyright addresses printed under each hymn?
   
   
10. Will the music edition stay open, or even stay put, on the piano/organ/keyboard?
    
    
11. Does its version of Amazing grace have anything at all about ten thousand years?
    
    
12. Are the words and music clearly readable?
    
    
13. Does its version of Thy/Your kingdom come, O God include "o'er heathen lands afar"?
    
    
14. Can the words be sung with integrity and conviction by your congregation?
    
    
15. Do more than 5% of first lines start with "I"?
    
    
16. Is it a simple matter to find a hymn on the Transfiguration?
    
    
17. Do more than three tunes go above top E or below middle C?
    
    
18. Can you easily find a hymn by Anne Steele, Catherine Winkworth or Alan Gaunt?
    
    
19. Does the book include its own supplement bound in at the end? [Note: a reference to "Hymns for Today's Church", for which Idle was one of the contributors.]
    
    
20. Can you readily find a hymn connected with Psalm 98, Luke 13 or James 5?

The scoring then works as follows:

Even numbers:
10: Check again; there is no such book.
7-9: This could be the one for you.
<6: Hmm.

Odd numbers:
10: I hope there is no such book.
6-9: Forget it.
1-5: There may be something better.
0: Ideal.

Doing a check on the first hymnal that came to hand (Lutheran Worship), this scored 0 on the odd-numbered questions (probably the first time anyone has described LW as being in any way "ideal"...), and 4.5 on the even numbers (qq. 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18; I docked it half a point on q.12, because I don't think putting the text within the score is particularly clear for congregations to follow). However, it has to be borne in mind on both counts that questions 1 to 8 are very anglocentric, and LW scored zero on all eight, positive and negative.

Q.18 was a breeze, since Catherine Winkworth - translator of many of Luther's hymns - has a whopping 41 entries in the book (though if you think that's a lot, try looking up "Wesley, Charles" next time you come across a copy of the Methodist Hymn Book!).

By way of contrast, Hymns Ancient and Modern New Standard (a personal favourite of mine) scored 1 negative (q.7) and 7 positives (qq.2, 4, 6, 12, 14, 16 and 18).

Anyone care to tot up a score for their own church's hymn book? Or want to take Idle to task over any of his criteria? Please feel free to take this up in the (intermittently functioning!) comments.

Labels: christopher idle, hymns, now this is just a bit of fun, questionnaires