What to do when Mammon fails

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Ruth Gledhill reports an interesting paper by Andreas Whittam Smith, “former editor of the Independent and now in charge of the Church of England’s £5 billion assets in his role as First Church Estates Commissioner”. The paper was apparently background material for discussions at this church’s General Synod. But Ruth doesn’t give a link to it, just extensive quotations. In her title she summarises his message as

Britain heading for ‘doomsday’

The article helps to explain what is happening during the current world financial crisis. It makes sobering reading, although I suspect, or perhaps just hope, that its message is somewhat exaggerated for effect. But, although Whittam Smith did use the word “doomsday”, Ruth’s title makes it seems even more alarming: this is not really about the end of the world, just about

the dismantling of the ‘great edifice of credit’ built up over 20 years. ‘The recession will continue until this process is over,’ he says …

My main point here is not about Ruth’s post or Whittam Smith’s paper, but about the first comment on the post (at the bottom; see also my reply), in which Chris Gillibrand writes (quoted in part):

And giving account of stewardship in the Gospel According to Saint Luke Chapter 16…. and in the Hansard record of today’s Select Committee meeting. The Gospel commends making friends with Mammon (aka riches) lest we fail, sadly it does not tell us what to do if Mammon fails- except one should remember that Christ redeems (literally repurchases) our sins (or debts as modern versions of the Lord’s Prayer would have it, as well as the Vulgate).

This puzzled me. Had Chris actually read the verse he refers to, Luke 16:9? As I remembered it, it tells us precisely what to do when Mammon, worldly wealth, fails, or at least what we should have done first. Here is the verse in RSV:

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations.

Most modern versions replace “mammon” with “wealth” or something similar, but the meaning is the same.

But I suppose that Chris was reading or remembering the verse in KJV, otherwise known as the Authorised Version:

And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

Note “ye fail”, where RSV has “it fails”. Indeed nearly every modern English version I can find including at Bible Gateway, going as far back as the English Revised Version (1881) has “it fails” or something with the same meaning. Only NKJV has “you fail”, but with “it fails” as an alternative in a footnote. (The Message completely loses the message of this verse; I ignore the 19th century Young’s Literal Translation, and the “21st Century King James Version” which is simply a revision of KJV.) I note that Chris has also interpreted “friends of” as “friends with”, whereas RSV’s “friends … by means of” is probably more accurate.

There are good reasons why most modern translations have corrected KJV here. The rest of this paragraph is only for those interested in the technicalities: The reading “ye fail” (Greek ἐκλίπητε eklipēte) comes from the mediaeval Byzantine text of the New Testament, as published by Erasmus, and later by Stephanus as the “Textus Receptus”. KJV  and NKJV are based on this text. But scholars now seem unanimous that this is not the original reading. According to Marshall (The New International Greek Testament Commentary, Eerdmans 1978, on this verse) it is found only in “W 33 69 131 pm lat; TR” which means in one 5th century Greek MS and a few later ones, and in the Latin Vulgate also translated in the 5th century. The scholarly text based on the oldest surviving manuscripts, at least one of which (P75, extant in this verse) dates back to the 3rd century, has “it fails” (Greek ἐκλίπῃ eklipē).

In this verse, as properly read, Jesus made it very clear that “unrighteous mammon”, wordly wealth, will fail. Some people have apparently understood this as referring to when individuals die and cannot take their wealth with the (compare Luke 12:20 and 1 Timothy 6:7), and this is perhaps the source of the alternative reading which is, according to Marshall, “the euphemism, ‘when you die’”.

But Jesus’ meaning is surely broader than that. The New English Bible reads “when money is a thing of the past”, and in E.V. Rieu’s Penguin Classics translation “when it comes to an end” refers back to “this dishonest world”. In this parable, as in most of his others, surely Jesus is looking ahead to the end of the world as we know it, when he will come again to judge us all, not on the basis of our wealth. That “doomsday” has not yet come, but perhaps the current financial chaos is a sign that it is on its way. This is not a time for the complacency of 2 Peter 3:4.

