Couldn't Help Noticing

Answering Roman Catholicism

Up at Men's Katoomba Christian Convention (MKC), we had a very fine session from Baptist speaker Anthony Petterson, who lectures at Morling College (the local Baptist theological college here in Sydney). It was on answering Roman Catholicism, and it pointed out how within Roman Catholicism, the basic vocabulary of salvation is distorted. ‘Grace’ means not so much God's generosity, for example, as a sort of metaphysical infusion of a substance that allows you to choose to do good works. (Anthony used the parallel of a blood transfusion enabling you to get up and get on with life, and it made a lot of sense as an explanation of the Roman Catholic perspective).

As such, even though the claim within Roman Catholicism is that we are saved by grace, in reality this means something quite different from the Bible's teaching that we are rescued by God without any input from ourselves.

For the average Roman Catholic believer, this means that assurance of salvation is impossible and, indeed, forbidden by the teaching of the church. Assurance, for Roman Catholics, is the sin of ‘presumption’. Indeed, how could one be assured of being right with God if good works are necessary to our right-standing with God, as Catholicism teaches? But on the Roman Catholic view, not only is assurance ruled out, but the very idea of salvation is placed under threat, for our good works can never be good enough to gain our entry into heaven.

Roman Catholic doctrine thus undercuts Christ's work on the cross, as his work in dying for sin is no guarantee whatsoever that God will declare us ‘not guilty’ on the final terrible day of judgement.

Along the way, Anthony pointed out that the Roman Catholic church does not believe that non-Roman Catholic churches can lay claim to the title of being genuine Christian churches, and used the current Pope's words to demonstrate that this traditional view hasn't changed at all in recent times:

Christian Communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century ... do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called “Churches“ in the proper sense. (Source)

Anthony Petterson thought that the current Pope was doing something useful for all Christians by clarifying the difference between Protestant and Catholic beliefs. He certainly is! We mustn't pretend that, in essence, all the so-called Christian churches are on about the same thing.

Anthony also gave a good plug for Ray Galea's latest book on the subject, Nothing in my hand I bring. It's well worth a read—certainly before World Catholic Youth Day hits town.

Gaffes and GAFCON

The Anglican world is all abuzz and aflame and awash with talk about the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) which is going to be held in Israel in late June this year. Is it a breakaway alternative-Lambeth cooked up by conservative Anglicans who want to thumb their noses at the liberals? Yes, say the critics: it's a divisive and sad decision to leave the embattled ship, just when it needs all hands to the pumps. No, say the organizers: it's just a conference for like-minded, Bible-believing Anglicans who want to talk and plan for the future gospel mission, and who are quite free to go to the Lambeth Conference if they wish to.

My sympathies lie with the organizers who are, at last, acting on what everyone can see to be the case—that the global Anglican communion as a fellowship of Anglican Christians has been irreparably broken by the unrepentant actions of the Episcopal Church in America over homosexuality.

All the same, there is no doubt that GAFCON will function, if not as an alternative Lambeth, then as a positive statement that there is life apart from Lambeth. The Bible-believing Anglicans don't simply want to say ‘No’ (to the compromise of sitting down to tea and cucumber sandwiches with the Gene Robinson Push), they want to say ‘Yes’ to future co-operation and fellowship in the gospel with Anglicans all over the world—‘Yes’ to a ‘communion’ of Anglicans you might say.

Amid all the criticism and debate, the Bishop of Newcastle, Brian Farran, has written a stinging critique of GAFCON and its backers, including Sydney's Peter Jensen. In one sense, this is nothing unexpected. But in an open letter response to Brian Farran, our good Briefing friend Sandy Grant made some excellent points about the nature of Anglicanism, the gospel, and the rhetoric of liberalism. For your convenience, I'll post Sandy's open letter below:

Open Letter to Brian Farran, Anglican Bishop of Newcastle

From Sandy Grant, St Michael's Anglican Cathedral, Wollongong

Monday 11 February, 2008

Dear Bishop Farran,

I write concerning your public Statement regarding the GAFCON conference organized by conservative Anglicans and critical of the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen's involvement in it.

