The language of Jesus

This post is a re-post from my Wordpress platform. You can read it in a slightly different format here.

Of late, I have been slowly working my way through Kenneth Bailey’s work ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’ which I so far am enjoying almost as much as I find it challenging. I have a lot of respect for Bailey & his work, but something in the introduction has been nagging at me, as it seems to contradict another biblical scholar for whom I have a lot of respect: Tom Wright. The question concerns what language Jesus spoke and therefore what is the ‘original’ language of the gospels. Bailey summaries thus:

“We are obliged to consider four stages through which our canonical Gospels have passed. These are:

1.The life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth in Aramaic
2.The Aramaic eyewitness testimony to that life and teaching
3.The translation of that testimony into Greek
4.The selection, arrangement and editing of the Greek texts into the Gospels”

So here Bailey seems to be assuming that all of the content of the gospels we have are translations from the Aramaic.

Wright presents a subtly different picture in the preface to his New Testament For Everyone (NTFE) where he writes:

“Much of the time, Jesus himself spoke Aramaic, an updated dialect of Hebrew, but the gospels are written in Greek. Greek was everybody’s second language at the time, a bit like English in many parts of our world today.”

At a talk I was at when he expanded on this recently he gave an example of a young boy who approached him in the streets of Jerusalem to try to sell him something. The boy tried several languages before finding out that Wright was English.

Simply because most of us who have English as our first language don’t have a second language, it is presumptuous and condescending to assume that others are monolingual.

One place in the gospels this be highlighted (though I failed entirely to notice until it was pointed out to me) is when Jesus is conversation with Pontius Pilate. In what language was the conversation conducted? Aramaic, Greek or did they have a translator present?

Of course, one may reasonably ask who was the eyewitness present who preserved the conversation for later use by the gospel writers, but I’ll leave that for you to consider.

One potential problem this leaves for the modern day reader is what happens if you try to reconstruct the Aramaic from the Greek. I am informed, though I lack the expertise to check, that some words used in the Greek have no Aramaic equivalent, or that if there is an appropriate match, that it would be more likely that a different Greek word may be used. How much this changes the theology, I don’t know, but I think it’s an interesting point.

There is an intriguing hint of the possibility of the existence of a new lost Aramaic gospel. In Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History he quotes an earlier writer name Papias, whose works now are only known to survive in fragments, usually quoted by others. The following is taken from Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham. In one passage, he makes this intriguing statement:


“Matthew put the logia in an ordered arrangement [sunetaxato] in the Hebrew language [hebraidi dialecto], but each person [heskastos] interpreted [hermeneusen] them as best he could.”

This is the translation used in Bauckham’s work. This raises the possibility that Matthew’s Greek gospel is a translation from an earlier version composed in either Hebrew or Aramaic. I ought to add that another view in this is that ‘hebraidi dialecto’ means ‘in a Hebrew style’ rather than strictly referring to the language of composition. I don’t know enough to be able to have a strong opinion on this, so I will let you consider which is more likely.

Aramaic was the language of the ‘common’ people that Jesus would have interacted with most days. Not only that, but in his use of parables he displays a very down-to-earth approach. His use of metaphor is always done in terms that would have been readily interpreted to the first century audience in that geographical area. This is something has a great eye for, having lived and worked in the Middle East for several decades.

At this juncture, I probably ought to point out that later in ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’ Bailey does correct himself a little, though it is more of a sidenote to the effect that Jesus probably could speak Greek as well as Aramaic.

If we accept that Jesus primarily used Aramaic, rather than Greek or Hebrew, what then? Well, my word limit is up for this post, so I’ll carry this on later.

Celebrity Christians

[Please note that this was written before the recent flare-up of vitriol both propagated by, and in reaction to, Mark Driscoll’s comments about UK christians]

Those of you who know me will know that I’m quite critical of what I call the ‘cult’ of celebrity Christians. By cult, I do not mean occult, or necessarily that all such folk are unsound teachers (though I do have strong reservations about some). I merely mean that that they often have a wide following that is much broader than that from their own individual churches.

Such people include (but are not limited to): Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Billy Graham, Bill Hybels, Bill Johnson, Alister McGrath, Joyce Meyer, Joseph Ratzinger, Rick Warren, Rowan Williams & Tom Wright.

I was tempted recently to go to a one day conference where another of these kind of people was to be speaking: William Lane Craig. But then I just caught myself and started questioning my motivation. So this post is simply an exploration of what went through my mind in relation to that, as well as my concerns in relation to the phenomena of the celebrity preacher.


The bite from the blogosphere

For just about everyone that gains any level of “fame” there will be detractors. It’s not hard to find them; all you need do is type their name into Google and add the word “false” at the end. One has to be very cautious with this, I think, as it is tempting to think “there’s no smoke without fire.” You can also go the other way, and think that because someone is coming up against a lot of opposition that they must be talking sense.

The truth is, the blogosphere can be filled with a lot of junk and people pushing their own agenda. As an aside, I will let you draw your own conclusions about this tiny and obscure corner of the blogosphere that you find yourself reading at this instance. For me, the key word is “discernment.” There is a subtle difference between this and “judgement” though the consequences can be very far apart.

It is very easy to condemn someone with whom you disagree as “false” and to launch attacks on them. Of those named above, the newcomer to the scene who has only really come to prominence in the last couple of years is Mark Driscoll. I do not agree with everything he teaches, but I will not condemn him as a false teacher. I think he is mistaken on some issues, but I do not, based on that, reject anything and everything he says.

On those that I tend to agree with more, say, Alister McGrath, I do not accept uncritically everything he says or writes as being true and correct. To do so would be to fall foul of the Argument From Authority fallacy, though I do have some unorthodox views on this which I may expand upon on in a future post.


Are we guilty of “itching ears?”

Amongst the detractors, there is a common verse that is referred to. 2 Timothy 4:3 says

“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

In today’s world of social media, it is easier than ever to listen to whatever you want to listen to. Sermons and blogs are published online and you can gather all the soundbites you like off Twitter. In so doing, one can filter out anything you disagree with and choose a select group of people to listen to.

This is not something new. Paul wrote the following to the Corinthians “What I’m talking about is this. Each one of you is saying, “I’m with Paul!” “I’m with Apollos!” “I’m with Cephas!” “I’m with the Messiah”” (1 Corinthians 1:12, NTFE)

You could take any period of history and substitute any names. If you take the slightly later church, you could have Origen, Tertullian & Ignatius. Move on to the Reformation and it might be Luther, Calvin & Zwingli. Today, it could be any of those I named at the top. The important thing to me is that we don’t become followers of men & women, but that we are followers of Jesus. That’s pretty much Paul’s gist in this passage and it's one that I think has never ceased to be relevant.

Some individuals may be self-promoters, others are promoted by the institutions and organisations they are a part of. I would love if it the prominence were given not the person writing the books & blogs or preaching the sermons, but to the words that are written and spoken themselves. Instead of looking to a select few and hanging on their every word, I think it would be far better for the anonymous masses of churches to declare truth and have their words assessed on their own merits.

Of course, that then begs Pilate's question: "What is truth?"

Book Review: The Historical Reliability of the Gospels by Craig Blomberg

I was first made aware of this book a few years ago when I read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. For those unfamiliar with that book, the author is a former journalist who wanted to examine the evidence for the claims of the gospels by interviewing various christian scholars. One of the first experts Strobel interviews was Craig Blomberg, who refers to The Historical Reliability of the Gospels several times. The version I read was a later addition, and has clearly undergone some revisions. For starters, the version I read referenced books written after The Case For Christ was published.

To begin with, you have to note what this book is and what it is not. Blomberg deals with this question at the start of the book. He is only interested in the historical side of the gospels. Of course, from this stems the theological aspect, but that is not the aim of the book. He also restricts his view to look at the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John; there is very little by way of discussion of the rest of the New Testament, though I personally felt that it would have been apposite to include a look at Acts as well, given that that is the only historical book of the New Testament. Yet it has been left to a very brief discussion at the end of the book.

What follows is a work which summarises the scholarship of others, leaning heavily on the work Gospel Perspectives (which Blomberg contributed to, amongst others). He begins by looking at the general methods for the historical study of the gospels. These include harmonisation, redaction criticism and form criticism. Here, I felt Blomberg was fairly even-handed and gave praise to each methodology where due and criticism where it was deserved.

He demonstrates that he is not afraid to tackle potentially thorny issues head-on as from here he launches straight into the issue of miracles. He lays out various objections that one may have to believing the miracle stories of the gospels and then sets about his task of trying to show why they may be considered reasonable. It is here that I began to diverge from Blomberg. It seems his conclusions were reached before doing any research, though one may have guessed this from the outset. Personally, I found the chapter quite unconvincing and the arguments put forward fairly weak. That’s not to say I think it is without merit, but merely that his conclusions do not resonate with the evidence he presents. Central to this, and central to all of christian belief is the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Though multiple references are made to the recent magnum opus on this topic, N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God , I felt that Blomberg’s case was too watered down. If it doesn’t convince me, a believer (albeit one not to taking to believe anything that confirms my viewpoint) I strongly doubt it would convince even the most open-minded of sceptics.