So what are we to do? Mammon may be on the way out but it has not completely failed yet. We are still far better off than the people of Zimbabwe, whose savings are now worthless. So we should use whatever we may have left not in a desperate effort to rebuild our financial security, but in the way Jesus teaches, “make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon”. That is, we should invest in “treasure in the heavens” by using our wealth to do good, and trusting in God to give us the eternal reward of his kingdom (Luke 12:32-34). Only Jesus can save, but not in a bank!

Just a few verses after the one we have been discussing, in Luke 16:13 (RSV), Jesus issues an even stronger challenge:

No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

(It is sad that many modern versions, even an “essentially literal” one like ESV, lose the link between verses 9, 11 and 13 by using different renderings of the Greek word which RSV has consitently translated “mammon”.)

So, my readers, make your choice: are you serving Mammon, worldly wealth, or are you serving God?

Faith in Public

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The past week has been interesting for discussion of faith in the public arena. I haven’t written about them here, but have made some comments on them on other blogs.

The nurse Caroline Petrie was suspended from her job for offering to pray for a patient – and then reinstated, as reported in The Times. It seems that she wasn’t doing anything wrong – and indeed under new guidelines the colleague who reported her could be accused of religious harassment.

Government minister Hazel Blears gave a speech to the Evangelical Alliance which has provoked various reactions. Eddie Arthur sounded rather negative about this, but in my comment on his post I pointed out the positive side to what she said:

See also this report from the EA, which has a link to the full text of the speech. I note that Blears started by quoting from Isaiah “beat our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into pruning hooks.” She also quotes “faith without works is dead.”

The EA seems critical of her for saying “The charter would mean faith groups who are paid public money to provide services … promising not to use public money to proselytise.” But this seems fair enough to me. This kind of separation doesn’t require completely separate charities, just separately accounted for funds like the building funds in many churches.

Now David Keen has written a post which, as well as commenting on these two stories, gives extracts from a speech given by our former Prime Minister Tony Blair to a prayer breakfast in Washington DC. Here are some extracts from the speech:

Today, religion is under attack from without and from within. From within, it is corroded by extremists who use their faith as a means of excluding the other. I am what I am in opposition to you. If you do not believe as I believe, you are a lesser human being.

From without, religious faith is assailed by an increasingly aggressive secularism, which derides faith as contrary to reason and defines faith by conflict. Thus do the extreme believers and the aggressive non-believers come together in unholy alliance.

How sad! I have seen too much of the first kind of attack even on this blog. But Blair continues:

And yet, faith will not be so easily cast. For billions of people, faith motivates, galvanises, compels and inspires, not to exclude but to embrace; not to provoke conflict but to try to do good. This is faith in action.

Then we have the following, which is so reminiscent of the TV show Yes, Prime Minister; I can hardly imagine Tony Blair as Jim Hacker, but it seems that there are real Sir Humphreys in the civil service:

I recall giving an address to the country at a time of crisis. I wanted to end my words with “God bless the British people”. This caused complete consternation. Emergency meetings were convened. The system was aghast. Finally, as I sat trying to defend my words, a senior civil servant said, with utter distain: “Really, Prime Minister, this is not America you know.”

An outbreak of unity?

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It’s a long time since I blogged about the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, which were regular topics here during last year’s GAFCON and Lambeth conferences as well as the C of E debate over women bishops. That is partly because on both these fronts things went quiet for several months.

But no longer. Last week the international issues that have divided the communion came up again at the Primates’ Meeting in Alexandria. Next week the issues in England will be in focus at the General Synod meeting. Ruth Gledhill summarises the current situation in an article in The Times. But things aren’t as interesting as they were last year: talk of schism has faded, and instead we have Ruth’s headline:

Anglicans brace themselves for an outbreak of unity

It's Better to Forgive

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I drafted this article for Baddow Life newspaper, which is distributed free by the three churches in this parish to the over 6,000 homes in the area. Thus the intended readership is non-Christians as well as Christians. This is intended to be part of a set of articles on forgiveness. If it is published it will not be in quite this form.