I appreciate the fact that your diocesan website invited responses.

So I raise several matters of concern.

Firstly, there is a surprising reliance on pejorative language in a letter where you commend “grace” and “respectful exploration” and “conversation” regarding the issues being debated. So that others can assess for themselves, I will simply list the descriptors used to characterize the position of the Global South conservatives with whom you disagree:

• “one-dimensional conference” (of GAFCON),
• “forensic theology ... bordering on legalism”,
• “narrow template of biblicism ... applied relentlessly”,
• “self-declared orthodoxy”,
• “wedge theology”,
• “strategy of division and exclusion”,
• “corrosive strategy”,
• “rigidity” (of interpretive methodology),
• “impositional mind-set”,
• “police-state approach”.

An argument could easily be made that every single one of those phrases either begs the question or is inaccurate or at the least misleading and overblown. It is certainly highly pejorative. That is your choice. And one can understand slipping into some such language in the height of a live debate. But in a settled public statement from a bishop in God's church, is this really the language that will aid the gracious and respectful conversation you desire?

Secondly, I was amazed by your choice to describe the Global South's position as the “pursuit of the homosexual agenda”. For a start, it would be more accurate to describe the conservative position as the “heterosexual marriage agenda”. (Your ‘spin’ seems akin to describing the Liberal Party as having a ‘union agenda’.)

More important than the label, though, is the fact that conservatives have not especially sought to raise the matter of homosexual marriage or ordination in the Anglican Communion. Rather it has been pushed persistently by those on the more liberal wing of the Communion. Conversatives have responded reluctantly because of their deep convictions in regards to the threat to faithfulness to what we see as the plain and consistent reading of God's Holy word, the Bible.

I also note that, by and large (to my knowledge), it has been liberals who have locked conservative parishes out of their church buildings and deposed conservative clergy via legal action. Would that be at all analogous to a “strategy of exclusion” or a “police-state approach”?

Thirdly, you characterize the “heart of the Gospel” as “God's gracious unconditional gift of communion”, and speak of “the key New Testament understanding of unconditional acceptance so evident in the encounters with Jesus in the gospels”.

Such language, by itself, is an incomplete account of the biblical gospel.

I can often understand Peter in regards to the time when he asked Jesus to depart from him, because “I am a sinful man”. And I am incredibly grateful that Jesus did not depart. I am so glad to have received a welcome from the ‘Waiting Father’ of Luke 15. And I wish I could better follow Christ's example of being the “friend of sinners” like he was with the tax collectors and prostitutes.

I regularly thank God via the liturgy and my own personal prayers that, as Article XI of the Thirty-Nine Articles say, “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings.”

In that sense, I can agree that God's acceptance is unconditional—unconditional on any of my own works of merit. But (although faith and repentance be no works of merit in themselves) did Jesus teach that God's acceptance is unconditional in regard to faith and repentance?

Consistent with John the Baptist, Jesus' central message was the challenge to repent because of the kingdom of God was near (Matt 4:17, Mark 1:15; cf. Matt 21:31-32, Luke 3:7-20). Note how John's preaching of repentance included the call to desist from specific sins, including Herod's sexual sin with Herodias. Likewise, Zacchaeus demonstrated his repentance by his actions in reparation (Luke 19:1-10).

And could Jesus' parable in Luke 16:19-31 of Lazarus and ‘Dives’ (the rich man) be characterized as a message of “unconditional acceptance” towards Dives for his neglect of the poor at his gate, even though he had the Law and the Prophets to guide him? And was Jesus extending a “gracious unconditional gift of communion” to the Pharisees in Matthew 23?

