Category: Christianity

Church History Trading Card: Polycarp

Polycarp was a cool dude. The Martyrdom of Polycarp is all about his death. Which is legendarily legendary. The document is a bit effusive in its praise of Polycarp – but it had to combat the way Polycarp was viewed by his contemporaries from around the Roman Empire. Martyrdom, death at the hands of the Roman Empire as a criminal, was pretty shameful – so the document is designed to rebrand Polycarp’s sacrifice as Christ like. A guy named Leonard Thompson wrote a good article about why the Martyrdom of Polycarp is written like it is – its helpful in placing the document in its literary and historical context. Thompson’s article is called ‘The Martyrdom of Polycarp: Death in the Roman Games,’ and it is available on EBSCOHost if you’re a QTC student.

Legend: The Greek helmet means he’s from the Greek East, the cross that he was martyred, the scroll that there’s a primary document about him in our reading list and the thumbs up because he was a good guy.

What do Jesus and Kanye have in common?

Apparently they’re both Gangsters…

According to this crazy church anyway.

Via A Little Leaven.

Here are the Beatitudes in Gangsta if you be in’trested. Aii.

Blessed iz da poor in spirit, fo’ theirs iz da kingdom o’ heaven.
Blessed iz those who mourn, fo’ dey will be comforted.
Blessed iz da meek, fo’ dey will inherit da earth.
Blessed iz those who hunger an’ thirst fo’ righteousness, fo’ dey will be filled.
Blessed iz da merciful, fo’ dey will be shown mercy.
Blessed iz da pure in heart, fo’ dey will see God.
Blessed iz da peacemakers, fo’ dey will be called chil’ns o’ God.
Blessed iz those who iz persecuted cuz o’ righteousness, fo’ theirs iz da kingdom o’ heaven. you know das right!

What’s wrong with this picture: a stupid atheist comic makes me grumpy

Right. Until the New Atheists stop lumping us all with the crazies, and failing to apply any sort of interpretive nous to the Bible, I’m going to dismiss everything they say as ridiculous. Seriously. Their cause is so incredibly weakened by their bizarro fundamentalist hermeneutic when it comes to the Bible that I don’t know how anybody finds anything they say about Christianity convincing.

So the Friendly Atheist posted this comic today:


From: Atheist Cartoons

And said “I’d love to hear the Christian response to this”…

Well, here is a Christian response to this.

That cartoon is stupid. Have you ever wondered why the billions of people calling themselves Christians who have lived on this planet have not run around stoning people – and only a very small minority who everybody thinks is crazy (both within the Christian camp and outside it) are pushing for that sort of behaviour? No? Well it’s because those people are crazy. You have your crazy atheists, we have our crazy Christians. You guys implement genocidal political regimes, ours run around picketing with “God hates …” signs.1

You can push your case that these loonies are “embracing Biblical ethics” all you like. But most Christians have figured out that that’s not the case simply by reading the New Testament. And reading the Old Testament too. The overwhelming narrative thrust of the Old Testament, and its own summary of the law, has nothing to do with stoning disobedient children, or homosexuals, and everything to do with God making promises, and fulfilling them, which includes calling a chosen people out from the immoral nations and seeking to establish clear markers around those people (where the purity laws fit).

The rest of this post can be found in the comments at the Friendly Atheist too…
If the so called “new atheists,” and some fundamentalists, could just get a grasp of two things, the world would be a nicer place.

a) Christianity is about Jesus Christ. That’s why the “Christ” bit is in “Christian”…
b) The Old Testament national purity laws are not binding on Christians, and they had a particular function in forging Jewish national identity as “set apart.” If you wanted to be a homosexual in the Ancient Near East, and you were born Jewish, you could always jump on donkey and head to the neighbouring nations where it was OK. Jewish identity was both ethnic and religious.

Choosing what commands to follow and what to ignore is not arbitrary, the New Testament is pretty clear about the role of the Old. So the Jesus bit, which is by definition, the Christian bit, makes the New Testament pretty relevant in interpretation of the Old.

This atheist notion that Christians are being inconsistent if they fail to stone their disobedient children is a theological fallacy dreamed up by some disillusioned teenagers in their bedrooms who watch some crazy people who happen to be Christians. Why do you persist in taking the crazy person’s word for what Christianity is? It makes your arguments much easier to dismiss.

There’s a bit of a fallacy in the initial statement in the post too – humanist values are not a rejection of Biblical ethics, but an adoption of Biblical ethics. The whole “love your neighbour as yourself” and, it is in the Bible, despite being in other sources as well. Just to pre-empt that little objection…) thing being the summary of the law both in the Old Testament and the New Testament… and the whole point in both cases was that if your application of the law failed to be loving you were failing at applying the law. And I know you’re going to say “it’s not loving to stop people loving each other if they’re gay” and I’ll say “it’s not loving to let people disobey God and end up in hell”, I don’t make the rules.

Perhaps the answer to the question posed by the comic can be found in the Bible, in James 1:27:

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. “

Tell me how that’s not humanistic?

1Nerds, fags, atheists, take your pick – but when you can refute that sort of action with the most famous Bible verse of all time it doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or clinical psychologist, to figure out that these guys have wandered off the reservation.

Sixteen things I love about college

Lest you read that last post and think that I’m a negative nancy who isn’t enjoying the College experience, let me put your mind at ease with this list of things I am loving about being at college… I listed 16 because the experience has been more positive than negative – and I suggested 12 improvements.

