Material, not just formal, unity

These are bewildering times for Christians seeking to live faithfully to Christ, under his authority.  I think they are times which require us to rethink our approach to a number of things, not least how we understand Christian unity.

The approach to Christian unity which has characterised evangelicalism rests, I think, particularly on a formal principle: the authority of Scripture.  We can unite with people who share our commitment to the authority of Holy Scripture.  There is a lot of sense in this.  Whilst we can have a conversation with all sorts of people, there is no likelihood of agreement where there is no common commitment to a way of knowing.  Disagreements between people who are equally committed to Scripture at least have some hope of resolution, and an agreed way (in principle) of reaching that resolution: we read and study and debate Scripture together.  Take away that formal agreement - either by taking away the commitment to Scripture, or by adding to it another authority - and material agreement becomes much more difficult, perhaps even impossible.  At the very least, we are having a different sort of conversation if we're talking to someone who isn't happy to follow us into the Bible for answers, and who isn't pre-committed to accepting and submitting to those answers if they're satisfied that they really are biblical.

And so the authority of Scripture is a sensible rallying point.  But it has never been the case that commitment to this formal principle alone is sufficient for Christian unity.  There have always been heretics who claim to hold to biblical authority, and even make an impressive show of deference to the Bible.  Leaving actual heresy aside, even amongst mutually acknowledged Christians there are limits to how much practical unity we can have purely on this formal basis.  And so we qualify our basis for unity: we have unity with those who take Scripture as their authority (the formal principle) within certain bounds (and here we are introducing material beliefs).  Normally for evangelicals that means there is a minimalist statement of faith which we look to as a standard; and so long as people subscribe our minimum standard,  and remain committed to the formal principle, we allow latitude on a whole bunch of issues.

And here's where it gets tricky.  Our minimum standards don't tend to address the hot-button issues of the day, like racism or human sexuality.  The latter in particular is becoming a significant dividing line amongst professing Christians, and it isn't addressed in our evangelical standards.  So what do we do?  Typically we fall back here on the formal principle: you have to believe what the Bible says about sexuality.  We turn it from a material issue (about theological anthropology, say) into a formal issue (about the authority of the Bible).  But this raises two issues.  Firstly, what do we do when people on the other side of the debate claim to be submitting to the authority of Scripture?  We can debate them, in that case, on biblical grounds, and hope to persuade them of our reading of Scripture, but in the meantime is this an 'agree to disagree' situation?  I don't see how it can be.  Second, if this is in fact a fracture point, do we understand why it is so significant?  Why must we divide over this disagreement about the interpretation of Scripture, but not over so many other things which we have (for the sake of unity) designated 'secondary issues', outside the scope of our doctrinal statements?

Here is a difficult thing: we don't want to divide over issues like baptism (who, when, how), or church government, or our understanding of eschatology, but we will divide over sexuality.  Doesn't it sound like we're just cherry picking issues?  Might it not seem as if this is driven basically by homophobia rather than doctrine?  Why, after all, pick this issue as the line?  It will not do to claim that sexual ethics is more important or central - more important than baptism, "which now saves you"?  (Elevating anthropology and ethics above the church and soteriology is not a great way to go, I think).  I am also not convinced it will do to claim that Scripture speaks more clearly on this issue - I think it is also perfectly clear on baptism!

It seems to me that the way forward is a renewed confessionalism, which will show that our formal principle is not merely formal, but carries material content.  That is to say, we need to be able to show that Christian doctrine does not proceed in two stages - first sorting out the source of doctrine in Scripture and then moving on to what the Bible actually says.  Rather, we need to show that our commitment to Scripture and its authority is part of a whole view of God's being and activity; that it already carries with it material content; that the nature of Scripture and its place within the dispensation of grace entails a particular way of reading.  We need a thicker, more substantial doctrine of Scripture, along with a broader confession of Christian truth that goes beyond the bare minimum.  Nobody wants to build higher fences unnecessarily, but I'm not sure we have any other option if we want to maintain Christian orthodoxy in our churches.

Epiphany Theology

See earlier posts for Advent theology and Christmas theology, if you fancy working through the church year.

A consciousness of Epiphany should, I think, bring three distinctive emphases to our theology: light, grace, and a sense of awe.

By light I mean this: that though it is surely true that God dwells in total darkness, and that clouds and thick darkness surround him, out of that darkness real light shines.  There is a school of thought that emphasises the darkness, that suggests that because God is so very different from us, and because our language and concepts are so inadequate to describe him, in the end we can only say what God is not.  In some more mystically inclined theologians, this ends with saying that God is nothing: "whoever speaks of God as Nothing speaks of God properly", according to Meister Echkart.  But this will not do.  Epiphany tells us that God shines forth; that in the face of Christ we see the light of the glory of God.  Theology is a positive discipline.  It proceeds in the light of God, to speak of the God who has made himself known.

