More Than Words

"Islam: at war within itself"

2009-10-30T13:37:00.000+03:00

Very informative piece from the Barnabas Fund, here.

Freedom to smack

2009-10-24T20:00:00.001+03:00

This nugget was in a friend's prayer letter. He's also a missionary in Kenya...

A final snippet from <son's name, aged 9>. We were talking at the dinner table the other night, and he came out with: “It’s much better growing up in Kenya”. “Why’s that?”, I asked, thinking it might be because of the weather, the wildlife, or some such thing. “Because parents can smack their kids here without any fear of getting in trouble”. Just to check I’d understood properly I said, “Are you saying it was good that when you were little we could smack you?” “Yes, of course, much better”… Obviously he’s been seriously traumatised by the whole thing….

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

2009-10-23T20:51:00.000+03:00

I've been reading volume 1 of Iain Murray's biography of Martyn
Lloyd-Jones, covering the first 40 years of his life. The biggest
challenge I've found in it is something that comes across quite clearly
- the inner fire in Lloyd-Jones' soul. The account is of a man of
conviction and focus. He preached as a man who believed in preaching -
or rather, in the God who commanded preaching. He comes across as a man
gripped by the gospel and the weight of responsibility and privilege he
had in declaring it. Would that God would make us who preach, and send
more preachers who are utterly gripped in this way.

The right to have no rights

2009-10-20T10:08:00.000+03:00

My last post was an example of a regular feature of government in the secular West. In the name of individual rights, individuals lose their rights - and the government gains them. Paradoxical - but real.

When the government declares that a right exists, and puts it into legislation, it hasn't merely handed you a new supposed right. It's also handed itself the right to control and enforce that right. The government gains new rights to be involved in areas of life that it wasn't before.

It's actually one thing to have some supposed right, and quite another for it to be decided that the government is the best entity to police that right. But in the secular West, there is no God allowed, and the government has to take its place as the supreme being in every area of life. If there is a right to police, government is the only entity we can think of to be involved in overseeing it - church, parents, family, clan and community must ultimately bow before its omnicompetence.

When the government awards itself these new rights, it's always at the expense of others' rights. A new right to interfere into other spheres is a new loss of freedom in those spheres. When the government can barge its way into family or church where it couldn't before, liberty in those spheres is lost. Rights are not a license to print free currency for health, wealth and happiness - you can't magically gain them in one place all the time without losing them elsewhere. That's why previous and wiser generation didn't fixate upon rights the way our society does, but about responsibilities instead. Responsibilities promote true freedom - rights erode them.

The idea of "children's rights" has been the most pernicious and potent tool for the government to withdraw all kinds of rights from families. After declaring a mixture of rights, good and bad, for children, governments have then arbitrarily appointed themselves the guardians and providers of these rights - at the expense of parents. To say that Johnny has the right to X is one thing. To say that the government has the right to barge its way into your front room to ensure that X is provided on precisely the terms and in the exact way that the Minister in Whitehall deems correct is something else entirely.

The net result is that everyone is gradually having their rights eroded, and the government is little by little accumulating all the rights. The final step is the right to have no rights at all. This is when every individual has such a comprehensive and all-embracing set of rights that government eventually has the right to regulate absolutely everything in order to enforce these rights. It won't be called that, of course. But it's coming. Ministers openly discuss ideas like overweight children being removed from their families to protect their right to good health, and such drivel - in the broad daylight, as if it were vaguely sane. And a hundred over such petty intrusions and extensions of the government's remit fill the news week after week. You can't start rolling down the slope and pressing the gas without arriving at the bottom eventually. "The right to have no rights" - something to look forward to, is it not?

