One thing has particularly struck me reading through the story of Samson recently in Judges 13-16: Samson is awful. He is a horrible, horrible human being in almost every way. He treats women like chattels. He disrespects his parents. He is unfaithful to God's covenant with Israel (as demonstrated by his marriage choices). He is extraordinarily gifted by God, but shows no gratitude whatsoever. He makes no effort to maintain the ritual purity expected of a normal Israelite, let alone a set-apart Nazirite. He is short-tempered and proud. He brutally murders people because he is angry and he needs thirty garments because of a stupid bet. He is vengeful. He lacks faith, and repeats the grumbling of his forebears when he finds himself in the wilderness without water. He frequents prostitutes. He is careless and self-confident to the point of extreme arrogance.
Samson is a bad man.
But - such a promising beginning! A veritable annunciation in Judges 13, and "the young man grew and Yahweh blessed him. And the Spirit of Yahweh began to stir him..." Chosen from the womb by God to be the leader of his people. Did God choose poorly?
The story actually gets more disturbing in some ways. This morning the lectionary took us through the tawdry story of Samson's wedding. His parents tried to persuade him to marry an Israelite, but Samson was having none of it: he would marry a Philistine, apparently just because he thought she was hot - he doesn't have a conversation with her until later. Samson is marrying into the people who are currently oppressing Israel; not a great look for a deliverer, and on the pattern of the book of Judges that is what we are expecting him to be. The marriage, of course, goes wrong, and Samson goes off in a rage and murders people and loses his wife (which will have further repercussions, by which I mean more murders, tomorrow).
But none of that is the disturbing bit. There are two verses in this chapter which are genuinely alarming. Verse 4:"His father and mother did not know that it was from Yahweh, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines." And verse 19: "And the Spirit of Yahweh rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men..."
Samson is awful, but it is God who is looking for an opportunity to strike the Philistines - Samson's desire for an unwise and probably illegitimate marriage is "from Yahweh"! What do we do with that? Is God as awful as Samson? If Samson is a bad man, is God a bad God?
Here is where we have to take a careful and nuanced view of God's sovereignty. There is no doubt that the author of Judges wants us to know that Samson is a bad dude. It is part of the downward spiral in post-conquest Israelite society that the deliverers who are raised up get progressively less heroic and godly (compare the way the Gideon and Jepthah stories are told, for example, and note the parallels around the treatment of Ephraim, seeking of rulership, etc. etc.) So the perspective of the text is that Samson is not a role-model. But the perspective of the text is also that Yahweh God is holy and righteous. It is certainly not the intention of the author to endorse Samson, but neither is it his intention to implicate God in Samson's awfulness.
So how do we read it? Samson acted sinfully, but God acted righteously through sinful Samson. Samson murdered Philistines in petty rage, but God righteously judged the Philistines through petty Samson. Note that God does not, according to the text, just opportunistically use Samson's crimes for good ends. In fact, that Samson is chosen from the womb and gets such a big annunciation story serves to underline that God has actively ordained that this wicked man will play a role in his righteous schemes - and yet without himself being tainted in any way by Samson's evil. Our view of God needs to be enlarged - he is above and beyond, operating on a different plane from us. But our view of God also needs to be disciplined by revelation - this God is not afraid to mix it up on our plane.
In the end it is impossible for us to disentangle the evil that people intend and the good that God purposes. We can only pray and work against the former and trust for the latter. God will sort it all out in the end.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Friday, June 08, 2018
He will come to judge the world
My guess is that nothing serves as a better barometer of the spiritual climate than the sorts of thoughts we entertain about God's judgement. I've been struck particularly over the last week or so by the way in which many people, even Christians who are committed to their Bibles, are uncomfortable with the thought of God as judge. In particular, we struggle to square our commitment to the idea that God is love - and the NT certainly does say that, in so many words, and means it too - and the idea that God will come with fire and a winnowing fork.
And yet the Psalms paint a different picture.
So what makes the difference in perspective? My guess is a couple of things.