  1. Studying with my wife
    What an amazing privilege. I need to keep reminding myself, even when she gets better marks than me, that it’s an amazing opportunity to live life together (all hours of the day) in a way that we couldn’t when we were both working, and we possibly won’t again for a long time.
  2. Filling in gaps/gaining knowledge
    Knowledge is like high fructose corn syrup. And I’m like a fat kid addicted to soft drink. Knowledge might puff you up – but it’s addictive and I’m enjoying the process of trying to quench my seemingly unquenchable thirst. I love reading. I love ideas. I love debating with scholars in my head and on paper. The library is an awesome new discovery for me. I managed to studiously avoid the library in my first degree. But, so many books, so little time. Our librarian is also amazing.
  3. Writing Essays
    Knowledge will only get you so far, I love the process of communicating knowledge through writing. Essays are where it’s at as far as motivating study and clarifying thoughts and arguments goes. I have thoroughly enjoyed the topics I’ve chosen to write about where choice is available, and benefited from the exercise when choice isn’t.
  4. Having the Bible come to life
    Standing in front of the Bema in Ancient Corinth is possibly literally a once in a lifetime experience, doing it with a bunch of people from college and a lecturer who specialises in first century Roman culture and its interaction with Christianity is an amazing experience. But that’s only the tip of the obelisk when it comes to the question of how college has fleshed out my understanding of the background to the Old and New Testaments. I’m pretty firmly settled on historical context being an important hermeneutical key – so the chance to dig around in primary source documents from the Ancient Near East, Qumran, Greek and Roman philosophy, and political proclamations from the Roman empire has been a really rewarding experience.
  5. Having to justify our presuppositions, and having our assumptions challenged
    College is a stretch, some scholarly ideas are worth considering, and you’re almost always richer for undergoing the process of considering (and rejecting) them. Someone told me that if you get to college too late in life you’re already to set in your ways for it to effect you – I hope that’s not the case for me.
  6. Being taught by faculty who love the Bible and love us
    While the pitfalls and potholes of modern scholarship are many and varied, our staff are academically excellent and theologically orthodox. They model the appropriate approach to scholarly pursuits, while also demonstrating a love for God’s word and for us. It’s encouraging to see the two spheres of theology and ministry come together like they do in our teachers.
  7. Mission
    Before we went overseas on our trip we went to Toowoomba for a week of mission. It was an experience. Time spent with other people, in a foreign church, seeing how stuff gets done in the real world, and doing some RE and other evangelism stuff, was great.
  8. Studying with other people
    Some people have told me that the best thing about college is the relationships you form with other people. It’s probably true. I’ve loved serving with others on mission, travelling overseas with 20 other students, and just hanging out and chatting about significant (and not so significant) theological and practical issues. The college community is a blast, and little random acts of generosity and kindness from other students have been greatly appreciated.
  9. Constructive arguments about theology
    I love arguing. I love arguing with smart people in an encouraging way and having my thinking stretched.
  10. Chapel
    Chapel services have been pretty amazing experiences. Hearing fellow students and the staff preach, singing together, being encouraged by God’s word, singing and praying together has been a consistent highlight of the week for me all year.
  11. Handball
    Seriously. How cool is handball. I heard it’s almost banned at other colleges in Australia.
  12. The Coffee
    Roasted with care. Ground fresh every morning. Brewed scientifically. Turning a profit. How can I complain.
  13. The Drive
    We did have the coolest car going to college from the northern suburbs of Brisbane. The drive to and from college was almost always eventful.
  14. Language “study hour”
    So, you may have the impression that I don’t love studying Greek and Hebrew. You’re right. but one thing I do like is that QTC built time to study the languages into the program so we don’t have to at home (in theory).
  15. The Location
    Eating lunch overlooking the river. Oh, the serenity.
  16. Free Bread
    Brumbies give us free bread every Wednesday.

Twelve things I would change about the college experience

As a follow up to my last post about college related stress, and on a slightly similar note, here are some things I would change about the Bible College/Seminary (for American Readers) experience. You can sum up these points with “make the college experience more reflective of real life.” I have some other thoughts about the process the Presbyterian Church uses for sorting out its candidates. But I’ll keep this general for the sake of maintaining my position as a candidate…

