The forgotten twist in 'The Prodigal Son' story

I've heard this story preached many times before, including twice this week. The emphasis used to be on the son. Then people used to focus on 'the loving Father'. More recently I've heard an awful lot about the elder brother.

But in all the times I've heard this preached, there's one aspect of the story that I've never heard a sermon on...

Luke 15v11-13:

Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
And so on...

Did you notice the first twist in the story?

The younger son goes to the father and said (in essence) "Give me everything I'll get when you are dead". This is fairly shocking in itself, but the amazing thing here is that the father does this!

What does this tell us about God? He's prepared to give the full share of inheritance to those who reject him, wish him dead, or even deny his existence? What does that mean in practice?

Post-evangelical?

I've just read 'The Post Evangelical' by Dave Tomlinson. I read it on holiday in the space of 24 hours, its a short book.

Its a good book, on the whole. Like many of the people on the Amazon reviews page, and elsewhere online, I read it with a sense of relief - there are other people out there like me. And yet, it still leaves a slightly odd aftertaste and a slightly uncomfortable feeling that I can't quite put my finger on.

So what is a 'post evangelical' you might be wondering?

Well, the book is making a case for a third flavour of modern Christianity. Like the author, I was brought up in an 'Evangelical' church where it was believed that there were only really two types of congregation - 'evangelical' or 'liberal'. If you weren't evangelical, you were liberal by default. Evangelicals are the ones who take the bible literally as the Word of God, while liberals are the ones who critically question (i.e. doubt or disbelieve) almost everything in there...

The book makes the case that there are a number of people (the book is based on a number of interviews, we are told) who don't really fit into evangelical churches, who question beliefs and doubt bible stories, but still hold to the 'evangel' - the gospel. These people are not, and do not want to be liberals, but they're not really evangelicals either - they just don't hold the same certainties about the bible or God as most evangelicals do. There is a lot more uncertainty and mystery in post-evangelicalism than there is in evangelical churches.

So there are many good points, well made in this book. And then you realise that the book was written 15 years ago and surely the post evangelical 'movement' it was describing the start of should have come to something by now...? Where are the post evangelical churches? Have I missed it, or did the movement just never happen?

While the main emphases of the book are good and well presented, it does occasionally stray off the path - it goes too far into its discussion of aspects of 'post modernism' and sociology at times, and sometimes there is no clear reason why the author holds so close to some evangelical beliefs whilst drifting so far from others. For example (and, to me this was the most clanging mis-step in the book) early on the author questions the place of marriage for the Christian - basically asking the question 'is it OK for Christians to live together before / instead of marriage?' - and coming to the out-of-place conclusion that the actual marriage ceremony is not that important to the post evangelical! And this without much justification. And then a few paragraphs further on he asserts that the post evangelical will agree with all of the Apostles Creed. Dunno about most people who the book resonates with, but I get those the other way around.

It was a good book. Not a great one. It'll only take you a couple of hours to read and it does contain some gems. Definitely recommended, despite the flaws.

The dynamics of prayer...

There is a strange dynamic in corporate prayer. Maybe you've noticed it yourself, or maybe its just me.

Every now and again in a corporate prayer setting, like a prayer meeting or - in the specific instance I'm thinking of here - during 'ministry time' in a church service, an odd thing happens.

I don't know about you, but for me in a corporate prayer setting, I never jump right in straight away when someone else has finished praying, I usually leave a gap. And during this gap I generally formulate what I'm going to pray for when I open my mouth. And quite often, someone else will start praying before me, and - weirdly - will start praying for the exact same thing I was about to pray for.

This has happened to me too many times for it to be coincidence. Clearly there is a dynamic going on in prayer beyond me just phrasing the words to say and saying them. Something external to me inspires me to pray certain things.

Of course, I'm assuming that this external factor is the Spirit of God.

It happened on Sunday morning this week. I was praying with two others for a guy in the church. During a moment's silence I decided that I would pray for God to bless the guy's business - which was not really connected to the things we'd just been praying for. And just as I was about to open my mouth, one of the other guys jumped in and started praying for the profitability of the guy's business.

So what I'm noticing is this - in a corporate prayer setting, the Spirit of God inspires you to say certain things to God. In other words, God decides what we ask him for.

So who benefits from such a prayer? If God knows what we're going to pray for, because he Himself decided it, what is the point? Why bother involving me in the process?

I once heard it said that when we pray, we move the hands of God. But if we're moving the hands of God to the place that he decided to move them to anyway, what is our involvement in it worth?

Is it for the benefit of me - the person doing the praying, or for the benefit of the guy being prayed for? Indeed, I have had this experience in settings when we've been praying for people far away, so I guess its - in part - for the benefit of the person doing the praying.

