I have been told by friends in Germany that the best, most biblical denomination is the Bund Freier Evangelische Gemeinden (FeG). If my experience on holiday in Kassel is any measure, then God help Germany!
The sermon was on John 10:27-30. The initial introduction set the text in its immediate context: what Jesus was claiming in claiming to be the Good Shepherd and God's equal was clear enough to His then listeners. So they picked up stones to stone Him.
Then we were taken through the text step by step:
"My sheep"
We were informed how valuable the sheep were to a shepherd, and how much he would do for them if he was both shepherd and owner, since they were his precious property. So we too are precious in the eyes of Jesus, because we are His sheep.
True, in fact, Jesus makes the point Himself really well in verses 11 to 15 of the same chapter (always take your Bible to church - you can preach to yourself the bits the minister leaves out!), by talking about the Cross. "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." Jesus even makes the point the preacher made about hired hands and shepherds! So why didn't the preacher make Jesus' point Jesus' way?
"My sheep listen to My voice"
Listening to Jesus' voice is not a matter of technique, we were informed. It's not about sitting quietly and calming oneself. Absolutely correct - we must knock this New Age or Eastern or Gnostic mysticism on the head when it gets into the church. But having started so well, the preacher lost it.
Firstly, he fully legitimated this Gnostic approach to listening to Jesus as one alternative. Then he said that this verse was a promise that all Jesus' sheep would hear His voice. But it's not a promise - it's a statement of a fact that comes as a sharp rebuke to the Jewish scribes questioning Him, as the context in verses 22 to 26 make clear. Thirdly, he suggested that there were other ways of hearing Jesus' voice, such as reading a good book or "wenn man etwas aus der Bibel ableitet". God's voice is not Scripture, according to this man, but whatever I take away from it. Good! Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens et al. has taken away the last four words of Psalm 14 verse 1a! Fourthly, he said we need to listen; he contrasted that to the German student tradition of Bibelarbeit - literally, "Bible work", working away at the text to understand it.
Now he's fully moved to the mystic position, which says that God works exclusively through non-natural means. I consider myself Reformed in my theology, and the Reformed position is that man is essentially good, but by consequence of the Fall totally depraved. Having made humans, God looks on the world and says it is "very good". We are essentially, that is, according to what is essential to what we are, good. That is how we are made. But that is shot through with fallenness, such that all of what was created good is corrupted by sin.
One consequence is that God pours out His Holy Spirit, who was there in Creation (Genesis 1:2), to make us what we are by creation. The natural means God has created are not inferior, but "very good". Now God has given us His word in a book. So we are to read it as a book. The work of the Holy Spirit is to make us better readers and believing and obeying readers, that is, to help us understand the book and respond appropriately, as we naturally would do if it were not for sin.
Having been denied hearing the Gospel of Christ crucified and having heard such dangerous mystic-leaning ideas on Scripture, I half switched off. He was orthodox on verse 28, but uninterestingly so. But I was not surprised at his comment on verse 29 "Wir sollen das nicht theologisieren" - we should theologise this. Just hear the confidence you can have in Jesus, that He won't lose you. But what does that mean, that He won't lose me? Help me understand that, speak to me a word about God, a logos about the theos, a theology!
Perhaps it was the emnity to theology that led to the earlier mistakes too.
If that's the best Germany has to offer, then Lord Jesus Christ, please raise up harvest workers, preachers who love Your word and proudly preach Your Cross, that Your people might not starve, but be led onto good pasture (John 10:9) across that nation.
Friday 29 August 2008
On Russian Imperialism
I returned from holiday in Germany armed with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit and the Independent courtesy of Lufthansa, and with a copy of Spiegel. There was plenty to read, and plenty to be concerned about.
Back in 1999, as Belgrade was being bombed by NATO, I told a friend that I thought that we'd be at war with Russia in ten years. I had forgotten that prediction completely until yesterday. Now it comes back to me.
Kosovo has clearly provided the Russians, surrounded as they are by Russian speaking minorities that are to a greater or lesser extent disadvantaged, with the perfect pretext for imperial ambitions. Russia is already gas provider number one; control of the Caucusus would put them on target to be oil power number one; the sheer vastness of their territory makes it likely that overall in mineral terms that they can be number one. China and India have people, have a love of learning and large educated middle-classes. In military terms both are powerful. But they too will need Russia.