What's good for our children is for us to say

2009-10-19T17:54:00.000+03:00

"What's good for our children is for us to say" - that's the title of an incisive article on the government's power-grabbing plans to intrude further into family life, from the Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/philipjohnston/6371228/If-home-schooling-is-good-for-our-children-it-is-for-us-to-say.html

In the name of the rights of the child (as ever), the government is again seeking to increase its own rights. Now: a new right for the officers of the local council to interview your child, in your home, without you present - to determine if they think you're educating your child in a way they approve of. As Johnson says, "Orwellian". This isn't just a big deal to home-schoolers. This new right, once established, has far-reaching implications, and every parent in the UK should be deeply concerned.

What if officials did this to your child?

2009-10-06T15:14:00.000+03:00

From the Christian Institute:

Video: what if officials did this to your child?

The Government wants to give officials the power to enter a family home and question children about what their parents are teaching them – without their parents being present.

Please watch this short video (81 seconds) and act now to keep families free.

Kenyan church discipline

2009-10-06T14:44:00.000+03:00

Just to follow up on the last post. I've been teaching through 1 Corinthians this term at college, and so we've dealt with church discipline a little whilst covering chapter 5. I asked the students about their experiences, and to evaluate if what they've seen is Biblical or not.

The most common answer is that they've seen their pastors simply announce church discipline on their own authority, to remove those they dislike from the church. In once case, a student said their pastor had announced the removal of seventy people in one go from the church!

In the West such a pastor would soon be known as a tyrant and people would avoid him. But in the African culture of the "big man" people sadly get used to it. (Of course the Western church has many of its own problems which my students are equally astonished by if I describe).

On the Kenyan church

2009-10-06T12:59:00.000+03:00

Through talking with other missionaries and the mature Christians in my own churches in Kenya I've gained a picture of the Kenyan church at large. But more lately I've been able to gain a better understanding by asking the students I teach at theological college about their own churches. When we study some Bible passage I've been asking, "how is this done in your church? What is done rightly, what is done wrongly?" In fact this process has basically confirmed the picture that other third parties were giving me.

Typically, Kenyan churches are plagued by problems coming from the society at large, which is no surprise. Particular problems are:

The health, wealth and prosperity heresy
Authoritarian and hypocritical leadership, glorification of leaders at the expense of brotherhood
Rampant sexual immorality, greed, dishonesty, theft and corruption
Biblical illiteracy, with traditions and man-made rules taking the place of knowing and following Scripture
Services with very little Biblical content, instead filled with endless repetitive songs and personal testimonies

Biblical, serious and consistent Christianity is very rare indeed. There is a myth in the Western church that Christianity is spreading greatly in places like Kenya, and will be the salvation of world Christianity. This is an idle dream if we're talking about the church here today. Africa is desperate for money, and those bringing Christianity often bring money, and as a result "rice Christianity" is rampant. But as one fellow missionary said to me, he explains to people in the UK that an average well-taught teenager in a serious Christian family in the UK is likely to have more Biblical knowledge than most pastors here in Kenya. What we do have is a wide open door of opportunity and a great God. But there is an immensely long way to go.

Bound to correct us

2009-10-03T15:06:00.001+03:00

Great quote from Arthur Pink on God's disciplining of his children:

Chastening is not only reconcilable with God’s lovingkindness, but it is the effect and expression of it. It would much quieten the minds of God’s people if they would remember that His covenant love binds Him to lay on them seasonable correction. Afflictions are necessary for us: "In their affliction they will seek Me early" (Hos. 5:15)

(The Attributes of God, Chapter 10 - http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Attributes/attrib_10.htm)

Respect people, not opinions

2009-10-03T09:07:00.002+03:00

Good article here in the Times by Oliver Kamm. He nails the idea that free expression means that all ideas (especially religious ideas) must be treated with respect - an idea that is impossible, and that the people propagating don't carry out in practice. "The idea that people's beliefs, merely by being deeply held, merit respect is grotesque." Opinions should only be respected if they are well-grounded; they must earn respect - it is conditional. It is people who are to be given respect as people made in the image of God, not because they hold views.

