Neglect of the ascension

A late thought for Ascension Day...

I have wondered lately whether the neglect of the ascension in evangelical circles might not be responsible for other striking gaps in evangelical thinking.  The thought is not entirely processed yet, so here it is in what is probably the form of caricature, with more chewing over needed before I can add the necessary nuance.

Evangelicals stress the once-and-for-all nature of the work of Christ; we are right to do so, there is a Scriptural mandate for this, and indeed the doctrine of the ascension potentially helps us here.  The emphasis therefore falls on what Jesus has done.  No complaints about this.  But do we have enough to say about what Jesus is doing?  The ascension teaches us that the Jesus who lived and walked on earth lives now in heaven, as the exact person he was.  But does it mean very much for us that he lives now, over and above the admittedly very important fact that it demonstrates the success and acceptance of what he did in his earthly ministry?

I wonder whether the right emphasis on the 'once-for-all-ness', the completeness, makes it difficult for us to see and understand the ongoing work of Christ.  Take, for example, the eucharist.  The evangelical emphasis on the completed work - which is, let me say again, absolutely right - can easily mean that the eucharist is only a backward-looking ordinance; it directs our attention to something that happened, 2000 years ago.  It does do this, of course ('on the night he was betrayed...' is a pretty clear historical marker), but is there another aspect that is neglected?  With a proper emphasis on the ascension, might we not be able to see and understand a vertical dimension, a relationship in the eating and drinking to the Lord Jesus who lives and is with us in the here and now?

Mutatis mutandis, similar points could be made about our worship (is it just about the horizontal ministering the word to one another?) and our preaching (is it just commentary on the biblical witness - Bible teaching! - or is God speaking here and now as the Scripture is expounded to show Christ?)

The ascension can help to deliver us from our fear that any talk about things really happening in the here and now detracts from the completed, once-for-all work.  That fear is not unjustified.  An emphasis on receiving Christ in the eucharist, for example, can indeed slide into making that reception a work, in the sense of something that must be added to Christ's work.  But the ascension reminds us that the Christ who went up and now lives and ministers to us is the same person who suffered and rose; there is no conflict between his completed work then and there and his application of that work here and now.  It is all him, and insofar as we maintain the focus on him we are safe.

My sense is that we need a greater emphasis on the ascension, and the fact that the head of the church is now in heaven, and is now ministering to us and through us, out of the great fulness of his once-for-all completed work.

On the connection between theology and sin

When a teacher or Christian leader falls into sin, or is revealed to have sinned, it is reasonable to look at their expressed theology and ask whether there is anything in it that might have led them to be vulnerable.  It is not reasonable - because it is simply logically fallacious - to move directly from 'this person sinned' to 'therefore their theology must be wrong'.  That is just incorrect.  A person can have good theology, in the sense that what they think and say is orthodox and biblical, and still sin.  We all know that, I hope.

There is a discussion to be had over the best way to understand the relationship between sin and temptation, and whether there is perhaps a category for disordered desire that is best understood as neither sin nor temptation, but the result of sinfulness in a different way.  That we all have such disordered desires is evident to anyone who is not self-deceived.  It is not at all evident, to me at least, that there is an obvious and orthodox way to understand and talk about these desires, though there are certainly some ways that are obviously heretical.  It would be foolish in the extreme to judge any serious attempt to understand and express these things purely on the basis of any one exponent's sin.  Let me say it again, this sort of ad hominem argument is fallacious.

That doesn't mean that there isn't a conversation to be had about whether there is a better way to understand and express our fallen state, with all its attendant guilt.  There almost certainly is.  Nor is it to rule out of court the question of whether ideas and beliefs have consequences; of course they do, and so it is sensible to carefully and cautiously ask whether there is a connection between a person's theology and their sin.  But that can't be presumed, and rarely is it as self-evident as some people seem to make out.

I wonder sometimes (and now is one of those times) whether the way some Christians write and speak about others, particularly others who have fallen into sin, is not in itself expressive of disordered desire - not, of course, in the sexual realm.  The good desire to be right twisted into the wrong desire for others to be shown to be wrong.  The joy in seeing people we disagree with cast down.  I am not pointing fingers at anyone in particular.  I am just dismayed by tone; perhaps I am really just dismayed by the internet.