But I find it an odd dynamic.

Anyone else have this experience? Anyone got any insight?

Hell

I've recently discovered the 'Unbelievable' podcast from Premier Christian Radio. Its quite good, if a bit biased, and cheesy. The basic format is to have a Christian guest and a non-Christian guest on each week to debate the issue of the week. Occasionally they break from this format to have, for example, a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim on the show to debate some topic. On other occasions they have Christians with different viewpoints debating the issue.
I've just listened to the podcast on 'Hell' (from August last year). On the show they had three Christians representing two different viewpoints: James White was defending the "eternal conscious torment" position while Roger & Faith Forster were defending the "conditional immortality" position, that is, that at some point the people in hell will be utterly destroyed and will not live forever.

I found the whole debate to be a bit pointless, quite annoying and, to be honest, the in-built beliefs of both sides were pretty distasteful at points.

Its amazing what you can end up believing if you build your world view and your belief of God on certain selective verses.

The most distasteful (in my opinion) belief that the "conditional immortality" camp put forward was this: that the sinner cast into hell would experience suffering and torment for a period of time, more or less proportional to the amount of sin, after which they would be annihilated and would cease to exist. In other words, they believe in a God who tortures people before killing them. There is no love in that picture. Sorry, but I can't reconcile that with an awful lot of statements about God which are in the bible.

However, I have to say that on the whole, if I had to ally myself to one side or the other in this debate, theirs was the more agreeable position. I found much more to disagree with in the other opinion.

The other opinion seemed to rest on this assumption - that any sin committed against an infinite God requires infinite punishment. Sorry, what? How do you come to that conclusion? The bible never paints God as being infinite for a start (infinity is a mathematical concept that cannot be applied to real things; if God were infinite, there would be no room in the multiverse for anything else except God, so if its true, then we're all God, and so is the devil, and so is the internet, etc. - this is clearly not the case), but beyond that, the bible is quite clear that the punishment should always fit the crime. There is no logic in this deduction, a finite crime should always have finite consequences.

Where the debate really broke down, for me, was when they came to the subject of the Cross. Somehow - in the mind of James White at least, and in the others to a lesser extent - Jesus was able to pay for all the sin of all those who believe in his name in a period of suffering and death that lasted about a day, followed by up to three days in hell (according to some). Meanwhile, it is not possible for one sinner to atone for his own sins in an infinite eternity of suffering in hell. Sorry, I just can't go along with that view of the atonement.

If sin can be atoned for by suffering & death, then finite sin can be atoned for by finite suffering and death. Therefore hell should not be eternal.

If sin cannot be atoned for by suffering and death, then an eternity of suffering counts for nothing, and a loving God would not impose this on anyone. Therefore there should be no hell.

Am I missing something here? Or over-simplifying it?

Personally I hold to the opinion that 'hell' is the destroying fire where the rubbish is thrown. The fire may be eternal, but the rubbish is consumed and destroyed. It is not a place of consciousness, but of annihilation. Anyone cast into hell will cease to be. But this is not a belief that is foundational to my belief system, and I admit that I may be wrong on this. Its just what I currently believe. Listening to this debate has not provided me with any compelling evidence or reasoning to change my stance on this belief.

Am I a hypocrite?

There was some discussion of a minor issue in a bible passage at housegroup on Thursday. Doesn't really matter what the passage or issue was.

I have my own personal opinions on the subject under discussion, some honest doubts that are really quite technical and not really suitable for the level of discussion we were having in housegroup.

But I also knew the 'orthodox' answer. And so when the discussion started to get messy, I stepped in, quoted the appropriate verses from the appropriate passages and resolved the discussion to the satisfaction of the group.

Thing is, I have some serious issues with the passage I quoted and (along with some proper bible scholars) am reasonably convinced that it is a very late-written passage, written by someone other than the person it claims as author. Basically, I'm not sure that the passage has any right to be included in the canon of scripture. Thus the reasoning I used is (in my opinion) false.

Does that make me a hypocrite?

In my defence, I did it 'for the sake of the weaker brother'. It was the appropriate way to deal with the discussion and it probably helped boost the faith and understanding of some of the group. But I do feel a bit of a hypocrite.

I wonder, do ministers often have this feeling? Presenting the opinion that the congregation needs to hear, even if they personally disagree? If you're a minister reading this, please let me know. Anonymously (or, preferably, pseudonymously) if you like.

The Apostles' Creed

The Apostles' Creed (3rd Century, or thereabouts) says this:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth:

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried:
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
The holy Catholic Church;
The Communion of Saints;
The Forgiveness of sins;
The Resurrection of the body,
And the Life everlasting.
Amen.