A woman I knew argued with her husband regularly and kept bringing up how he messed up some travel arrangements on their honeymoon – which was more than 40 years ago! She looked at everything he did in the light of that incident, and because of that she could never find peace or happiness in her marriage. She thought she was punishing her husband, but in fact she and her children were far more harmed by this.

This is so often what happens to people who refuse to forgive others, whether for small matters as in this case or for huge ones such as the loss of a loved one. Even after the worst of tragedies, as long as the bereaved hold on to the wrong that has been done to them, they continue to suffer the pain of loss and can never move on to rebuild their lives. Instead they find themselves in a pit of bitterness and depression. They may claim that to forgive would dishonour the memory of their loved ones, but would those loved ones really have wanted to be remembered in such misery? And if this is true after awful disasters, how much more does it apply after trivial hurts!

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” – in these words the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that we can only expect to be forgiven for what we do wrong if we forgive others.

It is of course not easy to forgive. But it is the only way to get out of that pit and move on to live a normal life. I remember how I felt some years ago when my fiancée suddenly broke off our engagement. For weeks I could think only of how to get back at her. But then a wise Christian friend reminded me that even if I could find ways to hurt her I would end up hurting myself even more. When he counselled me I ended up in tears in a public foyer. But with this help I was able to put the matter behind me, forgive and move on.

I’m happy to say that that woman in the first paragraph did eventually find a way to put the honeymoon incident behind her and forgive her husband. And so they were able to enjoy their last few years of life.

Clearing roads "entirely out of our hands" – Chelmsford Borough Council

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Sorry for a post of mainly local interest. I do have local readers and may find some more with this. The same principle may well apply elsewhere in England.

I have received a letter from a local councillor forwarded from Keith Nicholson, Director of Public Places at Chelmsford Borough Council. This explains why my weekly refuse collection was cancelled yesterday, and there will not now be another collection for a whole week. The reason given is as follows:

The concern remains the ability to manoeuvre large vehicles safely on these estate roads and to avoid unreasonable risks to our workforce who are engaged in the loading activities.

This of course refers to the snow which fell here on Sunday night and Monday morning, about four inches in total as pictured here. It never got any thicker than this, and no more snow has fallen here since Monday. Today it is raining gently, washing away the remaining snow and ice, so that even the service road behind my house is nearly clear:

Unemptied bins, not much snow

Unemptied bins, not much snow

Indeed on Wednesday there were still icy patches on some of the estate roads and pavements. This was not enough to stop commercial deliveries in large vehicles, e.g. to our local supermarket, which were continuing on very icy service roads even as the snow was falling on Monday. Probably more of a concern were the still very slippery pavements, which could indeed have been a danger to refuse collectors if they did not have suitable footwear.

I found this explanation quite reasonable until I read these words at the end of the letter, addressed to councillors:

Of course it goes without saying that we apologise to our customers for this disruption, but it is entirely out of our hands as I’m sure you will be able to explain if your are approached by any of your ward constituents

No, Mr Nicholson, this is not entirely out of your hands. Your council, indeed probably the department you head up, does the work to clear snow and ice off our roads (I think now under contract to Essex County Council). Your department could send out its workforce, otherwise unable to work at the moment, to clear the roads and pavements so that they could get on with their real job. If there are not enough workers or vehicles, that is not a matter entirely out of your hands, but a matter of your decision and your council’s not to allocate sufficient resources to cope with rather modest winter conditions. It is of course a matter of legitimate debate whether these resources should be kept in reserve for somewhat unusual bad weather. But this debate cannot be settled by a bald statement that the disruption is “entirely out of our hands”.

I spent a winter in Russia. Many readers of this blog are in cold parts of North America. They must find these excuses ridiculous. If the local authorities in those places abdicated their responsibilities by saying that the results of a few inches of snow are “entirely out of our hands”, then I don’t suppose refuse there would be collected between November and April.