Anyway, all this is apropos of nothing in particular.  Just be careful out there, okay?

Questions about public prayer

The current furore over public prayer in the UK seems to me to expose some of the key misunderstandings about religion prevalent in our society.  Without intending to get into the substantive issue at all, it seems worth noting these two assumptions:

1. There is a category called 'religion', and all the different belief systems, communities, and movements which can be thus categorised are basically the same.  Differences can be noted, of course, and nobody is saying that all religions are literally identical.  But that they can be classed together and therefore should be treated the same seems to be a pretty deep assumption.  Everyone accepts some limitations on this - but I suspect would usually deal with this by re-classifying some movements as 'not religious', or not proper religions (cults, perhaps?).
2. Religion is essentially a private matter, and even when it is invited into the public sphere it is expected to remain a private matter.  The public sphere is assumed to be a neutral, secular space, into which people can bring their private faith so long as they accept that it will then be withdrawn without having altered the character of the public sphere at all.

It is worth interrogating both of these assumptions.  Pertinent to the current debate, for example, it might be worth asking whether there is a difference between inviting into the public sphere a religious group which is inherently territorial and expansionist versus a group which focusses its political ambitions on a community which is not co-extensive with any state or territory.  I'm not saying you definitely shouldn't invite the first group; I'm just saying that prayer from these two groups would have different content and different connotations, and would have different implications for the nature of the public sphere.

It would also be worth considering whether the kind of benign secularism which governs the idea of the neutral public sphere is workable in practice.  What if that sort of pluralism was actually - as I would suggest it certainly was - the historical outworking of a particular belief system?  In other words, what if it never was value neutral at all, and what if attempting to make it value neutral actually leaves it more vulnerable?  And all this is assuming that a neutral public sphere is even a desirable thing, which I think needs some argumentation.

Finally, just to note that I've seen some Christian figures voicing a commitment to religious pluralism in the public sphere which I can't help thinking is theologically and politically naive.  Maybe it is just that I haven't seen the working behind their conclusions.  At the very least, I'd say we'd be wise to tread very carefully here.

Mr Beaver on AI

"But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet."

Thus Mr Beaver to the Pevensie children.  He is speaking, of course, about the White Witch, who falsely claims human descent.

Now, in Narnia it is fine not to be human.  Aslan is not human.  ("Aslan a man!  Certainly not." - also Mr Beaver.)  The problem is anything masquerading as human, or trying to take a role which belongs to human beings.

Anyway, you can draw your own conclusions, but I tend to think that Mr Beaver is on to something and that he could have been talking about technology as much as witches.

Being angry biblically

I don't know about you, but recently I've been feeling angry.  I am not at all unfamiliar with anger as an emotion, but something about the present moment seems to stir up anger in a way which is particularly difficult to deal with.  Most recently, it has been mainly the news from across the Atlantic that has made me angry - not just the terrible events themselves, but the appalling arrogance and self-satisfaction of those driving them.  It makes me angry.  And I've realised that my feeling of anger is compounded by a sense of helplessness.  Often when I am angry about things, I can do something about them.  I can have a conversation with the person who has angered me, I can remove myself from a situation.  Here I can't do either of those things.  I don't have the ear of, say, the President of the United States, but I am obliged to live in a world over which he has a huge influence.  And I am angry about that, and angry about the people (including, and perhaps especially, those who invoke the name of Christ) who enable that.  Helplessly, hopelessly, angry.

As an aside, and in case you think this is unduly politically one-sided (though for myself I think sometimes one-sidedness is called for), here are some other things from across the political spectrum that have made me feel similarly angry recently: the deliberate erosion of the idea of the sanctity of human life by British politicians; the crass materialism which drives our politics; the confusion over sex and gender which has been deliberately inculcated to forward an individualistic and antinomian agenda; the critical underfunding of services in the UK to the point of collapse...  The list goes on.  I'm quite angry.

And this is where I think some of those dark and slightly awkward passages from the Psalms are pretty helpful.  You know the sort.

Punish them, God;
let them fall by their own schemes.
Drive them out because of their many crimes,
for they rebel against you.

God, if only you would kill the wicked
–you bloodthirsty men, stay away from me –
who invoke you deceitfully.
Your enemies swear by you falsely.
Lord, don’t I hate those who hate you,
and detest those who rebel against you?
I hate them with extreme hatred;
I consider them my enemies.