Jesus' ministry to people in John's Gospel also included the explicit pointing out of the sexual sin of the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:16-18); along with warnings to others to stop sinning (John 5:14). And although this is (most likely) not original to the Gospel writer, there is a much-loved incident related in John 8:1-11 which is widely accepted as portraying the authentic Jesus. It records Jesus' wise dismissal of the crowd baying for blood, along with his subsequent tender dealings with the woman taken in adultery. Certainly this included a message of acceptance—“Neither do I condemn you”. But immediately associated with it was Christ's firm charge to “go, and from now on and sin no more”, which surely includes reference to her sexual sin.

Along with the reminder in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus' words in Luke 13:3-4 make it clear that there is an element of conditionality in regard to the forgiveness of sins. He said, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” (NIV, my emphasis.)

Sinners like myself can be comforted by the knowledge that the Waiting Father is willing to forgive and welcome us home. But we must repent, as indeed the prodigal son did in regards to his father. Bishop Farran, I believe your account of the gospel expressed in your statement on GAFCON is disturbing because of its apparent omission of this key New Testament motif of repentance.

Finally you accuse the Global South alignment of ignoring the secondary requirements of the 1998 Lambeth Conference in calling for a listening process with gay and lesbian Christians. Obviously I am not aware of the extent of such efforts from various conservative Anglicans around the world on this matter. However, the remarks seem to ignore the fact that at our recent session of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia last October, there was an evening given over to just such a listening process in the spirit of Lambeth 98's resolution 1:10, where we listened respectifully to the various perspectives of four such persons. This was organized by Muriel Porter, and led by Bishop John Harrrower, and it was attended by Archbishop Jensen and almost all delegates of the Diocese of Sydney.

However, when you raise what you call this “secondary provision” and cite resolutions of earlier Lambeth conferences approvingly, it seems highly selective to fail to mention that the very same Lambeth resolution of 1998 (1:10) stated that

• “in view of the teaching of Scripture, [it] upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage”,
• rejected “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture”,
• and “cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions”.

(See http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1998/1998-1-10.cfm.)

Yet the latter is exactly what parts of the North American Anglican scene have done since and persisted in, despite repeated calls to stop. Who's really not listening? Who's really pushing a “homosexual agenda”? It is not nearly as clear-cut as your pejorative language suggests. Certainly it would be good to abide by Lambeth resolution 1:10 in its entirety and to heed what the Scriptures say to us on these matters of human sexuality.

Rev Sandy Grant
St Michael's Anglican Cathedral
Wollongong

Yay for Yahwistic imperialism!

Here's a lovely Old Testament song from Micah 4:1-5:

It shall come to pass in the latter days
  that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
  and it shall be lifted up above the hills;
and peoples shall flow to it,
  and many nations shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
  to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
  and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
  and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
  and shall decide for strong nations far away;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
  and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
  neither shall they learn war anymore;
but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree,
  and no one shall make them afraid,
  for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
For all the peoples walk
  each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
  forever and ever.

Loveliness and upbeatness notwithstanding, Kanishka Raffel reminded us at the recent Men's Katoomba Christian Convention (MKC) that this song is a piece of Yahwistic imperialism that makes the American desire to teach democracy to the Middle East seem positively benign by comparison.

Notice how the mountain of the Lord (that's English for ‘Yahweh’) is the greatest and best mountain of all. That's because your piddling local mountain where your piddling local deity has set up his/her/its altar is no mountain at all. Just as Mount Kosciusko is a speed hump compared to Everest, so the god of your nation, tribe or culture is and will be nothing but roadkill when faced with the towering majesty of the God who revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The reason for the outbreak of peace that the song declares is that the nations have given up the fight, and have come instead to learn from the God of the people of Israel.

In fact, the only way you might mistake this for a lovely tune would be if you'd been distracted by the music.

We’re close to death and eternity

If we don't believe that fearful judgement is coming our way, why wouldn't our sermons and Bible studies be reduced to friendly chats, jokes and heart-warming stories? The Puritans, those biblical preachers in the 16th century and onwards, took a different view, and preached with astonishing impact about the ‘last things’. Iain Murray says that “They viewed every hearer as bound shortly for another world, and it may be questioned whether any other school of evangelical preachers have so brought the implications of eternity home to men's consciences as they were enabled to do” (The Puritan Hope, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1975, p. 211).