What I find interesting about this creed is not necessarily what it says, but rather what it doesn't say, and what is implied from the things it does say. Of course - and this will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog - I don't agree with all of it. Its not necessarily that I disagree with all of it, but just that I think some of it is treading on that shaky ground where I'm happy to say 'I don't know' and not happy to land on one side or the other.

Most of the 'I believe' statements actually need some unpacking. When it says 'I believe in the Holy Ghost' what does that mean? For example, it doesn't say 'I believe that the Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity'. Its more like 'I believe that there is something or someone called The Holy Ghost', but it tells me nothing about what the claimant believes about the Holy Ghost.

And what about the 'Communion of Saints' - we say these words, but what do we actually mean by them? As I understand it, Catholic teaching traditionally means that there is some mystical unity between Christians who are currently alive and those who are currently in Purgatory or Heaven. But I've never, ever, in nearly 40 years of church-going heard this preached upon, and I very much doubt that the majority of Evangelical Christians actually believe this, although they might repeat these words in Church every now and again.

What else? Well, why is the virginity of Mary such an important point here? If I believe all of this, except the virginity of Mary, does that mean that my salvation is lost? I doubt it, so why specify it? Even more than that, why include 'under Pontius Pilate'? The only conceivable reason for mentioning Pilate here is that, at the time the creed was formulated, there must have been some debate - some voices must have been claiming that Christ died at some other point in history, and this creed was aiming to stamp out the heresy.

And what about the 'descended into hell' bit? Is there a hell that is a physical place? Is it below? Was it there 2000 years ago or is it a future thing, like Revelation seems to imply? So much of Jesus's teaching relates to lifestyle-choices which will keep you out of hell, surely he is the least likely person ever to have gone there, if such a place even existed?

But what doesn't it say? It says nothing about how to live, it says nothing about love, relationship, service of others, acts of generosity or sacrifice. It doesn't acknowledge that Jesus did or said anything during his earthly life. The only thing he was born to do was suffer and die, if this is any kind of basis of faith. His commands were clearly not fundamental to faith.

The more I think on these issues, the more annoyed I get. I reject this creed and all others.

'What the Bible really teaches: A challenge for Fundamentalists' by Keith Ward

I can't remember how this book ended up on my Amazon wishlist, but somehow it did and I bought it.

To be honest, I found it a bit of a struggle to read, but not for good reasons.

The basic purpose of the book is to demonstrate that the range of "Bible based" beliefs of fundamentalists are not 'what the Bible really teaches'... This purpose, the book sort of manages. But it fails in other regards.

The main problems with the book are:

• the author occasionally uses a really clunky writing style
  
• he repeats himself far too much
• that the word 'sublated' is used several times per page (if I never read that word again, it'll be too soon)
  
• and that the author attempts to give a 'true' picture of what the Bible really teaches while demonstrating that the fundamentalist view is false...

You see, the author does a pretty good job of demonstrating that several views of fundamentalists are flawed. And if he'd stuck to that, the book would have worked (although it would have been very negative). But instead he proposes an alternative belief/interpretation for each view and ends up proposing something that is equally as flawed as the fundamentalist view he has just trashed.

I think the main problem is that he tries to maintain that 'the Bible' has a single, unified message. Of course, a simple reading of it will show that this is not the case. There are disagreements and inconsistencies within the bible. For example, does the follower of Jesus have to follow the Torah law? - absolutely yes, if you go by the teaching of Jesus in Matthew's gospel, absolutely not, if you go by some of the letters of Paul. The author can't bring himself to admit that it is possible that Matthew had a biased opinion which colours his gospel, so he ends up explaining how Paul's writings 'sublate' the teaching of Jesus. Hang on. He's saying that the incarnated Son of God appears and teaches a simple message, which is then overturned and superceded by the teachings of a mere man less than a generation later and before the original teachings had even been written down? Seems a bit unlikely.

Me, I think its more likely that the Son of God preached a message that would stand for all time, and both Matthew and Paul interpreted it through their own preconception-filters, and its this interpretation which they then wrote down. Of course, that doesn't allow the Bible to be infallible, but that's probably a blog post for another time.

But its not all bad. I really quite liked the discussion of belief in the 'Second Coming' (to be discussed in a future blog post) and the bits about Jesus's death as atonement or otherwise. But the take on 'Salvation' was bamboozling and inconsistent, as was the discussion of morality.

So I can't recommend this to anyone. But there was some interesting stuff in there. You might like it.

"I hope you've got your bibles with you..."

The church seems to go through seasons of repeating this refrain, but I have noticed it as a recurring theme in recent weeks, not just in church services that I've been at, but also in podcasts I've listened to: "I hope you've got your bibles with you..." (or words to that effect).