The examples could be multiplied.  What are these angry passages doing in the Bible?  Well, surely one thing they're doing is reminding me - and you, if you feel at all like I do - that the situation is neither helpless nor hopeless.  When we are angry, we can voice our anger in prayer to God - and these passages remind us that we don't have to first moderate that emotion, clear it up, tone it down.  No, here is full on anger, but it is anger brought into the presence of God.  Anger that implores him to do something about people and situations I can do nothing about.

The very violence of these verses is, I think, helpful.  God, if only you would kill the wicked.  I can't, and I shouldn't.  But you can, O Lord - vengeance is yours, you will repay.  And of course it is safe to make this appeal to God, in a way it would not be safe to make it to anyone else.  He knows what is right, and he will do what is right.  Only he can judge who are the wicked who must die; only he can ensure that the arrogant rebels receive what they deserve.  If I call down curses on an innocent head in my anger, he is able to turn those curses into blessings, and indeed to correct my perception if I am open to that.  In my anger, I commit myself and the world for which I am concerned to God.

Of course these Psalms aren't here for every moment of pique and fit of rage I might experience.  But when there is real anger, with real cause, here are prayers I can pray.

Cutting room floor, 18th Jan 26

Yesterday I preached from Colossians 1:15-23, an absolutely glorious passage and one in which you could easily spend multiple weeks without exhausting everything it has to say about the Lord Jesus Christ.  Here are a few issues and topics I would have liked to spend more time on that didn't make it into the sermon.

The firstborn over creation - verse 15

That's the way our church Bible (NIV) translates this phrase, in line with various other English translations (e.g., CSB).  I was aware, though, that people using other translations (e.g., ESV) might be reading 'firstborn of creation'.  Both legitimate translations.  Sometimes verses like this will be picked up by movements which subscribe to heretical views of Christ - for example, Jehovah's Witnesses, who hold something very like the ancient Arian heresy.  In this view, the Son of God is a created being, albeit the first and most highly exalted creature.  'Firstborn of creation' certainly sounds like it leans that way!  However, the very next verse makes it clear that every created thing was created in, through and for the Son - placing him very clearly with God the Father as the Creator.  Some of our English translations try to avoid the confusion by translating 'over creation'; this is not an attempt to be deceptive, but reflects the background to Paul's use of this title in, for example, Psalm 89:27, where the Davidic King of Israel is given the title of God's firstborn to reflect his rule as the greatest of the kings of the earth.  To be the firstborn of creation is indeed to be supreme over creation - not as the greatest creature but as the great Creator.

All the fullness - verse 19

All God's fullness dwelt in Christ - that, of course, makes sense, since Christ himself was the eternal Son of God.  But doesn't God dwell fully in every believer by the Holy Spirit?  Yes, he does - but not in this way.  In Christ, we see the personal union of human and divine nature; he is truly God in the flesh.  And in fact his humanity has no independent existence - it is not like there was a human being called Jesus, who was subsequently indwelt or taken over by the Son of God.  No, the fullness of God dwelt in Christ in an utterly unique way, such that his whole life was the life of the eternal Son lived out in our flesh.  On top of that, Christ in his human nature received the Spirit without measure, whereas believers, it seems, can be filled to a greater or lesser extent by the Spirit.  (It is hard to explain exactly what that can mean, since the Spirit can not be split up into parts, or be partially present; perhaps we should think of it in terms of the human experience?)  Moreover, our being filled with the Spirit is dependent on his fullness - he is the original and the ongoing power of our fullness.

The interplay between the universal and the particular

Christ is supreme over all creation (universal), but he is specifically head of his church (particular).  In Christ all things are reconciled to God, in heaven and on earth (universal), but to continue to enjoy that reconciliation in their own lives the Colossians believers must persevere in their trust in Christ (particular).  It seems very important to me that we not underemphasise one or the other of these angles.  If we lay all our stress on the universal, we might end up denying the importance of the church, and we may well end up teaching that everyone will be saved no matter what - a viewpoint which is at odds with the general perspective of Scripture.  If, on the other hand, we only talk about the particular, we run the risk of becoming quite narrow, missing the doctrine of creation (or at least missing its link to the gospel in Christ), and only valuing 'churchy' activities; we might also make the gospel quite individualistic, as if everything in the end depended on our decision.  We need to say both that Christ is universally Lord and reconciler, and that he is particularly Lord in his church and invites particular faith.