  1. Make ministry more of a priority
    I feel like I’ve been sucked out of any sense of normal church life (well, normal based on the last eight years of heavy involvement in church life) by the college experience. I’ve almost forgotten what its like to talk to somebody on a week night, or talk about anything other than what I’ve learned or been thinking about during the week on a Sunday. It’s what people ask. And I’m often too tired or distracted to care. College students are meant to be involved in church life, as a candidate I’m meant to do ten hours a week… But count off the hours of church on a Sunday (twice), Bible Study, and a Staff meeting and my time is up. This may be my bias against languages speaking – but I spend a lot of my time doing language grunt work, and a lot of that time wondering what the payoff is in terms of my future ministry, the answer, in the day and age of amazing computer programs and multiple reliable translations, “not a whole lot.”
  2. Teach more practical stuff, earlier
    Maybe if I’d done MTS I wouldn’t be saying this – but shouldn’t our facility for training and equipping people for ministry be training and equipping people for ministry. I’m sure most ministry stuff is better caught than taught – but having some formal apologetics training, and a bit of pastoral care/counselling training from the outset would be terrific, and ending up with some how to do the business of church would be nice too. Just thinking about the practical side of ministry, and how things are going to work in the real world when rubber meets road, would be a more valuable exercise than most language classes (there it is again). Role playing, talking to experts, practical stuff that gives you some idea at how you might tackle awkward pastoral issues wold be heaps more useful than hoping you get some really sticky situations in your 10 hours of parish time.
  3. Get students thinking about modern communication technology
    Call me biased, but I reckon every Bible College student should blog. Blogging helps to find a written voice. It’s a chance to articulate thoughts on issues raised in class. It’s a chance to be creative, and to think about application. It’s a chance to get ideas out into the world. Blogs could even be part of the assessment process. Vocational ministry is about communication. Bible College students should be thinking about how to use technology, social networking, emails, anything they can get their hands on – for the sake of the kingdom. Blogging is great for crystallising thoughts. They should not only have to blog, but they should have to post comments on the ideas of their friends (on their blogs). This is only a partly serious suggestion. But most marketing people think the Internet is the future – so we have to encourage people in ministry to be thinking about how it fits with their future. The college itself needs to think about how to use the web better, both in terms of its own homepage and the wider world of social networking, blogging, and multimedia stuff.
  4. Make students teach RE as a community service/part of the curriculum
    Why are we keeping young, dedicated people who are being educated about the Bible out of what is a golden opportunity for loving and serving our communities.
  5. Equip students better mentally to cope with Scholarship
    Rather than spending a week before college starts grappling with the Greek and Hebrew alphabets – we should be helping prepare students for the challenge of dealing with  stupid “Emperor’s New Clothes” scholars are going to present to their thinking. Academia rewards new and exciting ideas – which gives rise to a lot of people getting excited about really dumb stuff that shouldn’t be taken seriously past showing why it’s dumb. College should not be a time where you lose your faith and have doubts preyed on by scholars with an agenda who you’re not really warned about. Some scholars are wolves in wool
  6. Modernise assessment processes (get with the programs)
    Seriously. Who uses pen and paper for anything other than taking phone messages (other than GTD people) any more? Why am I expected to lug a pen into an exam and scrawl illegibly as fast as I can answering four questions in 2 hours? Get with the times. Students inevitably write slower than their ancestors, and type faster. Concerns about plagiarism or cheating with the power of the Internet are both stupid and unfounded – a) because you can check for plagiarism as quick as you can say “google” and b) because the whole idea of a robust education is getting people to interact with the ideas that are out there – and it’s stupider to expect students to rote learn said ideas in order to regurgitate them in an exam situation. There are tens of good computer programs out there aimed at making the art of theology easier – why aren’t these being deliberately included in the curriculum so that a lifetime of sermon preparation/Bible teaching is also easier?
  7. Make language learning more reflective of reality, and more useful
    Most ministers I speak to who use Greek and Hebrew (and its a minority) do it with the aid of books and computer software. And yet we’re expected to memorise paradigms and rote learn vocab in order to spurt it out on demand. I can’t imagine that situation ever arising in the real world… “Excuse me Reverend, could you tell me, on the spot, why this word in my KJV is translated in that way” – aren’t we better off teaching (and I’ve got to give my Hebrew lecturer credit here) people to understand the way the language works (like an animal), equipping students to dissect words and getting a bit of linguistic theory under their belts to avoid illegitimate totality transfers and to understand semantic ranges. At the moment we spend so much time doing rote learning stuff and writing out paradigms until our fingers and eyes bleed that we’ve got almost no time to look at the actual Bible or think about any of the other three subjects.
  8. Get rid of exams
    Why do we think asking for regurgitation in two hours, on paper, is a good way to assess thirteen weeks’ worth of work? No one does, and it isn’t. Assessment on a regular basis (to encourage people to keep up with the work – rather than trying to cram it into the short term memory) that is more closely modeled on the real world (discussions, presentations etc) is surely a better gauge of a person’s progress. Show some initiative and encourage people based on educational notions of learning styles and the like.
  9. Make assessment marking less arbitrary (death to word limits)
    My own, very personal bugbear,1 is the word limit. Word limits are entirely arbitrary. I am not suggesting no limit on writing – but to use words is dumb. It misunderstands language. It actually encourages dense rather than flowing writing, and complexity over simplicity. Let me explain. Every sentence is an idea. That sentence was five words. My last three sentences used a total of thirteen words. Other people may use the same number of words to express less, others more. Others may use the same number of words but triple the number of syllables, or enhance the complexity of the words they use. We all know that shift+f7 gives you a thesaurus that is capable of turning your rudimentary slang into highbrow academia. Essays should be given a qualitative assessment, not a quantitative one. Students should be penalised for including stuff that’s irrelevant to their argument – but they should not be penalised if their argument required extra words because it needed them. And if you want a limit in order to make the lecturer’s job easier when it comes to marking – set a typeface, type size, and line spacing – and then set a page limit. That will encourage more concise writing. That’s how journalists do it too. You write in column inches, not in word counts (unless you’re a freelancer paid by the word). And you cut stuff from the bottom if you have to edit it. Lecturers should stop reading when the writing gets boring. That’s real life. It’s also reflective of preaching (where you should go as long as you’re interesting – according to QTC’s preaching lecturer). The vast majority of my time writing assignments is trying to cut five hundred words from an assignment that doesn’t have five hundred words to spare. The only options seem to be to lose substantial and important logical steps to an argument, or to go over the word limit and cop a penalty. If anybody knows how to, in 2,000 words, interact with scholarship (at least 10 peer reviewed articles), the Bible, and other primary documents while answering a question that is contentious enough to be at the scholarly coalface, then please, let me know.
  10. Make assessment criteria clearer (and stick to it)
    The Australian College of Theology provides guidelines for assessing essays that almost universally get ignored (so far as I can tell). Of the five essays I’ve had marked thus far – only one referred directly to this criteria in terms of the mark given, the rest seemed just to go with some sort of vibe (though the marks have all been fairly similar).
  11. Encourage the development of the fruit of the Spirit above the fruit of the head
    I’ve chatted to a few people disillusioned with the college process online, and in real life, in the last little while – and if a criticism comes up enough, from enough different people, sooner or later you’ve got to wonder if it has merit. Assessment of someone’s capability to do ministry is almost always based not on what they know, but if they know God. And if they are suitably gifted. I don’t know how the college can do his better – but I don’t think stress, diarrhea, grumpiness, worry, academic envy, and tiredness, nor did I notice broad knowledge of scholarly opinions, Greek parsing, or Hebrew pronunciation mentioned as desirable attributes in Galatians 5 (and my Greek isn’t that bad, nor is the semantic range of the items in the list that broad).
  12. Start later, finish later (or at the same time)
    Again, a personal bugbear. Our college advertises that it finishes in time for students to beat peak hour home. Which is great. What they don’t advertise is that you have to drive to college in peak hour. We live 17 km from the college (according to the GPS) and it takes 40 minutes to get there in peak hour, and 25 minutes off peak. Peak hour seems to start at about 3pm anyway – so the trip home isn’t substantially faster. And seriously, who is at their best in an 8.30 class?

