Author Archives: Peter Kirk

Taking over mountains from the grass roots

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The Guardian, the UK’s top left-leaning newspaper, has an excellent article today Could this be the church to calm our secularist outrage?, written by the sceptical agnostic (his words) John Harris, and an accompanying video. The article and the video feature Frontline Church in Liverpool, 15 miles from my home, and its project among prostitutes in the area: not open evangelism but “a weekly operation in which a handful of volunteers take food, tea and condoms to the city’s sex workers.” The agnostic reporter is clearly impressed, and muses on the response to this, or lack of it, from militant secularists.

Nic HardingWhat the church is doing is impressive. But I want to look more at what the church is saying – at least at the words of its pastor Nic Harding, who is seen preaching in the video. In fact he writes about his struggle preparing this sermon in a post on his own blog. Following this in the video, John Harris interviews him.

Here is the video, followed by a partial transcript:

(04:09) Harding (preaching): Our calling is out there … Social justice, education, health care, politics, government: these are all areas that God says “Who is willing to claim that mountain?” … How can we make a difference? How can we challenge the prevailing attitudes of money being the bottom line for everything? How can we add value to what we do? How can we touch the lives of people, even though we are dealing with products or commodities or services? …

(04:56) Harris: If the people here took over all those mountains and ran the show, what would society look like? …

(08:39) Harris: You see I think about these things politically, about the ideal way the society should go. I think in terms of it being more equal, less individualistic. You know, the structures of society should change. Are we talking about the same thing?

Harding: I think we probably are. But we probably are approaching it from a different starting point. Because politics tends to look at things from a top down model. It tends to see … You start to change society by changing how you run society from the top, from political systems, whether it be capitalism or socialism, whatever it might be. Whereas Christianity starts at grass roots. It starts with individuals’ lives changing. It starts with families, broken families coming together and reconciling. It starts with children being raised by parents who care about what happens to them. It starts with parent governors in schools making a difference in their local school. It starts with people who go into work with a different attitude and mindset. It’s a bottom up thing.

Harris: But you know where you’re going? Because if you ask me I will tell you. I would like a society where the rich are less rich and the poor are less poor. How would you feel about that?

Harding: I think a society where people are generous with what they have got would be fantastic, where people are willing to share their goods, their possessions, their time, their energy – not in an enforced way, because I think once you enforce it you take the whole spirit out of it, but on a completely free will basis, because people’s hearts have been changed.

In the sermon extract, Harding seems to be alluding to the Seven Mountains Mandate popularised by Lance Wallnau among others, which encourages Christians to seek

to gain influence over the “mountains” of government, church, education, family, media, arts, and business.

Now according to Joel Watts these seven mountains are the same as the ones in Revelation 17:9, over which the Beast reigns. I’m sure this point has not escaped Wallnau and friends. Joel writes:

Stay with me for a minute –

  • Wallnau identified seven mountains and one to rule over them.
  • John writes of seven mountains/hills with one to rule over them.

Anyone? Anyone at all see anything wrong with this whatsoever?

No, Joel, nothing wrong. Wallnau and John agree that the enemy temporarily rules over the seven mountains. Wallnau teaches that Christians should bring them under the rule of Jesus, the kingdom of God. John also teaches, in verse 14 of the same chapter, how Jesus and his armies will defeat the enemy and conquer the mountains. Where is the difference?

Joel also considers that the Seven Mountain Strategy is all about “Dominionism”. Well, as Wikipedia says,

The use and application of this terminology is a matter of controversy.

Nic Harding certainly isn’t talking about Dominion Theology as described in this Wikipedia article, and I’m pretty sure Lance Wallnau isn’t either. Neither of them envisage setting up a kind of Christian Sharia Law to replace secular law. There also seem to be quite a few differences from Wikipedia’s “Dominionism as a broader movement”. There may indeed be influences from Kuyper and Schaeffer, but not from Rushdoony. Harding is explicit that what Christians should do must be “on a completely free will basis, because people’s hearts have been changed”. Society is to be transformed according to Christian principles not by imposition from the top but by Christians working up from the grass roots.

