Ambassadors of Reconciliation

Returning from a Conference on Conflict Mediation, I was struck by the wider implications of embracing the role of being Peacemakers. If we truly see ourselves called as ministers of reconciliation, then integral to being Christian is the activity of seeking to be bearers of peace into the world around us.

How significant it would be if Christian communities both modelled and sought to serve in this way. It would mean, firstly, that we understood how vital it is that we together embrace peacemaking within our church communities. A church with conflict that is not being positively managed; or where a pathology has developed out of the conflict, where there is no seeking to address the problems caused by the conflict, is a failed witness to Jesus.

But  a Christian community that is learning to both face and deal positively with conflict, is one that has a real ministry to wounded and hurt people, who need to know salvation.

What sort of community do you belong to?

Conflict

Here, in the great Anglican cathedral in Coventry, attending a conference, with members of the Conflict Resolution team. The speaker at this morning's session emphasised that:

1.     Conflict is normal. What we need to develop in conflict resilience and ways to manage it rather
        than try to flee from or fight it.
2.     Conflict should not define us, however. It is not our goal. But it can be used as a tool for
        development.
3.     Conflict 'has no umpires' - we are all protagonists, to a greater or lesser degree.

Conflict management and training for churches is something we will soon be offering. It will be a useful and important tool for church development of mission and ministry.

One step forward

Keep your servant also from wilful sins;  may they not rule over me.  Then will I be blameless,  innocent of great transgression. (Psalm 19:13 NIVUK)

This is the essence of a key conviction to be held onto by Christians - a healthy one. The possibility of avoiding wilful sin. This is one of the aspects of a full, sanctified life that the Holy Spirit would help us with.

The great Wesleyan doctrine of 'entire Sanctification' is founded in this reality. God does not 'take over' us by His Holy Spirit. As people indwelt by the Holy Spirit, Christians still have to make choices.  The Holy Spirit desires to strengthen and empower us, as well as lead us in, the way of Jesus Christ.

The more we choose to conform to what is right and to resist sin, the more sensitive we will be to the Holy Spirit's leading. Conversely, the more we allow sin to dominate us, then the less sensitive and aware we become of God's leading and presence.

Take a step forward towards holiness and sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit today. Repent and avoid repeating a flagrant sin that is there in your life right now: that is a good place to start.

Relinquishing Power

I am being immensely blessed through reading Glen Stassen's recent work, 'A Thicker Jesus'. Glen is a man of mature years, and Incarnate wisdom, like good wine, often does improve with age.

And I am hugely challenged by Glen's invitation to the disavowment and relinquishing of power. When I look at all social structures, I see people exercise power, in many different ways. In fact, that includes you, my reader. For we learn to survive by managing the power of others and using our own, albeit subversively.

But, as Glen points out, Jesus' counter-intuitive disavowment and relinquishing of power, as a manipulative or controlling force, is central to His exercise of ministry and teaching. Paul grasps this too, as witnessed in Philippians 2.5ff.

Wouldn't it be fitting if we grasped and embraced this the more as well?

ἡμεῖς γὰρ πνεύματι ἐκ πίστεως ἐλπίδα δικαιοσύνης ἀπεκδεχόμεθα. (ΠΡΟΣ ΓΑΛΑΤΑΣ 5:5 SBLG)

For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. (Galatians 5:5 NKJV)

If you were to ask me, 'what troubles you most?', the answer would be simple. I am not troubled by the state of the world: it is as I would expect it to be. It is a beautiful world, marred and spoilt by sin. Neither I am troubled by issues of sexuality and perversity. Read the New Testament: nothing new in present trends!

No, what troubles me is when people talk as if 'faith' can be had, or laid hold of, without first having something to hope for. For the Christian life can only begin with God's Promises, manifestly met with in Jesus Christ. Promises that find all their fulfilment in and through what comes to us, embraces us, covers us and fills us because of Jesus Christ.

I have no comprehension of what people mean, when they talk of a 'leap of faith' or 'just believing'. I have met with a God of love, mercy and immeasureable power come to us. A God who fully meets with and embraces us, in the tangible power of His Holy Spirit.

Because such a God would and does meet with us, I have hope. And because of this, I can seek to pursue a life of faith, expressing itself in love.

There is no other way, other than this way which is filled with longing and the pursuit of such hope.

IBTS

This has been, once again, a profoundly meaningful and enriching time as part of the community of IBTS - the international baptist theological seminary of the European Baptist Federation.

The first week of these Intensives was, as always, quite exhausting! The second week of chatting, reading, discussing was a good balance. Concentrated listening, analysis, response and interaction are good but need recovery time!  Yet the combined result is something that makes this environment quite unique. This is no school for learning a set of principles, a place for the 'right answers'. Frankly, people should have passed into and through that stage of their development long before they come to this decidedly post-graduate environment. 

IBTS is for people who, having learnt the basics of the Faith in their original cultures and context, realise that to develop as disciples and as effective Christian teachers, they must now face new questions and challenges. They realise they have to come to the Scriptures with fresh eyes. They know that humility and the place of listening is at least as important as hope and faithful preaching. To acknowledge that others they once refused to meet with might have, after all, some insights into the truth and life that is in Jesus Christ.

