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Listening for the voice of God – who does not shout.

Decided to arrange the following paragraph from Nicholas Lash into a prose poem, to allow for slowed down reading.

"Good learning calls,
no less than teaching does,
for courtesy, respect,
a kind of reverence:
for facts and people,
evidence and argument,
for climates of speech
and patterns of behaviour
different from our own.

Watchfulness is, indeed, in order,
but endless suspicion and mistrust are not.
There are affinities between the courtesy,
the delicacy of attentiveness, required for friendship;
the single minded passionate disiniterestedness
without which no good scholarly or scientific work is done;
and the contemplativity which strains,
without credulity,
to listen for the voice of God –
who does not shout."

Nicholas Lash, Believing Three Ways in One God (London: SCM, 1992), pp. 10-11.

10 September 2009
R S Thomas and unintended theological apologetics

I have waited for him
               under the tree of science,
and he has not come;
              and no voice has said:
Behold a scientist in whom
              there is no guile.

I have put my hand in my pocket
              for a penny for the engaging
of the machinery of things and
              it was a bent
penny, fit for nothing but for placing
              on the cobbled eyeballs
of the dead.
                  And where do I go
              from here? I have looked in
through the windows of their glass
              laboratories and seen them plotting
the future, and have put a cross
              there at the bottom
of the working out of their problems to
              prove to them that they were wrong.
R S Thomas, The Echoes Return Slow, (London: MacMillan, 1988), 89

Very few poets manage to write theological apologetics. R. S. Thomas of course never set out to do that, his aesthetic and spiritual integrity make it literally unthinkable. Nevertheless in this poem there is a knowing skepticism about scientific certitude and the imperialistic tendencies rational modernity.

And as often with Thomas, the use of a trojan term, an oblique reference to a Christian symbol, almost camouflaged by ambiguity and easily missed by the secular mindset, by which he pushes the reader towards the place of revelation:

                "…and have put a cross

                     there at the bottom

of the working out of their problems to

prove to them that they were wrong."

8 September 2009
Nicholas Lash on the Church’s Mission: “the peacefulness and healing and completion of the world”.

When in the creed Christians confess the church as Holy and Catholic, like so much theological language, it all depends what you mean by "holy". Nicholas Lash offers a rich exegesis:

"Holiness is otherness, the unimaginable, the unattainable fulfilment of all our hopes and dreams, perhaps of all our fears. God, alone, is holy, awe-inspiring, glory-templed. And the purifying touch of holiness can burn. But in uttered Word and outbreathed Spirit, the Holy One comes close, touches and transforms. Holiness is, then, after all, communicable. Indeed all things are sanctifiable, may be made holy, by the breath of God. Life in God's Holy Spirit is, accordingly, all things' existence purified into peace and friendliness, reconciled relationship, sharing – in delight and harmony – in the very life of God. Hence the enablement, and the requirement, that human beings, who are moral agents,…conform their words, and deeds, and institutions, their treatment of each other and of what we call the natural world, to the pattern of God's outpoured peacefulness. Thus it is that, quite properly, but, nonetheless, secondarily and derivatively, we conceive the church's holiness in moral terms. If it could be shown that, on the whole, Christianity had made and makes no significant contribution, by announcement and example, to the peacefulness and healing and completion of the world, then there would be no reason to give it any further serious consideration."

Nicholas Lash, Believing Three Ways in One God (London: SCM, 1992), pp. 88-89

7 September 2009
Poetry and the way we see the world

The Blade of Grass

You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good eneough.
You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

(Brian Patten (1946)

This anthology of poems is one of those gems bought in a charity shop several years ago. It introduced me to some poets I didn't know, including Brian Patten. There are times when he is so right you can't help the physical nod of your head in agreement, and wonder why you never thought it or understood it, or saw it that way before.