News and reflections at the close of 2025

Personal news

The big personal news at the end of 2025 is, on the one hand, that I think I'm very close to submitting my PhD Thesis, and on the other hand that from next week I will be serving part-time as an Associate Pastor at Magdalen Road Church here in Oxford.  I am enormously grateful to those who have helped me through this long period of study and writing, and also to the elders and congregation at Magdalen Road who have given me the opportunity to dip my toe back into the water of pastoral ministry.  Looking forward to that opportunity has also stirred up lots of reflections on the close of my last period of pastoral ministry, and I realise that when I wrote my reflections on that at the time I hadn't really grasped how deeply traumatic it had been.  Prayers appreciated as we as a family move into this new season.

Church reflections

One interesting phenomenon that seems to have ramped up in the last year is the influx into the church of people from the political/cultural 'right', at least some of whom seem to have become convinced that Christianity is an essential component of Western civilisation, and therefore a potential bulwark against what they see as the decline of that civilisation.  This mirrors the trickle of more liberal minded folk into the church over the last few years, who seemed themselves to have realised that only the Christian message could provide a philosophical ground and foundation for the liberal values they hold dear.  Both sides are right, of course, in the sense that the particular shape of Western civilisation and the liberal values of the early Twenty-first Century do owe a great deal to Christianity.  Both sides are wrong, though, in imagining that it will be possible to turn to Christianity purely to bolster social values or a political agenda.  As Lewis has one of his characters put it, one might as well try to use the staircase to heaven as a shortcut to the local chemists.

As for the church, she will just have to accept newcomers with a patient testimony to the reality of life in Christ, and a patient rebuke to those elements of ideology on left and right which are incompatible with that life.  The church needs to stand on her own ground, and speak clearly and even handedly to right and to left.

I wonder whether this means we will see more of the culture wars playing out inside churches, and I worry for what that might look like.  I think evangelicalism, on the whole, has no coherent theological vision for society and for political engagement, and in fact many evangelical leaders give the impression that the best we can hope for is a sort of benign, neutral secularism in the public sphere.  This is unlikely to satisfy culture warriors on either side, but more importantly seems theologically rather vapid.

Perhaps some of the responses to the news that there will be a UK version of The Gospel Coalition already reflect elements of this culture war.  Certainly the write up in Evangelical Times, which reflects the more conservative strand of the evangelical world, is extremely negative.  Personally, I think that write up scandalously misrepresents the people who are mentioned in it, and I wonder whether from the author's perspective it is possible to engage thoughtfully with the modern world without being accused of social liberalism.  On the other hand, I tend to think TGCUK is a bad idea; I am not sure we need more umbrella organisations, which seem to me to be a classic evangelical response to our lack of a distinct vision for catholicity.

Social reflections

Outside the church, political life in 2025 just became more fractured and depressing.  Government seems incapable of delivering.  Populist parties on left and right are growing, both equally disturbing to my mind, and it does indeed seem that the centre cannot hold.  Because I lean slightly right, I am particularly alarmed by the rise of non-conservative right wingers, and by the way some are embracing them simply to enjoy the sight of the liberal consensus taking a beating.  We should be wary of what might end up replacing that liberal consensus.

It seems pretty evident already that local services are failing, for lack of will or resource, and I wonder how local churches - already stretched pretty thin - might be able to fill some of the gaps.  We may need to review our programmes of activities, and ask ourselves more rigorously how our resources can be best used to testify to the reality of the world renewed in Christ.  Middle class evangelicalism might need to specifically ask about our ability and willingness to serve the poorest.

Goodbye to 2025

One of the questions I come back to again and again is that of time.  I agree with Augustine that time is an extremely difficult thing to understand.  As another present slips into the past, I continue to be very grateful that in Christ God has made himself a partaker of our time, and has shown himself able to gather up all the times of our lives to share in his own eternal life.  So, goodbye to 2025, but of course not quite goodbye; rather this year is laid down in the archives, to form part of the strangely glorious whole which for now we can only vaguely imagine.