Ultimately if all ideas are worthy of respect, then none are. When counterfeit gold can be passed off as the real thing, the real thing loses its value in the marketplace. If Islam's teaching that in a court of law the testimony of a woman is inherently worth half that of a man is an opinion which is equally worthy of respect as the Bible's teaching that men and women are equally made in the image of God, then ultimately we're just saying that neither opinion matters at all. You can't have it all ways.

Hyper-piety

2009-10-02T13:54:00.001+03:00

Reading a book review in a mainstream Evangelical newspaper in the UK, this came at the end....

"But, by the book’s own admission, it is not dealing with things that are essential for salvation (p.65). Ah. This is why I’m not sure about it — £12.99 and a good couple of hours reading it and it’s not going to make a scrap of difference to eternity. Hmmm."

Have evangelicals in the UK really come to this? I'm glad that the fellow's focussed on "things that are essential for salvation". But what on earth is he saying? Is he serious?

Christians should never spend a couple of hours on a matter that is not essential for salvation? Do you think this fellow eats, sleeps, goes to work? Presumably he never rests, reads a newspaper, plays a game with his kids....
Or is it just books that have to pass this test? So we should never read a book unless it's about the way of salvation? Do radio programmes have to pass this test? Or how about sermons - must every sermon be evangelistic? Do we get to talk about other topics with our kids?
Or are all these things allowed as long as they don't reach "a couple of hours"? One hour OK? Or 15 minutes?
Did the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28-29) just expire? Since when?

I presume that this standard is just meant to apply to Christian books. I can't believe this comment got past the editor. Is a new hyper-piety abroad in the UK? Is there a new movement of anti-intellectualism at work amongst evangelicals in the UK? We refuse to read books unless they're on one subject and one subject only? I'd never seen something like this before in the circles I'm vaguely near to. I'm gob-smacked.

What problem of evil?

2009-10-02T12:55:00.000+03:00

A very good (in the main points) post on the "problem of evil", and why it's impossible for an atheist to use it against Christianity, here:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/theodicy_without_god.html

The author says he does not know what the theological explanation for "natural evil" (natural disasters, etc.). The Bible's answer is the Fall and the ensuing curse.

Bringing out the begging bowl!

2009-09-30T15:17:00.002+03:00

Want a free SIM card (UK) and £2 credit? From Three, who give you free on-network calls, free texts, free Internet and free Skype (even if you have no credit!) every time you top-up? (No? You can stop reading this post now!)

If so, order from this link here: http://freeagent.three.co.uk/stand/view/id/604

For this I get £5 for each SIM someone requests. You can read about Three's services at their website - http://www.three.co.uk. But to get the free £2 of credit, and for me to get the £5, you have to use the link above to order. You'll need a 3G-capable phone to use this SIM.

I came across this because I was wanting a SIM card and Internet when I next visit the UK. This looks a good deal. I e-mailed them to ask if it was allowed for me to promote to my wife and vice-versa or if they considered that unethical. They said it was no problem at all - they can definitely be my friends!

(Sorry to bring out the begging bowl. A recent burglary cost us a four-figure sum (UK pounds) even after we'd recovered much of the stolen stuff, so that's my excuse....)

The unrepenting repenter

2009-09-29T14:14:00.001+03:00

Good brief article here on the difference between true and false repentance.

Are you in the will of God?

2009-09-29T10:29:00.001+03:00

The Bible never, ever, encourages us to look at our circumstances to judge whether or not we're in the will of God.

By that, I don't mean you can't look round at your companions in the local den of drunkards or gossip club and work out that you should be somewhere else. What I mean is, unless your circumstance is one of sin, you cannot judge that God wishes you to be elsewhere simply from the events that happen to you. Bad stuff happening to you does not mean you're in the wrong place; things going well does not mean you're in the right place. These things are not revealed by God to you through events. Rather, you use the wisdom in the Bible, pray, and God will open and close doors according to his will. The reality will be revealed to you when it happens - not by secret signs beforehand.

How can we prove this? Easy. Job.

