Maybe we deserve to be treated with suspicion

So in a recent article on Premier, Andrea Williams from the Christian Legal Centre is quoted as saying “We are seeing a worrying trend, whereby Christian parents are being treated with suspicion because of their faith” and my immediate thought was “well, maybe we deserve to be”

Looking through the articles I’ve shared on the Facebook page, the majority have been along the theme of the mind bogglingly stupid things Christians have done and come out with. From trying to restrict the rights of same-sex couples by banning them from marrying or adopting children and then disciplining churches who stand for equality, to completely ignoring modern science and history regarding…..well, everything pretty much and trying to get our religious views into law to force onto everyone, topped off with details on disciplining your wife and covering abuse claims; and these are just the ones I can remember. Is it really a surprise Christians are treated with such suspicion?

Now I know there are many instances of Christians not doing these and it’s unfair to tar everyone with the same brush, but maybe we’ve reached the tipping point where our lunacy is outweighing any good we are doing. Even if it hasn’t, things can’t simply be swept under the carpet simply because they’re inconvenient and/or we don’t want to listen.

Maybe we deserve the contempt we get and if that isn’t sobering then perhaps we deserve even more.

Quick thoughts on the banned Lords Prayer ad; Part 2

So a couple of weeks ago the DCM (Digital Cinema Media) blocked an advert depicting the Lords Prayer from being shown in cinemas, and I penned some thoughts on why that was the correct decision and not a breach of free speech or an example of persecution. The controversy just won’t die down though and has been fanned into life once more with the news that cinemas are showing a short film which depicts animated Hindu gods; and once again Christians have whipped themselves into a frenzied mob including one very misguided Christian who put this together

I say they’re misguided, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call it manipulative because this picture leaves some out some very key facts which when known, really make this whole controversy another example of the Christian persecution complex.

First off, the Lord Prayers ad was not a short film depicting people praying, it was an explicit advert for the website justpray.uk. The Hindu film is not an advert so the comparison is false. If you’re looking for a similar Christian example, it’s much closer to the movie God is not Dead which was not banned and shown in many cinemas. Indeed the only criticisms that were leveled at  it was the scathing reviews on how horrendously atrocious it was (and yet somehow it got a sequel)

Secondly though and linked to this, as it’s a film not an advert the decision to show it lies with the individual cinema companies themselves not the DCM as they themselves have stated. So the Christian anger isn’t just misguided, it’s aimed at completely the wrong target anyway.

If Christians want depictions of prayer in movies, there’s no shortage of them. Heck even Day After Tomorrow has a small poignant scene of the President praying in a chapel, not to mentioned Noah and Exodus. If they want Christian characters in movies or Christian movies in general, do what the makers of this Hindu film did and make one; just make sure it’s better quality than the aforementioned Gods Not Dead.

So it’s very much ado about nothing and another case of where people need to stop and think before brandishing the pitch forks.

If it is a war, Jesus has given us our orders

“When you spend everyday fighting a war, you learn to demonize your attackers. To you they’re evil, they’re sub-human. Because if they weren’t, then what would that make you?” – General Vanessa Kimble, Red Vs Blue

So I’ve been attending a new church for a couple of weeks and I spend most of the time at the back reading a book on my Kindle and making notes on various things. One of the things I note down are anything that stands out to me during the sermon and this has been the case over the last couple of weeks. The passage that has been the subject has been the “armor of God” passage (Ephesians 6:10-17) which, just for ease of reference, is below:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Now, the way the vicar went with this passage was about Christians being in a war with the world. We are in a war with the world and it’s ways; we are either on the worlds side or God’s side, that we need to go on the attack for the best form of defence, all wrapped up in ‘Jesus took the punishment due to us for us on the cross’ and we need to be prepared. Sufficed to say this left me very uncomfortable and not because it was particularly challenging. It was the overall narrative of conflict of Christians should be effectively be raging a war. Now I kind of agree to a point, and I will hopefully elaborate more during this blog, but I think the vicar has the wrong target in their sights, not to mention very questionable tactics which when brought together, results in things that not only don’t seem to be of Jesus, but are actually creating more problems, if not create the very problem it’s trying to solve.

