Couldn't Help Noticing

Gatecrashing Lambeth

According to Times Online, the Right Rev Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, not only plans to enter into a civil union with his male partner Mark Andrew in June, he is also keen to attend Lambeth despite not having been issued a formal invitation by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The article states that, while he is in England, Robsinon “will also take part in a series of public events to highlight what his supporters regard as homophobic discrimination throughout the Anglican Communion”.

More on Hillsong songs

If you were in any doubt about the influence and reach of Hillsong's music, you might like to note that ‘Shout to the Lord’ was sung not once, but twice on two separate episodes of American Idol recently. You can see both on YouTube.

The unaccountable Jesus

We sometimes make a great deal, in evangelical circles, of accountability. How fascinating then, to see the attitude of Jesus as he lived on this earth when he was asked to hold people to account:

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” (Luke 12:13-14)

Surely here was a case where we might expect that Jesus, Lord of all creation, might exercise his lordship by calling sinners to account. But this is something he categorically refuses to do. The time will come when, by means of the resurrection, he will be able to say that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18; compare with Rom 1:4). But for Jesus, his time has not yet come.

How much more should we (who, unlike Jesus, have not yet been resurrected) imitate his humility and refuse to call people to account when we have no license to do so! Rather,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:5-11)

If we are to be genuinely accountable to God, we should not hold brothers and sisters in Christ to account any more than Jesus did when he walked on earth.

Christian individualism

The sin which ‘accountability’ wrongly seeks to address (see my previous post) is individualism, also known as ‘pride’ or possibly ‘greed’, or, more loosely, ‘sin’.

A better antidote to this sin is to go back to the Bible and read Paul's exhortations regarding one another in their context, or similar ones by the other New Testament letter writers. Our churches would be healthier if we made this a regular exercise.

By the way, be careful with those links: they were discovered by typing ‘one another’ the highly useful search function for the ESV Bible website. A quick glance at the first ‘one another’ will tell you why these words need to be read and applied with due regard to their context in the passage!

Accountability

Where does the Bible teach our accountability to each other?

Nowhere.

We will certainly be accountable to God on the final day of judgement; the Bible is very clear on this. But is there even a single verse which teaches that Christians are accountable to each other? Verses which teach that we should encourage each other, confess our sins to each other (and so on) come close, but they are not the same.

The demanding of accountability to a human judge is more a feature of state rule (in which case, it is legitimate) or Roman Catholicism (in which case, it is not).