What you think matters is the blog of the Newfrontiers Theology Forum and I’ve been consistently impressed by the wit and sharpness of the writing and the helpfulness of the content. Here are some examples that stood out for me:
So whether you agree with what they say or not, I’d urge you to subscribe to and engage with this blog for the building up of your theological faculties.
“I have no problems admitting the extraordinary superiority of market capitalism; it is a remarkable engine of dynamism, fruitfulness, productivity, and so on. I question that not at all. But it is only a mechanism, and the problem comes in when people make it a source of meaning.”
However he sees the problems and those are telling,
“ Unless capitalism has an ethical boundary, it will always create two problems. One is the problem of insatiability, never knowing when to stop, always wanting just a little more. The other problem—you can see this very clearly in America today—is commodification. The good society draws a line between what is and what is not for sale, but, in modern America, almost everything is up for sale, including much that should not be. We need powerful faith with strong ethics and knowledge of what is legitimate to buy and sell—that’s the market at its best—but certain things are not for buying and not for selling, and we should know why.”
“Let me be clear once more: the editors of the Greek New Testaments killed Junia. They killed her by silencing her into non-existence. They murdered that innocent woman by erasing her from the footnotes.”
So the argument goes that for 60 years of so there was some sort of plot to get rid of Junias by giving her a man’s name (albeit a highly unusual one). So I thought I’d have a look at the commentaries that line my shelves to see what they said. Now I don’t actually have a vast set of commentaries on Romans, in fact due to the oddities by which I gained my books it’s a poorer showing than for many smaller books. But I found the results interesting so here they are discussing Romans 16:7:
“Having grown weary and impatient, I want to snap and say, “It won’t work, not in the long run. Marriage is hard enough when you have two believers who are completely in harmony spiritually. Just spare yourself the heartache and get over it.” Yet such harshness is neither in line with the gentleness of Christ, nor convincing.”
For a while now I’ve averaged about one book every ten days, yet here we are three weeks into January and I’ve only just finished my first book of 2012. The reason for that is that Max Hasting’s monumental volume on the second world war, All Hell Let Loose, is 748 pages long so it’s like reading three books!
The volume of literature on the last great war is immense, the bibliography to this book is enormous and so it’s hard to say where this single volume work ranks. I also haven’t read many other books so have little to compare it with, but I’m not sure I need to read another.
This book manages something remarkable, it conveys the great sweep of the war, the many differing timelines and events and yet manages to convey what the war was like. This is because the perspective is not that of a Churchill or a Roosevelt, for they are minor characters but having drawn from a myriad of letters, diaries and reports shares what war was like for those most affected by it, mothers, soldiers, sons.
The second world war really was global and immense, the numbers are staggering and hard to comprehend and this book both shattered illusions and educated. I learnt of the 15 million Chinese who died and the Bengal famine which saw nearly two million Indians starve, I learnt that the British army rarely if ever crowned itself in glory and learned how the great powers utterly shafted, screwed and ignored the nation of Poland from first to last.
That more Russians soldiers were shot by the Russians than British soldiers were sot by the Germans, that more Russians (civilians and soldiers) died at the battle of Leninggrad than the Americans and British armies combined for the whole war. The numbers are staggering, nearly 60 million people killed in just six years.
No nation covers itself in glory during war, combatants and neutrals alike. Switzerland, Ireland and Sweden can hardly be proud of their neutrality. France has much to be ashamed of, and there were enough incidents for to prevent Britain and America from too much hubris. America became a great power as a result of this war, the only nation to emerge vastly richer and more powerful while all it’s rivals lay exhausted and in ruins.
Of the three great powers, Britain stood up to the war when all others didn’t. France defeated, America abstained and Russia was an ally to Hitler. Britain really did stand very much alone but too weak to win the war on its own. America paid for the victory. It’s vast industrial might provided for all and proved far too much for anyone else to emerge victorious. Russian on the other hand clearly died for the war. 25 million Russians died, starved, shot, raped and ruined. No country was as willing to sacrifice it’s millions more than Stalin and had they not, Hitler would have taken a lot longer to defeat.
Yet all these facts stand alongside countless story of death, rape, mutilation, despair. The sufferings of the Yugoslavs, Poles, Italians, Chinese, Burmese, Malays and of course the Jews throughout mainland Europe and ordinary people everywhere was horrific and shocking and it is these stories that make this book such a masterpiece.