At least Mr Nicholson’s letter offers some kind of apology. There is nothing apologetic at all in the announcement currently on Chelmsford Borough Council’s home page. I suppose a public apology quite literally “goes without saying”.

Refuse collection is a service which I pay for through my council tax. Will I receive a refund because this service has not been provided?

Here is the full text of Mr Nicholson’s letter, as forwarded to me and a large number of others with a request to give it publicity:

Councillors

Unfortunately we have had to cancel recycling and waste collections again today – Wed 4 February 2009

Despite leaving the assessment on whether to collect or not until mid morning today, ground conditions have not improved sufficiently to allow collections to take place

The problem remains with the estate roads and footpaths rather than the main roads and bus routes which are now largely clear. The concern remains the ability to manoeuvre large vehicles safely on these estate roads and to avoid unreasonable risks to our workforce who are engaged in the loading activities. The ‘on the ground’ assessment of selected routes this morning indicated that less than 20% of properties would be collectable and even this would require a judgement to be made by the collection vehicle driver for each individual road taking into account the potential risks. This is unrealistic. The other disadvantage with trying to undertake a partial collection is that this adds considerably to the uncertainty and confusion as to what collections have been made or are likely to be made and usually results in an adverse public reaction rather than a positive one.

In terms of contingency arrangements we now have to revert to ‘plan C’. In essence this means cancelling the Monday to Wednesday collections that have already been missed rather than attempting a catch-up and reverting to the normal collection days from Thursday onwards – assuming that collections will be possible tomorrow. This means that those properties that did not have a collection on Mon/Tue/Wed this week will have a ‘double’ collection at their next collection time for both refuse and recycling. This is now the most expedient way to recover the collection cycle. We are mindful also that further adverse weather is forecast for later this week – which could interrupt any ‘Saturday catch-up’ arrangements compounding the problem further.

The only variation to this will be that the brown bin garden waste collections scheduled for this week and week commencing 9th February will be cancelled. This will allow priority to be given and extra resources allocated to the ‘double collection of residual waste in the black bins and the extra volume of material from the recycling collections. Given the ground conditions experienced this week it is probably a reasonable assumption that volumes of green waste this week and next would be relatively low anyway. Normal brown bin garden waste collections will resume on Monday 16th February on week “A”.

The only other issue is that we will investigate the feasibility of adding an extra cardboard collection to those areas that may have missed the scheduled monthly collection to avoid a potential 8 week gap between these collections

The revised collection schedule can be found on the Chelmsford Borough Council website

Of course it goes without saying that we apologise to our customers for this disruption, but it is entirely out of our hands as I’m sure you will be able to explain if your are approached by any of your ward constituents

Keith Nicholson

Director of Public Places

www.chelmsford.gov.uk

Snowman no more!

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This morning the sun came out to shine prettily on what was left of yesterday’s snow, now rather icy after a partial thaw. More snow had been forecast for overnight but didn’t appear. But the schools were closed again – I don’t know why, they wouldn’t have been in this weather when I was young. So even quite early some children were gathering in the park near my house around the remains of what I as a child would have called a snowman, the centrepiece of this general shot of the park:

dsc00392

But it seems I shouldn’t use that term any more. James Spinti from Minnesota, where such things can be made much more often than here, would call it a snowperson. But a little girl from my own town knew exactly what to call the one she made: a snowwoman!

The Coming Evangelical Collapse?

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Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, makes interesting predictions of The Coming Evangelical Collapse (1) (2) (3). He denies they are prophecies, but to me they have a prophetic edge, not as infallible predictions but as a prophetic call to the church to take note of what is likely to happen in future, and to act accordingly. I have not read the large number of comments on these posts. Thanks to John Meunier for the links.

Michael starts part 1 as follows:

I believe that we are on the verge- within 10 years- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity; a collapse that will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. I believe this evangelical collapse will happen with astonishing statistical speed; that within two generations of where we are now evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its current occupants, leaving in its wake nothing that can revitalize evangelicals to their former “glory.”