Most fundamental, I suppose, we - or at least many of us - have become far too accustomed to living in the world, such that we no longer notice its corruption, the evil all around us. We're okay with the world carrying on as it is, pretty much indefinitely. Or we've bought into the secular idea that things aren't that bad, and it just needs a little human effort to bring in the future utopian bliss. This is probably only something that happens when Christians are comfortable, both in terms of an absence of persecution and a good provision of worldly goods. My guess is that the best way to counteract this is to think about others a bit more. For myself, remembering that in our peaceful and prosperous society the unborn can be freely disposed of brings it home that this world needs judgement.
I think as well that the standard image we're given of God's judgement in much contemporary teaching, in which we believers stand on the right side of judgement and everyone else goes down, makes us quite uncomfortable. As well it should. If we know anything at all, we know we're at least as bad as those around us. It smacks a bit of that most contemporary sin, privilege, to claim that we'll make it through the judgement and everyone else won't.
There is a strand to the biblical picture of God's judgement which looks like this: God rescuing his people by judging the world. But there is something more fundamental, I think. When God comes to judge the world, he comes to make things right. That is why all creation rejoices. Can we just think a little more about the sin of abortion? Who is promoting abortion rights in our society? It's not the baddies. It's the decent, progressive, nice people. The people with whom we could stand shoulder to shoulder to protest the abuse of the poor, or the dehumanising of immigrants. And yet these same people believe strongly in their right to expose infants (for that is what it is). What do we do with that? Who can unravel these strands or right and wrong, see to the heart of it, make sure everyone gets justice? Only God, surely.
That's why creation rejoices at the coming judgement of God. His judgement is the final dividing of light from dark, order from chaos, good from evil. In the Genesis story, a provisional and primary division is made as the good creation is brought out from the darkened chaos. In Revelation, that division is extended to the moral and personal realm and made final. And this is good! Just as the morning stars sang together at the first dawn, so all the trees and mountains and rivers will rejoice at that final definitive dawn.
And what a depth it adds to this picture when we understand that this judgement has been entrusted to our Lord Jesus! But that is a whole different post.
And yet the Psalms paint a different picture.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;A joy that fills all creation, and all because God is coming to judge! And sometimes this is directly linked to God's love.
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness.
So what makes the difference in perspective? My guess is a couple of things.
Most fundamental, I suppose, we - or at least many of us - have become far too accustomed to living in the world, such that we no longer notice its corruption, the evil all around us. We're okay with the world carrying on as it is, pretty much indefinitely. Or we've bought into the secular idea that things aren't that bad, and it just needs a little human effort to bring in the future utopian bliss. This is probably only something that happens when Christians are comfortable, both in terms of an absence of persecution and a good provision of worldly goods. My guess is that the best way to counteract this is to think about others a bit more. For myself, remembering that in our peaceful and prosperous society the unborn can be freely disposed of brings it home that this world needs judgement.
I think as well that the standard image we're given of God's judgement in much contemporary teaching, in which we believers stand on the right side of judgement and everyone else goes down, makes us quite uncomfortable. As well it should. If we know anything at all, we know we're at least as bad as those around us. It smacks a bit of that most contemporary sin, privilege, to claim that we'll make it through the judgement and everyone else won't.
There is a strand to the biblical picture of God's judgement which looks like this: God rescuing his people by judging the world. But there is something more fundamental, I think. When God comes to judge the world, he comes to make things right. That is why all creation rejoices. Can we just think a little more about the sin of abortion? Who is promoting abortion rights in our society? It's not the baddies. It's the decent, progressive, nice people. The people with whom we could stand shoulder to shoulder to protest the abuse of the poor, or the dehumanising of immigrants. And yet these same people believe strongly in their right to expose infants (for that is what it is). What do we do with that? Who can unravel these strands or right and wrong, see to the heart of it, make sure everyone gets justice? Only God, surely.
That's why creation rejoices at the coming judgement of God. His judgement is the final dividing of light from dark, order from chaos, good from evil. In the Genesis story, a provisional and primary division is made as the good creation is brought out from the darkened chaos. In Revelation, that division is extended to the moral and personal realm and made final. And this is good! Just as the morning stars sang together at the first dawn, so all the trees and mountains and rivers will rejoice at that final definitive dawn.
And what a depth it adds to this picture when we understand that this judgement has been entrusted to our Lord Jesus! But that is a whole different post.