Let’s start with the target and for that, lets go right back to Genesis. God created this world and He declared it good. Then a serpent came in, convinced Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the world went wrong. Now, the concept of original sin and what Genesis is about is a subject of lengthy debates, and admittedly God did seem to wipe it all out and start again, but God has never stopped loving the world. He hated what it had become, He hated what it was doing and He hated what caused it, but He never stopped loving it. Arguably one of the most famous passages, John 3:16, states “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” and Jesus was quite clear about the 2 greatest commands; Love God and love your neighbour. We are not called to hate the world, we are not called to be at war with it, we are called to care for the sick, the dying, and the poor (James 2:14-17), but I’m going to come back to this.

So, who is the enemy, who is the target? The one who came in and wreaked havoc, the one that Paul refers to in Ephesians; the devil. The devil doesn’t want the focus to be on God but on ourselves and serving our selves at the individual level. It’s easy to stand on a pedestal and say “yes, the world has adopted the devils ways”, and that would probably be true, but so have many churches and Christians which is why when you speak out for equality and peace, the biggest firestorm comes from Christians. It seems that the ways of the Church and the ways of the devil are now so closely entwined that they’re virtually indistinguishable from each other. We now see enemies at every corner that we fight ourselves more than we fight the devil. Paul is very explicit, our war is not against flesh and blood and our readiness comes from a gospel of peace. Yet from a pulpit I heard “Jesus wasn’t interested in/here for world peace but our relationship with God”. First off, there still seems to be the individual self serving nature (“our” relationship with God is meant as “mine”) but a relationship with God and world peace are not 2 mutually exclusive options. To follow God means to serve others because that’s what Jesus did, and serving others instead of fighting means world peace.

So we seem to have the wrong target, what about the tactics? Well, Jesus was not slow to go on the attack against the Pharisees regarding their attitude towards those who they deemed to be unworthy (a theme to which I will return), but he was also equally as quick to show love to people. His attack was against the ways of the devil the Pharisees adopted that resulted in people being hurt was love and healing. But people see attacking as that, an attack to hurt and defeat an opponent and the vicar used actual war examples where that was the aim to show “this works and is good and what we should do”. Peter showed though that when you adopt that strategy as an attack, people get very hurt. Jesus not only rebuked him for it though, he healed the soldier to repair the damage, (Matthew 26:51-52). Jesus used his ‘attacks’ to defend others, Peter used his ‘attacks’ to harm others and this distinction has got very lost and was missing from these sermons. It seems to be a very important distinction because passages like Ephesians get used to support Christians owning (and using) guns and authors like Ben Corey and Derek Flood do an excellent job in showing this distinction; Flood has written an entire book dedicated to this subject. I put some of my views in “Should I defend myself”

When we bring these 2 together and add in “you can only be on God’s side or the worlds side”, that’s when things start getting really quite off track. Obviously any Christian would want to be on God’s side and the world is God’s enemy, so the world is therefore our enemy and we must defend ourselves and attack is the best form of defence. The end result is Christians attacking anyone who don’t deem to be on God’s side and that’s what we’re seeing today. People leaving church because they don’t feel welcome, people being asked to leave the church because they disagree with the church’s stance on a certain doctrine, countries saying they’d prefer Christian refugees, LGBT youth getting kicked out of their home and much worse. I started with a quote about what happens when you fight a war, what can be argued has to happen to fight a war and when you start using a war-like message, it’s the mindset that people will enter into. To wage a war against an enemy is not loving them and Jesus was extremely clear on how highly he rates that command (Mark 12:30-31).

This wasn’t meant to turn into another rant against the church. It should be said that this church does a lot of work with the homeless, particularly homeless young people and they should absolutely be applauded for that. I also know that my perspective does follow a very similar conflict model which in itself may be problematic. I’m also not saying this church is causing this harm directly, but the message that got preached certainly is. Preaching this kind of conflict narrative is only going to result in a tighter circling of the wagons to protect “our own” which is going to disconnect the church from the world more than it already is. Now, there are some Christians who believe it should be disconnected, “in the world but not of it”, but Jesus came to this world, made himself part of that worldly suffering. Even if we are in a war, it’s not against the world, it’s for it and Jesus has given us our orders; love your neighbour, care for the sick, feed the hungry, shelter the poor; that’s how you win. or as Ben Corey puts it:

Update: I sent this to the vicar in question and he responded by saying he didn’t say we were at war with the world, and has offered to chat about what he actually said/meant. When and if that happens, I will update further.