But it seems to me that here Michael is really talking about the US scene. In the rest of the West the collapse he is predicting has already taken place, more gradually. Perhaps it already has also in less conservative parts of the USA. He seems to be suggesting that the evangelical church in the US Bible belt will soon become much more like it currently is here in the UK and elsewhere in traditionally Protestant northern Europe. Here we already have “a de-church culture where religion has meaning as history, not as a vital reality.”

From a global sociological perspective the continued high level of evangelical church attendance in parts of the USA is an anomaly in the century old trend towards the secularisation of the West. I believe that the church can buck this trend if it really relies on the power of God to do so. But if it retreats into conservatism without real substance, as seems true of so much US evangelicalism, it becomes a movement of reaction which will not outlast the current generation.

Michael suggests in part 2 that the beneficiaries of the collapse of traditional evangelicalism will be “the pragmatic, therapeutic, church growth oriented megachurches”, as well as “An evangelicalized Catholicism and Orthodoxy”. But I feel he is too negative about these megachurches. They may not preach “the Biblical Gospel” in the traditional way, but that does not imply that those who attend are not genuine Christians. Indeed “Core beliefs will become less and less normative and necessary in evangelicalism”, but salvation is not by “core beliefs” in doctrinal propositions, but by a living faith in and relationship with God through Jesus Christ. To the extent that megachurches do promote this (and some certainly do) I don’t think it is right to criticise them.

Michael also predicts that

A small portion of evangelicalism will continue down the path of theological re-construction and recovery. Whether they be post-evangelicals working for a reinvigoration of evangelicalism along the lines of historic “Mere Christianity,” or theologically assertive young reformed pastors looking toward a second reformation, a small, but active and vocal portion of evangelicalism will work hard to rescue the evangelical movement from its demise by way of theological renewal.

This is an attractive, innovative and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches. But I do believe many evangelical churches and schools will benefit from this segment of evangelicalism, and I believe it will contribute far beyond its size to the cause of world missions.

Again this reminds me of British evangelicalism, small and not always conservative but generally more active than the US variety and with a worldwide influence disproportionate to its numbers.

I am also encouraged by the prediction that

Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism.

But Michael is right that this strand, as well as others in evangelicalism, needs to put its house in order concerning leadership and avoiding heresy.

It is also interesting that he picks up the possibility of “a “rescue mission” from the world Christian community”. British evangelicalism has already benefited a great deal from input from African, Asian and Latin American Christian leaders. If the US church accepts this kind of mission it will also benefit greatly.

I must also agree with Michael’s last point in this part,

it is long past time for westerners to use their resources to strengthen work within a nation and not to just send Americans to the mission fields.

Indeed – and include Europeans here.

In part 3 Michael asks if all of this is a good or a bad thing. He writes that

there is something fundamentally healthy about accepting that, if the disease cannot be cured, then the symptoms need to run their course and we need to get to the next chapter. Evangelicalism doesn’t need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral.

But not all; not by any means. In other words, the question is not so much what will be lost, but what is the condition of what remains?

Michael sees a good number of hopeful signs in the different parts of the church he has already looked at, but also sees in each of them conditions which may or may not be fulfilled.

But it is impossible to not be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, “Christianity loves a crumbling empire.” Christianity has flourished when it should have been exterminated. It has conquered when it was counted as defeated. Evangelicalism’s heyday is not the entirety of God’s plan.

I think we can rejoice that in the ruins of the evangelical collapse new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. New kinds of church structure, new uses of gifts, new ways to develop leaders and do the mission- all these will appear as the evangelical collapse occurs.

But again many of the new ways he predicts, such as house churches and the abandonment of the seminary system, have long been a matter of course in some church strands here in England. In certain quarters I have heard that the US church is several years ahead of the UK one, in its good and bad aspects, and in some ways that is true. But I can’t help thinking that in other ways, good and bad, British evangelicalism is decades ahead of the American variety.

No comment?