Then again, Epiphany is a celebration of the fact that God has revealed himself to the Gentiles.  It's a desperate shame that this is neglected.  It is good for those of us who are Gentiles to pause and realise the tremendous grace of God displayed here.  It was not only to Israel, his ancient people, that God revealed himself, but Christ was a light for revelation to the Gentiles.  That revelation and salvation reached even us, who by nature were utterly alien to the covenant and people of God, should cause us to be astonished.  It is good to remember that the reason - the deep reason - behind this revelation is that Christ is too glorious for his ministry to be restricted only to the lost sheep of Israel.  That is to say, if the truth of God reaches us, it is not because we are so great, but because Jesus is so great.  And of course, whether we are Gentiles or Israelites this should drive home the amazing kindness of God, which causes his light to overflow all boundaries and to reach into all nations.  So theology as a discipline must be careful never to take for granted any of its material.  Every doctrine, every glimpse of God's glory and work, must be received in humble gratitude.  This is not confident intellectual system building, but humble reception of that which we could never have grasped if the glory of the Lord had not arisen and shone upon us.

And so the net result should be awe.  Awe that we really see in Christ Jesus the eternal light of the Godhead.  Awe that this light reaches even into our deep and morally culpable darkness.  Awe that true knowledge of God can exist amongst sinners who naturally delight in unknowing.  I have read quite a bit of theology which I have not agreed with, but I have often found it profitable nevertheless when it breathes this spirit of awe before the Lord.  Conversely, sound theology which lacks this sense of awe leaves me cold.  (The same, incidentally, can be said of preaching, of hymnody, of liturgy...)  Let us tremble before him - not only because of the thick darkness, but because of the light which shines through it; not only because of our sin, but because of his grace which overcomes all sin - and set about our theology with humility and awe.

A new year with Jesus

I guess for many people the beginning of the year is an exciting time for a fresh start.  The old year, filled as it had inevitably become with disappointments, has passed; the new year stretches ahead, its story as yet unwritten.  Might not this be the year you finally make it at work, or find a spouse, or kick that vexing habit?  It might be, or at least there is nothing written about this year yet to say it won't be.  (Of course we all know that really there is a distressing amount of continuity between the years, and nothing has really changed.  But that is the great virtue of endings, drawing a line across the paper and saying 'now we start afresh'.  Otherwise, what hope?)

For the Christian this turning from the old to the new is the perpetual motion of life.  The old has gone, the new has come - and on this basis we turn (in repentance) from our old selves to be renewed (by faith).  And we do it again and again and again.  New mercy, not just each January, but each day, with every night a chance to practice dying to what we are and every morning an opportunity to have what we will be amended by God's Spirit at work in us.  Always a turning, because we know that in this life we will never have fully and finally turned.  The new self and new life towards which we turn is real, concrete and accomplished in Jesus, but in our experience it is always that towards which we are journeying.

Time is a bit funny for the Christian, or at least the way it works has been redefined.  When we say 'the old has gone', that is not a bit of autobiography, with a date when the old was done away with.  In actual fact, as far as our experience goes, the old is still very much with us.  And when we say 'the new has come', we are not saying that we have turned over a new leaf, or even that a new leaf has been turned over for us.  The 'new' remains, to our experience, something more often than not out of reach.  You cannot show this 'old' and 'new', and the dividing line between them, on a calendar.  Nevertheless, it remains the case that the old really has gone, and belongs always to the fading past, and the new really has come, and constitutes the bright and shining future.  In Jesus Christ, the old humanity has been put to death and buried, and the new has been raised from the grave.  This was a once-for-all movement, a transition from old to new which is definitive for all our time.  Because Jesus in his time passed from old to new, the old has been decisively and forever consigned to the past - even if my calendar future contains so much oldness, so much past-ness!  In Jesus the whole of life is like the new year.

And yet not quite.  One of the attractions of the new year for many is its sheer blank-ness.  It awaits content.  This is not so for the Christian.  Consider Ephesians 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

Going into the new year, we don't go into empty territory, yet to be shaped, but into the landscape God has prepared for us, stocked with the things which he has providentially readied for us to do.

Now there is a burdensome way to read this, and I think I've often fallen into thinking of it like this: as if the apostle is telling us that God has written a to-do list for us already, before the year has even begun, and we now need to get on with ticking off the jobs he's got for us.  No doubt there are in fact tasks and acts of service which the Lord has prepared for us to undertake, but to focus here is to miss the middle of the verse and to view the new year in abstraction from Christ.  We are 'created in Christ Jesus for good works'.  Jesus Christ remains the determining factor in the new year.  It is not as if we were plucked from death and the power of the devil by God's grace and then sent off to face the new year by works.  It is not as if in Jesus our old sins are removed, the page wiped clean, but we are then left to write the new story ourselves, perhaps with a little divine help.

No, what the apostle is saying is that the resurrection of Jesus means that our time is already fulfilled.  He has accomplished all the good works necessary.  Our role now, going into this new year, is simply to keep close to him, to walk in his footsteps.  And then we will find that the works he has prepared are there waiting for us, not as a to-do list but as the contours of the land in which we walk.  He has not wiped out our past time without preparing for us a future time - and that not an empty wasteland or even a proving ground, but the hill of Zion, which yields a thousand sacred sweets even before we reach the heavenly fields and golden streets.