1 I know I break this rule a lot here – I write too many words. But seriously. I’m a journalist. Brevity is my thing. You will find almost no adjectives in my writing. I don’t pad out my sentences with flowery language. I might choose a cool noun here or there, but I try to carry my writing with my vocab in one word bursts. I try to be a sniper rifle, not a shotgun. Word choice is about precision, not about scattering a few words in the breeze hoping one will hit the target.

O’Donovan on politics and the pulpit

Oliver O’Donovan was interviewed about the American elections, democracy, and the Christian. He said some good stuff (which you can read here, or summarised here at Between Two Worlds).

The essential political duties we owe to our neighbours are those of living together with them peacefully under the law, and of giving proper support to the institutions of government that uphold the law. It is very unglamorous, and very necessary. To this essential basis a democratic polity has added the specific responsibility of voting in elections. To perform that democratic task well is quite difficult. It means listening carefully to political debates and sifting the true from the false in a self-questioning way, aware of the subtle influences of prejudice upon ourselves as well as upon others. It means to be open to persuasion, ready to change one’s mind. It means achieving a clear sense of the difference between what we can and must decide and what we cannot and should not try to decide.

Then he said this. Which I’m not sure I agree with:

“The “average American in the pew” seems not uncommonly to be told (or so it appears to us as we listen in across the Atlantic Ocean) that she or he has much larger political responsibilities than this: to make the Gospel heard in public life, to bring in the Kingdom of God and to make a better world, and so on.”

These can be problematic if you think making the gospel heard and bringing in the kingdom means stamping Christianity on the forehead of those who aren’t Christians. Which some do. But they do also, to me, sound like a fair summary of our role as Christians living in society (depending on how you think you bring about the Kingdom).

Some of these tasks are indeed tasks of the Church, which all Christians share, but not distinctively political. Some are political, but not tasks of the Church so much as promises of the work of the Spirit of God, for which we must pray and wait—while fulfilling our mission and doing the work that comes to our hand—humbly and without pompous pretensions.

Hang on. What? How are these two statements mutually exclusive in the way he frames them? How are some of those things he lists “political” but not tasks of the church? Or the other way around? How is “doing the work that comes to hand” not the same as making the gospel heard, bringing in the kingdom of God and making a better world? I would have thought that was exactly what the work that comes to our hand was… How are they not both political and the task of the church through the work of the Spirit which we pray and wait for… while also acting.

I might be getting this all wrong, but it often seems that this corrective of the old thinking has chucked out baby and bath water by insisting on the same dichotomy from the other side of the spectrum. People used to say “preach the gospel, preach the gospel, preach the gospel” and good works and loving people kind of got pushed to the side so far as the church is concerned. And that’s bad. But the answer isn’t to say “do good works, do good works, do good works.” Isn’t “do good works while preaching the gospel/preach the gospel while doing good works” a better way forward.

Maybe the real distinction between my thinking and O’Donovan’s here is how the Spirit works – I don’t necessarily think we sit and wait for the spirit to move, I think we move, praying and trusting that the Spirit will work through our actions. I don’t see “doing the work before us” as distinct from waiting on the Spirit.

Finally, he offers some worthwhile thoughts on how to talk about politics from the pulpit, which I’ve summarised below.