From here, he then widens his viewpoint to look at contradictions between the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke), though he acknowledges at the start that there are so many “supposed” contradictions that he doesn’t have space to address them all. This is a little more reasonable than the previous section, particularly when one takes into account redaction criticism. The main argument is that if you accept that the gospels do not necessarily contain verbatim testimonies then to say “Jesus said x” may still be an honest and reliable account of the message he conveyed.

Central to Blomberg’s argument is to compare the multiple accounts of Jesus’ life to multiple accounts of other historical events and persons. Where there are summaries or apparent omissions, Blomberg challenges the critical reader to consider whether the gospels are often judged more harshly than other historical works. In particular, he argues that we ought to try and view the gospels through the eyes of early historians, rather than apply 20th/21st century historical analysis to a context where it does not belong.

Moving on from the Synoptics, he goes on to look at the specific case of the gospel of John. This is by far the most slippery of the gospels, when it comes to historicity. It seems to me a fairly common consensus that John was the last of the gospels to be written, and is the most “theologically biased.” In this, my opinion has generally been that the author of John’s gospel has been more of a portrait painter, whereas the Synoptic authors were trying to be more like photographers. So John has more character fleshing out the work, at the expense of strict historicity. Blomberg’s analysis seems to try to reconcile this view with his hypothesis that the gospel is also historically accurate. In this, though, he seems to come rather unstuck. He resorts to rhetorical flourishes at the end of his sections which give a far more firm conclusion than his own analysis allows for, which rather frustrated me as a reader. He tries to wriggle through arguments, rather than accepting what seems, to me at least, to be a far more reasonable conclusion that the gospel of John actually has some inconsistencies with the Synoptics. This is probably best demonstrated by Blomberg’s own words:

“Is John unaware the Jesus was born in Bethlehem rather than Nazareth? In fact, John knows the birthplace, but apparently some in Jesus’ audience did not. Their ignorance is not surprising, since Jesus had grown up and lived in Galilee for all but the earliest years of his life. That John lets this mistaken impression stand without comment testifies only to his skilful use of irony.”

His last major study is to look at the historicity of Jesus outside of the gospels; in other words the potential corroborative or falsifying evidence. This is one of the more convincing chapters, though its main point seems to be correcting the hypothesis that Jesus never existed.

In the appendices, Blomberg really hits the nail on the head. His section on historical methods is, I think, bang on. Here, he discusses what should be the “status quo” of belief when looking at any historical source. Should it be disbelieved until otherwise shown to be true? Should it be believed until otherwise shown to be false? Or should the default position be somewhere between? For me, this should probably have formed part of the introduction to the book as this historical hermeneutic is vital to how one undertakes such a study.

In his conclusion, Blomberg does not conclude that the gospels are entirely historically accurate. The evidence is not strong enough. Instead, he concludes that they have “general reliability.” That is, though they may not pin down every point precisely, they are sound enough to be regarded as the most trustworthy accounts for the life of Jesus.

There is one key omission from his discussion, and one that has been on my mind quite a bit over the last 6 months or so, which is the historicity of the Nativity narratives. But with that and a few points already mentioned aside, this is a worthwhile book to read. I don’t think it’s a totally convincing case but it does deserve to be taken seriously, as indeed Blomberg takes seriously the views of serious critical scholars.

Sacraments as Signposts

I was having a little think the other day about what those of a high church persuasion refer to as “sacraments.” I wrote a little about these fairly recently. What got me thinking was a few instances where I had various people push the idea of the sacraments as being the main part of any church service. That is, they were more important than the worship or the sermon, even to the extent that anything else was marginal.

Also, I was recently described as being anti-anglican, though I think this is not really an accurate label. What I am opposed to is tradition for tradition’s sake and instances where a church has become an institution. There are strong aspects of these in both Catholicism and Anglicanism, though it would be unfair to apply such a specific charge universally against such large and diverse bodies.

Coming from an independent church background, looking as an impartial outside observer upon the public face of these two organisations, I cannot escape the idea that today’s anglican and catholic churches are the equivalents of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day. Key to this is the sermon on the mount as recorded by Matthew. Throughout this section, Jesus emphasises that there is a reason for the law. The law does not exist for it’s own sake, it is an application of more fundamental ideas. He gives something of a backhanded compliment in chapter 5:17-20 (Green):

“Do not think that I came to annul the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to annul, but to fulfil. Truly I say to you, until the heavens and the earth pass away, in no way shall one iota or one tittle pass away from the law until all comes to pass. Whoever then shall break one of these commandments, the least, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens. For I say to you, if your righteousness shall not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, in no way shall you go into the kingdom of heaven.”

His point, which is also made elsewhere in the gospels is that the law was being observed for its own sake. The scribes and the Pharisees come across as being more concerned about the letter of the law than the underlying reasons for it. So while law and tradition are important, they are not the end goal.

So when I look at the institutional churches, what I see are institutions that are more concerned about their self-preservation and keeping their own rules and traditions than they are about actually being a church; where I’m using the term church to mean a collection of people.

So coming back to the sacraments, they are important for christianity, but they are not the be all and end all. They are signposts and symbols for God and the gospel. To become “evangelical for the sacraments” is like a person who spends their time admiring and arguing for the preservation of a motorway sign. We may be used to seeing the signs in a particular form, and if this form is changed, then I don’t doubt a conservative element would protest at such a change. But if a new format of the sign is used, which still serves the function, then it is in no way false, misleading or heretical. It’s just a different way of doing things.

Of course, one can to the other extreme and try to rid christianity of any and all traditions, embracing everything new just because it is new. Here, I am thinking particularly of the use of technology within churches. If you have song books that work well, is it really justified to spend a lot of money of a projection system? Of course, some investment may be necessary, but upgrading one's PA system just for the sake it shows, in my opinion, questionable discernment; and I have seen instances of this is quite a lot of churches of varying stripes.

Returning to the signpost analogy, by concentrating on the sign, you never embark on the journey. This is probably my biggest concern for those whose energies are devoted to the preservation of tradition. Trying to stick to the precise methodologies by those who lived in vastly different time period and culture seems to against the instruction for each “to work out their own salvation.” By concentrating on treading in the footsteps of others, we may never look up and notice our surroundings or where we are headed. To this end, I love the maxim from Hebrews “Looking unto Jesus” which was, by the way, my old school motto.

Empty chair syndrome

Last autumn, there were a couple of stories going round the blogosphere (though rarely hitting mainstream media) that seemed to me very similar, though with some holding apparently contradictory views. The link between them is an empty chair on a stage. During his recent speaking tour of the UK, William Lane Craig invited Richard Dawkins to a debate. Craig was already booked to speak at the venue in Oxford, so Dawkins would not have as far to travel as the visiting American. Dawkins declined this invitation, though apparently Craig left an empty chair on stage to signify Dawkins’ absence.

More recently, another empty chair was left on stage, at a test for Sally Morgan. Led in part by the science writer (and now something of a libel law expert), Simon Singh, Sally Morgan had been invited to take part in a test of her psychic abilities. Like Dawkins, she declined this invitation. Unlike Dawkins, though, Morgan chose not to write an ad hominem attack on Singh to be published by a national newspaper. There were however, some letters sent between Singh and Morgan’s lawyers, which, in spite of being marked “Strictly Private and Confidential” Singh thought appropriate to publish online. I will leave it to you to consider whether it was appropriate to publish the letters.

What struck me was the reaction from the “pop science” or “science journalism” section of the blogosphere, who seemed to consider that in the case of Dawkins/Craig, that the person declining the invitation was right in declining and that the empty chair was a bullying gesture, while in the Morgan/Singh case, Morgan was considered be the slippery one who was rejecting a perfectly honest invitation.

My personal opinion is that in both cases, the invitation should have been accepted. My reasons are as follows: Both Dawkins & Morgan have made personal financial profit from their relative claims. As such, there is some duty of responsibility to defend their claims. In contrast to this, had an anonymous blogger (such as myself) been invited, I think there wouldn’t be a duty as no one has paid me for my writing or for a tv show (which is probably a fair reflection of the value of my thoughts!). Both have considerable media experience and so would not be flayed in an environment where they are far less experienced and uncomfortable than their critics.

On the other hand, I do have sympathy for them both. In both cases, there was an underlying theme of trying to portray the non-attendee as being in some way scared or unwilling to appear on a platform with their critics. The empty chair is loaded symbolism, somewhat akin to giving them a white feather, in an effort to shame them. This is, I think, an act of bullying that should not be encouraged.

In the case of Craig/Dawkins there was also a phrase banded about to the effect of “[this would look good on your CV, not mine]” in reference to the merits of one having debated the other. I think various other commenters have made as much of this as can be made, so I will offer nothing further.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever invited me to a debate or a test of my claims in a public arena. I certainly do not recall ever having declined such an invitation. If such an invitation were to come, I think in all probability that I would decline. I am not a skilled debater. One of the reasons that I choose to write is that I have a mild stammer, which always makes me appear to be even less intelligent than I actually am. The trouble is, my mind moves faster than my mouth, so when I come to speak I can usually think of 2 or 3 ways of saying the same thing, and I often get muddled. By writing, this can be slowed down. So when it comes to oratory, I prefer to write word-for-word and then either read or memorise what I am to say. This makes such events as those Dawkins & Morgan were invited to something of a problem for me.

