Couldn't Help Noticing

Have a safe and happy Christmas

To all our readers, customers, and partners in the gospel ...

We hope you have a very happy and safe Christmas, rejoicing in the birth of our Saviour and King.

... good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.

(Luke 2:10-11)

The team at Matthias Media

[Please note: we are finishing up early today (Friday 22nd) to have our team Christmas party. So the office will be closed from 3pm. But we will be open on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week, and then from Tuesday 2nd January onwards.]

Animal activists bite Singer

Peter Singer has long been an eloquent defender of the idea that animals should ‘weigh’ just as much as humans in ethical considerations. Why should we discriminate against animals, or treat them as disposable, simply because they of a different species?

Now, however, Singer has riled the animal liberation lobby by applying the logic in reverse. According to First Things, Singer was in conversation with a neurosurgeon, Tipu Aziz who told him that “to date 40,000 people have been made better” by his research, while “I would guess only 100 monkeys were used”. Singer replied,

Well, I think if you put a case like that, clearly I would have to agree that was a justifiable experiment. I do not think you should reproach yourself for doing it, provided—I take it you are the expert in this, not me—that there was no other way of discovering this knowledge. I could see that as justifiable research.

Singer went on to clarify his remarks by saying,

I'm not saying you can't do any research, obviously. You should ask yourself: Do I think this experiment is so important that I would be able to perform it on a human being at a similar mental level if that alternative were open to me?

In other words, if 100 retarded human two-year-olds needed to be sacrificed in research that would benefit 40,000 patients (whether animal or human), and it was the only way to benefit such patients, then that would be justifiable research. And so likewise, if 100 monkeys need to pay the ultimate price for the sake of 40,000 humans, then that's OK too.

This leaves animal rights activists madder than a monkey who's lost his bananas. It leaves the rest of us dumbfounded that such folly and wickedness could be dignified with the label ‘ethics’.

When you despair of life itself

It's easy to think of Paul as being some sort of super-Christian. He was zealous for the gospel; he prayed “constantly”; he was so passionate about the truth that he authoritatively rebuked the Apostle Peter—the Apostle Peter!—when Peter stopped eating with the Gentiles and led the rest of the Jewish Christians astray; as he travelled all over the Mediterranean, churches sprang up in his wake; he healed the sick, cast out demons and raised the dead (1 Thess 1:2, Gal 2:12-13, Acts 19:11-12, 20:7-12). Oh sure, he was persecuted, beaten, stoned, imprisoned, shipwrecked and run out of town, but he always seemed to bounce back: nothing got him down. After all, this is the man who said, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Phil 4:11).

Then the other day I read 2 Corinthians 1 and was struck by the part where Paul wrote,

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. (vv. 8-9).

Sometimes I forget that Paul had a lot to be depressed about. He was rejected and persecuted by his own countrymen, he saw churches he planted waver from the gospel (e.g. the Galatians) and tear themselves apart through internal fighting (e.g. the Corinthians), the very people he ministered to were quick to reject his leadership when more impressive “super-apostles” came along (e.g. the Corinthians again), he saw members of his flock fall away (e.g. Hymenaeus and Alexander), his friends deserted him (e.g. Phygelus, Hermogenes and Demas), his friends died (e.g. Onesiphorus) and, on more than one occasion, he came face to face with his own frail mortality. No wonder sometimes he “despaired of life itself”.

And yet in that very same chapter, he wrote,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Cor 1:3-4)

Did God's comfort only apply when Paul was being persecuted on account of his faith? Was this comfort only received when Paul suffered for the sake of Christ? No, the “God of all comfort” comforted Paul and his companions in “all” their affliction (emphasis mine)—when they were beaten, when they were stoned, when they were imprisoned, when they were betrayed, when they were deserted, when they were starving, when they were cold and, of course, when they were sad. And Paul recognized that these things happened “to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (v. 9). The God who has the power of resurrection—the power to give life to dry bones, the power to resuscitate our walking corpses, the power to raise Jesus victorious over death—delivered Paul from “such a deadly peril” and he would deliver Paul again (v. 10).