Is this something from the right or from the left? If this is “Dominionism” from the Christian right, why is it so appealing to the Marx-quoting agnostic from the left-wing Guardian? Militant secularists may rage, but the label doesn’t matter. What does matter is that people that the world, and the secular government, ignore or reject are being accepted and provided for by Christians. This is the love which can turn the world upside down.

Thanks to Phil Ritchie and the Evangelical Alliance for their links to this article.

Archbishop Rowan's New Statesman media triumph?

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Archbishop Rowan WilliamsLate last week, while I was busy with other things, the press and the Christian blogosphere here in the UK went wild over what Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in the New Statesman magazine, in an issue for which he was the guest editor.

But was this affair really the media disaster for the Archbishop which some have made it out to be?

Even before his article was published a storm broke out in the press. The Daily Telegraph started it by portraying Rowan’s words as “a sustained attack on the Coalition [government]”. But the Church Mouse, in a very sensible post about the matter, summarises what the Archbishop actually wrote:

In the entire article, Rowan does not actually criticise a single government policy.  What he does say is that people are afraid of them, and the government needs to explain what is going on better.

After a few days of uncharacteristic silence, Doug Chaplin weighed in with some comments suggesting that this was another PR disaster for the Archbishop, like the 2008 Sharia law affair:

One point I haven’t seen made in the stuff I’ve read – although I’m sure someone has made it – is to ask what’s happened to Rowan’s media person? Surely this is something where they should have got their leak and spin in first? … That kind of news release followed up by phone calls should have trailed the New Statesman well in advance and tried to set the agenda. Did they try and fail, or were they asleep at the keyboard?

In a comment on that post, I mused on whether “Rowan’s media person” even existed. After all, as I reported at the time, in May 2008 the Archbishop decided not to replace his press officer who had resigned. But it seems that rather quickly Rowan saw the error of his ways and, not later than September that year, appointed a certain David Brownlie-Marshall as his press officer.

David Brownlie-MarshallIt wasn’t hard to find out more about Mr Brownlie-Marshall, as his LinkedIn profile and his personal website, not to mention his page looking for work as a model, were easily found with Google. This is how he describes himself at LinkedIn:

I am an ambitious, energetic and entrepreneurial individual, who has worked in PR, Marketing and Social Media roles in London, New York and Edinburgh. My current role at Lambeth Palace involves managing the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Social Media strategy.

Somehow, after reflecting overnight on this matter, I don’t think this young man presided over a PR disaster. He is clearly highly creative, even if not an expert in traditional ways of handling the mainstream press. He may well agree with Brendan Behan that

There is no such thing as bad publicity.

So my guess would be that Brownlie-Marshall deliberately provided “their leak and spin” to the Daily Telegraph to provoke the reaction seen in their article, fully intending to start the kind of controversy which we have seen. Perhaps he wants the church to be portrayed as somewhat left-leaning and opposed to government policies. After all, he knows that that will win it a lot of friends. Of course it will also make enemies, but mainly among people who I suspect Brownlie-Marshall, and perhaps also Rowan, secretly despise. I’m sure they would both be very happy to put a final nail in the coffin of the old myth that the Church of England is the Tory Party at prayer.

This matter has got the country talking about issues of social justice and how the Christian faith relates to them. And it has enhanced the Archbishop’s reputation, at least among that majority of the country suspicious of government policies in this area, for taking a strong stand on these issues. It has had, I would think, a very positive effect on the Church of England as a whole. Rowan Williams and David Brownlie-Marshall are to be congratulated for how they handled it.