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Why is no one commenting here? There have been no comments on this blog, except from myself, for more than three days. For several days before that they had been coming in at an average of six a day, and that excludes the ones I disallowed from Susan and Brad (who use the same IP address). So why have they stopped coming in so abruptly? The number of visitors here has been steady over the last month at about 400 per day during the week, 250 at weekends. A few pingbacks from other blogs (and lots of trackback spam) have been arriving, but no comments except my own.

I hope my action in banning Susan and Brad from commenting, because they were persistently making unsubstantiated libellous accusations, has not put off anyone else from commenting. Please keep the comments coming!

Or could there be a technical problem? If anyone has tried to comment here without success, please contact me by e-mail, at the address given here.

God is alive & well, and on the side of a bus

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Everyone (at least among Church of England clergy) is getting into it using this site, or so it seems from the examples of Bishop Alan, Sam Norton, Maggi Dawn, Doug Chaplin, and my old friend Martin Jackson, plus a whole competition from Madpriest. So, not being one to miss a blogging bandwagon, I must show off my own example of this, and not just in an edit to an old post which hardly anyone will notice. To mark the day when the real Agnostibuses are off the road at least in London, here is the slogan written by a friend of mine for our church, as it would appear on the side of a bus:

bus-god-is-alive-well

Darwin, Wedgwood, Alpha and the anti-slavery movement

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A chance to blog today on an unexpected day off because of snow …

The Wedgwood family is in the news. The famous pottery firm founded in the 18th century by Josiah Wedgwood is currently in administration, i.e. just short of bankruptcy. Now two eighth generation descendants of Josiah, both called Tom Wedgwood, are bidding to take back family control of the firm.

Meanwhile an article links Josiah’s anti-slavery views with those of his third generation descendant, Charles Darwin. Darwin’s wife was also a grandchild of Josiah. The Wedgwood family’s campaign against slavery was based on the Bible verse which they used as a slogan, “God Hath Made of One Blood All Nations of Men” (based on Acts 17:26 KJV; “blood” here comes from a textual variant which is probably not original, but “of one” is certainly original and probably refers to Adam). This same concept of the common descent of humanity is evident in the caption of the anti-slavery medallion designed by Josiah, a kneeling slave asking “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?”

So Darwin took this biblical concept of the common descent of humanity from the Wedgwoods and used it as the basis of his own anti-slavery campaigning. But also, when he observed differences between animal and bird species analogous to those between human races, he extended this concept to the animal kingdom:

Since species were only extended races, they too must share an ancestry. He moved from talking of the common “father” of mankind to an “opossum”-like fossil as the father of all mammals.

Darwin was one of the first to suggest this common descent of different species of animals. And indeed this lies at the heart of his theory of evolution. Since this theory is seen so widely by Christians as opposed to biblical truth (I don’t agree, by the way), it is ironic that it was inspired in part by a Bible verse.

Meanwhile I have just received a new copy of  Alpha News, reports about the Alpha course and testimonies from those who have done it (November 2008-February 2009 issue; there is no online edition but some of the articles, not the ones I mention in this post, are online at this site). There are two things in it which relate to this post.

An extended testimony in this newspaper (which I haven’t read yet) is entitled “I was a slave trader”. No, this isn’t about 18th century converted slave ship captain John Newton. Amazingly, it is the story of a man of our own times, Dave Blakeney from Manchester, who was involved in slave trading in Angola in the 1970s. This is a reminder that Wedgwood’s campaign is by no means over.

Also in the paper is a news article about the new office building for the 150 staff of Alpha and of the church that set it up, Holy Trinity Brompton. The article is also on the HTB website, but sadly without the pictures. The interesting thing about this building, in Cromwell Road, London, is that it is immediately opposite the Natural History Museum.

Unlike some people I don’t see a fundamental opposition between science and Christian faith. Indeed I commend Doug Chaplin and Henry Neufeld for pointing out the fallacies in this approach. But I can’t help seeing something of the bravery of David facing Goliath in Alpha setting up their offices right opposite one of the world’s great temples of Darwinism.