The paradox of Archbishop Welby

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has been making lots of noise about setting up courses to tackle homophobic bullying. For this, he is absolutely to be applauded. There seems to be a bit of disconnect though, in that he’s doing so whilst simultaneously holding the view that marriage is between a man and a woman only. Discrimination on the basis of sexuality is a base from which homophobic bullying can launch from and indeed breeds from. As Deborah Orr from the Guardian alludes to, being homophobic is more than just saying nasty things.

Words like bigot and homophobe should not be thrown around carelessly, and I know many who don’t like using them because it can shut down conversations very quickly. Sometimes though, these are accurate descriptions of a persons actions.  I’m saying actions because I do believe that some peoples objections are not out of fear of the LGBT community, they genuinely believe that people choose to be gay (a little education and actually talking to someone who is gay would go a long way here), and I believe they are not bigoted by nature; but objecting on grounds of sexuality is homophobic and sometimes you just have to call it out as such. Another popular catchphrase within Christian circles is “we love the sinner, but we hate the sin”. Some would argue that this is exactly what the Archbishop is doing, but people like Micah Murray and Richard Beck have done excellent jobs in showing how not only is this not what Jesus taught, but why it’s totally unworkable. Only time will tell with Archbishop Welby can maintain both stances. In this case, it’s hard to see how objecting to same-sex couples getting married is anything other than bigoted and homophobic. If you believe objecting to inter-racial marriage is bigoted, then objecting to same-sex marriage is too. They are both aspects people are born with, and both cannot be changed (despite assertions to the contrary).

There will be people questioning whether I am saying that the Bible, and indeed God, are bigoted and homophobic. If the former does truly say that marriage is just between a man and woman (something which is heavily disputed) and the latter will send gay people to hell for being gay (which is something else that else is heavily disputed), then yes that is what I am saying. I think Desmond Tutu echoed my thoughts when he said “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place….I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this.” Some people do interpret the Bible in a way that says that marriage is between a man and woman only, but as I alluded to above, this is an interpretation that many would challenge and therefore challenge the assertion that the Bible and God are homophobic.

 

Picture from David Hayward aka Naked Pastor:

I like Archbishop Welby; I like his campaign against poverty and pay-day lenders and that he’s actually taking action. I like how he’s pushing for women to be able to become bishops, despite the arduous and painful debates in Synods. I even like the fact that even though he opposes same sex marriage, he is still campaigning against homophobic bullying. But I can’t get past the fact that he seems to be trying to solve a problem that he is actually contributing to.  The issue of same-sex marriage and the Bible is a complex and nuanced one, and I don’t envy Archbishop Welby’s position of being in the spotlight whilst these discussions rage on. My hope is that this anti-homophobic bullying campaign will help the Archbishop see how much his stance is contributing to the problem. Until then, he remains in this paradox and threatens to undermine his own cause.

And that, would actually be a huge shame.

There is no victory in Phelps’ passing

Fred Phelps, founder of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, has died at the age of 84. Westboro Baptist Church are famous for their “God hates fags” signs and the picketing of soldiers funerals. His legacy is one of perpetuating hate, discrimination and pain.

I do not mourn his passing, but I don’t celebrate and revel in it either. I do not know what kind of upbringing he had, or what his life was like away from the cameras. He was clearly filled with bitterness and anger, but he was also someones father, a grand father, and  a husband. His family, for all the anger and hate they’ve inherited, will be grieving. I cannot find it in myself to celebrate his death and taunt his family.  I pray for them. Bereavement is hard enough, they may have to do it publicly and face those who Fred Phelps hurt. Neither do I believe he is beyond Gods grace. He was loved by God, as everyone is, and may now have the full knowledge of what his actions did to others. Again, he is not beyond grace.