Harold Camping silenced

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Harold CampingHarold Camping, the infamous preacher of the Rapture, has suffered a stroke which has affected his speech, according to the Christian Post (thanks to Joel for the link) and the Daily Mail. It seems that he has not exactly been struck dumb (UK) or mute (US), just that his speech “appears to be slurred”. So this may not mean a complete and immediate end to his radio ministry. But perhaps it should serve as a warning to him that at 89 it is time for him to take things easy, if he is to survive even until his predicted date for the end of the world, 21st October.

Did God have a hand in this? Did he strike Camping dumb, like Zechariah father of John the Baptist (Luke 1:20)? Well, it is clearly part of the divine design that the human body is frail and prone to sickness after nearly 90 years. Camping has very likely been under more stress in the last few weeks than is good for him, especially at his age. It would be wrong to suggest that this was a direct divine punishment for Camping’s false preaching, arrogant claims to know what God has not revealed, and more general heresy. But maybe this stroke will make him reflect more deeply on his life and on who is in control of it.

I pray for a quick recovery for Harold Camping. I pray also for a genuine repentance and a return to the true gospel message with which he started.

US online store now available

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The North American version of Gentle Wisdom’s online store is now available. With apologies to my Canadian readers, I am calling this Store (US) as it is an aStore with the US company Amazon.com.

amazon.com logoTo set up this store I first joined the US Amazon Associates Program. So I am now required to add the following to this site:

Gentle Wisdom is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

My readers in Europe would probably prefer to use the UK store, announced in a previous post.

Most of the same products are in both stores. Currently the Anglicised NIV 2011 and Women and Authority: The Key Biblical Texts by Ian Paul are only in the UK store, and The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation by N. T. Wright is available for pre-order only from the US store.

I'm an Evangelical – don't let them steal the name

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I’m an Evangelical, and I’m proud of it. I believe that the Bible is the authoritative guide to truth about God and to the Christian life. I believe, in Roger Olson’s words, that “authentic Christianity requires a conversion experience of regeneration and that faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and repentance for sin are necessarily included in that”. I accept without reservation the Basis of Faith of the Evangelical Alliance here in the UK – although I do have reservations about some American definitions of evangelicalism which define the Bible as inerrant. I’m also a Charismatic, but that’s a separate story.

But my right to call myself an Evangelical seems to be under attack from all sides at the moment.

A few weeks ago I discussed here how Adrian Warnock seems to accept as Evangelicals only those who take the Bible literally. His reasons for not accepting a particular person, Rob Bell, as an Evangelical also include him

speaking with people who had problems understanding what God is like. Hence he looks at what it sees in this world and then formulates a theology … he sees life then tries to interpret Bible.

John Richardson, the Ugley Vicar, wants to put a different kind of restriction on being Evangelical. In a post yesterday Episcopal appointments – from subtle exclusion to overt discrimination he discusses when “the last Evangelical appointment was” of a bishop in the Church of England. The answer he gives, 1997, shows that what he really meant was the last appointment of an Evangelical opposed to the ordination of women – a point clarified in a comment by Beryl Polden.

Dave Warnock, a somewhat liberal Methodist minister unrelated to Adrian, offers an outsider’s perspective on the limits of evangelicalism. Phil Whittall posted about the sad story of Gordon Lynch who lost his Christian faith, largely, it seems, because of abuse by power-hungry Evangelical church leaders. In comments in response to this Dave offer a rant (his word) against Evangelicals, which he repeats in a post on his own blog. Here is part of the rant:

a) The number of Evangelicals willing to engage in critical thinking on these issues is close to vanishingly small.

b) The number of Evangelicals willing to trot out proof texts, anger and aggression on this issues is huge.

c) I know many women who have articulated the response they have got from trying to engage with many Evangelicals on issues of power and gender. Evangelicals do not come out of this well at all. …

In his response to my comment about this, Dave clarifies that he is

addressing the “hard Evangelical position”, in other words the Evangelicals who take a hard line on issues such as gender and sexuality and who eagerly condemn those who disagree with them.

