A Broad Church

The Church of England is in popular parlance a 'broad church.' That is it includes within it a range of convictions. As the state church it feels a duty to provide ministry to all who are in England. In many settings this has led to a toning down of parts of the Christian message unappealing to secular preferences.

Broadchurch is also the title of a riveting new British police drama. Set on an island of the name 'Broadchuch' the cast includes top British stars - Tennant (of Dr Who fame) plays the lead detective. He is supported by the 'wife' of BBC's 'Rev' - Olivia Coleman. I noticed other actors who have starred in Hollywood films alongside Michael Caine (Newsagent owner was Harry Brown's mate).

Superficially the drama is a classic detective 'who dunnit?' Within minutes of the first episode an eleven year old boy is found murdered. On a close knit island community such as 'Broadchurch' it is inevitable that the parents of the murdered kid know his killer. In a painful scene they list all the suspects - their friends. The drama has just aired its third of eight shows - and it has been astonishingly popular. CS Lewis used to moan that students did not know their Bible's well enough to see the relevant allusions which steep English literature. It is a pity that none of the secular reviewers know their Bible's well enough to see why the story is so rich and compelling.

For Broad Church is far more than merely a formulaic murder enquiry show. The opening title shot of episode one pans past a Church notice board with the Bible verse 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' Words spoken by Jesus - but the notice is tattered and worn. It speaks - as you see in the story that follows - not of a reality in the parish church. For the vicar finds his flock diminished in number - commenting on this with frustration.

Rather the ideal of love and connection and care seems to be found in the island community itself. Wandering down the street a father greets person after person by name - enquiring after sick relative, joking with shop owners and making a contribution to the community. Within minutes the appearance of a loving neighbourly family is shattered - the man's son is killed. Drugs, violence, lies, underage sex, affairs, bullying - all these lie underneath the surface of the island's happy facade. The local detective and pathologist and reporter all protest 'these sorts of things don't happen here. The body on a beach tells another story.

What is going on in this story? It seems to me that the script writers have crafted a story in which they play with the concept of a Broad Church. The ideals of the Church - love of neighbour - have been romanticised in the island's self perception. This is shattered by a murder. The real drama is in whether in its collective response to murder and evil, the island can somehow resurrect a more enduring reality of neighbourly love. They hope to ape the ideals of Church, in a Godless secular culture.

The vicar is a sympathetic character, and elicits confidence from the bereaved mother. He genuinely cares and (so far) his weaknesses can be put down to inexperience. That the secular island is the real church in the narrative is demonstrated however in the way he seeks wisdom from the unbeleivers on how to comfort and lead them into wholeness. The message is that the Church has lost its spiritual way, and the unbelievers can offer what has been forgotten. Real wisdom is in the world.

David Tennant punches in a terrific performance - a new kooky take on the angst ridden detective. The only foreigner to the island people, e is inches away from dropping dead from some kind of medical condition related to stress. When his doctor tells him he needs to back away from stressful murder enquiries he refuses - knowing that pursuing justice may cost him his life. He is plagued with guilt over a previous child murder case he messed up. He loathes the island he has landed up on, but insists he will stay, shouting with passion, "It is my penance." Similarily the murdered boy's dad comments that God was absent when his child was killed, and believes the death is a punishment for his own wrongdoing.

TV drama in recent years has become very sophisticated. Religion is always significant- in the recent Danish and Sweedish dramas that have been on our screens we have seen the dismissal of, or mocking of, Christianity as an impotent force. Broad Church is a very Anglican take on the role of religion in culture. Only in England could we come up with a drama steeped in the idea that the Church has broadened so much that it not only ministers to all in the nation, but it has stumbled on the way, and been superceeded by secular society (No - America is very different, and since they could not follow 'The Office' ...). Secular society in Britain cannot forget the Church or the communality that is woven into the fabric of our culture's centuries of engagement with the Church. Our best stories are retellings of the Story; our most foolish hope is that we can recreate what God offers in the Church, without God or Church.