There will be those who will find closure in his death, I fully respect that. I was not harmed by Phelps or his teachings, and though I bear a few scars from battles with those who believed what he did, they are nothing compared to the majority. There will be those who will want to picket his funeral and to celebrate. I understand their feelings behind it, but there seems to be an opportunity here to help break the cycle of hate that Westboro Baptist Church encourages. We don’t have to respond in the same way, we have the same choice they do, but by not acting as they would, maybe we can show them how wrong they are. It doesn’t matter if it makes a difference to them or not, responding tit for tat merely fuels the fire and shows that they are right in their approach. We can end that. To quote Martin Luther King Jr; “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Christian or not, we can all choose love. Westboro have been prime examples of why hate doesn’t work. As Chris Stedman writes:

“WBC and Phelps may have been good at getting attention, but they’ve largely failed to change hearts and minds in their direction. (If anything, they’ve made anti-LGBTQ views that much more unattractive.) May their utter failure to promote their vision of a divided world be a lesson to us all.”

Whilst it’s true that Phelps is not around to harm anymore people, Westboro Baptist Church still exists. It is still run by those who shared his views, so today does not mark a victory or an end of a battle in an ongoing war. Phelps was merely one spokesman for homophobia, there are many more still alive and still spreading hate and doing so almost un-noticed.  Those committed to fighting discrimination and homophobia still have fights on their hands, that doesn’t end with todays news. 

There is no victory here, just lessons to learn and the chance for grace to be extended.

Not in a church? You’re of no use then apparently

This is pretty much  what was said on Twitter last night, and it felt like I was punched in the stomach. For someone who is struggling with church and trying to repair his relationship with Christ, to be told I’m effectively of no more use to God until I do find a church is almost crippling. The tweet in full was:

Christians detached from a local church, no matter how spiritual or mighty, play no part in broadcasting God’s wisdom to the world -Eph 3.10

This just made me want to get even further away from the church, and add it to the list of things I’ve been labeled. After some pleading with God for reassurance that I was in fact still of use and had a part to play, a soothing phone call with Sarah (and some sleep) I looked up Ephesians 3:10:

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,

Context though is vital so if we back up a few verses in chapter 3:

Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.  I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power (Ephesians 3:2-3,7)

No mention that if you are not a member of a church, you play no part in broadcasting Gods wisdom. Revelation it seems is not limited to churches and Paul is proof of this, he wasn’t even a member of a church when he wrote to the various churches that he had visited. There’s no evidence Paul was a member of any church during his ministry, or any of the disciples. So what does Paul mean by it’s Gods intention to use the church to make known his wisdom? Well, Jesus once said:

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them (Matthew 18:20)

This does not have to be in a church or even as a church, this can simply be 2 or 3 (or more) Christians gathering around someones house, or in barn, or a beach or; you get the idea. It’s not about membership, church isn’t a golf club, it’s about being together as followers of Christ. The context of the above verse is dealing with sin, but do you really think Jesus won’t be there because we talking about something else? People often say that church is about community. I absolutely agree, but you don’t have to go to a church to find community a Christians. The person who posted the original tweet went on to say “People get saved into community“. The perception of what church is between then and now is radically different in some ways, but the concept of it being a community is still there.

Coming back to Ephesians 3:10, who are these “rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” Paul speaks of? He didn’t seem confused between heaven and earth as his letters showed. One commentator views it as follows:

This was one things, among others, which God had in his eye in revealing this mystery, that the good angels, who have a pre-eminence in governing the kingdoms and principalities of the world, and who are endued with great power to execute the will of God on this earth (though their ordinary residence is in heaven) may be informed, from what passes in the church and is done in and by it, of the manifold wisdom of God; that is, of the great variety with which God wisely dispenses things, or of his wisdom manifested in the many ways and methods he takes in ordering his church in the several ages of it, and especially in receiving the Gentiles into it. The holy angels, who look into the mystery of our redemption by Christ, could not but take notice of this branch of that mystery, that among the Gentiles is preached the unsearchable riches of Christ. And this is according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord,

I’m not going to pretend I fully understand all of that, but it sounds very grand and very powerful; far more than merely needing be connected to a church to play a part. It does seem God is being put into a box where he can only use the church, and completely disregards anyone who is currently having problems with church. Many of these issues are very legitimate. and many have walked away so that the true message of Jesus can be found and preached. Statements like the one made at the outset of this simply give the impression that God has abandoned them, or comes across as power plays and control; not to mention just beating on people already struggling.

If you’re not currently attending a church, God hasn’t abandoned you, neither are you of no use to him. I have found the stories of people in a similar position to me very helpful during this time of searching. The tweet did help me with one thing though, it helped me rediscover what “I follow Christ, not Christians” really means.