But what he originally wrote makes no such distinction. He seems to be putting about a stereotype of typical Evangelicals characterised by his five negative points, of which I quoted three above. He accepts that there are thoughtful Evangelicals like me but implies that our numbers are “close to vanishingly small”.

Then for a North American view: Joel Watts writes I’m a Evangelical Reject I reckon based on a post by Kurt Willems You Might Be An Evangelical Reject If… It seems that Kurt and Joel both consider themselves to have been put outside the Evangelical pale because of a number of attitudes and positions that they take. I share with them most of these attitudes and positions. But I do not accept that these make me an “Evangelical Reject”. I don’t care too much if others reject me, but I won’t accept their labels. I know that I still stand within the fold of historic evangelicalism, and it is before God, not before men and women, that I stand there.

Roger Olson has written on Why I can’t give up the label “evangelical”. I’m not sure I agree with him that the media are to blame for the distortion of the term, at least here in the UK. I put the blame on other Christians like the ones I have quoted in this post. But I stand with him in this:

All labels have their problems and, to be sure “evangelical” is fraught with them.  But I am not giving it up.  Instead, I will fight for it.

I’m an Evangelical, and I don’t have to believe that the Bible is an inerrant source of facts which its authors could not have known or understood.

I’m an Evangelical, and I am allowed to let my theology be informed by what I see, and what scientists see, in the world which God made.

I’m an Evangelical, and I don’t have to believe in a worldwide flood within the last 10,000 years.

I’m an Evangelical, and I don’t have to believe that God the Father punished his Son for sins he was not guilty of.

I’m an Evangelical, and I don’t have to believe that nearly everyone in the world, including anyone with homosexual inclinations, is going straight to everlasting torment in hell.

I’m an Evangelical, and I am free from behavioural rules of conservative Christianity such as “no drinking” and “no dancing”.

I’m an Evangelical, and I don’t have to believe that women cannot exercise leadership.

I’m an Evangelical, and I can believe that I should live in the world, as a good Christian, and not separate myself from it.

I’m an Evangelical, and I can believe that God is interested in social justice and in protection of the natural environment.

I’m an Evangelical, and I don’t have to believe that the world is inevitably going to get worse and that all Christians are soon going to be miraculously raptured out of it.

I’m an Evangelical, and I can work towards the Kingdom of God in this world while I wait for Jesus to return and bring in the fullness of that Kingdom.

Evangelical AllianceI applaud the Evangelical Alliance for its largely successful efforts to keep UK Evangelicals together, under a broad umbrella which can include people like myself as well as all but the most extreme fundamentalists. They have weathered storms like the Steve Chalke controversy and emerged stronger. I trust that they will continue to maintain this unity despite efforts to break it from inside and out.

I accept the right of other Evangelicals to disagree with me on some serious issues, as long as they don’t compromise the basic gospel message. Healthy debate, on blogs and elsewhere, is a good thing. But please let’s all be more careful about divisive statements, even in throwaway comments, suggesting that some other person or group is not Evangelical.

Anglicised NIV 2011: the secret uncovered

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Last night I suggested that the Anglicised NIV 2011 was “a secret publication”. Today, I am happy to uncover more of that secret, courtesy of Claire Portal of Hodder & Stoughton. In reply to my e-mail yesterday morning, Claire wrote to me:

Dear Peter,

I am afraid we have been experiencing technical difficulties with our website for a long time now and a complete rebuild is being planned.

We will very shortly have a new website www.hodderbibles.com which will host all the information you could need about the new NIV edition for 2011. We are planning for this site to go live towards the end of this month.

In the meantime, I have attached some information on the new NIV translation that I hope you find useful.

Best wishes
Claire

NIV 2011 trade mailing presenter p1The attached information is a trade mailing dated 24th January 2011, a four page and nearly 5 MB PDF of high resolution images. The image on the right is the first page of this presentation – click for a higher resolution version, fully legible, but not as good quality as the full presentation.