This is quite a phenomenal book and I’m sure, no matter what I read, it will rank near the top of my reading list come December 2012. That’s a slightly depressing to think I may have already read the best book of the year but at the same time, what a book!
This got me thinking, is there a space for micro-finance for mission and church planting? This is how I imagine it working. Let’s use an example of a family church planting in, say randomly, Sweden. They need £20k per year to live on for 3 years while starting a new church. You give to the church planting version of Kiva and then when the new church is up and running, over a few years the money is repaid recycling the funding back into the world of church planting.
Because this works mostly in the developed world where incomes and giving are high, these could attract a premium of say 10% or something that is then channelled off to cover repayments made to churches being planted in low income developing countries where church income may never get high enough to repay a loan.
Now the sum I presented isn’t micro but neither is it astronomical, and it’s a way in which mission agencies and churches which may be struggling to raise finance the traditional ways can find fresh and new partners to support mission work throughout the world.
Of course the obvious weakness is that it requires investment into rich countries in order to invest into poorer nations. Anyway it was a passing thought and the only way to get it improved is for brighter minds than mine to give it some thought! So over to you.
“On the opposite end of the spectrum, the 10 least religious countries studied include several with the world’s highest living standards, including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hong Kong, and Japan. (Several other countries on this list are former Soviet republics, places where the state suppressed religious expression for decades.)”
Which just demonstrates the scale of the task ahead of us as well as the size of the opportunity!
This is an invitation to take part in the 2012 Lent Consumer Detox.
The Detox is attached and available here. It includes:
Would you be willing to help others know about this?
If yes, please forward this email to any churches near you, or to any small group leaders you know. Help us spread the word about the Detox, and join us on the journey this Lent if you can.
“Consumer Detox tackles one of the most important challenges facing Christian discipleship in the west today. If the church took this agenda seriously, it could make a big difference.”
Dr Graham Tomlin, Dean of St Mellitus College, author of The Provocative Church
We hope you can join in. It’s the journey through the wilderness that makes freedom possible. Or, if you like, ‘less stuff more life’.
So says Galatians 3:28, a verse that is often the battleground within evangelicalism about gender roles. However while evangelicals debate what scripture permits or forbids women to do within the church, outside the sacred walls a whole different debate is heating up.
To get a feel for the terrain I suggest reading this article from the BBC that describes the legal disputes on behalf of those who see themselves as transgendered. In this case it is two men who live as women but who have not had any corrective surgery. Biologically and by any measure of human society they would be considered male. However their argument is that biology, ones anatomical sex, not only does not define ‘gender’ but is irrelevant to gender.
“It is the contents of a person’s mind and soul, they say, which determine sex – not what is inside their pants.”
Well, that would solve the church debate if that view held sway. The debate about how much of our ideas about gender are social constructs is reasonable and, also for Christians, theological. What does the Bible say about men and women, how are they the same and how are they different? What application should we make, if any, from our conclusions? These questions surround the exegetical battles. But as Matt Hosier says there has been a significant change in our language,
“The replacement of a strong, clear, word with a more slippery one can also be seen in the use of “gender” in preference to “sex.” Sex is definitive: I am a man; she is a woman. Gender is much more flexible.”
You should read the whole thing.
10. Bill Walker.
9. Peter Kirk
8. Mike Print
5. Mark Heath
4. Matt Hosier
3. Dave Bish
2. Breathe
My most popular ten links were
10. Steve Holmes on congregational church government
9. Tim Keller’s article on the importance of hell
8. The pay in megachurch infographic
7. This early review of Love Wins
6. John Piper’s article, how willingly do people go to hell?
5. My friends at Barnabas Community Church
4. The wonderful Breathe Network
3. Justin Taylor’s interview with David Platt
2. A talk from 2010 TOAM, but I can’t get the link to work!
1. My old church, Hope Church
10. Book Review: Consumer Detox this was my book of the year.
9. Book Review: The Great Divorce by CS Lewis proved popular as a result of the hell debate
8. The new reformed: the sound of arid logic chopping reflected on the often dull presentation of the new reformed movement
7. Should a church be excellent? was a comment on the value of excellence in church life
6. Book Review: Losing my religion? another book review and one that gained a bit of attention
5. Book Review: Crazy Love this review from 2010 remains well-read
4. Political issues: Afghanistan and Defence oddly enough this post from April 2010 remains one of the most popular.
3. Pay in a megachurch: can this be right? this comment on the pay of megachurch pastors, gained some traction
2. Why David Platt and James McDonald are both wrong was another reflection on the issue of money in the church
1. Do Rob Bell, Tim Keller and CS Lewis agree on hell? was by far and away the most read post I’ve written in six plus years of blogging, and if I want more traffic I know what to write about. It gained almost as many views as the other nine put together and explains why March was my most popular month. It does what it says on the tin.