If God was all the superheroes

Stand firm then, with the Batmans belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the Superman breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with Iron Mans shoes the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up Captain Americas shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the Magneto helmet of salvation and Thors hammer of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

I love God 🙂

Hell…and whatnot

There are many theologians and scholars who have studied the subject of hell far more than I ever could. I’m not going to even try and into enter the discussion at their level, but I think it’s important to make sense of it at whatever level we’re working at. This blog is my attempt to do that, so it probably offers more questions than answers and may not always make complete sense. It’s a question that I have wrestled with for a long time and have been asked about by others. Like many Christians, I’m heavily indebted to these theologians, especially N.T Wright so you will see him quoted a lot in this; might as well go with the best. So, here we go.

When we think of hell, we probably have Dante’s Inferno [1] and the nine circles of hell in mind. But does the Bible actually describe hell like this? At first glance it would seem that way:

The punishment of the wicked dead in hell is described throughout Scripture as “eternal fire” (Matthew 25:41), “unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12), “shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2), a place where “the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44-49), a place of “torment” and “fire” (Luke 16:23-24), “everlasting destruction” (2 Thessalonians 1:9), a place where “the smoke of torment rises forever and ever” (Revelation 14:10-11), and a “lake of burning sulfur” where the wicked are “tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). [2]

Seems pretty clear cut about the fire. Like with anything in the Bible though, context and genre is important and we need to understand what the context is to understand what the author intended. This is when the discussion ramps up in intensity and disagreements ensue. There have been a variety of view points on this and Tom Price from the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, offered his own along with the views of John Calvin and Martin Luther in a recent talk:

Tom Price: Hell is not a place with a high thermal output. It is figurative description of a terrible tragedy of life apart from God

John Calvin: We may conclude, from many passages of scripture, that eternal fire is a metaphorical expression

Martin Luther: It’s not very important whether or not one pictures hell as it is commonly portrayed and described [3]

N.T Wright has expressed similar views regarding hell being the result of humans saying we don’t want our lives to be defined by worshiping God, we want to do our own thing.  Hell would be divorce from God once and for all, and saying that we want to stop being an image bearing human being [4]. Looking at Genesis, this is the definition of being human, to bear Gods image and if we don’t want to bear his image, we don’t want to be human. This inevitably raises the question of what does it mean to not be human? We’re still working out what it means to be a human being. This is making the decision to go to hell very much ours; it’s not a case of God sending us it’s a case of us going of our own free will. In C.S. Lewis’s words; “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way” [5]. God does not force himself on us, he won’t force us to stay somewhere we don’t want to be. Tom in the same talk suggests that it might actually be more painful to be in Gods presence for those who don’t want to be there. This would then make hell an act of mercy on Gods part, which is not something I’d considered before now.

I’m not suggesting that we can do what we want then decide when the time comes, it does seem that where we ultimately end up logically and naturally flows out from how we live here. What we do on this earth matters and not just actions, but our relationship with Christ. I’m also not saying that our actions earn our way into heaven. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith but there’s some very high level discussions going on as to what that means. Some critics would say “oh you’re saying your beliefs are the only way to get to heaven” No, I’m saying if you reject Christ and don’t want him in your life, why would you want to spend eternity with him? I cannot and will not make judgements on where people will spend eternity, that’s something only God can do; I am merely asking the logical question based on aspect of what heaven is.  I don’t think it’s as simple as Christians go to heaven and everyone else doesn’t; or that good people go heaven and evil people don’t (though what measure of good and evil we are using is a valid question) There is a theological view called Universalism, the basic premise of which is everybody goes to heaven, regardless of whether they are a Christian or not, regardless of what they do or not. An argument for this is outlined below:

People ask me if Hitler will be in heaven. I ask, “which Hitler?” Long before Hitler was a mass murdering dictator, he was a terrified boy being savagely beaten by his father while trying to protect his beloved mother. That Hitler will be in heaven. [6]