We are only three episodes into this story. (You can view them on ITV Player if you are in the UK) How will the story develop? My guess is that the 'Church' - the island - will be given new life through the sacrificial laying down of an innocent life from one who has come into the island from a foreign realm. Justice will be thought to have been done, and the island will experience restored relationships. God won't be needed, and the psychic (yes there is one!) will be found to have been right all along.

To which I say - its a great myth.

There is a true version of this story. Good news for those who seek true community, wonder if there can be atonement for sin, and know that under the surface of nice facades lurk all kinds of sin. Why not visit your (real) local church after you watch Broad Church?

We are saying goodbye too soon x

21 Years Old - What you need

I have just returned from visiting a former student in Hereford, starting his first pastorate.

I could not resist a pause on the 360 odd mile round trip to explore a second hand bookshop. One of the titles I purchased was a book which turned out to have a handwritten inscription. In beautiful copperplate ink, it reads thus:

'Oct 19th, 1898

To Evelyn Milnes Gaskill,

With much affectionate remembrance on his 21st birthday -

Words are the true reflection of the mind,

If it so be, that they be honest, each to the other, nor by pride do overreach the cord, which God around them hath entwined; Thus when the heart is warm, it is inclined to utter by the tongue sweet words of love, responsive to the thoughts that inward move - words that seek out and will not lag behind.

Tis so dear Evelyn, between you and me, on this occasion of your natal day,

When you attain to manhood's full estate,

My prayers rise up today that you may be in God's safe keeping, as years pass away; Blest in this love, whose bidding angels wait.

Jo Sharp'

One assumes with an inscription such as that, the young woman selected the book with care - it would contain the kind of knowledge that a man would require upon reaching 'manhood's full estate' in the year 1898.

The book's title?

'A History of the Church of England' by Henry Wakeman, fellow of All Soul's College, Oxford.

Times have changed - today not many 21 year old's receive a book like that as a sign of being equipped for adult life.

Church & State

“The Queen is not only very charming, but incredibly well-informed. Less agreeable, are the visits and letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury [Fisher]. I try to talk to him about religion. He seems to be quite uninterested and reverts all the time to politics.”


Diary of Harold MacMillan British Prime Minister, 1957-1963

Hell: The End of Sin?

As evangelicals rush to defend the orthodox doctrine of hell, caution may be in order.

Some of the popular attempts to defend the Bible's teaching have a high price.

One such approach is the idea that everlasting hell is fair since the damned in hell continue to rebel and sin without repentance. This apology is utilised by leading writers such as DA Carson:

'What is hard to prove, but seems to me probable, is that one reason why the conscious punishment of hell is ongoing is because sin is ongoing' Gagging of God, p.533.

The chapter from which this quote is taken is one of the best summaries of the issues available, and one I frequently recommend. Carson himself admits that the apology is 'hard to prove'.

Tim Keller makes much of the idea, originally taught by CS Lewis (Problem of Pain) that hell's 'door is locked on the inside'. Keller develops these ideas in his Reason for God, Chapter 5.
Recently, in response to Rob Bell, the idea that rebellion and sin are ongoing in hell has been commended by various evangelical teachers.

Defending hell's justice on the basis of people's ongoing rebellion is an appealing approach. Tragically though it is an apologetic which comes with a high price - it is predicated upon a Pelagian prioritising of human freedom over God's sovereignty. This is seen very clearly in the development of the approach by Keller and Lewis, which makes the reality of hell more palatable by calling into doubt the sovereign freedom of God, as the ultimate reason for hell. Ironically even those who have come to a Calvinsit/Augustinian view of the will, are susceptible to accepting the Pelagian approach when it comes to post-mortem existence. The injustice done to God's sovereignty is just as real at that point of reality.

The Pelagian prioritising of human choice over God's sovereignty was presumably the reason Augustine - a strong defender of the Biblical view of hell as everlasting torment - refused to countenance the idea that sin exists in hell. The idea that sin could continue to exist and even be enlarged in hell flies in the face of the expectation that after Christ's return, all sin is ended and God is glorified in all things.