Generally, the stated purpose of this is along the lines of: "If you don't have your own copies of the bible with you and read along, you have no idea if I'm deceiving you or not..."

Eh, what? You know, in all my years of attending church I don't think I have ever heard anyone deliberately misquote the bible in order to teach a non-biblical message.

So why should the congregation members have to bring their bibles along and read along? For most of history this would have been impossible for people to do - before the invention of the printing press bibles were only for the very rich, and beside that the majority of people were illiterate. Back then, the ordinary believers had to trust the reader and preacher, so why not nowadays?

But I've just realised that this refrain can actually be used for a slight deception if the people do bring their own bibles along and read along. For you see, the preacher will generally be preaching an interpretation of a bible passage or a message resting on the foundations of several biblical passages. And if the congregation member sees that the bible passages referred to are genuine, then that lends support to the interpretation or message presented. Even if the interpretation is not good or the message is flawed in some way. If the congregation member sees that it has its roots in the bible, they're more likely to believe it.

Now I'm not saying that everyone who encourages their congregation to bring their bibles along is doing this, but it might be happening somewhere...

Think I'll leave my bible at home this morning.

Witness vs demonstration

Further to my earlier post, I have to comment on one aspect of one of the talks from last year's Vineyard Leaders Conference (UK) that I've been listening to. The rather uninspiringly titled "The reformation today: Theology 2" (link to mp3) is one of the best and most challenging talks I've heard in a long time. Highly recommended, even if the audio quality is a bit lacking.

One of the points made in the talk was that when Jesus sent out his disciples (Matt 10, Mark 6, Luke 9) to preach, his instructions were simple:

1. Preach the simple message "the Kingdom of Heaven is near"
2. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons
3. If anyone is unwelcoming, simply move on to the next place

At no point in there is the instruction to debate non-believers, or attempt to convince anyone of anything - if people don't want to hear, just move on, leave them alone, someone else will want to hear.

How come nobody seems to view evangelism in those terms today? Some folk seem to go out of their way to try and persuade those who aren't interested about the reality of the gospel.

Oh, hang on, the problem with the 'proclaim and demonstrate' model of witness is that (for the most part) we don't seem to be willing or able to do the 'heal the sick' bit these days. Or rather, it is easier to try to engage with non-believers on an intellectual level, because if they don't believe this is due to some fault in their perception of reality. Whereas if we tried to heal people and nothing happened then it would be our lack of faith, our fault.

Hmmm. Maybe we should be more about demonstration than debate.

“Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words” as St Francis of Assisi once supposedly said.

Witness vs Gospel

I have a bias.

I don't think I ever really thought of it as a bias until last week. It concerns the content of sermons, or talks at Christian events, whether it be a Sunday morning church service or a weekend conference or an event like Greenbelt.

The bias is this: speakers who preach from the bible and expound what it says = good / speakers who preach about their own life and experiences of God, occasionally using seemingly random verses and passages to support what they're saying = bad.

I know where the bias comes from, I was raised with it. This is exactly the opinion of my parents and the church I was raised in. It was instilled in me from a very young age. So I never really noticed it before, or that it might be a bad thing.

You see, I've always thought that witness really involved telling people about what Jesus did 2000 years ago. And it kind-of annoys me when people / preachers talk about what happened in their lives last year, even if what they're telling is what Jesus did in their lives last week. I suppose my bias could be summed up by saying: 'if it isn't in the bible, its not worth preaching'.

Is this a good bias? Is it right? I'm not so sure.

For about three years now we've been attending a Vineyard church, and the teaching style generally treads the line between the two styles - generally there's a lot of preaching from the bible, but there's also the personal experience stuff too. Sometimes I like this balance, sometimes I wish there was more exposition. Usually I don't notice my bias. But it generally comes out when we have visiting speakers - most of the visitors we have had over the past few years have preached their experiences of God, not expounded. And as a result I have been biased against them without realising it. It came to my attention this week as I've been listening to the talks from the Vineyard Leaders' Conference from last year (I actually meant to listen to this year's talks but downloaded the wrong ones by accident, doh!).

The main speaker, Steve Nicholson, tells some fascinating stories of what God has done in his life and church, with only occasional reference to the bible. And along the way he mentioned that 'witness' is talking about what you've seen. And I realised that he's right. I didn't witness anything 2000 years ago, indeed, I have only hazy memories of the 1970s! If I'm to witness it must be about things I've seen - better still, it should be about what God has done in my life.

So, I've finally realised that witness is not equal to gospel.

Hopefully I can work around this bias, now that I'm aware of it.