The current thinking with many Christians is that heaven and hell are equal and opposite destinations and where you go is determined when you die. This seems to make no sense in light of the resurrection, it shows we will be bodily raised and renewed and that the earth will be renewed and joined with heaven; and that process has started now. What we do here matters. So what is heaven? Again to quote N.T. Wright, once we die, we go to like a lay-by waiting for this day to come; the main point is what happens then. Death is not the end, not even life after death is the end, it’s the “life after life after death” [7] that should be the main focus. He expands on this more fully in his book “Surprised by Hope” So where will he spend eternity? I honestly don’t know, as I said earlier I leave such judgements to God. Is hell even eternal? It seems Jesus had something interesting to say about that:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:1-5 NIV)

What does Jesus mean by perish? Perish seems to suggest an end, a point where we will cease to exist. Regardless of where we end up, we all die so he doesn’t seem to be referring to physical death on earth as it is now. He could mean that our bodies will not get renewed so we don’t come back physically so our bodies will perish but a part of us (usually referred to as a soul) will continue on; but  he doesn’t say “unless you repent, you will suffer and burn for all eternity” He was addressing the question of people being punished for their sins, but it is curious what he says about what will happen. Paul seems to express similar things in Romans; For if you live according to the flesh, you will die (Romans 8:13) What does Paul mean by this? This opens a whole other conversation about what is meant by death in the Bible.

But that’s heavy for enough for one blog.

 

References:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_%28Dante%29

[2] http://www.gotquestions.org/hell-real-eternal.html

[3] http://www.oiccu.co.uk/index.php/mp3-reader/items/131.php

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vggzqXzEvZ0

[5] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/cslewis146406.html

[6] http://leavingtheflock.com/2013/08/13/a-very-brief-argument-for-universalism/

[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZC6tbgpsl4

God and punishment – do these things go together?

People like justice when they feel they are entitled to it, but when those who have wronged them are not punished appropriately, they feel wronged themselves.  Viewpoints on judgement, justice and mercy seem to change a lot when we are the ones who are guilty. We suddenly like the idea of mercy, but are averted by the ideas of justice and punishment. When we talk about God, according to the Christian faith, God will punish the guilty.  Most people do not have a problem with that when it is aimed at other people. We seem to get very angry though, at the thought that God might judge us and find us guilty. Some Christians react this way. As Adam Barr put it; “A God who disciplines does not accord with many people’s theology. We would prefer God cajole us or, better yet, ignore our sin“[1].

Being a child growing up I used to do many things wrong and being grounded by my parents and having to do extra chores used to be the penalty for that; not being allowed out to play just sucks! If God does still punish us, what does his equivalent of being grounded and getting extra chores look like? Or is something else going on with the way God operates?

There are some that take the view that God does not punish us at all, that it was all taken care of on the cross. Does this mean that God now overlooks all the evil committed and we are all saved when the new heaven and earth are put in place? By no means, and Jesus was quite clear when he spoke to his disciples;

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:1-5)

Jesus is very clear that unless we repent to God, we will perish, but he does not say exactly when that will be. Jesus is talking about those who do not repent, so if we do repent, does that mean we are free to do whatever we want?

Freedom is a very odd thing because real freedom is not what many think it is. Real freedom is not being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want and (in some cases) whoever you want. That is not freedom, that is anarchy and when anarchy breaks out, you actually have a loss of freedom. We, as Christians, are not suddenly given carte blanche to do what we want, we have been given 2 very specific commandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:36-39) Now some very atrocious acts have been carried out under the disguise of love and they are rightly shown for what they are; abuse. Rachel Held Evans is doing a fantastic series on this which I highly recommend reading [2].

Coming back to the view that God does not and wil not punish us at all,  another problem arises; God cannot ignore our sin and be a God of justice. Mercy always comes at the expense of justice – a punishment is due but mercy is extended instead. The cross is seen as God’s way of extending his mercy through justice by taking the punishment for us [3]. There is a story that’s often told to help illustrate this;

2 men were friends were friends since childhood but ended up in very different circumstances; 1 becomes a judge, the other ends up as a criminal. Years later, the friend who became a criminal is in court facing charges and the judge is his childhood friend. The judge wants to let his friend off but he must enforce the law. The punishment for the crime is a fine. The judge fines the man then takes off his robes and attire, steps down to his friend and pays the fine for him.

The whole concept of justice is here; an act has been committed that has broken the law, and someone has to be punished for that act in order for there to be justice. Derek Flood has written a book called ‘Healing the Gospel‘ [4] which challenges this view about what happened on the cross, but I will come back to this later.