What happened to Job? Disaster. He lost his family, his home, his business and his health - everything except his life itself.

Why? Because he was wicked? Because he was outside the will of God and in the wrong place?

Nope. It all happened to him because he was the most righteous man on earth. Because he followed God with all his heart, he became a test case - to see if his faith was real, to prove to Satan that God's people love God not just for the earthly blessings, and ultimately to provide God's people through all succeeding ages with much deep teaching that hopefully we can learn without all having to face such extremities ourselves. It all happened to him because he was more within the will of God than anyone else on the planet.

Job ought to be the death-knell of all such secret-guidance theories whose proponents claim that you can read infallibly discern that you are in the right or wrong place through the events that come your way. Same lesson comes from the apostles (1 Corinthians 4). The Bible says that we must enter the kingdom through much tribulation (Acts 14:23). The untroubled, peaceful church is normally the Laodicean church of Revelation 3, not the church that found the heart of God's will. Or in large part the 21st century church of the Western world...

An infallible Bible

2009-09-28T19:54:00.000+03:00

Protestants believe that the Bible is the sole highest and final authority in all matters of belief and practice.

Roman Catholic apologists reply with, "Ah - but you Protestants, with your Bible alone, don't agree with each other! You need something more!" That something more is the supposedly-infallible Roman Catholic church.

In a clear and concise post here, James Swan shows that this shift in reality achieves nothing. The same Roman Catholic apologists then disagree with each other on how to interpret the pronouncements of that supposedly-infallible church.

The fact that people disagree over the Bible's meaning shows nothing. People disagree over everything, and when those people are sinners handling a book that strikes right at the heart of sin, it's hardly surprising. There's no mileage in scoring apologetic points from that observation on its own.

Pilgrim talks with a child about the will of God

2009-09-25T12:49:00.001+03:00

Child: Pilgrim, how can I know the will of God for me?

Pilgrim: To know the will of God, child, read the word of God.

Child: But Pilgrim, what about life's big issues? Who shall I marry, where shall I work?

Pilgrim: Did you hear me? Read the word of God, child!

Child: But the word of God does not tell me God's will for me.

Pilgrim: It does, and on every page. "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification". "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you".

Child: I know that, Pilgrim. But does not God have "one best life now" for me? How can I make sure I don't miss out?

Pilgrim: You know nothing yet as you ought to know it, child. God's "best life" is the life of his kingdom, not of the world, and so he tells you to seek it first. If you would be happy, you must be holy. If you are first holy, you will then understand all these other questions you ask.

Child: But I still have to know where to live and work?

Pilgrim: I already told you. You have to know how to live and work. When you know how and do his will, God will take care of the rest.

Child: Does not the Holy Spirit lead us, then?

Pilgrim: Indeed he does, as I have told you. He leads us into holiness.

Child: And the will of God?

Pilgrim: Godliness.

Child: But what about the details of life? Will I not get into trouble if I miss God's best?

Pilgrim: You will get into trouble if you find God's best.

Child: What do you mean?

Pilgrim: What the word of God says. "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God", and "no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto" and "Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator."

Child: But does not God want good things for his children?

Pilgrim: He does, and that is why we suffer.

Child: How can suffering be good?

Pilgrim: Because suffering is the narrow road to glory, my child. "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ".

Child: But, Pilgrim, I think if we can find the way to know the will of God, we will never have cause to suffer.

Pilgrim: That is why you are still a child, child.

Why we can be sure Adam was a historical individual

2009-09-22T13:01:00.001+03:00

Professor James Anderson (no relationship, well, unless you go back most of the way to Adam the historical individual...) gives a good concise summary of why evangelicals are compelled by the Bible to view Adam as a single historical individual in the same sense as you or I are: http://proginosko.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/was-adam-a-real-historical-individual/ . With a footnote offering a 13th that he forgot about the first time round!

Here's a conversation I had at the registry office whilst registering my intention to marry my now-wife. Earlier conversation had established that the registrar was a church-goer... perhaps it had been a slow day...