But if such a case were to arise, I would dearly hope that no one leaves an empty chair for me on stage. It is an act that I think is ungracious and, if you will allow me to be a little quaint, a rather poor show. If I were to go further into old parlance, I would say it is “ungentlemanly” or “unladylike” though I hope you do not infer this to be sexist; it is not meant to be.

It is rare for me to pick a fight. I do not go out of my way to present challenges to others that I demand they meet. I may ask questions of them to clarify their views and I may respond to articles, blog posts, etc. that others have written. Anyone is, of course, welcome to write responses to anything I write. If such a response is included, I would hope that they inform me and I am very willing to provide a link to any such response in my blog. I do not like the empty chair and would hope that I never stoop to such a cheap level as to do anything like it. Debate and the free exchange of ideas should not be about point-scoring, but should be constructive and proactive; something I always try to achieve here, though I could not necessarily say that I always succeed.

10 Reasons why I’d make a rubbish charismatic christian

I recently came across a few posts that were along the lines of “I’d make a rubbish [insert denomination/tradition/affiliation] christian” where the person identifies their own particular type of church. I’ve long thought that I don’t really belong in the kind of church that I do. I think part of it is that I would never want to attend a local church where I was totally comfortable; I like to be challenged and, in turn, to challenge others.

So this is my contribution/confession. I don’t identify my church, as I am not a spokesman for it, but it is sufficient to say that it is an independent charismatic Pentecostal church with no strong ties to any major national or international umbrella organisation. Just note, the only order here is the order I thought of them, and they are no way meant to represent any sort of scale of importance.

I’d make a rubbish charismatic because…

1. I’m not very charismatic. OK, I know that charismatic in the church sense is derived is ‘charismata’ meaning spiritual gifts (see point 6 below) but it is commonly taken in the English vernacular meaning of an outgoing, bubbly sort of person. I’m a quiet, withdrawn, dull sort of person.

2. I never finished The Purpose Driven Life. This seems to be one of the most widely read books in charismatic circles, but I couldn’t stand it. The introduction asks you to sign an agreement with the author, and asks that you only work through 1 tiny chapter each day. I don’t sign agreements readily and don’t’ restrict my reading. I could quite easily have finished the book in a week. But it was just so trite and patronising. And as for the theology, don’t get me started…

3. I’m highly sceptical about the Toronto Blessing and Lakeland Revival. Much has been written and said on both of these events. My personal take (briefly) is that what may have started out as a genuine outpouring of the Holy Spirit was quickly overtaken by mass hysteria and hype. To the best of my knowledge, not one of the claimed healings at Lakeland was ever verified (please point me to the supporting evidence if I am wrong).

4. I don’t have the gift of tongues. This often seems to be over-emphasised in charismatic circles. I think it partly comes about as a result of a particular reading of 1 Corinthians 12:31 where Paul writes “strive for the greater gifts” and this is taken immediately to mean talking in foreign languages (or xenolalia). I’m not convinced it is (Paul, in the same book, writes that he would rather people prophesy than speak in foreign languages). I also find it quite demeaning when you hear the occasional preacher saying that if you don’t speak in tongues then you’re not a “true christian.” I find that really unhelpful and wonder how many people have left churches because of a similar rhetoric.

5. I don’t have a copy of the New Living Translation. This seems to be the most common version of the bible used in Charismatic churches, though it’s surprisingly hard to get hold of a copy in print. I had a discussion on what version of the bible I used recently.

6. I read the bible in Greek. This is not a boast. I can only read Greek due to the fact that I did a maths degree at university. We quickly ran out of symbols from the modern alphabets and by convention, Greek was the most common. I have had a go at reading Euclid in its original form, though that’s pretty touch going. I rely on Strong’s Greek dictionary in my concordance for the translations. If I am ever unsure about the particular phrasing I go back to the Greek to look it up. Most charismatics I know quote the bible as if it were written in English. Jesus did not say “I am the way the truth and the life,” because he didn’t speak English.

7. I’m not a young earth creationist. Though not a universal amongst charismatics, I think there is a broad leaning towards this view. I know there are some in my own church, and some that are not. For most, though, I don’t know what their view is. I’ve laid out mine here.

8. I don’t drink beer. What I find distinguishes charismatics from, say, baptists, is that fewer charismatics are tee-total. Meetings at the pub are fairly commonplace. However, I never acquired the taste for beer and the smell of it makes me nauseous.

9. I’m highly interested in Biblical origins. This is linked in with points 6 & 8 above. Most charismatics I have across don’t seem to consider the question too much and treat the bible as a neat package, delivered on their doorstep, with no questions about its origin being considered. I find it a fascinating field of study and makes me look at both biblical and non-biblical theological writings in a quite different way than I used to. I am writing a blog post on this subject at the moment, but have no idea when I shall finish.

10. I think that doubt is a valuable thing. I have often heard the notion “don’t think, just believe.” This is usually my prompt to walk out, as I think it’s an abandonment of rational thinking. When we’re called to “love God...with all our minds” I take that to mean we have to be intellectually honest, acknowledge uncertainty and be willing to admit we might be wrong. I subscribe to the view that doubt leads to enquiry which leads to improved knowledge & understanding. For an overview of my theological epistemology, see this.

Book Review: Did St Paul Get Jesus Right by David Wenham

This is actually the second time I’ve tried to write this, as I accidentally deleted the first one. Normally I don’t write reviews more than a couple of weeks after I finish a book, but this is an exception to that.

This was the first book I finished that I received for my birthday last month. The reason I was interested in this was to explore the idea of Pauline theology as it relates to christian theology as a whole. In many online discussions I have, there is often reference made to Paul in particular shaping the form of the early christian church. Though it may be difficult to do, because of prior knowledge of Paul, I think it would be nonetheless interesting to see what kind of belief might emerge if someone were given the Bible, but with all of Paul’s writings erased. Would the theology that emerged be radically different from the many ‘flavours’ of christianity that we already have?

It has to be noted that the book is very short, at just over 150 pages, and I got through it in a week, even though I was reading another book at the same time. The basic question is that of the title of the book. The author begins by making more of a populist case than a scholarly one, by citing Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ as representing the viewpoint which Wenham sets out to oppose. Since these are both works of fiction, it seems a similar approach to opposing christianity by taking The Shack and Left Behind as your starting point. He does mention a couple of more serious writers in passing, though they are not mentioned again beyond the opening chapter.

Wenham starts his answer by looking at whether or not the documents we have are the most reliable sources for our information. In this, he stays close to the orthodox views of F.F. Bruce’s Are The New Testament Documents Reliable. This orthodox theme runs through the book; so although Wenham claims he’s trying to taking an impartial view, I couldn’t escape the idea that his conclusions had already been reached and that the substance of the chapters was his filling out the pages.

He goes on to look at various issues, which are all pertinent. These include Paul’s view on Jesus himself, ideas of apostleship, sex and the afterlife. One of the more interesting points is how little Paul directly refers to the teachings of Jesus. Though Wenham correctly points out that there may well have been a difference between Paul’s letters and his preaching, I don’t think the explanation that recalling Jesus’ teaching was restricted to Paul’s preaching which we don’t have preserved, though reasonable, is not entirely convincing.

What I felt was lacking was a rigorous engagement with the views that Wenham sets out to oppose. I wouldn’t quite say he was setting up a straw man; it was more a case of occasionally talking about a straw man that you couldn’t examine in detail. What Wenham does present is very good and deserves serious consideration; if a writer were to put forward a case proposing that Paul was primarily responsible for the foundation of christianity, they would have to engage with Wenham’s arguments and do a lot of work to cast doubt upon or refute them. Well worth a read, but it’s left me wanting to read some other follow-ups.

How do you define a christian: Concluding remarks

This has been a brief overview of some of my thinking as to how we may define a christian. I’ve looked as self-definition, creeds & confessions, the sacraments as boundaries and a cocktail of beliefs.

Hopefully, if you’ve had the patience to read it all, you will have realised that I don’t have a definitive version of what defines a christian and what doesn’t. All I have done is looked at some of the ways in which christians have been defined and shown how they fall short of making a clear demarcation. What that leaves us with is a grey area, and quite a large one at that. Does that mean that there isn’t a definition? No; I don’t think so.

Lurking in the background to all this is of course, the No True Scotsman fallacy. For those unfamiliar with it, please follow the link above. To my mind, there is a difference between there not being a definition and for me as an individual being honest enough to say “I don’t know.”