Augustine wrote:

'After the resurrection, when the universal judgement is over and done with, the two cities will have their boundaries, one of the good the other of the wicked, both composed of angels and people. The former will have no will to sin and the latter no ability to do so, nor will either have any possibility of dying.'
Enchiridion, 29.111.

Rather than a portrait of hell as a place where sin continues and grows as it is endlessly freely chosen by the rebellious damned, Augustine saw the Biblical texts as urging him to conceive of hell as a place where sinners glorify God by agreeing with the rightness of God's judgement, regretting their sins (which the New Testament describes as having been done 'in the body,' not post-mortem) and being subject to the fearsome reality of God's righteous, holy wrath.

God is God of this world, and the future worlds of heaven and hell. Humanity has never been, nor ever will be, in charge. Sin truly will be no more after Christ returns. Thankfully, in view of the horrific nature of hell, the God who is in charge is abounding in mercy and intervenes to give us that which we could never desire of ourselves.

Compassionate to deny Hell?

One may imagine that denying the Bible's teaching on hell is compassionate. Unfortunately such 'compassion' is neither new, mainstream nor truly compassionate. Here is Augustine making those points in City of God 21:17-

"I am aware that I now have to engage in a debate, devoid of rancor, those compassionate Christians who refuse to believe that the punishment of hell will be everlasting either in the case of all those men whom the completely just Judge accounts deserving of that chastisement, or at least in the case of some of them; they hold that they are to be set free after fixed limits of time have been passed, the periods being longer or shorter in proportion to the magnitude of offences. On this subject the most compassionate of all was Origen who believed that the Devil himself and his angels will be rescued from their torments and brought into the company of the holy angels, after the more severe and more lasting chastisements appropriate to their deserts. But the Church has rejected Origen's teaching, and not without good reason."

Whatever

It is considered cool to not care.

Not having strong feelings is for the modern Western culture a mark of rising above the masses.

I'm not bothered; don't care; whatever...

I have been reading through the Yale edition of Jonathan Edwards' Works. Having started with some volumes of sermons, I returned to the Religious Affections and Original Sin.

I was struck by Edwards' repeated attack in Original Sin on the false belief that one can ever act, decide or choose something and actually remain 'indifferent'. Edwards perceived that the will is always moved to do or choose something, if it actually does anything. The superior desire may be only a small amount more compelling than an inferior desire. Still, if it is not actually more powerful, then the alternative will be acted upon.

Edwards convincingly shows that the cool, indifferent, non-caring, whatever person is in fact a myth.

In the case of Edwards' opponents, the myth of the indifferent person was a building block in the theological creation of a people who are not in need of God's grace, and in the end are little gods in their own lives.

If Edwards is correct and there are no indifferent people - what is the overwhelming desire so cleverly and self-deceptively pursued by the whatever generation? Makes you wonder.

Whatever.

The Natural Heart

I was guest preacher at Cambridge Presbyterian last Sunday evening. One of the nice things about guest preaching is you can choose the passage! I opted for Jer 9 - one of my favourite OT passages, which urges us to boast in the Lord. This imperative is given against the grim backdrop of an exposition of the natural, uncircumcised human heart. Enjoy.

Jeremiah 9: Boast in the Lord

Musculus on Grace

I am working on a translation of Musculus' Latin commentary on Colossians. Born in 1497 he begged for money as a child, singing to earn a living. He was taken in by monks and flourished under their education.


Here is my rendering of a statement I particularly like from his comments on Colossians 1:10:

Is not our God difficult and pernickety, so that unless you satisfy him in many ways, you might displease him in some and frustrate your satisfaction in many ways? If this is the situation, is any mortal able to be saved? For there is nobody who at no point might sin. And what is the benefit to us of the grace of Christ's mediation? I answer: In this way indeed righteousness is in him, that whoever stumbles in one thing, is guilty in all.

However we should consider that on the one hand it is true our imperfection may be earned, yet we may also be impacted by grace. Because we are believing in Christ our saviour, all may fail in many ways. It is of grace that our offences are on account of Christ not imputed. 

Original Sin

I recently participated in a radio debate with a non-Christian about the doctrine of Original Sin.

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