Author Archives: Peter Kirk

Rapture update 3: I'm still here in England

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Clock Tower - Palace of Westminster, LondonThe time has now passed for the Rapture, as predicted by Harold Camping, here in England. No earthquakes, no tornadoes, just a normal quiet Saturday, and my wife and I are still here.

I must say I wasn’t too worried that I would be raptured today, against my will, after the non-events in New Zealand, Japan and indeed anywhere to the east of this green and pleasant land.

The only reported event in the Orient today which could even remotely be considered a sign of the Rapture or the allegedly coming Tribulation was a landslide in Malaysia which killed at least eight children and perhaps quite a lot more. This was of course a tragic event of course for those involved. But it was caused by heavy rain, not an earthquake, and it “took place at about 1430 local time” so ahead of Camping’s predicted schedule.

So as the hours move on towards 6 pm in America, first on the East Coast and only later in Camping’s California, my advice to Americans is simple: “Don’t panic!” But just in case you might also want to avoid taking a bath at 6 pm, to avoid embarrassment.

Meanwhile atheist John Loftus has started a meme on My Predictions of the Excuses Harold Camping May Make, and Joel has tagged me, and everyone else who read his post. So here is my prediction: Harold Camping and a small number of his followers will simply disappear, and let the word get out that these few were raptured and no one else was considered worthy. This could actually mean suicide, as I suggested before, but more likely they will find somewhere to hide away and lick their wounds. Most likely Camping, 89, will start an overdue retirement and, once the fuss has died down, never be heard of again.

These kinds of false prophets will be with us until Jesus really comes again, as he predicted. But hopefully it will be some time before any are taken as seriously as Harold Camping seems to have been.

Is the Bible the best way to promote Christianity? 1

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The Church MouseA few days ago now the Church Mouse, an anonymous Church of England blogger, asked, Is the Bible the best way to promote Christianity in Britain? He suggested this on the basis of a survey which found that

8% considered [the Bible] very important and read the Bible regularly, 46% considered it important but don’t read it regularly, 42% considered it unimportant and 4% considered it dangerous.

These figures seem to refer to Britain, although the exact survey area is unclear. I have no idea how figures in other countries might compare. But the general principles of the Mouse’s post would presumably apply elsewhere, at least in the western world.

The Mouse argued from these figures that

46% of the population see value in engaging with the Bible more than they currently do.

Most evangelistic strategies don’t kick off with the Bible.  It is often seen as a bit difficult, and something you get to later when you’ve got some way down the road.

Perhaps this is wrong.

Eddie Arthur, Executive Director of Wycliffe Bible Translators UK, was quick to comment that many evangelistic strategies do use texts from the Bible. But in his own comment in response the Mouse clarifies his issues with these strategies, that

The way [they] work is to say “Here is Christianity – why not have a look at that, and perhaps even see what the Bible says about it”. The question I’m asking is whether that focus should be switched round completely, and say “Here is the Bible – I wonder what that is about”.

Now of course there are people who present non-Christians with the Bible as an evangelistic strategy. The Gideons are perhaps the best known such group. I remember several mission initiatives in the UK which have included as a major strategy distributing Bible portions, such as John’s Gospel from the Good News Bible. The Bible Society generally prefers to sell their Bibles, at subsidised prices, but the general principle is the same. These groups seem to believe that unbelievers who read the Bible text are likely to become Christians, or at least that reading the Bible can be a significant step on this path. They generally offer little if anything in terms of explanatory notes or reading guides, and make no explicit appeals for Christian commitment.

There are others who argue that this is not a good evangelistic strategy. These people would generally argue that unbelievers cannot and should not try to understand the Bible on their own, but need guidance from others, such as pastors or professors. Although many who argue like this are Protestants who value the inheritance of the Reformation, their arguments often sound remarkably like those of the opponents of the Reformation, and of many Roman Catholics until recently, that the Bible should be handled only by a special class of priests and officially authorised teachers.

