The Gospel is foolishness to many who think they are being saved

I teach Christianity to pupils of various faiths and various attitudes to the Christian gospel. But one thing really disturbs me, and that is this: unbelievers understand the Bible better than believers in my classroom. On one level that's not true - I'm not talking about spiritual receptiveness. But their conceptual understanding of the awesome nature of God ("if there is a God, then if I was standing before him, I'd be scared out of my mind"), holiness and sin ("why doesn't God just spit on us?") and the transcendence of God and its impact on the likeliness, and therefore graciousness, of divine intervention for us ("if there is a God, then why does he bother with tiny little insignificant human beings?") beats the conceptual grasp of many churchgoers, whose God is thoroughly domesticated. No wonder I have two Christian pupils who regard church as stupid: the semi-Christian Christless Christianity they are, by their account of it, receiving probably is.

Learning style and conservative Evangelicalism

As a teacher, I have to be aware that different pupils have different learning styles: they might learn by listening, by seeing or by doing.
The British conservative evangelical emphasis on preaching is wonderful for auditory learners, who tend to be those for whom university was more accessible, and for whom in the past the whole education system was accessible.
What about the visual learners and the kinaesthetic learners?
We need to recover the sacraments, I say.

Why Pietism offers little hope

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.

Enough said

What's wrong in the Church today? Why do churches shrink, or end up having little to say? Why do people die, face up to their Maker and wonder why their church-going didn't get them right with God? Want to find out my fundamental criticism of too much of even the British, well-founded evangelical ministry I experience? CLICK HERE.

Getting it wrong on the White Horse Inn

The Amateur ought not really dare to argue with the professionals, but sometimes it's hard to avoid questioning certain perspectives.
You can hear the White Horse Inn by visiting their website. Even over here in Europe I feel it makes sense, as Europe is battered by every wave of doctrine that sweeps over the Atlantic. WHI acts as an early warning system. But at its best, it is truly an education in the doctrines of the faith.
So what got to me today?
Firstly, I didn't see the fundamental difference between the two sets of ministers interviewed: why did the second lot get so much stick, even from Revd Jones, normally the voice of reason, aware of the other side of the story (including in this broadcast.)
Secondly, why are they so critical of the Willow Creek idea of people being "self-feeders"? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I only go to church on Sunday, and on Tuesday I attend a midweek, lay-led Bible group. What am I to do the other five days? Starve? Perhaps Willow Creek wants to convert people and then pack them off to survive without church, but I can't believe that. They'll need to explain their critique of "self-feeding" a bit here. I need breakfast every day, and I need to know how to prepare it, even if I only get a full-on, chef-prepared hot dinner on Sunday.
Finally, I thought the second question was wrong. That question should have been third. First, the ministers interviewed were asked how important doctrine was in their ministry, and the answers were high: 8 or 10 out of 10. Then they were asked to estimate the knowledge of doctrinal terminology in their congregations. Many spoke of their wanting to communicate the content without the "seminary language".
Now I agree with the WHI guys that we need to teach people the language of the Scripture - although part of that agreement must surely be to help people be self-feeders, able to read Scripture on their own. But I also see that we must make those terms fully accessible, with good analogy and using Scripture to explain Scriptures - both methods - as they also said. I understood all the interviewed ministers as making that point, but also making a third: that conceptual content is more important than the label.
We're about to do Romans at church. If I get the high privilege of doing Romans 3:21-26, then of course I will be explaining terms like justification, propitiation, redemption and righteousness. How I would do that in the short slot we get on Sundays I don't know. But although I'd be delighted if everyone left knowing those words and their meanings, I'd rather they left remembering the meanings than the words, if it were one or the other.
So the second question should have been when those guys last worked through Romans or Galatians or the start of Ephesians. If all of them genuinely meant what they said, then had they worked through one of these books, they would have been involved in defining the terms Paul uses clearly and simply. And if they love their people, they will have been worried first to communicate Paul's ideas, and worrying only secondarily if the appropriate syllable collection sticks.
Which means that whatever we think about theological language, if we preach all of Scripture, we'll end up teaching the ideas and at least presenting all the key words. The answer to being interesting, dramatic, doctrinal and relevant is simple: preach the Word, book by book, chapter by chapter, week in, week out, year after year. Reminding us of that would have helped us all.

Dumbing Down

If you've listened to the track from YouTube mentioned in the previous post, you'll know why the following question from a pupil really sent me into despair:
"Sir, can you tell me what to think?"

Tears and the Truth

I was listening to the White Horse Inn this week, and they played this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr4DBnB7aNQ . It was absolutely mind-blowing when I then looked it up on YouTube and listened to it. I was listening to it and crying - I just burst into tears. The song parodied, but in a serious tone, the religiosity of many Americans - oh, and Europeans, and Africans, and wherever, I guess. The sadness of the song expresses perfectly the terrible thought that God's people live under such slavery. Oh God, oh God, oh God, my heart breaks for people suffering such slavery! Give me a pulpit!

J. Gresham Machen

Need a good read? Not much money? Want something out of copyright, but in relatively modern English? Has it got to be relevant, intellectually challenging, yet able to stand the test of time? I've just started "Christianity and Liberalism" by J Gresham Machen. I'd recommend it to anyone, Christian or not Christian, wanting to understand Christianity, the Church today or the nature of religion over and against secularism. And I've only started reading! What are you reading?

The roots of Heresy

The shock of my life flew out of 2 Peter 2 yesterday. The roots of heresy are greed and being overwhelmed by one's physical desires (v2). Anyone struggling with those can tip over into heresy, denying Christ and His cross (v1). The solution? Authority (v10). We need an outside authority to set us right. Which is why heresy always attacks the Bible, I guess. Anyway, I was sobered. How close am I then, a western materialist, to denying my Lord every minute?
Oh, and Scripture has a lot to say about the tongue and self-control, particularly in Proverbs, doesn't it! Ouch!
Who will save me from this body of death? --> Romans 8

Not bothering with the best

If under the Christmas tree were a huge present with your name on it, you wouldn't leave it under the tree. Would you? Yet the Christian church does that. There's a present marked "Gospel" left unopened and uninvestigated.
I see it everywhere. Here's a few examples:
I was discussing Christian work with a minister and saying I felt we needed to teach people grace until they got it. He said that many people in churches don't, so we shouldn't get hung up on teaching grace and teach other things too.
Bible studies on Mark I've been to focusing life applications rather than on "trust this Jesus."
Christians who see Christ as a role model offering solutions and who get upset when I talk of Him as a Saviour and not a solution.
The majority of children I teach are Arians (don't believe that Jesus is God) and Pelagians (we get ourselves to heaven with good works) and yet they call themselves Christians. But they have a Jesus incapable of saving, because He is not God, and they don't think they need it, because they think they can save themselves.
Lord, have mercy on us, for though You are gracious, we won't have it. Be overwhelmingly gracious and bring even sinners like us, who spurn Your mercies, into Your Kingdom.