Registrar: Are you related to your future wife?

Me: Only through Adam.

Registrar: Your son?

Me: Ha ha! No.

Whose children?

2009-09-21T10:09:00.001+03:00

This came in via e-mail, something to consider and act upon...

I don't think there's a British Christian who has not been dismayed to see the moral collapse and rise of anti-Christian sentiment in the UK under this present government. But this issue is very serious indeed...

Graham Badman (not a Bunyan character, but his real name), Kent County Council's Managing Director for the Children, Families and Education Directorate has submited to the government a review of elective home education, which recommends, "systems for keeping children safe and ensuring that they receive a suitable education". That sounds nice...

But it is precisely the education this government believes 'safe and suitable' that home educators are opting out of! And with good reason.

Dissatisfied with the amoral, godless, pluralist propaganda the government pumps into our kids in the state schools - they are now gunning for those who withdraw from that system to provide a Christian Education for their children.

The Badman recommendations aim to supplant parents altogether by making the government-run LEA responsible for determining what is 'a safe and suitable education'.The recommendations in this report are nothing short of totalitarian control.

Quite apart from the compulsory registration of home educators (perhaps with a gold star!), there's the recommendation for LEA inspectors to have 'right of access' to home educator's homes and the right to speak to children without their parents present.

Whether you are in favour of Christian home education or not: that's not the issue...

You are your child's parent, not the state.

You have the right to decide what education your child receives, not the state.

You are responsible, under God, to decide what is good, suitable, and right for your child, not the state.

Eph.6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Whatever your views on Christian vs State education - this is an issue of whether parents or the state have the right to choose what education our children receive. Signing this petition tells the government that you care about your rights as a parent, and that they should reject the sinister, intrusive and godless recommendations of the Badman Report.

Please read and consider signing the petition by clicking the link below:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/EHEreview/

We proclaim Him

2009-09-18T22:17:00.001+03:00

How do we interpret the Bible? What are the principles and rules of correct interpretation, so that we deduce from a particular passage of the Bible what God intended us to deduce? All that he intended us to deduce, and nothing more than he intended us to deduce?

There's something very wrong with a number of evangelical guides intended to help preachers interpret the Bible that I've come across lately. There's something important missing.

What's missing? Christ and the gospel. Whoops!

Hence, I read lots of sound advice about...

Attention to principles of grammar
Attention to the meanings and functions of the words in the original language - don't impose an impossible meaning based upon the English translation
Attention to the context; context within the book, context within the paragraph, context within the world history of the author's day
Comparing our conclusions with sound doctrine distilled from other parts of the Bible
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

But amongst all this good advice, I keep seeing that an absolutely essential point gets missed out. Exegesis must also be done within the overall context of God's plan to reveal his glory and grant the gracious salvation in his Son. We must explain the passage to our hearers within the setting of God's purpose for the church. We must relate it all to the Saviour's sufferings at Calvary, his Resurrection on the third day, and his glorious return at the end of this age. We must show what it means for those who are living today "in the overlap of the ages", trusting what he did when he came the first time and waiting for when he comes the second.

You can fulfil all of the above bullet points and more and miss this out. If you only include the above bullet points and their ilk, you could do a great deal of "preaching" whilst being a Muslim. None of the above kind of points require you to be converted - you can do it pretty well whilst remaining ignorant or unbelieving of God's overall story. It worries me a great deal that this kind of "how to use the Bible in preaching" guide seems to be not uncommon at all amongst conservative evangelicals. Exegesis and preaching not rooted consistently in Christ and his gospel are not exegesis or preaching at all, and Satan's territory won't be reduced a single inch by them. Any useful guide to preaching has to hammer that home again and again. What is the sina qua non of Biblical preaching? To reveal the glory of God in Christ. To tweak something Spurgeon said, all our tools of exegesis and techniques of communication are simply the flesh hooks, pans and shovels.... but Christ is the altar and the sacrifice smoking upon it.