Some have cited events like the tsunami in Japan and the earthquake in Haitai as examples of God’s punishment on a sinful world. They take the stance that God will punish us for our wrong doings here and now whilst we are still on this earth. The Old Testament is filled with examples of God sending “natural disasters” to punish various groups of people, and so from this perspective, this makes sense and has Biblical precedent. They did wrong and God sent punishment down on them. It makes sense, but there are 2 stories in the Old Testament that call this approach into question.

In Genesis 18, God wants to see if the reports of Sodom are accurate but Abraham starts asking if some righteous people are in Sodom, will God spare the city. Abraham starts at 50 and works his way down to 10, and each time God says he will spare Sodom. To say the natural disasters are Gods punishment is effectively saying everyone in the affected area were sinners beyond saving and Jesus in Luke 13 is quite clear that no sin is worse than others.  The other story from the Old Testament that deals with God sending punishments is the Book of Job. Job experiences huge tragedy in his life, but this was not punishment for things that he had done. Things that happen to us are not necessarily as a result of anything we have committed. The whole book is essentially Job debating with his friends whether what’s happening is a result of Job doing something wrong and God punishing him. Job’s friends were keen to try and convince him that these incidences were indeed punishments for a sinful life, but Job was having none of it. In the end God steps in and is not pleased with Job’s friends. God is unhappy that Job’s friends were telling lies about him, about Job being punished for something he had done.

Citing biblical precedence is not always the move. The disciples once asked if they should call down fire from heaven because Elijah did and Jesus rebuked them for it (Luke 9:52-56)  Coming back to Luke 13, Jesus is quite clear that without repentance, everyone will perish, but Jesus does not say when. If God loves the world so much that He gave his Son, why would He deliberately inflict pain on it? I just do not see how we can talk about God comforting those affected if He was the one that deliberately sent the disaster. This applies to many issues where people suffer, not just natural disasters. So if God does not punish us whilst on this earth but does not simply let things go un-noticed, what does that leave us? For that, we need to take a look at the cross.

In the course of writing this, I was listening to Derek Flood about his book Healing the Gospel. In the interview [5] , he talked about penal substitution and atonement. Shortly after, I found an article by Jeremy Myers looking at a similar subject. In it he wrote;

God is not an angry, wrathful, bloodthirsty being who wants to torture and kill people when they disobey Him, but Jesus came along and convinced God to pour out this wrath on Himself instead of upon us.

Was there a substitution that took place? Absolutely. But it was not us for Jesus; it was rather our sin for His righteousness. He took our sin, and in His own body, on the cross, condemned sin, destroyed death, and rose victoriously from the grave, because of His—and God’s—great love for us. [6]

The cross is not the end, it was a huge step forwards to bringing in the new heavens and the new earth (Revelation 21:1-3) and there is a wider discussion about what happens when we die. If sin is the root of the problem, then it makes sense that Jesus took our sin and destroyed it, but what is sin? Many see sin as an act and that means punishment and discipline, punishment that Jesus took for us. But we are still left with a God who needs to punish someone. So what if sin is a disease? Most of Jesus’ ministry was about healing the sick. He gave new commandments, but it is not a case of “if you do not follow these, I will punish you”. Derek Flood gave a brilliant analogy:

“For years a doctor tells one of his patients to quit smoking. Every time he sees him he is still smoking. One day the doctor has to tell the patient that he has lung cancer. The doctor does not criticize the patient but sets to work helping the man to either cure him or comfort him”

God wants to restore us, He does not want anyone to perish, as 2 Peter 3:9 says. There is still much pain in the world though. Has God stopped working in our lives since the cross? I would like to say that He has not. Many Christians have testimonies about God restoring and healing them using their own experiences as evidence. C.S Lewis once said;

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” [7]

Some people have to learn very harsh lessons from the choices they make and the choices made by others, but if Jesus taught us anything, it is that we are not to focus on ourselves, but on others. Life itself is hard enough and God does not want to add to it. Essentially, life has become God’s method of discipline, but I need to be clear by what I mean; I am not saying God allows things to happen to teach us a lesson – parents don’t always stop their children from doing anything remotely dangerous, they understand they have to learn for themselves, but they do not deliberately put their child in harms way to force them to learn. God does not send hurt on us to force us to learn, life is going to send its share of hurt, but God allows it because He designed us to learn and adapt. As we adapt, we become more disciplined so God is not disciplining, but installing discipline through how life is. When we are going through pain, God is there to comfort and support us.