Monday, June 04, 2018
On returning from a camping holiday
I love to camp. I confess, I don't quite trust people who don't enjoy life under canvas. Sorry if that's you. I'm sure you have many other admirable qualities.
Two reflections on camping. The first one is that camping really brings it home to you that creation is there. I mean, I know we live in God's creation all the time; I'm aware that the city as well as the countryside belongs to God. But there is something about sitting out in the countryside for a week that highlights the solidity, the given-ness, the sheer there-ness, of creation. When I'm in the city, the built environment, I easily forget that the world is not something of our construction. It doesn't belong to us, and we don't control it. Even in the neatly and nicely tamed countryside of south Devon, how could anybody forget that we human beings didn't and couldn't shape the hills, didn't and couldn't bring forth the trees, didn't and couldn't set the rocky cliffs above the surging sea? Waking up at night, one need only pop one's head outside to see stars - innumerable stars, more stars than you would imagine possible from within the artificially lit city.
Here's the paradox: what is a streetlamp compared to the countless stars of God? And yet a streetlamp will cut off the view of the stars completely. The city shrinks the world, makes it manageable. I am not confronted by the heights and depths of God's wonderful creation, but only by the altogether manageable mediocrities of human construction. It is good to be reminded that creation is there, because it reminds me that God is there. Just as creation is only really hidden behind the pavements and houses, so God is only hidden behind the frenetic human activity of life. Behind it all, he is there.
Second reflection: tent living is precarious. It feels precarious, when the wind is up, but it's more than that. Out there is the vast given-ness of God's world, and here I am, in a scrap of canvas, clinging to the earth of the creator's moulding. The city, with all its concrete and control, makes me feel secure, in a way. But I am not secure. Maybe I did say in my prosperity "I shall never be moved" - but it was only God's favour that made it so. One is reminded of that, in a tent. Weather-dependent, in a way which you're not in the city, the conclusion that we are dependent, contingent - that is, or should be, impossible to avoid. How fragile we are, and how fragile is everything that we construct and value. All living really is tent living, although we cover it from ourselves with bricks and mortar.
And a reflection on coming home: one of the worst consequences of sin is that we are constantly seeking to be what we are not, to deny creational realities. I think Adam before the fall could have built without ever forgetting that the work of his hands was really the work of God's hands. I think he would have known and understood his contingency and fragility without being threatened by it - for what is contingency other than to be in the hands of the loving Father God?
But we are a fallen people, and always we are seeking to build our way out of creation, out of the need to acknowledge God, out of the fear of contingency. Whether it is literal bricks and mortar, or the ideological bricks and mortar of godless philosophy, that is what we do.
I think a camping holiday might do us all good.
Two reflections on camping. The first one is that camping really brings it home to you that creation is there. I mean, I know we live in God's creation all the time; I'm aware that the city as well as the countryside belongs to God. But there is something about sitting out in the countryside for a week that highlights the solidity, the given-ness, the sheer there-ness, of creation. When I'm in the city, the built environment, I easily forget that the world is not something of our construction. It doesn't belong to us, and we don't control it. Even in the neatly and nicely tamed countryside of south Devon, how could anybody forget that we human beings didn't and couldn't shape the hills, didn't and couldn't bring forth the trees, didn't and couldn't set the rocky cliffs above the surging sea? Waking up at night, one need only pop one's head outside to see stars - innumerable stars, more stars than you would imagine possible from within the artificially lit city.
Here's the paradox: what is a streetlamp compared to the countless stars of God? And yet a streetlamp will cut off the view of the stars completely. The city shrinks the world, makes it manageable. I am not confronted by the heights and depths of God's wonderful creation, but only by the altogether manageable mediocrities of human construction. It is good to be reminded that creation is there, because it reminds me that God is there. Just as creation is only really hidden behind the pavements and houses, so God is only hidden behind the frenetic human activity of life. Behind it all, he is there.