The way I think of it is like this: The visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is quite narrow, but we can perceive multiple colours within that narrow range. We might very clearly say that an atheist is a radio wave or a Muslim may be an X-ray, they clearly aren’t in the visible light spectrum. When we look at ourselves, we are more inclined to say those in our own nearby vicinity are christians, and perceive those as being far away as being at least questionable. So you might say that I sit at the orange end and am happy to worship alongside the reds and yellows, but I’m not so sure about the purple lot. Meanwhile, those that I perceive as being merely purple are having a fight over whether they’re indigo or violet, whilst viewing me as being a long way from their beliefs and practices. Simply because there is a spectrum of belief within christianity doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as a “true christian,” just as you can’t really uphold the idea that there’s no such thing as “visible light.”

Most importantly, I don’t think it is the job of any individual or any organisation to make a determination of who is and who isn’t a christian. The writer to the Hebrews said “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is also able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render account.” (Hebrews 4: 12,13). I’d rather let God decide. It’s a far better judge than I am. Each of the factors discussed in the parts of this series is, I think, a strong indicator, but any one of them alone is not sufficient to be able to tell apart who is a christian and who isn’t. Throughout this, I tried where possible (and probably failed) to distinguish between being discerning and being judgemental.

We are called to be discerning, but warned against judging others; it’s a fine line to tread and I know I get it wrong on plenty of occasions, just as I see others around me do the same (and yes, I will confess to judging people because they judge others).

I think I probably ought to call a halt to it there. So that’s an outline of my muddled thinking. Do you try and define who is and who isn’t a christian? Is it too thorny an issue? Do you think I’m a heretic that should be burned at the stake?

How do you define a christian? Part 4: Denominations, cults & heretics

Link to Part 1: Self-definition
Link to Part 2: Creeds & confessions
Link to Part 3: Sacraments as boundaries

To say one is a christian, but to not identify exclusively with one denomination can be like saying that you’re a football fan but refusing to be drawn on which team you support; it’s possible but really quite unusual. You are generally expected to pin your colours firmly to one mast or another.

I am very happy in a large number of different types of churches. The church I attend at present is usually described as Pentecostal, though I would consider it to be quite non-denominational. I do not include a link here as I am not a spokesperson for the church and the views expressed here are my own. *waves to the one church elder who I know reads this blog*

Though I made reference to “my church” there are actually several that I attend, depending on whereabouts in the country I find myself on a Sunday morning. Of those that I attend, the one unifying theme is that they have a culture of “come as you are.” They could all be described as a “jeans and t-shirt” church where all are welcome and no one is elevated above anyone else by use of an elaborate garb.

I will admit to feeling less comfortable in Anglican churches. There are a few reasons for this: I sketched my thoughts on Anglican worship recently, so I won’t cover that again. My other objection, and here I use Anglicanism as an example, though the objection extends elsewhere, is that it has become a hierarchical organisation. [I ought to note, for honesty’s sake that I started to ramble at this point, but have cut much out and will save for a later post on why I am not a fan of hierarchical organisation as a substitute for church]. Then we have the problematic issue of Roman Catholicism, which I will come onto shortly.

As I see it, the differences between most denominations are barely skin deep. It might be fairest to describe such differences really as issues of emphasis rather than of fundamentally different beliefs. I find it helpful to think of a picture that has some sort of computer editing going on. One denomination may emphasise the blue hues of a picture, another may emphasise the reds. Nonetheless, they are looking at the same picture, with the same lines and forms, though to an outside observer, they may note the slight differences without spotting the overwhelming similarities.

But what about denominations that take things away from the gospel that others would consider essential? I think of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Unitarians, neither of whom recognise Jesus as being equal with God. In this respect, their theology is far more like that of the Ebionites, who considered Jesus to be fully man, and a good man, great teacher, etc. but without acknowledging him as being one with God. Are they christians, or a quasi-christian cult?

Then what about Mormons? With their additional book by Joseph Smith, have they added to the gospel, and maybe in so doing taken something out of it? I find it quite interesting actually to compare the origins of Mormonism with that of Islam, with the author of their key books claiming it was given to them by an angel. I can’t help but think Joseph Smith nicked the idea somewhat.

The truth is, I’m not really sure how to write about this subject. I merely think that the issue needs raising and perhaps one of you, who I am sure is a better writer than I, can take it up. To my mind, there is something of a sliding scale with no real demarcations between denominations, cults and heretics.

A battle I constantly face is one of balance between judgement and discernment; a battle that I don’t think I always get on the right side of. On the one side, christians have the famous instruction: “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” whilst at the same time the books of the New Testament are littered with calls to be discerning and to avoid false teachers. In general, I am in favour of what is known as the “ecumenical movement” (cue mental images of Father Jack!), which is a fancy way of saying “have lots of different churches work together.” But I do sometimes question whether in a search for unity, that sometimes there may be a danger of accepting something which is false. At one extreme, you may abandon discernment and accept all & sundry; whilst at the other, you may exclude just about all apart from the Baptist chapel across the road. I have seen both extreme ends of this in practice.

On the subject of heresies, I would heartily recommend two books I have read recently on the topic: My review of Bart Ehrman’s Lost Christianities may be found here and a review of Alister McGrath’s Heresy is here.

One thing McGrath helpfully describes in his book is that such groups just about always arise from within the ‘mainstream’ church (however you define that: though that may be a significant part of the problem). When I talk of cults, the most obvious examples I have in mind are the cults of Jim Jones or the Branch Davidian cult of Waco fame.

But then there are other groups, which may not be as well known about, that share similar characteristics. One that I have come across, and after prayerful consideration decided it would be best to not have anything to do with, call themselves The New Mystics. This group is quite different in structure from some other cults in that they do not isolate themselves off from the world. Nonetheless, they would claim to be christians and openly preach ‘a’ gospel. What they declare though is very often cherry-picked (though if I’m honest, I’m sure most christians, and non-christians too, have done this at one time or another to try to back up their point). The key feature of the New Mystics is that they are a group of “experientialists.” In other words, there is no place for truth in their teaching apart from the truth of what you feel; it's all about "experiencing God." It is noticeable that many of their key figureheads (the most notable being John Crowder) is that they are former drug addicts, and as such their whole worldview is based around the language and imagery of drugs.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking cultural adaptation. Jesus himself was great at using the everyday examples he had around him as communication tools with his followers. But when the symbolism is used as substitute for the thing which it is meant to represent, you are on deeply dangerous territory. In this respect, I think the New Mystics have much in common with the Roman Catholic take on communion.

The observant among you will notice that in much of what I say and write, I will often draw a distinction between what I would call christians and Roman Catholics. This may be seen as antagonistic, though it is never meant to be. I know quite a few catholics who are christian, but even they recognise that the two are not synonymous. The issue here is not of taking things away from the gospel per se, but rather the “add-ons” which detract from the gospel. I won’t go into detail here, but to summarise the things I am uncomfortable with in Catholicism include (but are not limited to): papal status, absolution by priests, forbidding of marriage, mass, saint worship and the over-emphasis on Mary.

As noted by McGrath in his book on Heresy, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a church in Germany, an act which ultimately resulted in the Reformation, he was considered be a heretic by the catholic church. However, he successfully rebutted the accusations and demonstrated that the ideas of the reformation were not new, but were rather a partial restoration of the early church model.

At this point, history should record that Catholicism join the list of heresies that has been rejected by mainstream christianity throughout the centuries, placing it alongside Docetism, Pelagianism, Valentinism, Ebionitism, Arianism, etc. It is just a curious feature that the organisation as retained adherents and survived to this day. I know that’s not a particularly popular view, but it is the truth as I see it.

But does this mean that adherents to such views are not christians? No. That's not what I'm saying. While I believe them to be mistaken, I am not in favour of the "excommunication" route. As christians, we do make mistakes and get the wrong end of the stick, just like anyone else. But what is so amazing is that we are given the freedom and grace to make such mistakes. Holding incorrect views doesn't nullify salvation. I believe the church should be open to all, and that any such views which may cause division or misunderstanding only become an issue when it comes to what the church teaches.

So where does that leave us in our search for how define a christian? Well, I’ll wrap up in a concluding post (which should hopefully be shorter than this one) soon.

Paul: Disciple, apostle, both, neither?

About a month ago now, Gurdur delivered an interesting post on the ministry of Paul, and how it does or doesn’t relate to the ministry of Jesus. The idea that Paul was the real “inventor” of christianity who misinterpreted Jesus is a very old one, but one that has had something of a mini-revival of late.

As it references a couple of other blog posts, I would recommend you follow-up on those as well. I promised Gurdur a response, so here is mine. OK, it’s the start of mine. This has started to snowball, and I’m still trying to dig up some reliable evidence for the later parts. So this is going to be split across several posts, to avoid it becoming a thesis.

As it happens, I was given the book Did St Paul Get Jesus Right? by David Wenham for my birthday, after I made that promise. Though I had an outline of a response in mind after reading Gurdur’s original post, I have subsequently read Wenham’s book (and a review will follow later). So while the thrust of my discussion is unchanged, some of the fine details have been influenced by this subsequent reading.

The main point I wanted to pick up on here was this quote:

“it's odd how much regard many Christians give Paul, given Paul never even was rumoured to have met Jesus. An experience, a vision along the road to Damascus? So what? Many of us have such things without getting adulated for it. Paul simply wasn't one of the disciples.”