The good news is that the thing that comforted Paul during his darkest hour also comforts us. When we hit rock-bottom and start to ‘despair of life itself’, no matter what our circumstances, the “God of all comfort” will be there to deliver us. Like Paul, set your hope on him for he will deliver you again and again.

A deceptive carol

There's only one thing worse than choosing music for your church, and that's not choosing music for your church. I was reminded about this again when I went visiting and ended up singing one of my all-time least-favourite Christmas carols, “Away in a Manger”.

Whoever composed this sickly sweet bowl of mush needs to dose themselves with a few grumpy pills before they have another go. Actually, the authors are probably composing in heaven these days, but that makes the problem all the more significant as we will be singing their stuff for all eternity there.

But that's the least of my complaints. The real problem is that the anonymously composed lyrics are docetic (from the Greek dokew, meaning “I seem”). (By the way, the rumour that it was composed by Martin Luther is an unwarranted slur on that great man.) That is, the lyrics are informed by the heresy that says God did not become a man, but only appeared to become a man. He seemed to be a man, but he was fooling us.

Consider:

The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes,
but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.

What the?? “No crying he makes”!? No baby I've ever known has ever woken up cold, hungry, and surrounded by scary animals with a bunch of strange shepherds peering in, and not cried. Well, okay, I haven't known that many babies in those exact circumstances, but I'm guessing, contrary to the carol-writer, that any normal baby would be raising at least a little complaint about the situation.

And there are other de-humanizing aspects of this vision of Jesus as well. The air of unreality permeates, as the “stars in the bright sky look down”, which causes us to wonder whether the hay in the manger is glaring back up. Then we end up addressing the one in the manger with these words—

I love thee Lord Jesus, look down from the sky,
and stay by my cradle, until morning is nigh.

—which leave us with the distinctly spooky impression of a baby in two places at once (orbiting the earth and whizzing through the night sky at thousands of kilometres an hour, and yet oddly right next to us) with no explanation that can be tallied with the normal nature of human bodies. (Actually there was a rather unsettling scene at the end of Stanley Kubrick's movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey which involved a baby floating across the galaxy and weirding out a distressed astronaut, but it's unlikely the 19th-century writer of these lyrics had that in mind.)

Jesus, who was truly God, became a man and lived among us full of grace and truth. He was born to a human mother by normal means. As a baby, he drank milk, cried, soiled his nappy, and was present in only one place at the one time. Any popular carol that hints otherwise should be left to decompose in some forgotten manger or compost heap.

The reality is that the Lord Jesus, though he was as rich as the Lord of the Universe can be, for our sake, became poor—and his poverty came in that he entered the world as a real, live human being who came to die on the cross for our sins. So if you're choosing carols, why not substitute this one by Frank Houghton, which is far better in every respect and considerably more truthful:

(The tune, sung with French words, can be heard here. A cheesier but clearer version can be found here):

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

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

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

(Frank Houghton, 1894-1972)

Telling it like it is

If anyone is in any doubt as to the nature of the battle going on within world Anglicanism, he need only listen to the candid comments of the Rev Giles Fraser, the president of the liberal Anglican ‘Inclusive Church’ network.

In a recent news release, the Rev Fraser complained that rebel conservative churches and groups (such as Reform and Anglican Mainstream) are trying to “destroy the traditional breadth of the Church of England and turn it into a puritan sect. They must not be allowed to succeed.”

What is it in particular that these groups are trying to do? “Across the Communion, we see attempts to replace the breadth and openness of Anglican theology with a confessional, protestant theology and practice.”

Rev Fraser hopes that the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the other bishops as well, will jolly well do their best to make sure that these chaps don't succeed. The last thing we want is for the Anglican Communion to be confessional (that is, actually to stand for something), let alone to be protestant (the thing we might stand for).

To adapt the words of Bono, this is the church liberalism stole from the Reformers; now we're stealing it back.