Virginia McKenna's comment on this poem has its own reflective wisdom:
"This poem brilliantly describes how complicated we all become, how convoluted our outlook on life. A frost-robed blade of grass must surely be one of the beauties of nature, but perhaps it takes an open and undemanding heart to recognise it."

6 September 2009
Rare sighting of Scottish Baptist Hoodie

Recent sighting of a Baptist monk, pictured while in full conversational flow, beside a secluded loch in the Central Highlands in early summer. Note that the habit, or hoodie, hides the monk's tonsure – for those who don't know, that's the remaining halo of hair once the crowning glory has departed. The sideways glance and talkative grin are characteristic of this particular species of Baptist Hoodie. This posting keeps the promise I made to post photos demonstrating that on rare occasions I can appear in public without a tie!

5 September 2009
John Bunyan on the proper “status” of Baptist ministers

Most Baptists, including myself, claim John Bunyan was a Baptist in the best and most important senses of that ecclesial descriptor. By 1669 his Bedford congregation were described as Anabaptist. Whether he would own the modern denominational term or not, he held in classic Baptist terms to a profoundly unclerical non hierarchical view of the church and her ministry, and has some uncompromising correctives for all those in whatever tradition, who want to link ministry with authority rather than service, and for whom office and status seem more important than gift and privilege.

The quotation below comes from The Minister's Prayer Book. An Order of Prayers and Readings, ed. John W Doberstein (London: Collins, 1964). This book is a wide and eclectic gathering of orders for daily devotions, shaped around aspects of ministry, supplemented by an anthology of readings. I bought it for 75 pence second-hand years ago and it has travelled most places with me as a focus for reflection and prayer.

The following extract from Bunyan is on page 191. Unfortunately it was culled from another anthology so I can't give the precise reference to Bunyan. It's from Solomon's Temple Spiritualised and you can find it online over here.:

"Gifts and office make no men sons of God; as so, they are but servants; though these, as ministers and apostles, were servants of the highest form. It is the church, as such, that is the lady, a queen, the bride, the Lamb's wife; and prophets, apostles and ministers are but servants, stewards, labourers for her good."

"As therefore the lady is above the servant, the queen above the steward, or the wife above all her husband's officers, so is the church, as such, above these officers."

4 September 2009
Arthur McGill: “The Scriptures function as a servant of their Lord”.

Below is a quotation that providess an important perspective on what the Bible is, how the Christian community is to read it and live in it and through it – or rather, how through it's reading of the Bible, the Christian community is to live in Christ. The extract comes from Arthur McGill's slim but profound account of how Christians might seek to do theology in a world where suffering is interwoven in the textures of existence. The book, Suffering. A Test of Theological Method, was originally written in 1968 so the language is not gender inclusive:

"If the Christian in his existence and in his thought focuses on Christ, this is because Christ is present to him. And Christ is present to him because of Holy Scripture…Above and beyond the various details that they contain, the Biblical documents mean to point – or witness – to Jesus Christ as the power and wisdom of God. The books of the Old Testament point in expectation and those of the New Testament point in fulfilment… "the Scriptures are not a witness among others [to Jesus Christ], but the witness without parallel".

It is not as a history book or as a scientific book or as a book of events or even as a record of man's religious beliefs that the theologian reads the Bible, but as a witness to Christ. The Scriptures function as a servant of their Lord. We are meant not to rest in them but to move through them and beyond them to the One they serve.

Theology is often tempted to rest in the words of Scripture and to read these books as if they transcribed God's life and light for man into words. But theology must resist this temptation. The Bible as such is not the light of the world; nor is the Bible as such the principle of openness which no darkness can overcome. In all its investigations theology must move beyond the Scriptural statements and seek to discern the form of Jesus Christ himself."

Arthur C. McGill, Theology. A Test of Theological Method (Louisville: Westminster Press, 1982) pages 29-30.