Russia's military decline is well-documented, but easily overstated. None of its neighbours west of China is a serious military force.
But here is something to consider. Spiegel not only documented this week the Russian ambitions in military terms. It also documented the significance of former DDR, even Stasi men, in the German branch of Gazprom, which now supplies a third of the German market, and will be Europe's number one supplier, especially as the North Sea runs out. At the same time, former DDR men, including plenty with Stasi connections, run what is rapidly becoming Germany's third political force (Oskar Lafontaine excused, but his interview with Spiegel is rankest populism of the Soviet apologist kind). The significance of the KGB in the Putin regime is again documented.
So how's about this? Germany, Europe's most strategic bit of territory, is being softened up. Russian power is being projected across the former Soviet Union, with a clear willingness to take by force what is wanted. The panellists on Any Questions this evening in the UK sounded to a man like Chamberlainites - Georgia and Ukraine are far off countries of which we know little, and the Russians have legitimate interests there.
The year? Are we back in 1936, watching the Saarland plebiscite? Or are we in 1937, early 1938, preparing the way to Munich?
Or is the year 1973? Is a small country about to be attacked, whilst the energy supplies are switched off from its allies?
Or are we back in the Great Game?
And does this all put a new spin on the War on Terror? After all, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Iranian missile threat providing a perfect excuse for missile defence systems, was in fact the US/UK war aim all along not in fact concerned with containing Russia. Were perhaps Bush and Blair not considering, like me, not so much Islamic terrorism as Russian imperialism, considering not just the bombing of New York and Washington but of Belgrade, when their war aims mysteriously switched from Afghanistan to Iraq? But if so, then why not take Saudi Arabia - a much easier, and in the light of the 9/11 bombers, more plausible target?
Back in 1999, as Belgrade was being bombed by NATO, I told a friend that I thought that we'd be at war with Russia in ten years. I had forgotten that prediction completely until yesterday. Now it comes back to me.
Kosovo has clearly provided the Russians, surrounded as they are by Russian speaking minorities that are to a greater or lesser extent disadvantaged, with the perfect pretext for imperial ambitions. Russia is already gas provider number one; control of the Caucusus would put them on target to be oil power number one; the sheer vastness of their territory makes it likely that overall in mineral terms that they can be number one. China and India have people, have a love of learning and large educated middle-classes. In military terms both are powerful. But they too will need Russia.
Russia's military decline is well-documented, but easily overstated. None of its neighbours west of China is a serious military force.
But here is something to consider. Spiegel not only documented this week the Russian ambitions in military terms. It also documented the significance of former DDR, even Stasi men, in the German branch of Gazprom, which now supplies a third of the German market, and will be Europe's number one supplier, especially as the North Sea runs out. At the same time, former DDR men, including plenty with Stasi connections, run what is rapidly becoming Germany's third political force (Oskar Lafontaine excused, but his interview with Spiegel is rankest populism of the Soviet apologist kind). The significance of the KGB in the Putin regime is again documented.
So how's about this? Germany, Europe's most strategic bit of territory, is being softened up. Russian power is being projected across the former Soviet Union, with a clear willingness to take by force what is wanted. The panellists on Any Questions this evening in the UK sounded to a man like Chamberlainites - Georgia and Ukraine are far off countries of which we know little, and the Russians have legitimate interests there.
The year? Are we back in 1936, watching the Saarland plebiscite? Or are we in 1937, early 1938, preparing the way to Munich?
Or is the year 1973? Is a small country about to be attacked, whilst the energy supplies are switched off from its allies?
Or are we back in the Great Game?
And does this all put a new spin on the War on Terror? After all, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Iranian missile threat providing a perfect excuse for missile defence systems, was in fact the US/UK war aim all along not in fact concerned with containing Russia. Were perhaps Bush and Blair not considering, like me, not so much Islamic terrorism as Russian imperialism, considering not just the bombing of New York and Washington but of Belgrade, when their war aims mysteriously switched from Afghanistan to Iraq? But if so, then why not take Saudi Arabia - a much easier, and in the light of the 9/11 bombers, more plausible target?
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