Belief in final judgement is grounded in the truth of Jesus' resurrection since if he didn't rise from the dead, we hardly need to fear or hope for his return. The resurrection is what gives Paul's preaching its sharpness in his speech at the Areopagus in Athens. So both the Bible and the history of biblical preaching should cause us to see both ourselves and our hearers in the light of the return of our risen Lord.

Reading in your culture

We all know about eisegesis, the dangerous practice of coming to the Bible and reading in our own preconceived ideas (as opposed to ‘exegesis’, which is reading out what the text is actually saying. ‘eis’ = in, ‘ex’ = out). We've all heard the preacher who takes a seemingly innocent verse and then uses it as a handy receptacle for his latest enthusiasm. What the verse is really saying in its context seems entirely irrelevant. The preacher wants to speak about something, and this particular verse is as good a place as any to hang his hat on.

One of my favourite instances of this was Jentezen Franklin's address at the 2006 Hillsong Conference. His theme was ‘the middle ground’, and how important it was to avoid splintering into extreme groups on the left or the right, but to claim and occupy the middle ground in interdenominational unity. His text? Exodus 25:20-22.

The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

Where was the Lord? He was in the middle, between the two cherubim. Get it? In the middle. Neither on the extreme right nor the rabid left, but in the middle! Hilarious.

However, I want to draw your attention to a more subtle form of eisegesis that I have caught myself falling into, and which I notice others being caught in as well. It's what I call ‘Illegitimate Culture Transfer’ (following James Barr's lead).

It happens when you begin by rightly reading what is there (exegesis), but end up by importing way more of your own cultural assumptions than the actual text (and context) can bear.

An example will illustrate. In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul reminds the Thessalonians of his ministry while he was with them—how gentle he was among them, like a mother caring for her children—how “affectionately desirous” he was of them, so much so that “we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (v. 8).

On many occasions (including from my own lips), I have heard verse 8 expounded as an example of Paul's relational depth in ministry. He didn't just dump the gospel on people, he got to know them. He cared for them. He developed a relationship with them. He shared his very self with them—his hurts, his weaknesses, his progress, his hopes and fears. He hung out with people and had barbeques at their homes. He let people see him in the nitty-gritty of life around the kitchen table. He opened himself up to authentic relationship with them because without that sort of open sharing, the gospel becomes just a bald message that you impart, not a relationship that you share. And so on, and so forth.

All of this stuff may well be true. It's just not what Paul meant when he wrote 1 Thessalonians 2:8. The point he is making begins in verse 5. He did not come to them trying to make money, although he could have made demands on them as an apostle. No, instead, he made no demands. He was gentle like a mother who takes care of her children, rather than demanding that the kids take care of her. And then comes verse 8, literally: “In the same way, in our yearning for you, we were pleased to share (or impart) not only the gospel of God but also our own souls (or selves or lives), because you had become beloved to us”.

What does Paul mean by “share/impart our own souls/lives”? The very next verse explains with its connective ‘for’: “For you remember, brothers, our labour and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed the gospel of God” (v. 9).

Paul is not talking at all about the depth or intimacy of his personal dealings, or about how much he revealed his inner life, or that he was ready to hang out with people and share their lives. The point from verse 5 through to verse 9 is very clear: he loved and yearned for them so much that he was prepared to work night and day making tents, rather than take any support from them while he proclaimed the gospel. This is what “share our own souls/lives/selves” means. The cost to Paul was personal. He didn't just give them the gospel; he gave them his own blood and sweat, because they were so dear to him.

I have read this passage many times and missed this obvious point, because I have seen the phrase “shared our selves/lives” and then freighted in what that phrase means in our own culture. For us, it's about caring and sharing, and exposing our inner thoughts and feelings and habits, as opposed to being cold and distant and formal. And without much thought, I have always assumed that this is what the Apostle Paul was saying as well.

But the context shows me that I was guilty of Illegitimate Culture Transfer.

Anyone else want to confess?