Now it is certainly a good thing when a priest, pastor or professor faithfully expounds the Bible. I rejoice that this happens regularly in many (but not all) churches, and in some academic environments. But in other cases these people who are supposed by some to be the gatekeepers for the Bible in fact keep the gate closed for those who hear it, by distorting the teaching of the Bible or by ignoring it.

So I stand with William Tyndale, who famously said to one of those bad gatekeepers

if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!

That is, I stand with the doctrine of the perspicuity, or clarity, of Scripture, in other words, that ordinary people can and should be able to understand the basic meaning of the biblical text without having to depend on separate authorities, and without requiring special education. But this post is already rather long, so I will leave a fuller discussion of this doctrine and its implications to part 2.

Rapture update 2: Not another Japan earthquake

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This is number 2 in my series of updates for Camping’s predicted Rapture Day, to follow on after Rapture update 1: New Zealand untouched. Don’t worry, I won’t be posting these updates every hour through the day, but just when significant times have passed.

Mount Fuji, JapanIt is now past 6 pm in Japan. They don’t have daylight saving, so we don’t have to worry about that factor. And we can thank God that he has not allowed another major earthquake today in that country already suffering so much from the March earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

If any of the small Christian minority there have been raptured, we might not know about it yet. But we would surely have heard if masses of Christians had disappeared from Sydney, Australia, where it is now after 7 pm.

I don’t have a lot of pity for most of the Christians who will probably find out by tonight that they have been deluded by Harold Camping. I think in fact there are rather few of them, mostly in the USA. They really have only themselves to blame if they put their trust in someone as unqualified as Camping, who has already shown himself untrustworthy.

But there is one group of deluded Christians for whom I have a lot of pity. As reported by the BBC no less,

In Vietnam, thousands of members of the Hmong ethnic minority gathered near the border with Laos earlier this month to await the 21 May event.

These poor people, if they are disappointed when the Rapture is supposed to come to them in just over an hour, may be left with no homes to go back to. That would be really sad. If that happens, Camping and friends ought to be held responsible.

Archdruid Eileen is right: the Christian proclamation should not be bad news for the poor, but good news. If it is bad news for anyone, it ought to be for the complacently rich, including those in churches, who don’t show any concern for the physical or spiritual state of poorer people around the world. Well, this whole Rapture scenario do some good, even if no Rapture happens, if it shakes some Christians out of their complacency into understanding that the end will come, at least for each individual at death, and that God will have something to say about how they have spent their lives which is nothing to do with how much wealth they have stored up.

Meanwhile Matthew Malcolm is liveblogging from Perth, Australia, where the Rapture is due in a few minutes …

Rapture update 1: New Zealand untouched

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Christchurch cathedral after the earthquakeGood morning from England. In New Zealand it is already after 8 pm on Saturday 21st May. But there are no signs yet of the Rapture having started there at 6 pm, as predicted by Harold Camping. No reports of earthquakes or backwards-twisting tornadoes. For a suitable image I had to find one of the February earthquake in Christchurch.

Why should this be? Is there no one in the whole of New Zealand worthy of being raptured? Well, if even one of their distinguished theological professors, Tim Bulkeley, could pour scorn on the predictions of judgment day today, then that just could be the explanation.

Or perhaps the damage Down Under was so massive that no reports have reached the rest of the world? I note that Tim has not yet posted today, so perhaps, despite his scepticism, he has been taken up to heaven with his fellow Kiwis.

Or could it be that Harold Camping is wrong? If so, it is only the church that will be damaged by today’s non-events.

Entering the Kingdom like Marie Antoinette

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Marie Antoinette (2006)Enough of the banter about the Rapture, now for something more serious. Yes, really. This post started out as a section of my post The Rapture: will we be clothed or naked? But there is a serious point here which I didn’t want to be lost in that not so serious post.

There is a scene in the 2006 film Marie Antoinette where the young Austrian princess leaves her home territory to enter France. The year is 1770. Before entering her new kingdom, and meeting her bridegroom who will be king, she has to leave behind all her clothes and personal possessions, even her Austrian pet dog. A French lady in waiting tells her she can have as many French dogs as she likes. But nothing Austrian is allowed in France, at least for the bride of the Dauphin who must become completely French.