I am so thankful for my involvement at IBTS over the last 12 years. As it moves next year from Prague to Amsterdam, I am excited about future developments and opportunities. For this is a unique environment, a place to meet other, wonderful disciples from around the World who can and will impact and shape each others lives as we seek to move into the deeper, richer and life transforming power and perspectives of God's Word and Spirit.

Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve?

Glenn Stassen in his recent work, 'A Thicker Jesus', notes seven indicators of secularism from the work of Charles Taylor. That is, attitudes towards democracy; modern science; individualism; sin; the Cross; love; war.

Stassen notes that causes that affect systems are by nature complicated, and not reducible to single factors. 

Here are some initial reflections, with a view to a paper I will be presenting in a few weeks time with regards to sexuality; and the whole question of the sanctity of male and female components in that which God calls 'marriage'.

Democracy

Our early Baptist forebears would probably have distinguished, should they have known to do so, between liberal democracy and social democracy. An understanding of the dignity of the individual in the biblical narratives always sets that person within the social narrative.

Modern Science

Scientific theory now moves us to think in ways beyond a simple, mechanistic Deism: 'God's in charge of all that goes on'. Facing reality means facing up to an appreciation of complicated systems. And process and development is integral to our understanding of systems.

An understanding of God's sovereignty has to be worked out in the light of the fullness of divine revelation in Jesus Christ, as a journey with Jesus. It needs to be a journey of hope. It involves maturing and growing into completeness - Romans 8.20.

Individualism

If we can grasp that God is Trinity - three aspects of Persons integrally related within single real Personhood, then we should be able to grasp at least something of a biblical understanding of real persons as persons in relation rather than as atomised individuals. Individualism, frankly, is a foreign concept to Christianity. Isolated individualism and Christianity do not go together.

Sin

To state the obvious,  yet easily forgotten: a Hebraic understanding of sin is 'a violation of God's will, by a breaching social protocols and parameters laif down by God'. Jesus does not violate this truth.  Relationships matter to Jesus. Right relationships. There can be relationships that are, in God's eyes, simply a violation of His purposes for human society.

The Cross

A 'Punch and Judy' Debate, that is characterised by obsession with affirming or denying penal substitution, has obscured a deeper and wider understanding of the Cross for many contemporary Christians. I stand alongside the excellent new Testament scholar Michael Bird,  who taught at Highland Theological College, in this.  I have no problem with penal substitution; neither do I have a problem with NT Wright's insistence on wider implications of the Cross. I am happy with both Piper and Wright, even if they are not happy with each other!

The excellent work of the North American New Testament scholar, Michael Gorman, reminds us that the Christian life involves not only a message about the Cross but a call towards the way of the Cross. Where, in all the contemporary discussion, are God's call to mortification and repentance in the Christian life? Where is there a proper suborning  of persons' preferences for the sake of a transformed social order that we are called to work towards?

It seems to me that there might be not only a docetism expressed towards the Christ of the cross, but also a  docetic view of our humanity that fails to appreciate the need to harness sexuality and our humanity's appetites, immature and as yet imperfect as they are.

Love

Love is not simply an investment in the other as opposed to an investment in self. Love is an investment in the other in the context of the other belonging to the social fabric which defines them.

War

A renunciation of violence does not mean our renunciation of discipline. The war we wage is not one against others but against selfhood and self realisation at the cost of social integrity and social maturity.

These are my starting thoughts!

Whose Kingdom?

Some people think that the Christian church should seek to change society. This is not, from the perspective of those who think baptistically, what I see it to be all about. When I read the Book of Revelation, I cannot have that expectation.

We look towards a New Heaven and a New Earth. To be salt and light. To be light amidst the present darkness.

The mission of the church must surely be to bring  proclamation and presence of the Kingdom of God into this world, among sinners. A sign and invitation towards repentance and faith.

This invitation towards repentance and faith by all is for everyone. As is God's love. But we know that not all receive.

It's not about us setting up our Kingdom. Others have tried it. Our job is to witness to God's Kingdom. So let's keep the focus and keep the faith.

post Intensives

At the end of a very full week here, at IBTS, it is good to enjoy an evening of peace, quiet and solitude - the beginning of Sabbath.

At the very heart of our life in Christ, there is this need to allow His light and love the opportunity to flood in upon us. to rest in His presence. To relax enough that we let our guard down. Not simply to other people. Nor to the paliative of alcohol. But to Jesus, the Light of the World; the giver of Life.

And it is good.

DNA of the Jesus way

peace. powerlessness. advocacy. presence.

marginalised. poverty. 

service. care. 

All of these terms are integral to a the theory and practice of mission and ministry in a Jesus centred, God's Kingdom reality. Where Jesus really is the final authority on all things, then these terms need to be part of our vocabulary.

Leader. My gifts and my ministry. Power. Exercising control. 

I'm trying hard to listen and learn.

But I'm not so sure about these words.