Our daily bread, part 2

2009-09-15T16:49:00.000+03:00

We're in the middle of a teaching series on the "Lord's Prayer" at our midweek prayer meeting. I've found it fascinating to be meditating upon the petition "give us this day our daily bread". The below is scratching the surface, but it's teaching that even after many years even mature Christians especially those from the West need regular reminding of; I know I do.

It's a corporate prayer - not just me praying for my needs. We pray as part of the church, that God will take care of his people.
The prayer reflects the fact that life repeats itself. God made us to experience years, months, weeks and days, full of routine and repetition. We should not grow weary in bringing the same prayers to God again and again.
It also reflects the fact that prayer is to be continual - each day brings challenges, each day requires prayer for help.
The assumption behind the petition is that it is not kings, parliaments or bankers who ultimately control the wheels of provision: it's God. Would that the world would remember that during its present economic crisis instead of continuing to put its trust in man and clever systems. We go out and work - but God sends or withholds blessing. One day you may wake up to find your business has collapsed, or you've been fired. We use the ordinary means, but God blesses or over-rules them as he pleases.
We pray for today's bread, today. If we've been provided for more largely than that we can be thankful - but must not "trust in uncertain riches" or become arrogant. Those are spiritual dangers that anyone rich enough to afford the technology to read a blog is exposed to! Most of my hearers at the Bible study are in the other category - they must not despair as if God had abandoned them because they get up each day not knowing whether God will provide today or not: rather, the prayer presupposes that this is a normal situation.
We pray for daily bread, not daily steak. Again, if we've been blessed with more we must be careful to give more thanks and praise or we've committed the sin of being ungrateful. But if we have just bread, we must still give thanks, because God has answered our prayer if we have but bread on our table. Blog-readers must be careful not to fall into the terrible sin of praying to God for daily bread and then complaining instead of giving thanks at what is provided if it doesn't meet their exact tastes!

Thy will be done

2009-09-15T15:40:00.001+03:00

The third petition of the Lord's Prayer, "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven", coming before the petition "give us this day our daily bread" is essentially a prayer for obedience. It's not about submission - i.e. submitting all of the events of life to God's over-ruling providence, known theologically as God's "decretive" or "secret" will. We know this because of the second half of the petition, "on earth as it is in heaven". In heaven God is always obeyed immediately and perfectly by the vast host around his throne. It is an eschatological prayer - that this perfection which is above might increasingly be reflected below also. That's why it comes immediately after "thy kingdom come".

This is the petition before "give us this day our daily bread". And that's a reflection of a profound theological truth. Only those who sincerely desire to obey God - as he is obeyed by the sinless angels - have the right to progress to seek his provision for their daily needs. One comes before the other. If pleasing God is not on our hearts, then to ask him to take care of us is not faith, but presumption - bold, defiant presumption. If we're not willing to put pleasing God before everything else, then we have no permission to pass further down the road to pleading our own needs and desires. We often get this the wrong way round - God help me, and then I'll serve you! That's not God's way; in his kingdom, he is the King, and our first duty - our first duty - is to bow before him.

Dear Atheists. Please update your arguments.

2009-09-11T19:35:00.003+03:00

"Kids' author says Jesus is not God: An atheist children's author is to use his latest book to say that Jesus was not God, instead claiming the Apostle Paul imagined the idea."

Read the story and you'll see that atheist campaigner Philip Pullman's idea is to argue that the idea of Jesus as God was a later encrustation on a primitive Christianity, dreamt up by the apostle Paul.

This was a popular idea in liberal academic scholarship in the 20th century up until the 1980s, but is now generally recognised, not just by evangelical scholars, as a huge mistake. It's a mistake that came from the presupposition that the New Testament documents should be read and interpreted against the background of Hellenistic philosophy. This mistake led to many of the Hebraic messages being filtered out - at least for those in the world of academic scholarship. Happily this enormous dead-end in Biblical studies bypassed the ordinary Bible-reading Christian!