I’m not sure if Gurdur meant modern christians, early christians or both, though I think in terms of the modern christians, the dominant reasons are the fact that he is credited with writing the largest number of books of the New Testament (even though the writings of Luke actually account for a largest number of words) and also his great erudition in those writings.

I think Gurdur has made a very common mistake here that many christians still get confused about; that of equating the terms “apostle” and “disciple” and using them interchangeably. The Greek term translated as disciple is ‘mathetes’ which can also be translated (according to Strong’s) as ‘student’, ‘follower’ or ‘a committed learner and follower’. In this parlance, a disciple is a very wide group, in a similar way that the term ‘saint’ was originally meant to mean ‘a believer’ and was not reserved for any special set of individuals, which is why I refer to Paul rather than to St Paul. If Gurdur meant he wasn’t one of “The Twelve,” then this is, of course, correct.

On the other hand, the term translated as apostle is ‘apostolos’ derived from ‘apostello’ which means to send out. Etymologically, this is also where get the term apostate from, although in the former sense it is used to mean sent out in a more missionary-style meaning, whereas the latter has connotations of excommunication. Again, referring to Strong’s, one of the uses specifies “often used as in a technical sense for the divinely appointed founders of the church.”

To me, one of the key passages in understanding the difference is Matthew 10, when the gospel author begins by saying “And having called his twelve disciples, He gave them authority over unclean spirits, so as to throw them out, and to heal every disease and every weakness of the body. And the names of the twelve apostles were….”

I understand this as a demonstration that there is a difference between a disciple and an apostle, and that difference is the authority given to them by Jesus. A disciple is someone who follows a given leader, but an apostle is someone who is sent out with authority by a leader.

The split in the uses between apostle & disciple is very interesting. The term apostle is used only once in Matthew (in the passage cited above), once in Mark, 6 times in Luke and never in John. The majority of the uses are in the book of Acts with the rest of the uses scattered amongst the epistles. If you compare this to the term disciple, the latter’s use is never used in the epistles. It is used 242 times between Matthew & Acts. Matthew has the most with around 75 uses; Acts has the fewest with about 27 (I haven’t been too precise in my counting).

Further evidence to support the difference between the disciples and apostles is provided in the first use in Acts, in chapter 1. Peter is described as standing up in the middle of the disciples, who numbered about 120. He goes on to talk about replacing Judas, who by this time had committed suicide. Two possible candidates were chosen from amongst those who had been with them since Jesus’s baptism from John. This implies to me there was a bit of a crowd that followed Jesus regularly, in addition to The Twelve. This does make for an interesting view when you read the gospels and read of Jesus talking to his disciples, where many (I think) assume the gospel author is talking about 12 individuals, when I think it may in fact be more; but I'm not certain of this.

Anyway, that was a long interlude. Back to Paul. The question is, was he really an apostle?

Although I am not well versed in the reasons for believing it, I am of the understanding that Galatians is widely considered to be the earliest of the books to be written by Paul. His opening statement is pretty unequivocal in affirming his apostleship.

It is not surprising that there is general harmony between the accounts of Paul’s conversion (I really hate that word, by the way, it makes it sound like a person is a car) in Acts and Galatians. Given that is likely that Acts was written by Luke, who joined Paul on one of his later journeys, then the accounts that Luke gives (in chapters 9, 22 and 26) was probably passed on to him by Paul in the first place. It has to be noted that even Luke makes a bit blunder in internal consistency as to whether or not Paul’s companions heard a voice or not (compare 9:7 with 22:9). Again, here we see a differentiation between the disciples and the apostles in that Paul says he didn’t meet up with the apostles for 3 years after Damascus (Galatians 1:12-20) yet in the account in Acts the first thing he did was go to the disciples in Acts 9:1-26.

When the term apostle is used in relation to Paul, the main passage I would reference is 1 Corinthians 9 where it seems evident that Paul has made a claim to be an apostle but that this is disputed by some people in in the church at Corinth. In verse 1, Paul’s own definition seems to be someone who has seen Jesus, which is where we come back to Gurdur’s point about the road to Damascus.

I don’t know precisely what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus. I have heard the explanation of an epileptic fit, and indeed I have heard that used a possible explanation of what some passages of the bible describe as demonic possession. Some of this is explored by Charles Foster in his book, Wired For God, where he states, “The history of religion is crowded with epileptics,” and this is then referenced to The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginning of Modern Neurology by O. Temkin, though I have not read this book myself. The one thing I think it is fairly safe to say is that something happened to Paul; I think to claim that the whole episode was conjured up seems far-fetched, given that Paul was travelling was others present at the time who could have easily testified otherwise. The fact that they are neither named nor referred to again except for the Damascus testimonies is, for the historian, just a bit annoying. But it doesn't falsify Paul's testimony.

I think Gurdur summed it up well with the phrase: "Unanswered and unanswerable questions." From my point of view, I don't think it's particularly important whether or not we consider Paul to be an apostle. The only time it really makes anything more than a semantic difference is if one appeals to "apostolic authority" in relation to the formation of the New Testament canon.

In the next part of the response, I'll be looking a bit more at the authorship of some of the Pauline corpus and considering whether or not some, all or none was forged.

How do you define a christian? Part 3: Sacraments as boundaries

Part 1: Self-definition
Part 2: Creeds & Confessions

In most forms of christianity, there are various “ceremonies” which are often referred to as ‘sacraments’ by those of a high church persuasion. Sociologically, these can be good demarcation boundaries for who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out.’ In particular, the two I am thinking of are baptism and communion (the latter also known variously as eucharist, holy communion, mass or The Lord’s Supper). Personally, I’m not a fan of the term sacraments, as it is quite pretentious and off-putting for those who are not well versed in high church terminology. My own view is that church should be open and welcoming, including in the terminology used. The ordinary person on the street should not be given any reason to stay away from church on the basis that they don’t know what the “right way” is to behave and talk in church.

There’s an early christian handbook for new believers, which seems partly based on the gospel of Matthew, called the Didache [you can read the full text of the book here]. If you read down, chapter 7 has specific instructions on baptism and chapter 9 has instructions on communion. Both are very formal and ritualised but will be familiar to those who have grown up in many western churches today.

I recently read both the book itself, along with an analysis of it by a catholic professor, Thomas O’ Loughlin (you can read the review here). Although I think O’Loughlin missed the point somewhat, he does make an interesting observation when he says:

“any group which has a developed sense of belonging…; a firm sense its own history….; and a clear unifying set of ‘facts’….will have a very clear sense of its boundaries, and of who is within the group. Furthermore, it will ritualize [sic] the gateways in those boundaries so that the whole group have a badge of identity and newcomers know they have crossed a threshold.”

This is also echoed slightly by the christian theologian, Tom Wright, in Surprised by Hope, when he says:

“I have come to believe that the sacraments are best understood within the theology of creation and new creation….God’s future has burst into the present and…somehow the sacraments are not just signs of the reality of the new creation but actually part of it. Thus the event of baptism – the action, the water, the going down and coming up again, the new clothes – is not just a signpost of the reality of the new birth, the membership (as all birth gives membership) in the new family. It really is the gateway to that membership.” (emphasis added)

I do not think that the purpose of baptism and communion is to act as ritualised gateways, though I do think such the sacraments may be used thus. To draw an analogy, the raison d’etre of a book is to be read, although that doesn’t stop me from using it as a doorstop or as a spider-squashing device. The purpose of baptism is to publically declare one’s faith, but this is no way determines whether or not someone is a christian. If you accept the idea of baptism as a “gateway” then, when taken in a soteriological sense, this would mean that those who are not baptised cannot be part of God’s kingdom. I would argue instead that it is an indication(but not a definitive marker) that one already has become part of God’s kingdom.

One very interesting thing to note is that while we have a record of Jesus being baptised, and of John the Baptist doing the same to others, there is no record of any members of The Twelve themselves being baptised. They are instructed in the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The book of Acts describes some of the early church leaders performing baptisms, yet I don’t recall seeing a specific incident where they themselves were baptised. The closest I could find was in Paul’s letter to the Romans where he uses the inclusive term “us” to describe those are baptised, implying he was shortly after his experience on the road to Damascus (watch this space for a further post on that topic, later this week or early next week).

This, of course, does not mean baptism is a once-and-for-all thing, which I suppose sets me apart (pardon the pun) from Calvinism where the idea of a secure election is sacrosanct. I have many friends who have publically declared their faith and been baptised only later to have left church life, renounced their faith or just plain old given up. One of the better writers on the web who has done this is Daniel Florien, author of the Unreasonable Faith blog.

In any sociological group, there is an important concept of “the other” – i.e. to define oneself not only by what you are, but also by what you are not. So I acknowledge it can be helpful to think in terms of those who are baptised as different from those who are not, or to consider those who take part in communion as having a different belief from those who do not take part. Yet I think it isn’t helpful to regard these as absolute boundaries.