Similarly, when we as Christians enter the kingdom of heaven as the bride of Christ, we have to leave everything of this world behind us, to receive new things fit for the kingdom of God. This is not so much literally about clothes, although it might include them, as about spiritual encumbrances. We can send treasure on in advance (Matthew 6:20), but we cannot take it with us.

The problem with this rather simplistic picture is that, despite what Harold Camping and other advocates of the Rapture might think, Christians do not move in one simple step, or flight, from this world into a kingdom of God in the sky. Instead, when we become followers of Jesus we start to live in two kingdoms at the same time, the old worldly kingdom over which Satan still claims to be the the prince (John 16:11), and the new kingdom of God which has been breaking into this world ever since the resurrection of Jesus.

So we have time to put aside the worldly things gradually and pick up the things of heaven. There will be no embarrassing intermediate step of nakedness. This is what is traditionally known as “sanctification”, the process by which a Christian gradually lives a more and more holy life. While we can aim to complete this process in this life, unlike John Wesley I don’t believe we will become perfectly sanctified this side of the grave, that is if we reach it before the return of Jesus.

It is only when Jesus does return that we will become perfectly holy. We will then have to put aside every last remnant of our old life. The old kingdom of the world will be destroyed and only the kingdom of God will remain. And we will be clothed again in our holy heavenly garments, our white wedding dress, as the bride of the Lamb.

Elijah was raptured without his clothes

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Elijah's mantle falls from heavenI am embarrassed that I missed the clearest evidence in my post The Rapture: will we be clothed or naked?, which is from the story of Elijah. In the Bible there are only three people who were taken up into heaven alive: Enoch, Elijah and Jesus. We don’t know anything about Enoch’s clothes. Jesus had already left his earthly grave-clothes lying in the tomb when he was resurrected, and presumably what preserved his modesty during his resurrection appearances was some kind of heavenly raiment which could ascend to heaven with him.

So we are left with the story of Elijah being taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, in 2 Kings 2. This is the clearest and most detailed biblical account of any kind of rapture. And what do we read?

Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him …

2 Kings 2:13 (NIV 2011)

So it should be more than clear that our clothes will fall off us if and when we are raptured, for others to pick up.

Presumably, since the metaphorical sense of “mantle” derives from the KJV rendering of this story, the metaphorical mantles of those who are raptured will also be available for the first to claim them. In that case, as Joel Watts is expecting to be raptured on Saturday, as I already commented on his blog I want to claim “his mantle and a double portion of his anointing”, not least so that I can overcome the attacks of enemies of Gentle Wisdom and win that #1 biblioblogger place.

The Elijah passage also gives an insight into the mechanism of the Rapture. He was taken into heaven in a whirlwind, otherwise known as a tornado. Will the earth be hit by a massive outbreak of tornadoes? Were the ones which devastated the US Bible Belt a few weeks ago God’s practice run? It seems odd to me that Harold Camping is predicting earthquakes but has not mentioned tornadoes. And in the darkness and confusion inside a tornado there won’t be much danger of anyone’s nakedness being noticed.

So be ready for tomorrow just in case, but don’t worry about clothes. To quote Jesus (out of context? who said that?),

So do not worry, saying, … ‘What shall we wear?’ … 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. …

Matthew 6:31,34 (NIV 2011)

Gentle Wisdom under attack

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I’m sorry that Gentle Wisdom was not available for about an hour last night. My hosting company explained this:

Unfortunately our servers were subject to a DDOS attack which caused the error that you were experiencing relating to your mailboxes not receiving mail and websites not displaying. This issue only lasted for approximately an hour as to which services were then restored.

We apologise for the delay and any inconvenience that this may have caused.

Jim WestHmm. Who might have wanted to launch a Distributed Denial of Service attack against this blog? I don’t suppose it could have been anything to do with my challenge to Jim West’s #1 biblioblogger position, and his response to it last night, could it?