Some Don’ts

  1. Don’t act as if you are a well informed pundit with inside knowledge just because you’re a preacher: “Political discernment is not a gift of the Spirit promised to an ordained minister with the laying on of hands. It is more than probable that a congregation will contain some who are better informed and have better judgment than their clergy.
  2. Know what to focus on, and what to ignore: “Not every wave of political enthusiasm deserves the attention of the church in its liturgy. Judging when political questions merit prophetic commentary requires a cool head and a theological sense of priorities.”
  3. Don’t buy into the idolatry of modern politics: “The worship that the principalities and powers seek to exact from mankind is a kind of feverish excitement. The first business of the church is to refuse them that worship. There are many times – and surely a major Election is one of them – when the most pointed political criticism imaginable is to talk about something else.”
  4. Don’t talk without knowing what the terms you’re using mean in both the Christian and secular political realms: “Few Christian interventions into political debate display any kind of conceptual sophistication. They sound naïve – not in the sense of being too idealistic, but simply by using words without appreciating their meaning. Every political term carries a complex freight: “rights”, “democracy”, “freedom”, “equality”, “the state”, “law”, and so on. Such an elementary blunder as using “democratic” to mean “fair” betrays a level of incompetence that disqualifies the speaker as a guide to others.”
  5. Don’t introduce concepts with baggage without knowing how those concepts relate to others: No preacher can introduce such ideas effectively without a basic sense of their relation to each other and to the Gospel: how does civil freedom relate to evangelical freedom? how do human rights relate to the righteousness of God? Nothing is contributed if the church merely echoes the current buzz-words…
  6. Don’t preach politics like a politician, do it ethically: “One should not go on as though one were a statesman oneself, trying to get a certain decision taken, using every argument in its favour, good or bad, that might appeal to somebody.”
  7. Don’t be partisan: Don’t pick a side just for the sake of picking a side: “The notion that political deliberation is basically about the rival claims of competing parties is one which the church must do everything it can to challenge. Political deliberation is about understanding our situation truthfully.”
  8. Don’t not be partisan: Sometimes the question of truth is an obvious distinction between the parties.
  9. Don’t avoid choosing a position to avoid offending people: there is no reason to be alarmed if, on any occasion, the concern of the church opens into a critical perspective on secular political events. “To convince of sin, righteousness and judgment” is the work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8), which must sometimes, surely, take the form of defining a position in relation to such evils as abortion, nuclear deterrence, unemployment, North-South inequities and so on.
  10. Don’t avoid controversy for the sake of avoiding controversy: We would be less than faithful preachers of the Gospel if we made our minds never to venture onto such terrain. But to do it usefully we have to risk controversy. We will be of little use to the Holy Spirit if we save our denunciations for those evils on which we can be sure there will be little difference of opinion among our hearers.
  11. Don’t be controversial just for the sake of presenting your opinions: “Controversy may be healthy or unhealthy. It will be unhealthy if we announce our conclusions and declare, “Take them or leave them!” It will be healthy if we lead the church through the task of Christian deliberation from first principles, so helping those who differ to find the Christian ground on which they stand and building up the church’s unity in the Gospel.

Some Dos

  1. Rather than pretending you’re a pundit help equip the church to think through what is known about a situation.
  2. Don’t mix messages: The pulpit may only rightly be used for addressing the church’s own concerns. Those concerns are the truth of the Gospel and all that follows from it for Christian action.
  3. Preach politics for the purpose of fostering engaged Christian thinking and action: The justification for preaching on politics is exactly the same as that for preaching on the family or on money or on any secular concern: it assists Christians to bring an evangelical mind to bear on their responsibilities… How one speaks will be determined by what is in view, which is to assist authentic Christian deliberation.
  4. Preach politics understanding why it’s important in a democratic setting: “Political deliberation is a responsibility of the members of the church inasmuch as they participate in a political society.”
  5. Don’t preach to persuade to your point of view, preach to demonstrate the Biblical position on an issue: “…the argument should be a Christian one that commends itself to any Christian conscience. It is less important that those who hear you should concur in your conclusions than that they should respond positively to the principles from which you reason.
  6. Preach Politics from the Bible: When I address political questions I almost always adopt an exegetical form of sermon-structure, follow my text and the argument that arises from it, until it points irresistibly to some theologico-political principle. Then, in the lightest way possible, I give concreteness to the principle by showing how it bears on the public issue in question.
  7. Keep yourself out of it (mostly): “it [your own view] will be evident enough from the argument. If anyone disagrees with me, I hope that person will have been helped to articulate a more authentically Christian response, one which will take seriously the issues of principle I have raised.”
  8. Preach to the Christian conscience: “Everyone needs to come out with a clearer sense of what is unnegotiable for Christian conscience, and what, by contrst, is merely a matter of differing emphasis or differing interpretation of a given situation.”
  9. Aim to present the Gospel of Christ in the context of each political issue: In that way the judgment of the Spirit proves itself authentic, drawing the line between the Gospel and despair, between belief and unbelief, obedience and rebellion, and lighting the way for the confession of Christ in the centre of each new situation

Social media strategies for churches

I was talking to some people yesterday about churches and social media strategies. I’ve followed a bunch of people who are involved with ministries, and churches, and promoting ministries and churches on Facebook. And I think they’re doing it wrong… but what would I know.

