Interiority Defined

An important part of my thesis is coming up with a working definition of 'Interiority'. That is, Augustine clearly was very concerned with what goes on inside a person, but how can this be defined in such a way as to flow with the shape of his theology and so help understand his preaching better? After a long time and several thousand words, I have come up with a definition. Here goes:

Interiority: That inner world of desirous longings which ought to be so acted upon by God that God is enjoyed.

The astute among you will notice that this definition carefully enshrines grace, and assumes that apart from grace our interiority is fallen.

I will be arguing through the thesis that it is to our interiority, so understood that preaching must be directed. With grace taking such a central place, we are confronted with the great mystery of preaching - how can human speech be the means, and the preacher so important - when in the end, it is God who acts upon the interior?

Dark Side of Cross

If you missed the second Still Deeper conference in London this week- you missed out.
However you can listen to the talks online. Five presentations were given, all on different aspects of the difficult doctrine of God's wrath and judgement. Why not take some time to ponder the 'dark side of the cross.'

Links can be found at http://www.stilldeeper.com/

Marx and Markets

Rowan Williams writes of his lookalike this week; he has an article in The Spectator, on how Marx was partly right in pointing out the excesses of capitalism. He does a good job of warning that we ought not to think of 'The Market' as an actual force which does things. Rather it is a system that has been created by us.

I guess what that translates to in blunt Biblical language is that the real problem is that we have greedy hearts. Neither capitalism nor socialism changes the nature of our hearts - it takes the Holy Spirit to do that.

The article can be found at:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/2172131/face-it-marx-was-partly-right-about-capitalism.thtml

Courses: Church is so Easy!

About ten years ago a friend of mine, William Scholes, wrote an article in which he critiqued the Alpha Course. It was published in Churchman and became one of the most popular articles from that journal. I believe it is still available online. He engaged provactively and helpfully in the theological evaluation of Alpha.

Ten years on and I think British evangelicals need to consider a more fundamental issue than an evaluation of any particular course. I think we need to theologically critique our use of courses in general.

Today, the practical reality is that a church is distinguished most, not by its creed, leader, denomination, heritage or preaching, but rather by the courses which are endorsed by its program.

So a church which runs an Alpha Course feels it is very different from a church which identifies with its main rival - Christianity Explored. A church which uses Mars Hill's DVDs by Rob Bell is shaped in a different way from those who sign up to Bill Hybell's Contagious Christian DVDs.

But here's the point - maybe we are missing the wood for the trees. Maybe what is shaping our churches more than anything else is not what each one of these resources say in and of themselves; maybe the most influential reality is that we sign up to courses in general.

We have developed a course culture in British churches - a few brief observations on this.

1. There is the pure hard-core course addiction. That is where evangelism is reduced to inviting people to courses, small groups are pre-packaged materials, identity is measured by the particular brand bought. This addiction is wide-spread. It is unlikely to be broken without remedial repentance.

2. There is also the soft-core addiction to course culture. This results from the above. It means that the church know they should not rely on courses so much, but they have been so deeply affected by course addiction that they cannot but think in course type patterns. So everything gets reduced to the level of a course. People such as Tim Keller or Tim Chester - to name a few - write books which make profound meaningful theological comments about the nature of church and ministry. But to people with soft-core course addiction, what they say cannot be heard, and must be reduced to something resembling a course. So a book is promoted, a name mentioned, and the impression given that the message has been heeded. In actual fact, the points made by people such as those are so substantive, that they cannot merely be added to current evangelical culture - they call for a more radical rethink of our agendas. I make no comment on the extent to which I agree with those leaders - I merely say that if their work is seen as something akin to a course then what they are saying has not really been heard.

3. Often when evangelicals turn to a course it is the result of desperation or laziness. The success of the original venture is desired, and the pre-packaged short cut is desirable.

4. Courses raise questions of finance - they are expensive to run (If you do it with integrity and actually buy all the materials!)

5. The secular culture which led to our reliance upon courses has begun to turn away from them as a means of engaging with ideas and life issues. As evangelicals embrace them all the more, we are sadly stepping away from where people are - giving the impression to outsiders that we are a rather curious hangover from the early 1990s.

6. When we rely on courses as planks in our ministries, we fail to take advantage of the local church. The local church has a unique strength - it is local! You know your people and situation better than anybody else. You are the person best qualified to bring God's Word to that local place. Maybe a minister in a city 300 miles away happens to have put together the perfect course tailor made for your exact situation- but how likely is it?

7. There is a great loss to us if we pass on God's Word in a manner mediated through courses - we do not get the value of actually working at the Bible ourselves. The person who pops a CE DVD into the player cannot possibly have the same enthusiasm for the issue in hand as a person who has wrestled through chapter 1 of Ephesians and discovered some treasure to share.

8. One of the saddest things about our reliance upon courses is that in Britain, we should know better. Our distinctive heritage is expository. Two generations ago evangelicalism was given a huge boost through the ministries of John Stott, Dick Lucas and ML Jones. What they bequeathed us was a commitment to studying the Bible, reading it on its own terms, displaying confidence in it, sharing our excitement for what we discover afresh.... When we turn to courses, we are neglecting that heritage and putting our confidence in market shaped products. Experience has taught us that these products lead to a certain kind of growth, give a certain kind of identity and nurture a certain kind of Christian.

The big question is this - if God's work is done with human techniques, can we be sure the growth is from God?

Lewis on Liturgy

By the time I get ordained I will have spent eight years in Anglican educational establishments. That exposes one to a good deal of discussion about liturgy. Towards the end of the third volume of CS Lewis' letters I came across a letter he published in the Church Times, in 1946:

'I would ask the clergy to believe that we are more interested in orthodoxy and less interested in liturgiology than they imagine... What we laymen fear is that the deepest doctrinal issues should be tacitly and implicitly settled by what seem to be, or are avowed to be, merely changes in the liturgy.
A man who is wondering whether the fare set before him is food or poison is not reassured by by being told that this course is now restored to its traditional place in the menu.'