There is a very obvious thought experiment one could do: suppose someone, having examined the evidence and reasons for belief, makes the free and conscious decision to “become a christian” (however they want to phrase this). They are on their way to publically acknowledge this by being baptised and on the way there they are killed. If we take Wright’s view at face value, then this person would not have met the membership requirement of the new birth. O’Loughlin’s view is not quite as harsh, but there would certainly be considerable doubt over whether they might be considered to be an ‘insider.’

It is also interesting to note that between them, the different stances churches adopt on baptism and communion are probably two of the main reasons for divisions and splits, which in my opinion is a sad state of affairs. I won’t go into any detail here, as the next section in this mini-series will be on denominations where I will be exposing some of my own prejudices on the matter.

Book Review: Surprised By Hope by Tom Wright

Before reading this, I knew it was a kind of ‘lite’ version of the Resurrection of the Son of God (RSG), which Wright published a few years earlier. There was also some additional material included, where he built upon the conclusions reached at the end of RSG. The only other thing I was aware of was that it was not universally welcomed by all christians, and has faced something of a backlash at times.

The book is certainly aimed at a wider audience than RSG as Wright tries as hard as possible to say away from technical terminology, though he can’t resist returning to ‘inaugurated eschatology’ on one or two occasions. As usual, though, his writing style is brilliant, clear and easy to follow. He picks his analogies carefully, and always maintains a pace to keep the reader interested.

His basic thesis is as follows: many christians have muddled beliefs about death, resurrection and the afterlife. This then leads on to a confused idea of how the ideas of life after death relate to ideas of life before death. The book outlines some of the current ideas about these topics and Wright contrasts these with the beliefs of the early church, or what we might consider to be “authentic” christian belief. He demonstrates how some ideas that are commonly assumed to be christian are in fact adopted or adapted from alternative sources. One example of this is the notion of Hell. Many christians that I know have very firm ideas of a literal lake of fire and eternal torment, when in fact this is really just the Hellenistic idea of Hades, with some twists put on it by the likes of Dante Alighieri and John Milton.

Similarly, the traditional idea of heaven and the Roman Catholic idea of Purgatory are also shown to have no real relation the beliefs held by the early church. As I read it, I found myself agreeing with much of what he said, sometimes suspiciously too much, so that I questioned whether or not my own prejudices were being pandered to. Certainly I find myself frustrated when I wish to challenge fellow christians about what they believe only to have told to me “The bible says… [insert Sunday school cliché]” to the extent that I question how many people regularly question what they believe and look to the bible for a proper basis, rather than cherry-picking certain passages and claiming the bible “says” what their particular interpretation is of this particular passage.

Of course, I don’t deny the possibility that I may do that myself. Just like anyone else, I’m a fallible human. If you think I’m wrong, please feel free to point me in the right direction (or at least, what you believe the right direction to be!).

Wright develops his own idea of “Hell” which he admits has no significant precedent. His view is that we become more and more defined by that which we worship and define ourselves by. So while christians become more Christ-like, those who “refuse all whisperings of good news, all glimmers of the true light…by their own effective choice, [become] beings that once were human but now are not, creatures that have ceased to bear the divine image at all.” (emphasis included in original text).

I do not agree with this, as my understanding of the bible leads me to be an annihilationist. I know this is also not a widely accepted view, though this does only prove Wright’s point that there is a wide range of beliefs within christianity.

From here, the level of controversy only increases. Having set out his stall with the historic evidence for the resurrection, what the ascension meant and what the earliest creation hope for “life after life after death” he then moves on to the idea of salvation. The two key questions posed, which I think we all ought to answer, are:

1) What are we saved from?
2) What are we saved for?

Wright’s particular answer is framed in terms of creation and new creation. Given my own liberal-baptist background, I have been used to the idea that salvation is about the restoration of a broken relationship with God. Wright calls this into question and claims such a worldview has missed the point. Personal salvation is a secondary matter to the restoration of creation. This view is, I think, one of the main areas where he rubs up against a large number of christians, who have been taught a different emphasis. I say emphasis, because I don’t think it really is a fundamentally different understanding from that taught from the front of churches week in, week out; but the deanthropocentrication represents a massive shift in focus.

Following on from this, the final section of the book looks at how this all affects the look of the church. Here, Wright does not shy away from politics. And when christianity (or religion, if you consider christianity to be a religion) and politics mix, controversy almost inevitably follows. It is probably fair to describe Wright as morally conservative but socially liberal. He has criticisms of both the right and left wings of the political spectrum. Probably the most insightful area of this section is when he talks about the “massive economic imbalance of the world, whose major symptom is the ridiculous and unpayable Third World debt.” He goes on to say, “I simply want to record my conviction that this is the Number One moral issue of our day….The present system of global debt is the real immoral scandal, the dirty little secret – or rather the dirty enormous secret – of glitzy, glossy western capitalism.” Now that you’ve read that, consider this: this book was published in 2007, a full year before the Credit Crunch.

The conclusions of the last couple of chapters are not always that insightful or strong. Here, Wright does betray an Anglican bias, particularly with his advocacy of liturgy and other such religious rituals. So in one moment he calls for us to be living as “resurrection people” but in the next he supposes that the best way to live this out is in religiosity. I completely disagree with this application. I don’t think religion should have any part in christianity, so for me, this final section devalues the book slightly.

Other than that, it is an insightful and thought-provoking read; well-written with a razor sharp wit and a well-researched basis.

A lunchtime with Tom Wright

A few weeks ago, I caught wind that Tom Wright was in town. Regular readers will be aware that I have a lot of respect for him. I first came across him when he was made the bishop of Durham in 2003, where I was living at the time. There was a chap at my church who described his job as “reading books on behalf of the bishop.” For the last 20 years he’s been writing his “For everyone” series of the New Testament (NT). This is a series of easily accessible commentaries on each of the books of the New Testament, where Wright has provided his own translation of each book. He has now finished the series and this talk was to publicise his complete New Testament, “The New Testament for Everyone.” After the talk there was to be a Q&A session, before signing some books.

The talk was scheduled for lunchtime, though it was over a mile from my office, so I had to get my skates on a bit. It also happened to be a very hot day in late September, so by the time I got there my shirt was rather sticking to my back and all I could think about was grabbing a cool drink. All that was on offer though was wine, and this was the last thing I wanted on a hot day. As it turned out, I got there a little bit early, which was a slight relief, as I had envisioned bursting in late, sweaty and out of breath. As it was, I burst in early, sweaty and out of breath!

The location, the London Centre for Spirituality, is a slightly odd place. Situated just a few yards from The Bank of England, right in the heart of the City, you are greeted by a small bookshop as soon as you walk in. But at the back of the bookshop is a highly ornate Anglican/Catholic style church building, replete with stained glass windows. There were very few chairs out, maybe around 30-40. Most of those at the back were taken so I perched myself on the front row.

I was expecting to stand out as the only bloke there under 45, but I was pleasantly surprised to find there was a really healthy mix of ages there. They ranged from about 4 or 5 (a young girl brought by her mum) right up to a few who I’d estimate to be in their 80’s.

We got going a few minutes late with a brief introduction from the guy who seemed to be running the bookshop giving a very brief introduction. There then followed a second introduction from Simon Kingston, the head of SPCK Publishing. The thing most noticeable about all this was the odd behaviour of the bookshop owner who, when he wanted to clap, held his arms out at full length in front of him, elbows straight. The other thing to notice was Simon Kingston’s waistcoat, which was brilliant. I wish I had a photo of it, but it didn’t seem appropriate.

Anyway, the main topic was the translation of the NT and the “for everyone” series. Wright had been approached when he was the Dean of Lichfield to write a commentary on every book of the NT. The idea was that it was supposed to be for the person “in the back pew.” In his description of the background and target audience, Wright certainly betrayed his Anglican tendencies, given talk of “pews” and “laity.” In his estimation, only a minority of Christians ever read their bibles, finding an old dusty AV on the shelf to be an intimidating prospect. While this may be true of Anglicans, it is not something I’ve found to be in the case of the various Baptist/charismatic/Pentecostal churches I have been to over the last past 3 decades.

The intention was to make the NT accessible again. One of the things Wright drew on was one part of the Lord’s prayer, where Jesus talked about “giving us our daily bread,” as opposed to merely giving us some bread once and for all, allowing it to go stale. From this, Wright proposed that every generation ought to have its own translation of the bible.

He then talked a little about the difficulties of translation, where one can try and find a one-to-one mapping (i.e. word-for-word) translation such as the King James Version or something that is more phrase-for-phrase such as the New International Version. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Wright’s view is that you have to try your best to aid the modern reader in understanding the author’s meaning. So when a translation is phrased in archaic language that ultimately turns people off, then the message of the gospel is lost.

One little anecdote he threw in was about the first commentary which was on the gospel according to Mark. He was sat in a church next to someone who looked at him sideways and said, “Are you Tom Wright?” to which he replied, “Yes.” This chap then thanked Tom for Mark for Everyone, as it helped him get through his first year theology exams. Tom slightly despaired at this, as it was not intended as an in-depth theological book. Personally, I haven’t got any of the guides yet. My intention is to wait until they are released as a box set and then get the lot at once.