Second reflection: tent living is precarious. It feels precarious, when the wind is up, but it's more than that. Out there is the vast given-ness of God's world, and here I am, in a scrap of canvas, clinging to the earth of the creator's moulding. The city, with all its concrete and control, makes me feel secure, in a way. But I am not secure. Maybe I did say in my prosperity "I shall never be moved" - but it was only God's favour that made it so. One is reminded of that, in a tent. Weather-dependent, in a way which you're not in the city, the conclusion that we are dependent, contingent - that is, or should be, impossible to avoid. How fragile we are, and how fragile is everything that we construct and value. All living really is tent living, although we cover it from ourselves with bricks and mortar.
And a reflection on coming home: one of the worst consequences of sin is that we are constantly seeking to be what we are not, to deny creational realities. I think Adam before the fall could have built without ever forgetting that the work of his hands was really the work of God's hands. I think he would have known and understood his contingency and fragility without being threatened by it - for what is contingency other than to be in the hands of the loving Father God?
But we are a fallen people, and always we are seeking to build our way out of creation, out of the need to acknowledge God, out of the fear of contingency. Whether it is literal bricks and mortar, or the ideological bricks and mortar of godless philosophy, that is what we do.
I think a camping holiday might do us all good.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Preaching checklists
The other day I was re-reading Peter Adam's book Hearing God's Words, and came across this which struck me as an insightful critique of much of evangelicalism:
With that in the back of my mind, I've been thinking about some of the criticism I've heard of the sermon at the Royal Wedding on Saturday. Quite a lot of it was along the lines of 'he left a load of stuff out!' Which is true. The Bishop said very few of the things which might have been said. He left a lot out. Specifically, some evangelicals were unhappy that he left out substitutionary atonement, the wrath of God, and the call to repentance and faith. (Some of those, of course, he would have been unlikely to include, given his doctrinal background. See below.)
I feel like there is a connection between the two things. I think many of us evangelicals work so hard at coming up with 'our irreducible minimum of the gospel' that what we end up with is a checklist of things that must be said. And then sermon critique is easy: he mentioned 6 out of the 10 things on the checklist, so this was 60% of a good sermon.
If the gospel is richer than that - if there's more going on here than our depressingly thin gospel outline - then of course any sermon will leave a whole lot out! That should be okay. Our checklist approach to preaching and gospel presentation so easily leaves us just listening out for the shibboleths, just repeating the same words over and over. We should be able to recognise that the riches of the gospel mean that it is possible to dwell on one particular aspect of divine truth in a sermon or address. In fact, if we understand even a tiny bit of those riches, we will see that it is inevitable that we should leave stuff out - there is more than we could possibly include!
If you wanted to critique the sermon on Saturday, what you should have spotted was that all of the truth spoken - about the love of God, about our being created in his image for love, about the redemptive quality of a life lived in love - was cast within the framework of an old-school liberal theology, in which the emphasis falls squarely on human ability to build the kingdom of heaven in the here and now through divinely guided and inspired effort. And I did hear some of that critique too, and it was valid and important. But that these things were said about the love of God, on live television, to so many people: if you can't find a little bit of joy in that, I would be concerned.
Their question is often 'What is the irreducible minimum of the gospel the unbeliever needs to hear?' rather than 'What is the fullness of the Gospel God has revealed?'Yes, we do that: we try very hard to boil the good news down into one, easily deliverable slurp of salvation, and in the process we lose so much of the richness.
With that in the back of my mind, I've been thinking about some of the criticism I've heard of the sermon at the Royal Wedding on Saturday. Quite a lot of it was along the lines of 'he left a load of stuff out!' Which is true. The Bishop said very few of the things which might have been said. He left a lot out. Specifically, some evangelicals were unhappy that he left out substitutionary atonement, the wrath of God, and the call to repentance and faith. (Some of those, of course, he would have been unlikely to include, given his doctrinal background. See below.)
I feel like there is a connection between the two things. I think many of us evangelicals work so hard at coming up with 'our irreducible minimum of the gospel' that what we end up with is a checklist of things that must be said. And then sermon critique is easy: he mentioned 6 out of the 10 things on the checklist, so this was 60% of a good sermon.
If the gospel is richer than that - if there's more going on here than our depressingly thin gospel outline - then of course any sermon will leave a whole lot out! That should be okay. Our checklist approach to preaching and gospel presentation so easily leaves us just listening out for the shibboleths, just repeating the same words over and over. We should be able to recognise that the riches of the gospel mean that it is possible to dwell on one particular aspect of divine truth in a sermon or address. In fact, if we understand even a tiny bit of those riches, we will see that it is inevitable that we should leave stuff out - there is more than we could possibly include!