Stop thief!!!

One of the most common questions I get after people read my article 'The Curse of Law' (See sidebar on right), is 'How do you preach the Old Testament Law?

Well - yesterday I had to do that as I was preaching on the commandment 'Thou shall not steal'.

A number of things are attempted in the sermon. Firstly, I help us to identify with Israel in their inability to keep the law. Secondly, I show how easy it is to remake Christian living into something which is essentially partaking in the same dynamic as that which we have seen fail in Israel and Thirdly, I try and show how the New Testament offers something so much deeper than the Law.

On the final point, that which the NT offers, we could look at many things - the grace, the cleansing, forgiveness etc. That I choose to focus on one - the new heart worked in us by the Spirit - is not to deny those others. However it may be a suggestion that I fear we do not appreciate the import of the Spirit's work in us. Enjoy - you can download the sermon here:

http://www.christchurchmedia.org.uk/catalog/event.shtml?;i=416;bs=da;bi=

Inner Emotions

Here are links to some talks I gave recently at Nottingham Uni CU houseparty. They are on Rom 7 (Experiencing Failure), Gal 5 Growing Fruit) and Phil 3 Living for the Future).
The idea was to preach on three passages which all contain the apostle's reflections on an aspect of the inner emotional nature of Christian living. There is a Q and A session at the end. Enjoy!

http://www.nucu.org/dl/talks/hhp08/Romans_7_Peter_Sanlon.mp3

http://www.nucu.org/dl/talks/hhp08/Galatians_5_Peter_Sanlon.mp3

http://www.nucu.org/dl/talks/hhp08/Philippians_3_Peter_Sanlon.mp3

http://www.nucu.org/dl/talks/hhp08/HHP_Q_A_Session_Peter_Sanlon.mp3

The Profit of Reading

I have often reflected on the benefits of reading books - the cultivation of imagination, seeing things from a fresh perspective, disciplining thoughts and of course simple pleasure. There are books published about the profits of reading - I seem to recall Prof. Bloom wrote a few stirring treatises on the issue after his seminal 'Closing of the American Mind.'

Encouraging a work colleague to reacquaint himself with the enjoyment of reading in general once was the start of talking about reading the Bible.

The release from Sony of a new electronic book reader has reignited some of the old debates about the profit of reading versus more modern technology.

One author I have got much profit from over the years is my fellow Ulsterman who taught at the universities I have studied in - old CS Lewis. This morning I managed to turn the love into actual financial profit. Spying a copy of his Guide to Sixteenth Century Literature in an Oxfam Charity shop I purchased it, then cycled a mile or two into the centre of town and sold it on to a more fancy antiquarian bookdealer. The fifteen pound profit bought a few volumes of Lewis' letters and a cup of coffee for me and a friend.

The profit of reading - work it out by the hour and it is not great economics, but there is more to life than money.

Pride & Pointlessness

When studying Augustine, one returns repeatedly to his Confessions. Part of their endless appeal lies in the way Augustine put his finger on two of the great marks of self-analysis which tend to lead to a person putting their faith in Christ - an awareness of pride and pointlessness.

Time and again in modern biography, honest reflection leads people to repeat in their own lives the experience of Augustine, who dissected his pride and the pointlessness of his achievements so memorably.

For example, I recently read Malcom Muggeridge's autobiography. In the second volume he describes his career during World War II as a spy. His description of the British Secret Services are droll and arresting - when told he was to be posted to Mozambique he replied to his superior, 'that will be splendid' - not having the faintest idea where the place was. His superior clearly did not know much about it either, as his briefing consisted of the facts from the Encyclopaedia Britannica being read to him!

Still, as Muggeridge embarked on a life of secrecy and spying (more wining and dining by all accounts!) he was filled with a sense of pride:

'Being privy to high grade and impeccable information about the enemy's plans and intentions gave me a new sense of importance. I might be a mere captain, but now I could look with condescension at brigadiers, and even generals, conscious that, as far as what was called the overall intelligence picture was concerned, I was likely to be more in it than they were.' (p.128)

Even as this pride filled his existence with a sense of value, Muggeridge experienced the existential angst that flows from the sneaking suspicion that in the end, all was rather pointless. So one evening he was being taught by an older spy how to use invisible ink. When it came to the point where he was shown how in an emergency one could use bird droppings as ink, he began to be somewhat depressed:

'The absurdity of what we were doing struck me with some intensity. What were we at? What was it all about? How had we been induced, two grown men, to spend our time thus? He and I, strangers, but also fellow humans. Wrestling bent over ciphers as if they contained the key to life's secrets, instead of just the trivialities and fatuities which constitute the far greater part of all Intelligence. 'C' in his office, the PM in Downing Street, Hitler in his Chancellery, Stalin in his Kremlin; armies marching and counter marching, maps earnestly studied, planes flying, bombs falling, U-Boats prowling, convoys sailing. The whole vast panoply of war, down to this room where I was learning how to write in invisible ink. Perhaps history itself, our very lives, are writ on and with water. As I went through the door I turned and shouted to him, 'I'll remember the bird droppings!' I have; when I have forgotten so much else.' (p.131-2)

It is part of the curious twisting effect of sin on human existence, that pride and pointlessness coexist in us. Seemingly opposites, the one is built on the other. The fragility of the edifice is a great part of what gives life without Christ its ennui and zest. Once faith is born, firm foundations are laid which outlast this world. Augustine experienced it; Muggeridge is but one of many who followed in his footsteps.