Often with my top ten’s I’ve not read quite enough to make it really meaningful, when half make the list. This time more books miss out and that makes the selection a little more worthy. So what makes a book good? Good writing, interesting ideas, thought provoking, worth talking about, worth recommending and sometimes even inspirational. If a book, even if I disagree with it, manages some or all of these (highly subjective criteria) then it makes the cut. The links to the full reviews are in the titles.
10. Holiness & Mission by Morna Hooker and Frances Young. What I said, “an excellent little book that I will refer to many times I think as I seek to understand God’s heart for cities.”
9. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. “It’s humorous, intelligent and thought provoking and makes for great travel reading which probably explains why it’s sold in its millions”
8. Generous Justice by Tim Keller. I said, “Well worth having a copy on your shelves.”
7. The Road to Missional by Michael Frost. “I thoroughly enjoyed reading and being provoked by Frost who is an engaging and interesting writer and I’d be interested in reading more.”
6. The Translator by Daoud Hari. ”Simply put for first hand insight into the events that took place in Darfur start here.”
5. The Spirit Filled Church by Terry Virgo. “I found the insights on leaders being able to confront with grace, the primacy of prayer in the life of a church and the chapters explaining grace and the baptism of the Holy Spirit to be outstanding and as such places I’d turn to again and again.”
4. Love Wins by Rob Bell. There’s no question this was the most debated book I read this year! “This book will be influential, it is raises big questions, it answers them with verve, wit and style even if wrongly and it’s not all bad.”
3. The Great Divorce by CS Lewis. Lewis approaches the same issues as Bell in a completely different way and as ever is masterful with his language and insight. I didn’t have a pithy quote for this one!
2. Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose. I may have been unduly influenced by the TV on this one, but I found this book, “a well written, pacey, gripping story but it’s the men of Easy company who, for all their faults, during the second world war at least, were genuine heroes.” For me, inspirational.
1. Consumer Detox by Mark Powley. I need to be upfront, Mark’s a great friend but that’s not necessarily to his advantage! Anyway, this was the first book I read in 2011 and I probably need to read it again. “In short this is now the book that I would recommend and give to anyone beginning the journey to a deeper discipleship in our materialistic and consumer driven society. Ironically given the subject matter this is a must buy.”
Every now and then some light reading is called for and this came in the handy form of Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman.
The basic plot is that it’s time for the end of the world and the birth of the anti-Christ, unfortunately due to a mix up at the hospital the wrong child is sent to the wrong home, yet the end of the world must come, just not where and how anyone expected.
The main characters are a demon called Crowley and an angel called Azirophale, who over the course of human history have become almost mates. The cast of other comic characters is long and distinguished and mostly entertaining. In some ways the humour has stood the test of time well, it’s only in the little details that the book (written in 1992) has shown it’s age. After all, in the world of mp3 tape cassettes morphing into the Best of Queen loses its edge a bit.
Lurking behind the comedy are some serious points, that humans are capable of grace that amazes angels and terrors that scare demons, that left to their own devices things sort of balance themselves out. The general idea is that good and evil are finely balanced and no one, not even in heaven, knows who will win at armageddon, and that the idea of earth as some sort of cosmic battleground is well just a bit obscene.
I’d read this as a teenager and at the time thought it hilarious, now it’ still funny and frankly should be required reading for anyone who spends just a little bit too much time in the book of Revelation for their own good.
For the past ten years or so I have lived in middle England. Our town had an overwhelmingly white British population, most of whom would be very happy if it stayed that way. Despite having travelled reasonably widely and had the pleasure of learning about different cultures, I never particularly faced the issue of discovering those cultures in my birth nation. The demographics were never really in my favour.
Then this year, we move to a small village in south-east Sweden and the issue that has forced me to think the hardest, are issues of asylum and immigration. Firstly, of course due to the fact that our family are now immigrants. We have chosen to come to this country and make it our home. As a result we are eager to learn the language and the culture, we are proactive and we have the advantage of being educated, white and European.
However, not everyone has ‘chosen’ in the same way to be here and just like in the UK, here in Sweden, asylum and immigration are hotly contested issues. What will happen to Swedish culture, where in a population of just 9 million one in ten residents was born abroad? Is the system fair, tough enough, too tough?