If you wanted to critique the sermon on Saturday, what you should have spotted was that all of the truth spoken - about the love of God, about our being created in his image for love, about the redemptive quality of a life lived in love - was cast within the framework of an old-school liberal theology, in which the emphasis falls squarely on human ability to build the kingdom of heaven in the here and now through divinely guided and inspired effort. And I did hear some of that critique too, and it was valid and important. But that these things were said about the love of God, on live television, to so many people: if you can't find a little bit of joy in that, I would be concerned.
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Ascended for us
At Christmas, Christ took on our nature. He stooped from his eternal throne and became one of us. But not just one amongst others; a second Adam, a whole new humanity. A new beginning, but all from Adam's seed. God himself in the womb of Mary.
Throughout his life, Christ lived as the perfect human being. He did in our nature what we would not do, living in faithfulness to his Father. He did not do in our nature what we always do; he was without sin. God the Son walked the real life of a man in a fallen world.
On Good Friday, Christ bore our nature to death. Not just natural death (does the Bible know anything that could be called natural death?) but judicial death, death under God's wrath. We could not endure it, but he endured it. In God the Son, our sinful nature is crucified and ended.
On Easter Sunday, Christ raised up our nature from the grave. Humanity, on which the death sentence had been pronounced and executed on Friday, is raised on Sunday morning to new life. Having died to sin once for all, Christ was raised to live henceforth to God. And in him, our nature was raised from the grave.
On Ascension Day, Christ carried our nature into the very heavens. The eternal glory which he reclaimed is now the glory of a human being, of humanity. The fellowship with the Father to which he was restored is now the fellowship of man with God. There is a man at the centre of God's own throne, and in him we all are exalted to the heavens.
Friday, May 04, 2018
The church's greatest need
I stumbled across a website the other day which proclaimed that the greatest need of the church today is a recovery of the historic creeds and confessions - I imagine meaning here primarily the Westminster Confession (it being a Presbyterian source).
Can I just go on record as saying that this is incorrect?
I am a great fan of creeds and confessions. I have pushed to see the catholic creeds especially reintroduced into church life. I think that there is much that the present day church can learn from the sixteenth and seventeenth century confessions of faith. I am excited by a growing emphasis in certain streams at least of evangelicalism on historical theology. So this is not the cry of a 'no-creed-but-the-bible' sort of person.
But really, greatest need?
The greatest need of the church today, just like the greatest need of the church yesterday, is to hear the living voice of God. That is to say, what the church really needs is for Christ to be preached from the Scriptures in the power of the Spirit, such that in God's grace the church finds herself addressed, unmistakably, in the here and now, by the eternal God. The greatest need of the church is to hear the voice of her Lord.
When we read creeds and confessions, we are encountering the church's record of what she thinks she has heard God saying to her. That is valuable. It is valuable because the church is made up of sinners, and one thing that sinners consistently do is exalt other voices - and not least the voice of their own hearts! - into the place of God's voice. Listening carefully to the report of yesterday's church about she heard from God can help today's church to be discerning about whether the voice she is hearing today is really that of the Lord. It is valuable also because every age tends to absolutise the questions and the concepts and the forms of thinking of that age - and it is a good reminder that God is beyond these things, for has he not spoken to the church of yesterday, with other questions and concepts and forms?
But listening to the report of yesterday's church is not listening to the living voice of God. And in fact, where it is substituted for that - where study of the Confession takes the place of study of the Scriptures - there we are in danger of elevating the voice of the church to the place of the divine voice.
What the eternal God says is always the same, because his Word is Christ Jesus. The creeds and confessions help us to evaluate whether we are truly hearing that same Word. But they can't take the place of that Word. Because what the eternal God says is also always absolutely new, the Word we can never take for granted, or imagine we have heard sufficiently, or be content to hear second-hand We need Christ, Christ preached and Christ present.
That is the greatest need of the church.
Can I just go on record as saying that this is incorrect?
