I will be away from home for work from tomorrow morning, 6th May, until 23rd May. I will have some Internet access but limited opportunity for blogging. I will see any comments, but I am not sure yet if I will be able to respond. I may tell you more about the trip when I come back.
Adrian Warnock seems to have scooped the interesting news that Spring Harvest is breaking its partnership with UCCF (the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship) and the Keswick Convention because they cannot agree about Steve Chalke and what he wrote about the atonement. Dave Warnock, no relation, seems to consider this totally bad news. But in my first comment on Adrian’s post, I actually welcomed this split. So, what is happening here?
Molly writes, in a post at Adventures of Mercy, about her move from a complementarian or patriarchal view of gender relationships to an egalitarian one. This has been a real and difficult change of outlook for her. In a comment on her own post she writes:
I cannot begin to tell you what it has been like for me…just like a death…but yet I have felt like the One stirring up the questions in my heart was not my own rebellion, but Jesus, and most of it coming straight from Scripture. I had been so trained to read Scripture from a patriarchal perspective that I was unable to see it any other way without Divine intervention. Well, it’s either Divine or I’m totally decieved, one or the other, which is something I pray for (for truth and not deception) daily!
Molly certainly has a good point here about “Divine intervention”.
Very often patterns of thinking about the teaching of the Bible become very deeply ingrained, and to change them requires what is technically called a paradigm shift. Sometimes people are able to make such paradigm shifts when presented with overwhelming evidence, but this is rather rare. Even in science, which is supposed to be objective, it is rare for established scholars to shift their personal paradigms to accept a completely new theory; the paradigm shifts which have occurred have more commonly been spread over decades, as the older generation has been gradually replaced by new scholars accepting the new theory.
But with theological understanding there is also a spiritual element. I think most of us would accept this when we consider the personal paradigm shift required for someone to become a Christian. For those with no Christian background this is one of the greatest paradigm shifts that could be made. And it is one which people are rarely persuaded to make by overwhelming logical arguments, although more commonly perhaps they are prompted to shift by evidence they see for themselves of God’s activity. But it is not without good reason that most Christians hold that this paradigm shift can only be made with the help of the Holy Spirit, whose work includes opening the unbeliever’s heart to God’s truth. As the apostle Paul wrote:
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
(2 Corinthians 4:3-4, TNIV)
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
(2 Corinthians 3:16, TNIV)
Now the paradigm shift which Molly made is small compared with that of becoming a Christian. Nevertheless, I’m sure she is right to attribute it to “Divine intervention”. When “the god of this age” has lost complete control of someone to the true God, he tries every trick in the book to get back into their lives to deceive them and make them ineffective as Christians. Galatians 3:1 is surely a biblical example of this. I know that he has done this kind of thing in many ways in my own life; I am still struggling in some of these areas, and there may be others which I am not yet aware of.
It seems to me that one of Satan’s current strategies to deceive Christians and make them ineffective is… well, I won’t say complementarianism in general, but I will suggest that it is the strident complementarianism or patriarchalism which seems so strong in the USA at the moment, although not so much here in the UK except perhaps in circles connected with Adrian’s (currently dormant) blog.
This kind of stridency seems to go hand in hand with a lack of concern for people and how they will react. In this case, an insistence on patriarchy is surely causing many, men as well as women, to turn away from the Christian faith, potentially to their eternal ruin. But mention this to a strident complementarian, and the response is likely to be that God’s truth is more important than whether people are saved or not. Well, God’s truth is important, but there is no Christian obligation to present it in an unattractive way. I’m not suggesting that complementarians conceal their beliefs, but is there a good reason why they don’t stop being contentious about this issue and instead put their efforts into positive preaching about the great blessings in the Gospel?