The wrongness was the spirit of my speculative posts “Has John Piper ruined Twitter” and “Has Mark Driscoll ruined Facebook” – most churches rely on their minister posting pithy one line updates to Facebook and Twitter generating an echo effect where people retweet and like and share to their hearts content. Which is only part of the social media story, and is usually pretty lame. Blowing one’s own trumpet is never cool. No matter how good your faux-hawk is, and no matter how much you’re able to make grown men cry in your sermons. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate Desiring God and Mars Hill, and Piper and Driscoll, and I think they contribute greatly to the global church and use the Internet brilliantly. But you’re not (unless they’re reading this) Piper or Driscoll. And if you’re a minister of a church and you’re filling my Facebook or Twitter news feeds with how much God is moving in your church, or how great your sermon was, or how great it was to spend time with your church family  – and that’s all your doing – then that’s really not why I’ve added you Twitter in particular, or probably, being really honest, on Facebook. I’ve added a person, not a ministry PR machine. I want your reflections on stuff, and if you’re a minister then that will doubtless include stuff about your church and your ministry, and how much you love your people, and how awesome they all are… but please, don’t be a two dimensional caricature. You are not your church. Get a Facebook page for your ministry – but even then, don’t be lame about it. Don’t just spam people with endless things about how good the stuff they were already at was, and don’t spam them with things about upcoming events.

Social media is social. It’s meant to be interactive. The best social media strategies do what is called “seeding” content. You don’t blow your own trumpet. You get others to blow it for you. If you run a church Facebook account, or Twitter account, why not ask a bunch of tech savvy people at church to post their own thoughts, advertisements, photos or reflections to TwitFace? Why not ask people to live tweet certain events, or go home and serve their brothers and sisters by posting the thing that struck them most about the sermon. Don’t do it yourself. Why not get people to post photos of your events, get them to make them their profile pictures. Get them to talk to each other (that’ll show up in the news feed of mutual friends). Get them organically promoting events and inviting their friends personally, rather than sending out some form email.

Social media works best when it is social media – when people are participating in the production and distribution of content – rather than just contributing to the noise side of the signal to noise ratio on the internet. People’s inboxes (in all virtual forms) are so full of rubbish and spam – why not contribute some meaningful content and interactions to their lives instead of just trying to be an ever present presence online.

And if none of that seems to work, if you can’t get people saying stuff about your church online, then maybe consider this webcomic (via ChurchCrunch)…

Augustine and Jerome: A robust discussion (part two)

So, Jerome has accused Augustine of writing a book against him without discussing it with him first, Augustine has denied ever writing such a book. And now, Jerome responds to his denial.

Jerome (404 AD) responds:

I am at a loss to express my surprise that the same letter is reported to be in the possession of most of the Christians in Rome, and throughout Italy, and has come to every one but myself, to whom alone it was ostensibly sent. I wonder at this all the more, because the brother Sysinnius aforesaid tells me that he found it among the rest of your published works, not in Africa, not in your possession, but in an island of the Adriatic some five years ago…

True friendship can harbour no suspicion; a friend must speak to his friend as freely as to his second self. Some of my acquaintances, vessels of Christ, of whom there is a very large number in Jerusalem and in the holy places, suggested to me that this had not been done by you in a guileless spirit, but through desire for praise and celebrity, and éclat in the eyes of the people, intending to become famous at my expense; that many might know that you challenged me, and I feared to meet you; that you had written as a man of learning, and I had by silence confessed my ignorance, and had at last found one who knew how to stop my garrulous tongue. I, however, let me say it frankly, refused at first to answer your Excellency, because I did not believe that the letter, or as I may call it (using a proverbial expression), the honeyed sword, was sent from you. Moreover, I was cautious lest I should seem to answer uncourteously a bishop of my own communion, and to censure anything in the letter of one who censured me, especially as I judged some of its statements to be tainted with heresy. Lastly, I was afraid lest you should have reason to remonstrate with me, saying, “What! Had you seen the letter to be mine—had you discovered in the signature attached to it the autograph of a hand well known to you, when you so carelessly wounded the feelings of your friend, and reproached me with that which the malice of another had conceived?”

Wherefore, as I have already written, either send me the identical letter in question subscribed with your own hand, or desist from annoying an old man, who seeks retirement in his monastic cell. If you wish to exercise or display your learning, choose as your antagonists, young, eloquent, and illustrious men, of whom it is said that many are found in Rome, who may be neither unable nor afraid to meet you, and to enter the lists with a bishop in debates concerning the Sacred Scriptures. As for me, a soldier once, but a retired veteran now, it becomes me rather to applaud the victories won by you and others, than with my worn-out body to take part in the conflict; beware lest, if you persist in demanding a reply, I call to mind the history of the way in which Quintus Maximus by his patience defeated Hannibal, who was, in the pride of youth, confident of success…

…As to your calling God to witness that you had not written a book against me, and of course had not sent to Rome what you had never written, adding that, if perchance some things were found in your works in which a different opinion from mine was advanced, no wrong had thereby been done to me, because you had, without any intention of offending me, written only what you believed to be right; I beg you to hear me with patience. You never wrote a book against me: how then has there been brought to me a copy, written by another hand, of a treatise containing a rebuke administered to me by you? How comes Italy to possess a treatise of yours which you did not write? Nay, how can you reasonably ask me to reply to that which you solemnly assure me was never written by you? Nor am I so foolish as to think that I am insulted by you, if in anything your opinion differs from mine. But if, challenging me as it were to single combat, you take exception to my views, and demand a reason for what I have written, and insist upon my correcting what you judge to be an error, and call upon me to recant it in a humble παλινῳδι, and speak of your curing me of blindness; in this I maintain that friendship is wounded, and the laws of brotherly union are set at nought. Let not the world see us quarrelling like children, and giving material for angry contention between those who may become our respective supporters or adversaries.