The New Testament was written against a Hebraic background, and the above way of doing things is now widely recognised as completely untenable. The gospel writers and Paul and the other apostles alike approach the story of Jesus as a continuation of the Old Testament narrative. And in particular, his deity is clearly endorsed by all of them, because they all uniformally and continually attributes acts, achievements and attributes to Jesus which the Old Testament makes explicit belong exclusively to Jehovah. In both testaments, theological questions are not approach in the Greek manner - as matters of fine philosophical analysis (though of course such analysis is legitimate), but as being revealed progressively in history through God's saving interventions. And the interventions written about by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as Paul reveal with crystal clarity that they viewed Jesus of Nazareth as being one and the same in his being as Jehovah. Put simply, their message about the person of Christ is that he achieves everything for his people that Jehovah is meant to achieve. (And this observation eventually gives rise to the whole doctrine of the Trinity when all other Biblical considerations are factored in).

Mr. Pullman, though, is going to try to discredit Christianity with mouldy, rusted, defunct old bunk that has been debunked for decades. Good for pulling the wool over the eyes of the naive and the willingly ignorant, I suppose. But if the "New Atheist" crowd want to convince us that they're dispassionate investigators of facts, serious students of scholarship, coldly and impartially following hard evidence wherever it leads, this sort of thing won't help. Don't expect Pullman to be called out by his fellow "New Atheists" for this slip though, because the problem isn't intellectual - it's moral. They simply latch on to whatever argument seems to support their cause, whatever kind of argument it is, good, bad or ugly. The "New Atheists" have gained a reputation for being intellectually shallow and not widely read in their attempts to establish their position - and this kind of thing will only help that reputation roll on.

Interesting survey on mega-church pastors

2009-09-11T16:21:00.000+03:00

I found this survey on mega-church pastors interesting to reflect upon.

In the same field, I also found a pithy sentence in something blogged by James Jordan useful. (I'm not a fan of significant planks of JJ's theology, I suppose I'd better add for any newcomers...). Helpful for me because I've always found interruptions difficult - I like to get my teeth into something. But I can't... there's someone at the door. Then I have to remember that whatever "work" I was doing, actually the someone at the door is now "the work" that God wants me to do before anything else - to lovingly apply God's truth and encourage them with whatever difficulty they're bringing along. Along the way in the above article Jordan mentions that real pastors need to be available to their people at all times... "unless he’s a jerk who keeps his door locked and thinks he’s a great scholar and is not available all the time to his people." A dose of the ice-bucket of reality is good for us. "Unless he's a jerk". Thank you for those memorable few words!

History in our own image - Alan Turing

2009-09-11T14:15:00.001+03:00

Alan Turing was a mathematician who became famous for his war-time work which helped to crack the "Enigma" codes that enabled coded German messages to be intercepted. He is considered the father of modern computer science. Recently he's been in the press for something else - the British Prime Minister has apologised for Turing's conviction in 1952 for gross indecency; gross indecency which was of the homosexual kind. You can read his apology in the Daily Telegraph, here.

I think this story gives many interesting insights into the contemporary UK. First, a few words about the way in which we look at the past.

To re-make the past in your own image, interpreting according to present (instead of past!) narratives is a universal trait. People with an agenda everywhere like to co-opt figures from the past to their cause. The convenient thing about doing so is that they're normally not around to contradict you. Thus, in the Prime Minister's "apology", above, Alan Turing is a proto-victim of "homophobia", a crime nobody knew existed until recent times. Gordon Brown writes that Turing was, "in effect", prosecuted for being gay. The record book, though, shows that Turing, a man about to turn 40, sodomised a teenager. An act which is morally reprehensible in any circumstances.