Then there are issues that face Christians who seek asylum. What of the church and the gospel in the country they’ve fled from? Those who can escape often have more means than most and so the church in the homeland is deprived of desperately needed leadership and resources as families seek a safer, better life in the West. Fleeing a country and entering a new one almost invariably involves deception and lies to leave one country and stay in a new one. How does a Christian honour their authorities in either country, how does a Christian speak truth in such cases? And if lies have been told, what does it mean to repent? How do you pastor and lead people in such circumstances.
These, to me, were new questions. Ones I’d never needed to think through and I suspect that in Stockholm, this may come across my path and so now is a good time to prepare. All these questions were the reason I purchased Asylum and Immigration: A Christian perspective by Nick Spencer. Nick Spencer has built a reputation for writing careful and balanced perspectives on contemporary issues such as climate change and now here asylum and immigration. Although it deals with the issue primarily from a British perspective, I suspect that in many places you can simply swap UK for another host European nation.
Spencer begins with a survey of the political landscape and the ways in which, depending on which media outlet or newspaper is preferred, the public views the issue. The more interesting section comes in the middle where he outlines the role of the immigrant (or alien) in the Bible and what the Bible teaches about nationhood. A few point stand out, the most obvious being that ancient Israel was commanded to care for the vulnerable alien and that in the Bible, they often take centre stage. Jacob and family became economic migrants to Egypt, from which they later needed rescuing from slavery. The book of Ruth is the story of an economic migrant into Israel. Mary, Joseph and Jesus were asylum seekers back in Egypt. The early church was founded with an incredible diversity on the day of Pentecost and so on.
It’s easy to think, especially in an ancient nation like Britain or Sweden, how temporary nations are. In my lifetime alone we have seen the death and birth of many nations. No more Soviet Union but plenty new nations, some with more historical claims of nationhood than others. No more Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Yugoslavia. East Timor and South Sudan are our newest nations and others aspire to it, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Palestine for example. Who knows in the next decade will we see the end of North Korea? So, nations still come and go and with them and the increasing ease of transport comes the mass movement of people. Invariably this is a movement from poorer less secure nations to safer, richer ones. What responsibilities do these richer nations have and how much of a risk is mass immigration to their prosperity and security?
In the final section, Spencer attempts to take the principles of the second section and make some observations about the government policy. As, Spencer is aware, policies are and asylum policies in particular are subject to the whims of government and are often short term, so he is careful not to venture too far out on that branch and keeps his proposals tentative and guarded.
This reads like a policy report and so doesn’t address the issue from a pastoral perspective, or from a broader church/mission perspective. Yet as an opening read on the issue, the second section will prove to be a valuable resource and basis for further thinking.
“It is, of course, not a question of whether the Church of Scotland is morally perfect in her membership or behaviour; no church ever has been and that is not the point at issue here. It is rather a matter of whether, as an institution, she will not merely tolerate but actively encourage, promote and defend the true preaching of the word of God, of the whole counsel of God, and oppose – and depose by due and decent process – those who do not do so yet who claim to minister in Christ’s name.”
Steve Holmes, who works in Scotland, writes on the various responses from churches to the state extending marriage to same-sex couples. At the end he offers an intriguing path that I think carries some weight.
“Time was in England, Baptists and others would go to the local parish priest to sort the legal bit out, and then have (what they regarded as) a proper Christian marriage ceremony afterwards. To return to such a practice, substituting civil registrar for Anglican cleric, might be our best witness to our faith – and I suspect that this might be true regardless of the outcome of the current debate.”
Question: does a marriage need to be sanctioned by the state for it to be a real marriage in the eyes of God?
Mary gave her body
Joseph gave his reputation
Caesar gave his orders
The innkeeper gave his manger
The magi gave their gifts
The heavenly host gave their praise
And the shepherds gave their worship.
Mary gave birth
Joseph gave a name
Heaven gave a Saviour
The Father gave a Son.
The darkness gives way to the light
And death gives way to life.
I hope you all a Christmas filled with light and life.
Ed Stetzer reviewed it in Themelios and was less than positive as ”they plod through the biblical text in workmanlike fashion.’ Liam Thatcher read it and felt that too often ‘precision gave way to pedantry’. Trevin Wax read it and was left with five nagging questions which received a friendly response from the authors. Andrew Wilson then weighed in with his thoughts on why the two sides were talking past each other.