In fact the not so good reason for this that I am discerning is that these people have fallen for Satan’s deceitful schemes. Indeed this seems to be part of his worldwide strategy for stirring up trouble by encouraging intolerant and angry fundamentalism among followers of every religion, including atheism. In this strategy 9/11 was a major success, not so much for the original attack as for the over-reaction which followed, including the invasion of Iraq which has simply encouraged all kinds of fundamentalism. But I am straying too far from the subject of this post!
So, how can people be encouraged to abandon strident complementarianism, or fundamentalism of any kind? It seems to me that presenting rational arguments to such people, as I have been doing here, at Better Bibles Blog, on Adrian’s blog etc, is about as effective as bashing my head against a brick wall. But maybe Molly’s paradigm shift shows us a better way. If, as she testifies, it took “Divine intervention” to change her from a complementarian to an egalitarian, then we should, instead of trying to win people by arguments, be praying that God will intervene in their lives and show them his truth. And at the same time we should allow him to intervene in our lives as well and show to us his truth, which may not be exactly what we have been trying to promote with our arguments.
Meanwhile, concerning the complementarian vision of male leadership, Corrie wrote this in a later comment on this same Adventures of Mercy post:
Christ, Himself, turned the leadership paradigm on its head when he told leaders not to be like the heathen but to be like Him, someone who gets on His knees to serve and not someone who expects to be served.
But this aspect of the Christian paradigm is so often ignored by those who believe that leadership is male, especially by men who seem to expect women to be their servants. If these men aspire to being leaders in the home or in the church, they should take to heart Jesus’ own words:
You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
(Mark 10:42-45, TNIV)
Now it is surely another part of Satan’s strategy to pervert God’s originally designed concept of leadership into the kind of “lording it” which Jesus rejects here. Indeed this is a very ancient strategy which goes back at least to the time of Samuel (1 Samuel 8:11-18), and probably to the Fall. But this is an issue on which the Bible seems to be unanimous. So, rather than a head-on challenge on the basic complementarian position, it is perhaps a more productive strategy in countering strident complementarians to challenge them with this biblical view of leadership. Maybe men who realise that leadership in the family or in the church requires them to act as slaves, even to give up their lives, will no longer be so eager to claim this leadership for themselves and deny it to women!
Although I don’t always agree with Andreas Köstenberger on gender-related issues, I appreciate what he has to say about singleness, part 1 and part 2. But I don’t appreciate Debbie Maken’s response, preaching that for most people it is wrong to remain single.
Unlike either of these two protagonists, but like significant Christian leaders such as John Stott and Mike Pilavachi, leader of the event I just got back from, I am single myself. This is neither from deliberate choice nor from a settled conviction that God has called me to singleness. In fact I rather believe that God has called me to get married at some time. But, from a combination of circumstances and a belief at various times that now was not the right time to look for a partner, this has not yet happened, even though I have now passed 50. A few years ago I was engaged briefly, but it didn’t last. More recently I signed up for a short time with Christian Connection, a dating agency, and made a few friends through it but it didn’t seem right to pursue anything. I continue to struggle with loneliness, as one of the very few singles anywhere near my age in my church or among my friends. And the attitude of the church is not always helpful. But for the moment I also appreciate the freedom from other responsibilities that gives me time to serve God, and to pursue other interests which are mostly related to God’s work. And I continue to trust God to bring the right marriage partner into my life at the right time if that is right, and to continue to provide for me as a single man if that is his better way for me.
This blog seems to have lost some momentum in the last week or so. This is largely because I have been unexpectedly busy. August is usually a quiet month for me, as for most people it seems, at least in the northern hemisphere. But for various reasons I have been rather busy this week. The blogging I have been doing has mostly been on the Better Bibles Blog: four short posts by me spread over the last two Fridays.
The blogging momentum won’t be getting going again here for the next few days, in fact not until next Thursday at the earliest. This is because I am going away, with no Internet access, to a Christian event called Momentum. This is an offshoot of Soul Survivor, a network of Christian youth events with an evangelical and charismatic basis. They write:
The heart of Soul Survivor is to envision young people of all denominations to capture first a vision of Jesus, and then to equip, train, empower and release them into his ministry in their every day lives.