When we got to the Q&A section at the end, there was an interesting mix of questions, from the bland to the look-at-me-for-being-able-to-ask-a-clever-question. One of those on the bland end was something like, “which was the hardest book to translate?” The questioner may have been angling for a talk on the apocalyptic style of language found in Revelation, though a follow-up hinted that it may have been more aimed at ascertaining (or casting doubt upon) the authorship of 1 & 2 Timothy.

The answer that Tom gave was slightly surprising. In his opinion, the biggest difference between any two books in the Pauline corpus was between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. Wright’s hypothesis was that Paul may have suffered some kind of mental breakdown, taking the second half of the first chapter as his evidence towards this. He also said that Paul’s usual writing style was highly fractured, with a totally unorthodox grammar, like someone struggling in their search for an appropriate phraseology.

I managed to get my own question in. As you will have seen from my recent post, I have not yet tackled Wright’s Jesus and The Victory of God (JVG), though I have done both The New Testament and the People of God (NTPG)as well as The Resurrection of the Son of God (RSG). Together they form the first 3 volumes of Wright’s magnum opus, Christian Origins and the Question of God. Sharp-eyed readers will be aware that the correct order is NTPG then JVG then RSG. I am reading out of order, but I still wanted to know when his much-anticipated work on Pauline theology would be ready. The working title is Paul and the Faithfulness of God (PFG). At the start of this year, the expected publication date was November 2011. This was then put back, according to ntwrightpage, to 2012.

Keen to find out when it would be, I simply asked Tom, “Now that the For Everyone project is finished, what’s next?” The first answer was that he wanted to improve his golf handicap, now that he can play at St Andrews. This has dropped him a peg in my estimation, as I am not a fan of golf or its adherents. He went on to list a few other books that were coming out shortly. Some were revisions/modifications of earlier works but the one that took my interest was Simply Jesus, a follow up to Simply Christian. Only then did he get on to talking about PFG. The latest expected publication date is now “sometime in 2013.”

Probably the question that elicited the most interesting answer was when someone asked how Wright ensured that his own prejudices would not creep into the translation. Aside from getting it checked by Greek scholars who he knew and trusted (as well their research students!) he described some of the more traditional differences. This was of particular interest, as the chap sat behind me was a minister at, apparently, the only German-speaking Roman Catholic church in London. I wouldn’t have expected Wright to be flavour of the month amongst Catholics, given some of his views, so having a catholic there seemed a little (and I stress little) like Fred Phelps going to Greenbelt. Wright recounted how he was, “the Anglican observer at [some meeting of Catholics] at the Vatican,” in 2008. His description made it sound like a Catholic version of an Anglican synod, though I am not particularly well versed in the intricacies of high church hierarchical bureaucracies.

At this meeting, some of the African catholic leaders were advocating a move away from the Latin Vulgate, which has been a sticking point for centuries. Tom just mused what might have happened if this smidgeon of open-mindedness had been present in 1525, which prompted a round of nervous laughter from those present.

Overall, it was well worth making the effort to go down. I got my copy of RSG signed and I did decide to buy a copy of the NT translation. I’m not sure if Tom was annoyed that the book I asked him to sign was one that I hadn’t just bought, but then again he may have been pleased to see it had very clearly been read.

If you’ve managed to read this far and still have no idea who I’m talking about, then please see below a video of him talking at a Veritas forum a few years ago. His topic is very much in line with his book, Surprised by Hope, which I have almost finished reading and I hope to post a review of it online next week. Some of his ideas (not least, those on “hell”) have been quite controversial. He touches on that here briefly, though whether or not you agree with him, I think the video demonstrates him to be very learned, erudite and in possession of a very English wit.

How do you define a christian? Part 2: Creeds & Confessions

Link to part 1.

One of the major developments in the history of christianity was the development of the various creeds. Probably the most famous of these in the Nicene Creed, which came out of the first council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. There are various other creeds such the Apostles’ Creed, the Athanasean Creed, the Belgic Confession and the Westminster Confession. These have been used over the years as a statement of faith to affirm what various christians believe. i.e. a christian might be defined as someone who agrees with one or more of these statements of faith. However, I have some reservations about them:

Firstly, they are often taken as foundational, when in fact they are really conclusions. I recently had someone “throw” the Nicene creed at me during a discussion as their way of stating what I believed. I found it quite ironic as the discussion had been started by an atheist who was tired of being told what he believed, and I pointed out that christians were also often “told” what they believed. I think the irony was, unfortunately, lost on my accuser. However, it showed the perception that such creeds have outside of christianity, as being the basis on which on all else rests. As I shall demonstrate later in this post, there are some conclusions in them that I have not yet reached.

If you were to define a christian as someone who believes one or more of the creeds, then what about someone like me who has some reservations about a few points? It strikes me as a little too dogmatic.

Second, there is a dilemma over how long or short they should be. Generally, the shorter they are, the more inclusive they are, and the level of inclusiveness will decrease the more detail is included. I will deal with inclusion/exclusion in a little more detail in the next part. For now, I am not convinced that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians that:

“Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”(1 Cor 1:10, NKJV)

that he had in mind a kind of “Stepford church” where everyone absolutely thought the same thing. After all, the same letter has chapter 12 in it (I won’t copy it all here) where he talks about us all being different, yet united in Christ. So it seems to me more reasonable to suppose that in chapter 1, what he had in mind was that all should agree on “the basics.” Of course, here is where we hit the nub of the problem – how do agree a) what the topics that should be foundational are and, b) what the content of those statements should be.

I have had many disagreements over the years with people over what issues are foundational. Admittedly, most of those have been with creationists who argue along the lines that if you don’t believe the literalist interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis, then how can you claim to believe any of the bible.

The more interesting debates are on b) where people’s own theologies and prejudices really come to the fore, my own included, though I shan’t delve into them here. I’m sure a browse through this blog (especially anything tagged “apologetics” will reveal something of my worldview)

The third objection I have about creeds is their formalistic structure. The bible is not a book of systematic theology. Nor is it simply a list of “do’s” and “don’ts.” To restrict the books of bible to a short list of normative statements has two effects:

1) It strips the bible of its richness. There is much that is nuanced in the composition of the bible, with the same topics being approached from different viewpoints by different writers, addressed to different audiences.

2) It sets in stone what may already be misunderstood and creates further room for misunderstanding. I would liken this to the codifying of the American constitution, where the supreme court judges have it as their job to interpret the constitution and where, it seems to me, their interpretations can be quite far removed from the intentions of the original authors. It is a case of a text being ripped from its context as a pretext.

Of course, in all this, I have not (yet) denied the actual content of the creeds themselves. I will only state my reservations about one (the Apostles’ Creed), for fear of boring you even further, and of repeating myself. You can then decide whether to burn me at the stake or not.

1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord:
3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary:
4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell:
5. The third day he rose again from the dead:
6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead:
8. I believe in the Holy Ghost:
9. I believe in the holy catholic church: the communion of saints:
10. The forgiveness of sins:
1l. The resurrection of the body:
12. And the life everlasting. Amen.

In point 3, I am not convinced of the historicity of the virgin birth. Firstly, the eyewitness evidence “from the beginning” was from the start of Jesus’ ministry as an adult, so I am quite sceptical about the source from which Matthew and Luke obtained the nativity narrative. There is also the potential that Matthew in particular was not originally a Greek composition, and that the word that was translated as virgin (gk: parthenos) may have originally meant “young girl.” This latter theory seems to be falsified though by verse 18 of the first chapter “Now of Iesous Messiah the birth thus was: being betrothed for the mother of Him, Mariam, to Ioseph, before joining of them, she was found in womb, pregnant by Spirit Holy.” (Green’s literal translation).

In point 4, there is a statement that Jesus “descended into hell.” The canonical gospels make no mentioned of where Jesus went (if anywhere at all) during the time of his death. To the best of my knowledge (please correct me if I am mistaken), the idea of Jesus going to hell was a comparatively late idea, and the earliest writings to contain the idea was in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter. The earliest date for this work is the mid-second century, though it was more likely written towards the end of that century. In it, there is “a voice out of the heavens crying, “Hast thou preached to them that sleep [i.e. the dead]?” and from the [talking] cross was heard the answer, “Yes.””

The point that really sticks in my craw is point 9: “I believe in a holy catholic church, the communion of saints.” At the time it was composed, nothing resembling the modern Roman Catholic church had been established. The first use of the term “pope” (I am here using the Anglicisation, if you will forgive both the linguistic sloppiness and the denominational pun!) was used as a descriptive for Damasus the first, some half a century after the first council of Nicaea. The term catholic, therefore, had the contemporary meaning of “worldwide” with none of the connotations that we would associate with Roman Catholicism today. My point here is not so much with the actual statement of this section of the creed, but rather with the wording as used, which I think is misleading to the modern reader. Readers who are likely to misinterpret the term “catholic” are also likely to misunderstand the term “saints” where this is actually a general term for believers, rather than any special subset of holy folk who have been beatified.