For what it’s worth, I’m more with Frost on this one.
Ten minutes later when they’re bored with your gift, the shine may have come off a bit. Still, it’s more blessed right? The thing is, I think the western societies in which we’re raising our children, are the sorts of societies where for most adults receiving is by far the superior alternative. So much so, that receiving or getting is seen as more of a human right really. You only have to think back to the summer riots in London and the many links to consumerism to see that attitude in its grossest expression.
If, generally speaking, those are the sorts of adults we are producing and I want my children to be different from that (less rioting would be good for a start), then I need to start training now. However, the early signs are not encouraging. This year, really for the first time, we are helping our three year old son discover the joy of giving. His initial reaction was grave concern, ‘I’ll still get presents won’t I?’ but even with that fear calmed, he remains unconvinced that giving is anywhere close to as good as getting.
We want giving to be in many ways, it’s own reward, we want the act of giving to radiate joy and fun, and lead to more cheerful giving. We’re going to introduce giving to those poorer than ourselves, and other such things, because giving is a habit that needs early introduction. It seems we have a default setting and it’s not ‘give’.
Any ideas, how have you seen giving best demonstrated, shared and taught to children?
To demonstrate why this whole debate matters and generates a lot of heat and passion, let me give you a couple of examples that I’ve read recently. Firstly Paul Levy wrote about reaching men in university and then this was given real personal depth by the urban pastor in his post only girls allowed?
For the other side you could read Dave Warnock on his views of egalitarian marriage (which sounds strangely like most, if not all of the complementarian marriages I’m personally aware of).
Either way approaching the issue with Andrew’s post in mind should help at least in talking to each other and not past each other as so often happens.
If you hadn’t noticed it’s nearly Christmas, that time of year where we go slightly loco with money and stuff, and it’s a unique event. Rampant consumerism and the celebration of the birth of Christ in a stable, and it was combining those two things that led to this very clever advert. Of course in the race to condemn all this excess we may kill all the fun or so thinks Sarah Dunn. This chart shows Christmas spending by country.
Unsurprisingly, in America despite not having the most money they will spend nearly the most on gifts. This is because, as Eugene Peterson says in this short video, the most materialistic we have ever known and shows how to handle wealth! (Ht: Mark Meynell)
It was following a drive through America that Tim Challies began to seriously think about the issue of money. He found this prayer on stuff and contentment and then ways to think wrongly about money. He then asks the questions do I have to give? And if so how much do I give?
This all goes to show that we live in a consumer age and it’s a pressure not evenly felt. By that I mean, as this post says, ‘UK parents seem to find themselves under tremendous pressure to purchase a surfeit of material goods for their children. This compulsive consumption was almost completely absent in both Spain and Sweden.’ A thesis that our personal experience can anecdotally support.
The best antidote is to be generous and to cultivate gratitude and that takes some thought. It’s worth thinking about.
I’m rapidly becoming a big fan of everything Tim Keller writes (I previously reviewed Counterfeit Gods) because, well, he just seems to make so much sense.
In Generous Justice: How God’s grace makes us just Keller explores how the motivation for acts of compassion and justice are rooted in the grace of God to us in Christ. It’s this connection that makes this book stand out from many of the other books on social justice.
Keller has four main groups in his sights as he writes; those keen on social justice but unclear of the gospel connection, those clear on the gospel but wary of social justice, those who are keen on mission as social justice but gone soft on the cross and lastly those who think Christianity like all religions ‘poisons everything’.
In many ways there really is little difference between what Tim Keller is saying here than say what Jim Wallis says in A Call to Conversion but Keller goes a bit deeper and connects in a truer way to the heart of the Gospel. Many authors start from the needs of the poor and then work backwards to the Bible looking for reasons why we should do something. Keller comes to similar conclusions but from a very different starting point. He starts with the Gospel message and then works out the implications of that and seeks to show that you can not, not have social justice if you’ve understood the gospel.
The one area where Generous Justice is a bit thin on the ground is personal stories and illustrations which is a bit surprising because I don’t think Keller or his church are short of them. A few more would have given just a bit more real life insight into some of the solutions Keller was suggesting.
However, Keller also knows his core readership will come from American evangelicalism, a group not always known for their commitment to social justice and in this volume he teaches the how and why of social justice using language they can grasp and understand. More importantly he connects it to the thing they are most concerned about: the gospel.
Well worth having a copy on your shelves.
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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