I realize that I have not gone into what Hell is; is it a real place of fire or just somewhere where God is not? Do we go straight there (if we’re bound for there) or do we wait in a “lay-by” until the final resurrection? [8] Whatever happens after this life, how we view the cross and punishment directly influences how we view God. This and the subjects touched on above are so vast and complex that they can not be done justice in one blog, and certainly not by me, a lot of the concepts that are raised go over my head. As a Christian though, I still have to face these questions and God guides us at the level we can handle, and learning about God is always fun and rewarding.

References:

[1] Taken from RZIM Canada (https://twitter.com/rzimcanada)

[2] http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/abuse-mary-demuth

[3] Michael Ramsden, God of Love God of Judgement, [Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYUCvHoXuH4] (last viewed 8th April 2013)

[4] Flood, Derek (2012) Healing the Gospel: A Radical Vision for Grace, Justice, and the Cross, Cascade Books

[5] http://www.beyondtheboxpodcast.com/2012/10/healing-the-gospel-with-derek-flood/

[6] http://www.tillhecomes.org/substitutionary-atonement/

[7] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/cslewis103466.html

[8] N.T. Wright, Rethinking life after death [Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZC6tbgpsl4] (last viewed 12th April 2013)

 

Originally posted 13th April 2013

Worship to Rave

Then young women will dance and be glad,
young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into gladness;
I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. (Jeremiah 31:13)

This is the culmination of an idea that started about 10 years ago when I thought about the similarities between the rave culture and Christianity and how funny it would be to play Hardcore music in church. This was put aside as I went through my life without God.

Since re-discovering Christ and getting to hear worship songs by the likes Chris Tolman, Tim Hughes, Starfield etc it brought the idea back to the fore. Could you use dance music as worship music? Christian dance music has never really worked for whatever reason but if you could combine the energy of a rave with worshiping God, it would be truly immense!!!

So this is my attempt to do just that – use the energy of a rave and its music to praise and worship God. As I was putting together the tracks for this, the idea began to evolve. Some of the tracks just resonated with me, not just in terms of praising God but in terms of what God is saying. With a lot of these of tracks, the perspective needs to flip a little as these can appear to focus on the materialistic. But if you switch that to it focusing on Christ, the tracks become extremely powerful. If Christ can take worldly things and use them, why can’t we?

Whilst this mix has tracks that sum up various stages of my life, all can be used to worship God and be an example of his glory and everything about him. But music to me is about feeling, it’s about being able to let yourself go so whilst the lyrics are important, it’s the beat the melody and the ability of both to sweep you up and take you on a journey. Music is also a very personal medium in a way. Whilst a couple of these relate to my life, you might find whilst listening they relate to aspects of your life or they resonate for some reason.

There are multiple aims to this really. The main one is to demonstrate that it is possible to use hardcore tracks as worship. It doesn’t just have to be about a guitar, drum and conventional music composition.  Another is to demonstrate that sometimes it pays off not to take things at face value.

So without further ado, the mix can be downloaded direct from my website (may need to right click on the link and select “Save link as….”)

I am glad to have finally given this a proper attempt. This mix means more to me than any other because of what it’s trying to do. It’s completely free and any feedback will be greatly appreciated on either the mix, individual tracks or anything related to it. Feel free to share this with anyone you think may be interested.

Below is the track list:

1) Dougal & Gammer feat DWB – Shine Your Light
2) Mikey Skedale feat Jenna – Through The Darkness
3) Footprintz – Angels (Sy & Unknown Remix)
4) Darwin & Fretman – Summer Of Love
5) Dancelordz – Promises
6) Heaven7 – This Life (Breeze & Styles Remix)
7) Dougal & Gammer – Anyone Else But You
8) Dougal & Gammer – Expressions
9) Eufeion & Miss Defy – U And Me (Together)
10) Heaven7 vs Al Storm – Dance With Me 2010
11) D Code – Direction (Hardcore Mix)
12) Hypersonic vs Jorg Schmid – Doesn’t Matter (Dougal & Gammer Remix)

Hope you enjoy it 🙂