So far, I’ve been quite negative, and you have probably tsk’d and tutted your way through this with various disagreements along the way. To try and give some balance to this, I’m not wholly opposed to them. I think they can be a great guide to study where we can ask “how were these conclusions reached?” and “why are these considered the important points?” However, I believer in the idea that christianity is not restricting, it is freeing. And I will choose to exercise my free thought to believe what I think is true, and not to be dictated by some conclusions that others have made for me.

To my understanding, one of the key features of their development was less about asserting what christians believed to those outside the church, but rather to defend against heresies that had developed within the church. So for example, some of the items included in the Athanasian creed were included for the specific purpose of countering Arianism. By this, there was an attempt to make a distinction between who “truly” was a christian and who merely professed to be such. This leads to the sociological problem of “the other” and how that may be used to define a group identity, which I shall look at in the next part.

How do you define a christian? Part 1: Intro & self-definition

Introduction

The question "how do you define a christian" is one that has been bugging me for a little while. It sometimes crops up in conversations I have with non-christians who are keen to try and put me in a box. The question often comes in some variation of “what kind of christian are you?” At this point there’s usually an involuntary rolling of the eyes, but I do my best to be helpful. Afterwards, I often question myself as to whether it’s the best approach to pander to someone’s expectations or whether it would be more kind to let forth an exegesis on what christianity means to me. Erring on the side of caution, and not wanting to come across as a “bible-basher” my current thinking is that the gentler answer is the more productive.

It’s not a question I actually can give a definitive answer on. Here, I am just exploring some ideas, and would welcome other views and input on the matter. To my way of thinking, there are 4 routes we can head down, and I will sketch each of these in turn. There is some overlap between them, but I’ve tried to segregate them as reasonably as possible. These are:

-Self-definition
-Following a creed
-Sacraments as boundary markers
-Denominations, cults & heretics

I also acknowledge that my articulation is somewhat lacking to be able to discuss this without resorting to the occasional tautology, but I have felt they needed to be included, or else I’d be driven down a reductionist road of infinite regress, which never leads anywhere meaningful. I will also be quite frank, which may cause some offence, though that is not my intent.

As the writing of this particular piece has gone on, it just started to get longer and longer. So I have decided to split it up into several separate parts in order to make it more readable.

Self-defining?

One of the first and most obvious definitions of a christian is for someone to simply self-define. i.e. a christian is whoever says they are a christian. At first glance, this is quite appealing, as it is the free choice of any given individual to be whatever they want to be. However, you quickly come across difficulties. I have come across a group before who called themselves “christian atheists,” who are a very interesting bunch; they don’t believe in God, but do think that Jesus was a great moralistic teacher. So, as followers of Jesus, how many other christians would affiliate themselves with this group? I think not many.

More recently, we had the example of Anders Breivik, who murdered 76 people in Norway recently. He described himself as a christian on his Facebook profile, though again, I don’t think that many christians would recognise his right-wing extremism in the gospels.

The short answer to this dilemma is that if I am free to say that I am a christian, anyone else is free to make the same claim, yet we can believe completely different things and consequently display different attitudes and have different relationships. To simply state that one is a christian is completely meaningless without some other definition of christianity that various parties can agree upon. It’s a little like two people who call themselves vegetarian, one of whom is fine with eating fish and another who is not. Who is then to determine which is vegetarian or not? Are they both vegetarian, given the difference in their viewpoints?

The obvious step is then to then to define some set of parameters which can be agreed upon. In the case of christianity, this has come about the form of a doctrinal basis, statement of belief or creed, which I will look at in the next part.

Only one way to God?

I was struck recently by something I have known about for a long time, though had seemed to take for granted. Jesus stated “no one comes to the father except through me.” Now I was listening a few months ago to a lecture Tom Wright gave to the Faraday foundation, entitled Can A Scientist Believe In The Resurrection? In it, Tom describes his experience of trying to read The God Delusion. One of the things that frustrated him was that in Dawkins’ polemical door-stopper, he only devotes one chapter to Jesus. I am of the understanding that Dawkins finally, after many years of denying Jesus’ existence, even in the teeth of the evidence, has ceded some ground and acknowledged that a person called Jesus probably existed, though I’m not sure if he’s gone any further than this.

Dawkins’ marginalisation of Jesus does seem to have crept into much of the atheistic discussions that I come across. Of course, it may be possible that I’m just looking at the wrong discussions! Working on the presumption that what I have viewed is at least somewhat representative, there is a trend to try to define the nature of “God” and then deny or affirm his/her/its existence.

There is an interesting idea in philosophy that I coming round to, that the ontology of something runs counter to its epistemology. That is to say, that which is most fundamental is the last thing to be known. Likewise, that which is most trivial is that which is most obvious and discovered first. Working on this viewpoint, the nature of God is something that is incredibly fundamental to our beliefs, but which is found only at the conclusion of our study. So to me, it makes no sense to try to define God as a starting position, but rather I choose to spend my life (to quote A.W. Tozer) in the pursuit of God.

So instead of going “straight for the jugular” where the evidence is more philosophical and less clear-cut, it seems only logical to me to send any investigation into the existence of God to the place where the best evidence is. That is, to the historical study of the man known as Jesus (as it is anglicised). This ties in with a recent piece by a particular Guardian columnist called Andrew Brown. Now he sort of runs the “Belief” section of the guardian website, and his own beliefs have long been an aspect of speculation, where he has constantly dodged the question. However, recently, he laid out his cards in an article entitled “Why I am not a catholic.” As with most things he writes, I agreed with some and disagreed with a fair bit too. What I found particularly interesting was that he did not accept the historical claims of the gospels. The reason I find this interesting is because it is the exact reverse of the reason that clinched my belief.

*As an aside, I actually met Andrew shortly after writing this. It was quite a random evening, where I'd agreed to meet up with Tim Skellett, who runs the Heathen Hub, and he'd pre-arranged us going to the Guardian offices to meet Andrew. It was quite a random evening, though it made for a fascinating study in body language!*

So the question then is: can you come to a correct understanding of God without Jesus? If you accept Jesus’ word, then the answer would surely have be ‘no.’ Of course, I as a Christian, I would naturally be inclined to go along this route. That is not to say that my understanding of God is necessarily correct in all things, I strongly doubt it is. Of course, I couldn’t tell you which bit! I would admit to being very tempted at this point to making some remarks about other religions, though as my ignorance of the details of these is excessive, this sentence is the only comment I shall make on them.

The other thing that came to my mind was Antony Flew’s final book, There Is A God. I haven’t got a review on this website, though I would heartily recommend it. The Appendix from Abraham Varghese ought to be skipped, due to its scientific illiteracy. The overall gist of it is as follows: Flew authored a very famous paper, entitled Theology and Falsification, which has become a foundation of much of modern atheistic thought. If you have a read of it (which I would recommend you do) anyone who has read/listened to some of the “new atheists” will recognise the thrust of the argument. In the first part of this book, Flew gives a summary of atheistic reasoning. In the second, he gives his reasons for rejecting his atheism and why he was convinced there was a God. There has been a lot written about whether Flew was in a fit state of mind, and there was also speculation over whether Varghese was the actual author of the second half of the book. Now Flew did not become a Christian, Jew, Muslim, etc. It would be more accurate to describe him as a deist. He reached this view by far more philosophical means than historical (although the other appendix, by Tom Wright, is very good). The book does have a feeling of a man who has not yet finished looking (something that, if you get it from this blog, means that I am not totally useless at communication), and I think it is a shame that Flew died before he was able to offer the world what may have been his most valuable contribution to philosophy.

In my own view, I think that the “proofs” for God’s existence fall a long way short. As a mathematician, a proof may be difficult to understand, but it is nonetheless a watertight argument which holds together whichever way you try to pull it apart, provided you stay within the bounds of logic. This last part can be quite important, as I have pointed out before on the fall of logical positivism as an intellectually sound philosophy.

Referring back to Wright again, he uses a very good analogy when it comes to trying to understand God. He likens it to shooting arrows at the sun. Nomatter how good our aim is, we ultimately lack the strength to be able to hit. Paul, referred to this when he said “For now, we but see in a mirror (Gk: esoptron), dimly.”(1 Cor 13:12)

One of the key failings of trying to prove God’s existence by naturalistic means is that such methods are only fit for their scope. Since the general understanding of God is that it exists outside of nature, then conventional methods of scientific enquiry and proof are instantly shown to be hopelessly inadequate for the task. It is like having a sheep tied to stick with a rope in the middle of a field, and expecting the sheep to be able to graze the grass on the next field.

This doesn't of course, reflect on anything anyone says about the reality of God’s existence, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist or Pastafarian; it only affects the epistemology of that existence. I recall reading a few months ago (forgive me for not being able to provide a reference, it slips my mind where I saw it) a short piece by Alister Mcgrath where he quoted Dawkins as saying something along the lines of “[if god did exist, he would be far greater and more complex that anything the human mind could possibly comprehend].” McGrath’s response was to agonise at how close Dawkins had come to actually understanding something about theology, yet turned his back just before the moment of comprehension.

So might it be, that after centuries of trying to prove Jesus wrong when he said he was the only way to God, that having been confounded at every turn, we might have to acknowledge that he was right after all?