Last year they had over 22,000 guests at their three summer camping events, held at Shepton Mallet, Somerset – 3-4 hours drive south west of here. For several years the young people from my church have gone to this event and had a great time, as have my pastor and his wife. Their excuse for going has been to take their own children and help to lead the other youth, but it seems to have been a real blessing to them as well, and has made me want to see what it is all about.
This year, a group of teens from my church is currently at the regular Soul Survivor youth camp. They come home tomorrow but will be replaced by a group of mostly twenty-somethings going to Momentum, which is designed for that age group.
Well, it is some years since I no longer qualified for that group. But I decided to pretend to be in my twenties for a few days and join my rather younger friends for a week under canvas. I haven’t camped in Britain for many years, only in Egypt and Australia where warmth was guaranteed. So I am relieved that the five day weather forecast is looking quite good.
I am looking forward to learning all the latest worship songs, and using them to worship God among thousands of others. I am looking forward to fellowship with a group of enthusiastic young (many in both ways) Christians. And I am looking forward to God inspiring me and equipping me for whatever he has in store for me.
I hope to tell you all a bit more in about a week’s time.
I wrote the following to the other members of the team with whom I was going to Israel. I now want to share it (slightly edited) more widely:
I just came across the following in Surprised by the Voice of God
If we want a deep friendship with God, it is important to cultivate a state of mind where we view all of our time as God’s time, a state of mind where we are totally available to him. It is necessary to do this because God speaks to us at the most inconvenient times. Sometimes he even lets his favorite servants spend time, energy and money in organizing a mission journey. Then he waits until they get in the middle of that journey and forbids them to engage in ministry. Paul and his friends made plans to minister in Asia, but God wanted them in Europe (Acts 16:6-10). He let them “waste” time, money, and energy before he redirected them there.
It seems to me that God almost delights in speaking to us at the most inconvenient times in order to test our availability. …
I am also reminded of how God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and then at the last moment told him not to. He is testing our availability to him for whatever he would call us to do. Whatever happened, it was not an accident.
It has been a quiet week on Speaker of Truth, not because I am taking a deliberate summer break, but because my mind has been on other things.
I had been expecting that this coming Sunday I would be flying to Israel with a team from my church, to spend a week in Nazareth working with an Arab church there, and then a week based in Jerusalem. Nazareth is the home town of my vicar (pastor) as well as of my Saviour.
By last weekend the trip was already in doubt because of the conflict with Lebanon. But we expected that the Arab town of Nazareth would be out of the firing line. However, on Wednesday night we heard that two Arab children had been killed by a rocket which landed there just 150 metres from my vicar’s family home – and 135 people were sent to hospital. With this kind of attack Hezbollah show themselves not to be freedom fighters targeting an enemy, but terrorists who kill indiscriminately – but then perhaps they fired these missiles in haste as the Israeli army closed in on their launchpad. Anyway, in response to this the Nazareth city council closed down public meetings, so making the church children’s club which we planned to run impossible.
So, even if we had been fearless enough to go, we would not have been able to do what we had intended. On that basis we decided yesterday to cancel the trip, or at least postpone it until next year. Of course all of this has been on my mind for most of the week. And it has stopped me concentrating on blogging – although it prompted another team member to start a blog about the trip. But it does mean that this blog won’t be closing down for the next two weeks as I had intended, although I may take a shorter break.
And then I have also been enjoying the record summer heat, but not wanting to sit too long in front of my computer. We were expecting a hot time in Israel, but it looks like it may be just as hot here.
Confused about what it means for someone to be an Anglican? Sometimes I am, and I have been one for more than 50 years! Tim Chesterton introduced himself in a comment on my Sorry to disappoint… posting as an Essex man who has long lived in Canada (but is still an England football supporter, apparently, even now in “the worst of times” I hope). Tim has written a wonderful tongue in cheek Welcome to the Anglican World, which tries to explain for example that despite appearances the Primates who are in charge are not monkeys!