I am a great fan of creeds and confessions. I have pushed to see the catholic creeds especially reintroduced into church life. I think that there is much that the present day church can learn from the sixteenth and seventeenth century confessions of faith. I am excited by a growing emphasis in certain streams at least of evangelicalism on historical theology. So this is not the cry of a 'no-creed-but-the-bible' sort of person.
But really, greatest need?
The greatest need of the church today, just like the greatest need of the church yesterday, is to hear the living voice of God. That is to say, what the church really needs is for Christ to be preached from the Scriptures in the power of the Spirit, such that in God's grace the church finds herself addressed, unmistakably, in the here and now, by the eternal God. The greatest need of the church is to hear the voice of her Lord.
When we read creeds and confessions, we are encountering the church's record of what she thinks she has heard God saying to her. That is valuable. It is valuable because the church is made up of sinners, and one thing that sinners consistently do is exalt other voices - and not least the voice of their own hearts! - into the place of God's voice. Listening carefully to the report of yesterday's church about she heard from God can help today's church to be discerning about whether the voice she is hearing today is really that of the Lord. It is valuable also because every age tends to absolutise the questions and the concepts and the forms of thinking of that age - and it is a good reminder that God is beyond these things, for has he not spoken to the church of yesterday, with other questions and concepts and forms?
But listening to the report of yesterday's church is not listening to the living voice of God. And in fact, where it is substituted for that - where study of the Confession takes the place of study of the Scriptures - there we are in danger of elevating the voice of the church to the place of the divine voice.
What the eternal God says is always the same, because his Word is Christ Jesus. The creeds and confessions help us to evaluate whether we are truly hearing that same Word. But they can't take the place of that Word. Because what the eternal God says is also always absolutely new, the Word we can never take for granted, or imagine we have heard sufficiently, or be content to hear second-hand We need Christ, Christ preached and Christ present.
That is the greatest need of the church.
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Thoughts about life
For reasons which will be obvious to anyone who follows the news, I've been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be 'pro-life' - and also what it doesn't mean. What is a distinctly Christian approach to the ethical issues surrounding the beginning and end of human life? Here are some thoughts, not all well developed at this stage.
1. The theological foundations of a Christian pro-life stance are creation and Christology. The doctrine of creation teaches us that each human being is made by God, in his image, and belongs to him. Life - including my own life! - does not ultimately 'belong' to any of us, but to God. That is why a human being cannot arbitrarily take another human being's life - consider Genesis 9:6. Christology comes in because it is, if you like, the highest compliment that could be paid to human nature that God the Son took it on himself and became incarnate. If we doubt the value of human life, the doctrine of the incarnation should be a sufficient rebuttal of those doubts. We could also add that, de jure, each human life belongs once again to God, this time not only by right of creation but by right of redemption.
2. The ethical implications of these foundations are sometimes very clear, and sometimes not so much. I think that anyone who celebrates the Annunciation - I don't mean necessarily by keeping the feast, but by being gladdened by the angelic news of the incarnation - ought to recognise that Christ in his incarnation sanctifies human life from conception. We ought to be pro-life in the narrower sense of 'against the deliberate ending of life in the womb'. But we need to recognise that issues around end-of-life care just are more difficult. There can be a moral difference, for example, between deliberately ending a life and withdrawing treatment - although both will end in death, and are undertaken in that knowledge. We ought not to act or talk as if this stuff were simple and straightforward.
3. To be pro-life is not the same as being anti-death. One aspect of recognising the sanctity of life is recognising that the mystery of its end does not lie entirely within our power. Thanks to medical advances, we can often delay death - but whether we ought to do so in every case is surely very doubtful. Especially for the Christian, who believes in and looks for the resurrection of the dead, being pro-life ought not to mean 'prolonging life wherever possible regardless of other considerations'.
4. It seems to me that many people - especially, I have to say, Americans - muddy the waters by confusing more than one issue. For example, in some of the tragic issues involving children which have come up in the UK, American commentators have been quick to equate being pro-life with believing in absolute parental autonomy. Some talk as if parents own their children's lives, something which I can't accept on theological principle (see 1, above), and some import the distinctly American (but not Christian) idea that the community and the state ought to have no input into tough decisions involving children. This is an unhelpful blurring of issues, and particularly when it is being shouted across the Atlantic sounds a lot like real-life tragedies here are being used as ammunition for ongoing culture wars there. (And as an aside, if the sanctity of life means anything, it means that issues of life must not be used in this way).