3 September 2009
Terry Eagleton and the radical claims of the Gospel of Jesus

Now here's a long passage from Terry Eagleton, whose approach to Christian apologetics is rather novel. As a non theistic cultural critic not averse to strongly worded criticisms of Christian faith, he nevertheless insists (against Dawkins, Hitchens and the rest) that counter arguments should enage with real Christianity not ignoramus caricatures; and that hostile critics should tackle real Christianity which at every level including the rational, is a scandal.

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" is a notoriously enigmatic injunction; but whatever it means, it is unlikely to mean that religion is one thing whereas politics is another, a peculiarly modern prejudice if ever there was one. Any devout Jew of jesus's time would have known the things that are God's include working for justice, welcoming the immigrants, and humbling the high and mighty. The whole cumbersome paraphernalia of religion is to be replaced by another kind of temple, that of the murdered, transfigured body of Jesus. To the outrage of the Zealots, the Pharisees, and right wing rednecks of all ages, this body is dedicated in particular to all those losers, deadbeats, riffraff, and colonial collaborators who are not righteous but are flamboyantly unrighteous – who either live in chronic trnasgression of the Mosaic law or, like the Gentiles, fall outside its sway altogether.

These men and women are not being asked to bargain their way into God's favour by sacrificing beasts, fussing about their diet, or being impeccably well behaved. Instead, the good news is that god loves them anyway, in all their moral squalor. Jesus's message is that God is on their side despite thier visciousness – that the source of the inexhaustibly self-delighting life he calls his Father is neither judge, patriarch, accuser or superego, but lover, friend, fellow accused, and counsel for the defense….Men and woman are called upon to do nothing apart from acknowledge the fact that God is on their side no matter what, in the act of loving assent which is known as faith. In fact, Jesus has very little to say about sin at all, unlike a great many of his censorious followers. His mission is to accept men and women's frailty, not to rub their noses in it."

Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith and Revolution. Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven: Yale, 2009), pp. 19-20.

Now one part of me wants to make this long apologia for the Gospel of Jesus the basis of an essay assignment on Contemporary Mission Strategy and the Gospel of Jesus, with the uncomplicated instruction – "Discuss".

Another part of me is left wondering why an agnostic who is resistant to Christianity makes a far better job of stating the core of the Gospel than many a Christian preacher and / or theologian.

In any case – the book is a tonic – not so much comforting as bracing, and not so much an apologia for Christian faith as an apology for the intellectual sloppiness of much new atheism dogma.

2 September 2009
Philippians – a huge commentary that should have been twice the size!

Earlier this year John Reumann's Anchor Bible commentary on Philippians was published. It has xxiv, + 805 pages. By any standards a massive volume. (By the way, I think the woodcuts used in the dustcovers of the Yale Anchor Commentaries are powerful images resonating with the biblical text). In the Preface readers are informed that Reumann's original manuscript was nearly halved to fit the publisher's demands. When it came into the College Library, given my interest in kenosis, I had a read at Reumann's treatment of 2.5-11, the great Christ Hymn. The section was hard to read, frustrating to follow, and mostly made up of highly condensed notes. It felt like notes for a commentary rather than the notes of a commentary. Anyone people-watching in the library would have seen disappointment written in giant font bold italics underlined and filling the screen of my face.

The recent review of Reumann's work by James Dunn places the blame for the virtual un-useability of the volume on the publishers. Given Reumann worked on this commentary for over thirty years, the work should have been allowed two volumes, the same as Ephesians by Markus Barth. When it comes to metaphorical images, Dunn uses one to describe the failed editing process that is memorably incongruous and hilariously apt.

"Overall the volume gives the impression of being subjected to a form of liposuction with the resulting "lumpiness" caused by "oversuction"."