Tim has also featured in his latest chapter of fiction an Anglican church here in Chelmsford, at which
the service was lively, with contemporary music, spirited preaching from [the vicar], and a warm sense of fellowship in the congregation.
Could this have been my Anglican church in Chelmsford, Meadgate? We certainly fit this description. We advertise ourselves (or will do on our new website which is due to go live soon – in fact I should probably be working on content for it this evening instead of blogging!) as “The Church of England with a Difference”. So we try to be different from much of the Anglican world as described by Tim. But hopefully we are not too different from his idea of a Chelmsford Anglican church.
At the Revival Days conference I was at last weekend I felt some of the time that I was walking on water! Not quite in the literal sense, despite this picture of me taken at a nearby ford. But it was certainly a wonderful time of being close to the Lord and feeling his refreshing presence.
I mentioned this conference in my posting a couple of weeks ago on the Toronto Blessing. Yes, some of the Toronto manifestations were still happening. It is sad, perhaps, that Blogger does not support video clips, as I have a great one of some friends of mine rolling on the floor laughing in the Spirit – but then, although the conference venue had been declared a “Fear Free Zone (1 John 4:18)”, my friends might be a bit embarrassed to see this on the Internet.
But the focus of the conference was not on manifestations. In fact it was on God the Father’s love. The speakers (the two pastors of the church, who both happen to be women) encouraged us to reject a caricature of the Trinity, that the Father is the stern one, the Son is the loving one, and the Holy Spirit is the fun one! They reminded us that the Father is also the loving one, and that even if our earthly fathers were stern, or worse, and not loving, our heavenly Father is not like that. This led to some powerful prayer ministry for people who found it hard to experience the Father’s love because of past hurts.
For me this conference was mainly a time of confirmation of things which God had said to me before and encouragement to continue in the same directions. I am being led into serving him in new and deeper ways, and should expect to see signs and wonders. Who knows, I may really find I can walk on water – so that Jesus may be glorified.
After my posting on Tuesday about my experiences similar to the Toronto Blessing, I read in more detail Adrian Warnock’s account of the original blessing, which is especially interesting because Adrian is a qualified psychiatrist as well as a charismatic Christian. His medical training is clearly reflected in his account.
Adrian noted the prominent involvement in the original blessing of Sandy Millar and Nicky Gumbel of Holy Trinity Brompton. This may well explain both the emphasis on the Holy Spirit in the Alpha course, which Nicky Gumbel pioneered and still leads, and its extraordinary effectiveness worldwide – including in a small but significant way in my own church. In 1994 Adrian commented that during the Toronto Blessing
There have not been large number of conversions, and most people are not calling this a revival.
But if this Blessing is counted as even partially a basis on which the Alpha course was built, it must now be understood as having led to a large number of people turning to Christ through that course. It was not perhaps a “traditional” revival, but its results must be seen as comparable to large scale revival.
Adrian considered whether the Toronto Blessing ought to be considered a genuine work of God. He put forward the following test for this which he took from Jonathan Edwards – presumably the 18th century preacher and not the athlete of the same name who is also a prominent Christian:
It was in the study of 1 John 4 that he found his signs to indicate the genuiness of a work of God: An increase in esteem for Jesus as the Son of God, a greater following of God’s ways, an increased hunger for and understanding of God’s word (thus listening to the Apostles), and an increased love for God and man.
It is by the fruit of this movement that we will know its genuineness. (Mt 7:15-20). The result of all this ought to be a greater desire for holiness and to see souls saved.
On this basis both the original Toronto Blessing and the similar manifestations which I experienced should be accepted as at least to a large extent genuine. I would recommend to anyone that they take any opportunity to experience this for themselves, but also that they follow Adrian’s advice:
attend with a desire to experience God for yourself if all this is genuine. Do not seek phenomena, seek God.