Here is most of the text of the presentation, to which I have added purchase links from Amazon.co.uk – at lower prices than the recommended prices in the following text. I have also added all of these editions to the Gentle Wisdom store.

The world’s most popular Bible translation

The perfect blend of accuracy and readability, fully revised and updated for 2011

Includes the latest advances in biblical scholarship and language use

The UK’s broadest range of editions means we have the right Bible for everyone

NIV: WHAT’S CHANGING IN 2011?

  • The NIV Bible has been fully revised and updated for 2011.
  • The chief goal of every revision to the NIV text is to bring the translation into line both with contemporary biblical scholarship and with shifts in English idiom and usage.
  • The majority of what has changed involves comparatively minor matters of vocabulary, sentence structure and punctuation. Other changes reflect the advances in biblical scholarship over the last three decades. All of these changes aim to move the NIV from the English of 1984 to the English of 2011.

Some examples:

LANGUAGE USE

  • The NIV 2011 edition avoids outdated language use by replacing the 1984 edition’s ‘alien’ with the more accurate ‘foreigner’.

GENDER-ACCURATE LANGUAGE

  • To accurately reflect the original writer’s intention to include both men and women, the NIV 2011 edition uses ‘brothers and sisters’ instead of ‘brothers’.

PROGRESS IN BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP

  • The NIV 2011 edition takes account of advances in Biblical scholarship and translates ‘kataluma’ accurately as ‘guest room’, where the 1984 edition used the word ‘inn’.

KEY TITLES

NIV Popular HB Bible 9781444701500 May 2011 Hardback £14.99

NIV Popular Burgundy HB Bible 978 1 444 70148 7 May 2011 Hardback £15.99

NIV Popular PB Bible 978 1 444 70152 4 May 2011 Paperback £11.99

NIV Popular HB Bible with Cross-References 978 1 444 70153 1 June 2011 Hardback £20

NIV Popular Cross-Reference Black Leather Bible 978 1 444 70154 8 June 2011 Leather £30

NIV Schools HB Bible 978 1 444 70155 5 June 2011 Hardback £12.99

NIV Popular Burgundy HB Bible 20 copy pack
978 1 444 70149 4 | May 2011 | Hardback | £180

NIV Popular HB Bible Pack of 20
978 1 444 70151 7 | May 2011..| Hardback | £160

NIV Schools Bible 20 Copy pack
9781444701562 | June 2011 | Hardback | £200

…

The NIV is the people’s Bible for 2011 just as the KJV was the people’s Bible for 1611.

MARKETING & PUBLICITY

  • National print and broadcast media campaign
  • National print and online advertising campaign led by major
    creative agency
  • Social media campaign
  • Unparalleled Christian market exposure
  • Wide range of point of sale material available
  • High profile partnerships with Biblefresh (Evangelical Alliance), Soul Survivor, David Suchet, Andrew Motion

CORE RANGE LAUNCHED FROM MAY 2011

GIFT EDITIONS LAUNCHED FROM SEPTEMBER 2011

HODDER FAITH SALES OFFICE: Contact Lucy Avery on 020 7873 6051 or lucy.avery@hodder.co.uk

Anglicised NIV 2011: a secret publication?

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According to Amazon.co.uk among others, two weeks ago Hodder & Stoughton published an Anglicised edition of the NIV 2011 update:

NIV Popular Bible (Bible Niv) [Hardcover] …

Product details

  • Hardcover: 1280 pages
  • Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (26 May 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1444701487
  • ISBN-13: 978-1444701487
  • Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13.4 x 2.4 cm

NIV Popular Bible (Bible Niv) [Hardcover]The price is £10.69, and if you buy through this link to Amazon.co.uk, or through the Gentle Wisdom store, a small part of that price will come my way.