I write what I have now written, because I desire to cherish towards you pure and Christian love, and not to hide in my heart anything which does not agree with the utterance of my lips. For it does not become me, who have spent my life from youth until now, sharing the arduous labours of pious brethren in an obscure monastery, to presume to write anything against a bishop of my own communion, especially against one whom I had begun to love before I knew him, who also sought my friendship before I sought his, and whom I rejoiced to see rising as a successor to myself in the careful study of the Scriptures. Wherefore either disown that book, if you are not its author, and give over urging me to reply to that which you never wrote; or if the book is yours, admit it frankly; so that if I write anything in self-defence, the responsibility may lie on you who gave, not on me who am forced to accept, the challenge.

I tell you again, without reserve, what I feel: you are challenging an old man, disturbing the peace of one who asks only to be allowed to be silent, and you seem to desire to display your learning. It is not for one of my years to give the impression of enviously disparaging one whom I ought rather to encourage by approbation. And if the ingenuity of perverse men finds something which they may plausibly censure in the writings even of evangelists and prophets, are you amazed if, in your books, especially in your exposition of passages in Scripture which are exceedingly difficult of interpretation, some things be found which are not perfectly correct? This I say, however, not because I can at this time pronounce anything in your works to merit censure. For, in the first place, I have never read them with attention; and in the second place, we have not beside us a supply of copies of what you have written, excepting the books of Soliloquies and Commentaries on some of the Psalms; which, if I were disposed to criticise them, I could prove to be at variance, I shall not say with my own opinion, for I am nobody, but with the interpretations of the older Greek commentators.

Farewell, my very dear friend, my son in years, my father in ecclesiastical dignity; and to this I most particularly request your attention, that henceforth you make sure that I be the first to receive whatever you may write to me.

A long and pointed (some would say barbed) letter. Augustine’s response tomorrow.

Drunk in the Spirit meets Martha Stewart

Remember this guy from Wine Barrel Ministries:

Proof that the prosperity doctrine is pretty wacky. And attracts pretty wacky people. Here’s his female at home televangelist equivalent.

Is there a YouTube channel for Christians with tourettes?

Too busy to pray? Get some pre-blessed food

Saying grace is so passe. Buy your food pre prayed over and eat with an easy spiritual conscience. Out-sourced prayer is nothing new if the Catholics are your exemplar.

Happy 493rd anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation everybody.

Augustine and Jerome: a Robust discussion (part one)

Jerome, another bishop since sainted by the Catholic Church, and Augustine used to write to each other. They lived a long way apart, and their correspondence took place over a number of years. At one point Jerome accuses Augustine of publishing a letter to him to the whole world before it arrived with him. Reading their correspondence is pretty worthwhile (especially if you’re writing an essay for Early Church History).

But this long exchange serves to solidify my opinion that Augustine would totally have blogged.

From Jerome (402 AD):

When my kinsman, our holy son Asterius, subdeacon, was just on the point of beginning his journey, the letter of your Grace arrived, in which you clear yourself of the charge of having sent to Rome a book written against your humble servant. I had not heard that charge; but by our brother Sysinnius, deacon, copies of a letter addressed by some one apparently to me have come hither. In the said letter I am exhorted to sing the παλινωδία, confessing mistake in regard to a paragraph of the apostle’s writing, and to imitate Stesichorus, who, vacillating between disparagement and praises of Helen, recovered, by praising her, the eyesight which he had forfeited by speaking against her. Although the style and the method of argument appeared to be yours, I must frankly confess to your Excellency that I did not think it right to assume without examination the authenticity of a letter of which I had only seen copies, lest perchance, if offended by my reply, you should with justice complain that it was my duty first to have made sure that you were the author, and only after that was ascertained, to address you in reply…

Far be it from me to presume to attack anything which your Grace has written. For it is enough for me to prove my own views without controverting what others hold. But it is well known to one of your wisdom, that every one is satisfied with his own opinion, and that it is puerile self-sufficiency to seek, as young men have of old been wont to do, to gain glory to one’s own name by assailing men who have become renowned. I am not so foolish as to think myself insulted by the fact that you give an explanation different from mine; since you, on the other hand, are not wronged by my views being contrary to those which you maintain. But that is the kind of reproof by which friends may truly benefit each other, when each, not seeing his own bag of faults, observes, as Persius has it, the wallet borne by the other. Let me say further, love one who loves you, and do not because you are young challenge a veteran in the field of Scripture. I have had my time, and have run my course to the utmost of my strength. It is but fair that I should rest, while you in your turn run and accomplish great distances; at the same time (with your leave, and without intending any disrespect), lest it should seem that to quote from the poets is a thing which you alone can do, let me remind you of the encounter between Dares and Entellus, and of the proverb, “The tired ox treads with a firmer step.” With sorrow I have dictated these words. Would that I could receive your embrace, and that by converse we might aid each other in learning!