I refrain from offering any graphics. You can read the whole review over here. Meanwhile us Philippians buffs are now waiting for the next commentary blockbusters – Paul Holloway's volume in Hermeneia (still a few years off), and the new International Critical Commentary by N T Wright, the Bishop of Durham and storm centre of much debate about what Paul did and didn't mean – I hope Wright's will be published this side of the eschaton – otherwise there may be a few exegetical debates in heaven between Paul and N T Wright, or as his less charitable opponents call him, N T Wrong.

1 September 2009
Love of learning and the desire for God. Pastoral vocation in the academy.

Saying no in order to say yes isn't so much a paradox as an important principle in time management. When it comes to research, writing and the life of the mind, there are necessary choices – times to say yes, and no. You just can't read all you want to, or follow all the nudges and hunches that push and pull your curiosity down different intriguing research paths.

My own intellectual and spiritual landscape has several well worn paths. One of my favourite hills is Tinto, in Lanarkshire (pictured in winter, with snow on last year's foreground stubble). It's criss-crossed with paths, evidence of thousands of trudging feet over many a year. There are several ways to the top, and none would get you there unless you stay on them! That's not to say you can't make your own way up, ignoring established paths, and ploughing through heather, bracken, moorland grass, the odd bog and on one side some dodgy screes.

I think of my research map as a kind of inner Tinto! There are well worn paths of reading, writing, study and research! Sometimes they criss-cross, sometimes they just stop and don't reach the top. Now and again I want to go up a different way. Familiar paths for me include Evangelical, Baptist and Scottish spirituality; Scottish theology, the poetry of George Herbert, Julian of Norwich, Trinitarian theology, Baptist identity and theology, Bonhoeffer, theology and disability, and more recently the possible conversations between poetry and theology, kenosis and pastoral theology, and the relations between Scripture and Christology.

At my ordination I chose a hymn that in its first verse also uses the image of hill climbing.

Christ of the upward way,
my Guide divine,
Where Thou hast set thy feet
may I place mine:
And move and march wherever Thou has trod
keeping face forward up the hill of God.

The impetus to study, the attractiveness of truth and wisdom, the love of learning and the desire for God, are I think integral to the spirituality of the pastor theologian. As a Baptist minister serving our churches in theological education, I've never relinquished that sense of ministry as following the Christ of the upward way, and keeping face forward up the hill of God. Pastoral vocation is a deep and searching calling to a ministry in which the qualifier pastoral defines what I am about as a theologian. Academic research and following Christ, theology and pastoral care, intellectual work and heart work, continually weave together in a pattern of discipleship whose dominant motifs eventually define and reflect who we are.

This weekend I marked the 33rd anniversary of my ordination. For reasons I hope are theological as well as personal, I've always viewed that event on August 28, 1976, as utterly decisive and vocationally defining for me. It was the day I promised to follow Christ on the upward way of a pastoral preaching ministry. Whatever else I am in terms of my gifts, and however others see me in terms of gifts or faults, inextricably woven through my own self-understanding was that call to ministry which has been my way of following faithfully after Christ.

So I'm still climbing, keeping face forward up the hill of God. Here is the whole hymn – it still touches deep chords of longing, aspiration and an astonished sense of privilege.

Christ of the upward way, my Guide divine,
Where Thou hast set Thy feet, may I place mine;
And move and march wherever Thou hast trod,
Keeping face forward up the hill of God.

Give me the heart to hear Thy voice and will,
That without fault or fear I may fulfill
Thy purpose with a glad and holy zest,
Like one who would not bring less than his best.

Give me the eye to see each chance to serve,
Then send me strength to rise with steady nerve,
And leap at once with kind and helpful deed,
To the sure succor of a soul in need.

Give me the good stout arm to shield the right,
And wield Thy sword of truth with all my might,
That, in the warfare I must wage for Thee,
More than a victor I may ever be.

Christ of the upward way, my Guide divine,
Where Thou hast set Thy feet, may I place mine;
And when Thy last call comes, serene and clear,
Calm may my answer be, “Lord, I am here.”

Walter J Mathams – composed circa 1915

30 August 2009