Blake's "Jerusalem" reserved for gay weddings?

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On Royal Wedding day I posted about William Blake’s “Jerusalem”: a Christian hymn? I noted that although it was sung at William and Catherine’s marriage service many Christians do not consider it a Christian hymn – although I tend to disagree.

Amazingly enough, as reported by the BBC, this same song “Jerusalem” was brought up in the House of Commons today, here in England, in a debate about gay “weddings”. An MP asked:

“If you’re a heterosexual couple and you get married in church many clergy will refuse to allow it to be sung because it’s not a hymn addressed to God.

“If you get married as a straight couple in a civil wedding you’re point blank not allowed it because it’s a religious song.

“If, however, you’re a gay couple and you have a civil partnership, under the government plans you will be allowed to sing Jerusalem.

“So can we just make sure that Jerusalem is not just reserved for homosexuals.”

His comments were met with laughter in the House.

In response, Commons leader Sir George Young said: “I think Jerusalem should be played on every possible occasion.”

Commons leader Sir George YoungI would tend to agree with Sir George, as far as weddings are concerned, and of course if it is what the couple want. It seems to me that the ban on religious songs at civil weddings is anachronistic and unnecessary.

I don’t know if this is something that churches are insisting on for heterosexual couples, to encourage even slightly religious couples to have church weddings. Of course they wouldn’t insist on the same rules for gay couples as they don’t want to be forced to conduct religious gay “weddings”. But I consider it a counter-productive strategy, not to mention one tainted by the dangerous error of Caesaropapism, for churches to request the secular authorities to interfere on their behalf in essentially religious matters like this.

Churches may well want to reverse the decline in their share of the wedding market, not least because it can be very lucrative. But for this they should not trust in a legally enforced monopoly on hymn singing. Instead they should seek to build up public understanding of the advantages of good Christian marriages based on living Christian faith.

Natural selection not the only means: scientific paper

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Some proteins have remained largely unchanged since they first appearedAccording to a new study,

natural selection may not be the only means by which higher organisms came into being.

No, this is not the latest anti-scientific rant from a creationist group, but a serious study published in Nature and reported by the BBC, under the title Protein flaws responsible for complex life, study says. The point is apparently that, at least as one group of scientists concludes, higher animals did not emerge from simple single-celled ones by Darwinian natural selection based on the survival of the fittest:

The authors stress that they are not arguing against natural selection as a process; they say rather that it can be aided by “non-adaptive” mechanisms.

“There’s been this general feeling that complexity is a good thing and evolves for complexity’s sake – that it’s adaptive,” Professor Lynch told BBC News.

“We’ve opened up the idea that the roots of complexity don’t have to reside in purely adaptational arguments.

“It’s opening up a new evolutionary pathway that didn’t exist before.”

Now this is certainly not rejection of evolution as a process. But it does suggest that the classical Darwinist explanations of it, as taught in schools and ridiculed by creationists, are not the whole story. As another professor told the BBC,

“We tend to marvel at the Darwinian perfection of organisms now, saying ‘this must have been highly selected for, it’s a tuned and sophisticated machine’.

“In fact, it’s a mess – there’s so much unnecessary complexity.”

The Kingdom New Testament: N.T. Wright's new title

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N.T. WrightI thank commenter Jonathan for alerting me to an interesting change in the title of N.T. Wright’s forthcoming version of the New Testament. The book title previously announced, including here at Gentle Wisdom, was:

The King’s Version: A Contemporary Translation of the New Testament

Now it has become the following, on the publisher’s product page:

The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation

The publication date has also been pushed back from 27th September 2011 to 29th November 2011. (Update, 3rd September: publication date is now given as 25th October 2011. Still not mention of it as Amazon.co.uk.)

Available from Amazon.com: The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation.

The old title had come in for quite a lot of criticism, for example in comments on the linked post at Better Bibles Blog. The new one, it seems to me, is much better. Any comments?