Augustine (402 AD) responds, denying he wrote a book against Jerome:

I have hesitated whether to give credence or not to a certain report which has reached me; but I felt that I ought not to hesitate as to writing a few lines to you regarding the matter. To be brief, I have heard that some brethren have told your Charity that I have written a book against you and have sent it to Rome. Be assured that this is false: I call God to witness that I have not done this. But if perchance there be some things in some of my writings in which I am found to have been of a different opinion from you, I think you ought to know, or if it cannot be certainly known, at least to believe, that such things have been written not with a view of contradicting you, but only of stating my own views. In saying this, however, let me assure you that not only am I most ready to hear in a brotherly spirit the objections which you may entertain to anything in my writings which has displeased you, but I entreat, nay implore you, to acquaint me with them; and thus I shall be made glad either by the correction of my mistake, or at least by the expression of your goodwill.

It gets a little fiery tomorrow…

How to convert an atheist

It’s easy. You’ve been doing it wrong.

Ask these questions:

1. Are you a serious atheist?
2. Are you a seeker of truth?
3. Are you open minded?
4. Can I draw you a picture of a circle. A very large circle (a visual aid is good).
5. Imagine the circle is filled with all knowledge.
6. How much of this knowledge does a circle of your knowledge represent?
7. Ask “is it possible that God could live outside your circle of knowledge?”
8. Thank them for being open minded.
9. Convince them that they are actually agnostic.
10. Remind them that they are a seeker of truth.
11. Suggest that there could in fact be a God.
12. Suggest that they find out why so many other people believe in God.
13. Point them to Psalm 14:1 – call them a fool.
14. Give them a book. Preferably the book from this video.

Foolproof. Right?

What could possibly not satisfy the questioning intellect from that approach?

How does Jesus Dance? The Jesus Lean

Apparently he does the “Jesus Lean” and we should too…

“Lean back, then snap. Kick the Devil in the tooth”

Bounce for the king people. That’s the real act of worship. Forget anything Romans 12 might suggest.

You can get B-Shoc, the artist here, to come along to “revolutionise” your youth ministry.

Aristotle on the Areopagus

I’m finding all sorts of fun quotes playing around with primary sources. Here’s a quote from Aristotle’s Rhetoric about use of emotion in court proceedings – with a mention of the Areopagus, the council Paul appeared before in Athens in Acts 17:

“The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case. Consequently if the rules for trials which are now laid down some states — especially in well-governed states — were applied everywhere, such people would have nothing to say. All men, no doubt, think that the laws should prescribe such rules, but some, as in the court of Areopagus, give practical effect to their thoughts and forbid talk about non-essentials. This is sound law and custom. It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity — one might as well warp a carpenter’s rule before using it.”

Here’s a picture of Mars Hill.

Image Credit: Me, from our trip to Greece

Now the ever reputable Professor B. Winter tells us (that is, his students) that the Areopagus:

a) did not actually meet on top of Mars Hill (speculative – based largely on its current shape and size (who knows how big it was 2,000 years ago), and the number of people in the Areopagus.
and b) had a function to perform as the gatekeepers for the gods of Greece, the Areopagus basically had a set of rules to govern what gods could and couldn’t be accepted into Greece, and Paul’s presentation in Acts 17 is said to meet those parameters…

It’s interesting that they had a reputation for only talking about essentials, from hundreds of years before Paul, and yet the members of the Areopagus invited him to speak.

“19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this(AH) new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.”

It’s also funny how Luke’s view of the Athenians, and possibly, by context and extension, the Areopagus, differs from Aristotle’s:

21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.”

Cicero on Preaching

While trying to get my head around Augustine’s On Christian Teaching (which isn’t particularly complicated) I’ve been reading the work of some of his influencers. Including Cicero, the great Roman Orator and champion of the Republic. Cicero wrote a book called De Oratore (On the Orators) which you can read in a parallel Latin/English .txt version here. It’s not pleasant to navigate.

He had some good stuff to say about preaching.

“This is why, in those exercises of your own, though there is a value in plenty of extempore speaking, it is still more serviceable to take time for consideration, and to speak better prepared and more carefully. But the chief thing is what, to tell the truth, we do least (for it needs great pains which most of us shirk), — to write as much as possible. The pen is the best and most eminent author and teacher of eloquence, and rightly so. For if an extempore and casual speech is easily beaten by one prepared and thought-out, this latter in turn will assuredly be surpassed by what has been written with care and diligence. The truth is that all the commonplaces, whether furnished by art or by individual talent and wisdom, at any rate such as appertain to the subject of our writing, appear and rush forward as we are searching out and surveying the matter with all our natural acuteness; and all the thoughts and expressions, which are the most brilliant in their several kinds, must needs flow up in succession to the point of our pen ; then too the actual marshalling and arrangement of words is made perfect in the course of writing, in a rhythm and measure proper to oratory as distinct from poetry.

These are the things which in good orators produce applause and admiration; and no man will attain these except by long and large practice in writing, however ardently he may have trained himself in those off-hand declamations; he too who approaches oratory by way of long practice in writing, brings this advantage to his task, that even if he is extemporizing, whatever he may say bears a likeness to the written word; and moreover if ever, during a speech, he has introduced a written note, the rest of his discourse, when he turns away from the writing, will proceed in unchanging style. Just as when a boat is moving at high speed, if the crew rest upon their oars, the craft herself still keeps her way and her run, though the driving force of the oars has ceased, so in an unbroken discourse, when written notes are exhausted, the rest of the speech still maintains a like progress, under the impulse given by the similarity and energy of the written word. ”