5. A distinctive of Christian engagement with this issue ought to be a certain amount of calm. Don't get me wrong: there should be anger when the sanctity of life is not respected, and there should be grief over individual tragedies and systemic horrors. But there needs to be somewhere behind that the faith in God who raises the dead and gives each one his or her due, so that we can engage without bitterness and frenzy.
6. Life is a gift. It is all too easy to present life as a burden - and then say that you have to carry it anyway, because hey, we're pro-life. Life is a gift. There should be joy in being pro-life, joy in honouring the greatest thing the Creator has made, joy in the fact that Christ came that we might have life, and life to the full. The Christian pro-life position is full of gratitude, seeing goodness where nobody else can see it, the joy of glimpsing the imago dei even in the briefest flickers of human existence and the hardest moments of human being. Tone matters, because it betrays what is really going on in our hearts.
1. The theological foundations of a Christian pro-life stance are creation and Christology. The doctrine of creation teaches us that each human being is made by God, in his image, and belongs to him. Life - including my own life! - does not ultimately 'belong' to any of us, but to God. That is why a human being cannot arbitrarily take another human being's life - consider Genesis 9:6. Christology comes in because it is, if you like, the highest compliment that could be paid to human nature that God the Son took it on himself and became incarnate. If we doubt the value of human life, the doctrine of the incarnation should be a sufficient rebuttal of those doubts. We could also add that, de jure, each human life belongs once again to God, this time not only by right of creation but by right of redemption.
2. The ethical implications of these foundations are sometimes very clear, and sometimes not so much. I think that anyone who celebrates the Annunciation - I don't mean necessarily by keeping the feast, but by being gladdened by the angelic news of the incarnation - ought to recognise that Christ in his incarnation sanctifies human life from conception. We ought to be pro-life in the narrower sense of 'against the deliberate ending of life in the womb'. But we need to recognise that issues around end-of-life care just are more difficult. There can be a moral difference, for example, between deliberately ending a life and withdrawing treatment - although both will end in death, and are undertaken in that knowledge. We ought not to act or talk as if this stuff were simple and straightforward.
3. To be pro-life is not the same as being anti-death. One aspect of recognising the sanctity of life is recognising that the mystery of its end does not lie entirely within our power. Thanks to medical advances, we can often delay death - but whether we ought to do so in every case is surely very doubtful. Especially for the Christian, who believes in and looks for the resurrection of the dead, being pro-life ought not to mean 'prolonging life wherever possible regardless of other considerations'.
4. It seems to me that many people - especially, I have to say, Americans - muddy the waters by confusing more than one issue. For example, in some of the tragic issues involving children which have come up in the UK, American commentators have been quick to equate being pro-life with believing in absolute parental autonomy. Some talk as if parents own their children's lives, something which I can't accept on theological principle (see 1, above), and some import the distinctly American (but not Christian) idea that the community and the state ought to have no input into tough decisions involving children. This is an unhelpful blurring of issues, and particularly when it is being shouted across the Atlantic sounds a lot like real-life tragedies here are being used as ammunition for ongoing culture wars there. (And as an aside, if the sanctity of life means anything, it means that issues of life must not be used in this way).
5. A distinctive of Christian engagement with this issue ought to be a certain amount of calm. Don't get me wrong: there should be anger when the sanctity of life is not respected, and there should be grief over individual tragedies and systemic horrors. But there needs to be somewhere behind that the faith in God who raises the dead and gives each one his or her due, so that we can engage without bitterness and frenzy.
6. Life is a gift. It is all too easy to present life as a burden - and then say that you have to carry it anyway, because hey, we're pro-life. Life is a gift. There should be joy in being pro-life, joy in honouring the greatest thing the Creator has made, joy in the fact that Christ came that we might have life, and life to the full. The Christian pro-life position is full of gratitude, seeing goodness where nobody else can see it, the joy of glimpsing the imago dei even in the briefest flickers of human existence and the hardest moments of human being. Tone matters, because it betrays what is really going on in our hearts.
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