This then raises the question for me - who is Gordon Brown apologising on behalf of? Obviously not on behalf of himself, as he was only 1 year old at the time. Is it meant to be on behalf of the British people? Were the British people consulted on whether they agree that prosecuting a man for having sex with another man less than half his age is to be put in the same category as sending people to gas chambers, as Brown does? Or did we somehow license Mr. Brown to decide all such moral questions for us simply by the act of voting his party's MPs into a majority in the 2005 election? Was there something in the manifesto about a mandate to retro-apply trendy-new leftist-morals to previous generations and dish out this kind of thing?

No matter. A petition was presented to the PM asking for him to apologise, and as figures in power tend to do, he was happy to accept it as part of his legitimate domain. So, an apology it is. It's evident, though, that Mr. Brown's agenda in this apology is not really to apologise, but to suck up to the gay rights movement - or at least to persuade them he's on-side enough to keep the attack dogs off. (It's still a sore point for many that there's no homosexual marriage in the UK - the placing of "civil partnerships" for homosexuals only onto the statute books makes it clear that the law still views homosexual partnerships as inferior). Hence, the Prime Minister helpfully litters his arguments with an explanation of the acronym "LGBT" for unaware readers, uncritically re-gurgitates the story of Turing as a victim of "homophobia" (a recently invented word intended to intimidate people with legitimate and considered disagreements, tarring them with the brush of unthinking bigotry instead of giving a respectful hearing to them), flatly asserts that Turing committed suicide because of this "persecution" thus making him into some kind of martyr (though in fact Turing told nobody of any intention to commit suicide, left no note, and there is no actual proof that would stand up in court that he did commit suicide making it only a likelihood and not a certain truth), and then capping it off by including Turing in the same category as the victims of Nazi gas chambers.

Quite flattering to Turing, I'm sure - but a hideous insult to those who were involuntarily executed simply for being of the wrong race. That's the problem with seeking to boost someone's standing by analogy - it can drag down someone else's. If my grandma had been killed for her ancestry, I'd think I'd be quite miffed to have the PM spending his tax-payer funded time on writing about how she was no different to someone who (perhaps) decided to take his own life, which perhaps may have been related to failing to face up to the consequences of a conviction for brutalising a teenager.

It's part of a rhetorical strategy though, and this part of his speech was surely put together by someone with a fine-tuned ear to what the gay rights lobby wants to hear. In the UK today the people who really experience hatred and discrimination in this area are those who reject the position of the gay rights lobby - they're the ones likely to be losing their jobs especially in the public sector, or being pressurised to pipe down, or tarred as bigots ("homophobia!") if they don't. The gay rights people, though, want to forward their agenda by playing the victim card, a very powerful one in Western culture today regardless of how truthful the play is. If you can associate yourselves with those sent off to Belsen - well, then you surely deserve a whole barrel-load of new rights, regardless of the moral perversity of your cause!

Many voters in the UK would be quite interested in hearing Mr. Brown apologise for a few things he might be personally responsible for. But like his predecessor, who famously apologised for the Irish potato famine (!) , Mr. Brown has instead apologised for decisions made by someone else in a different generation. Cheap and easy work, nice if you can get it.

But apologising wasn't really the point - the point is to drag Mr. Turing into the politics of gay rights, tip some hats in the right direction, earn some easy Brownie points (oh, what a pun!) with the opinion-leaders in the secular press, and all this for no personal cost - when you apologise on behalf of the dead there's not even the loss of face of having to admit you were wrong. On that note I'd like to apologise for the decision by Tharg King of Oth for illegally invading the Anglo Saxon kingdoms in 843. Tut tut. Disgusting, and I'm glad you know I've distanced myself from it.

It's safe to say that Mr. Brown, who I should actually call Dr. Brown because he has a PhD in history, won't be winning any awards for historical scholarship for this effort. It's not so much history, as history remade in the contemporary image. I am glad that the verdict of our successors many generations later is not the final judgment; that is still to come, and historical revisionism won't come into play on that day. How much time do we spend trying to tip our hat to the shifting mores of contemporary thought, and how much time thinking about how we'll be seen when the day of reality arrives?