But no one seems to have told the publishers’ publicity department about this book they are publishing. There is no mention at all of this on the Hodder Faith website, even on their Popular Size Bibles genre page. And their browser page for the same genre shows no Bibles at all, which is probably because the database underlying their site has been non-operational for more than 24 hours. But Hodder Faith can’t just blame passing technical issues: I found a Google cache of their page for this Bible, dated 21st May, showing that they did intend some kind of publicity but also that this page has not been available for weeks. This morning I contacted Hodder Faith about their technical issue but have received no reply.

The NIV Bible must have been one of Hodder & Stoughton’s best selling books for more than 30 years. Sales may have been flagging in recent years, but this updated edition has the potential of re-establishing NIV’s strong market position for the next few decades. So it is very strange that Hodder Faith have not made a major event out of this release. Instead they seem to be attempting an oxymoron: a secret publication.

Amazon.co.uk is also taking pre-orders at a bargain price of £3.39 for a paperback NIV Anglicised Gift and Award Bible with the 2011 text, to be published on 21st July.

I haven’t seen the text of this Anglicised edition. I would expect the differences to be similar to those between the American and Anglicised editions of other recent Bibles, which I discussed in a 2007 post British and American Bible version differences at Better Bibles Blog. As NIV 2011 is quite similar to TNIV, probably the Anglicisation work is rather similar, but I hope they have avoided the mistake in the Anglicised rendering of Hebrews 4:15.

Please browse my new online store

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Please have a browse through my online store, which has just gone live. I hope this will be a convenient way for you, my readers, to buy books and other items reviewed, mentioned or quoted at Gentle Wisdom. I have listed both print and Kindle editions of books, where available, in two different store categories. There is a separate category for Bibles, and one for a few other Amazon products relevant to this blog.

The store is an Amazon.co.uk aStore. This means that it is most accessible to my UK readers, although products can be shipped worldwide. I will be working on a parallel store with Amazon.com for my North American readers.

amazon.co.uk logoTo set up this store I first joined the Amazon Associates Programme. So I am now required to add the following to this site:

Gentle Wisdom is a participant in the Amazon Europe S.à r.l. Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.

I was surprised how many books and other products I found mentioned here at Gentle Wisdom. I am not endorsing all of these books, not least because I have read only a few of them. Indeed I have included a few books which I fundamentally disagree with.

I have also edited many of the mentions of these books in my past posts to include direct purchase links from Amazon.co.uk. If you hover over the links, you should see more details about the product and its availability.

Rob Bell: I'm not a universalist

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Rob BellSome words of Rob Bell:

I believe in heaven, and I believe in hell. …

I’m not a universalist, because I believe God’s love is so great God lets you decide. …

I believe it’s best to only discuss books you’ve actually read.

Taken from this YouTube video:

As I haven’t read Love Wins, I will not discuss it here.

Thanks for the video link to Phil Ritchie, who is now Team Rector of the parish whose electoral roll I have been on for more than 30 years, and is based at the church building where I was married in 2009.

The Perils of Rapture Theology

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Rapture TheologyKyle Roberts and Adam Rao have written about A Teachable Moment: The Perils of Rapture Theology. Like the article I wrote about in my post The Rapture and the Spirit of the Antichrist, this is a good and timely contribution to the current debate about the Rapture. Roberts and Rao quote N.T. Wright on this subject, as I did in my own Rapture non-post-mortem post. Here are their conclusions:

American Christianity will always be infatuated by and prone to predictions about the coming end. The recent media preoccupation with the doomsday, rapture theology of a well-meaning but deeply mistaken radio broadcaster is just the latest example. Christian leaders have a responsibility to remind people that we cannot know the “day or hour” and that it is counter-productive to speculate about it. They should also emphasize, however, that Christians should not seek to escape the world, but to embrace and engage it instead.

Thanks to Eddie Arthur for the link – also for linking to one of my other posts.