This is the first in a series of posts on facing the weaknesses of the church, with the hope of some constructive brainstorming on how to serve God better. See here for some background to the series.

Evangelicals are often afraid of debate. This might not seem true when you consider that many evangelicals are willing to trade proof-texts at fifty paces on everything from predestination to paedobaptism. But move beyond those topics deemed safe for discussion or keep asking questions a bit too persistently, and many Christians will quickly become afraid.

At Mack, we were recently studying 2 Peter, which talks about false teachers who exploit others and abuse them spiritually. I lead one of the home group Bible studies on the subject, and one of the questions I tried to encourage thought about was ways in which we can act in ways like those false teachers, and what can we do to avoid them. It seems to me that an atmosphere where questions are not welcomed, when conformity is the norm and where deviance from the party line is distrusted is a spiritually abusive atmosphere to be in. This isn’t just a problem among cults “out there”, but an insidious problem that can creep into our own churches and our attitudes, to our cost.

What does this immaturity look like? One example of immature thinking on the part of Christians is to label certain speakers, writers, books or organisations as “sound” or “unsound”, and to then either accept or reject what they say fairly uncritically. This goes right against the command to “Test everything. Hold on to the good”.

Dan Edelen posted recently on his blog Cerulean Sanctum about this very issue:

It bothers me sometimes that we treat great Christians as if they could never, ever, in a billion years have a mistaken position on an important piece of doctrine…The Bible teaches us to be discerning about ALL things, not just what troubles us. Truthfully, the greatest errors arise when we cast our discernment aside because “Hey, I’m reading my favorite Christian great who I’ve enshrined on my altar of godliness.”

The reverse is also true. Too often we play a game of guilt-by-association – because, say, Steve Chalke is “unsound” on his views of the atonement, Christians decide he can safely be ignored on whatever he has to say, even though he may have any number of useful suggestions or true insights on another subject. Such an attitude is not only intellectually lazy, but unloving and damaging to whoever is deemed a heretic.

What’s more, we need to appreciate that even the expression of wrong views can be helpful if the challenge of that provokes a clearer articulation and understanding of the truth. To take Steve Chalke as an example again, I agree with those who say he is mistaken in his understanding of penal substitutionary atonement as “cosmic child abuse”. But it appears to me that he is reacting against a distorted presentation of that doctrine within the church as “God punishes Jesus so we get let off”. Although I believe Chalke is wrong in rejecting the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement rather than returning to an understanding of that doctrine that is properly Biblical, we should be glad that Chalke has provoked a debate in this area that will hopefully strengthen our theology.

Sadly, Christians, who above all should be characterised by our love, often end up demonising and vilifying those outside our neat little boxes marked “safe”. We end up trying to do others down with rhetorical posturing: my interpretation of the Bible is “accepting the plain truths of scripture” while we accuse our opponents of “distorting God’s word to fit your prejudices”.

I know how easy it is to get carried away in debate, to end up arguing destructively rather than constructively and lovingly. Part of becoming mature as Christians is being able to engage in debate and discussion lovingly, listeningly, and carefully, and to be able to value discussion and diversity. I do not mean a pluralism that accepts every view as equally true, but a valuing of debate and discussion as a useful way of refining our views to bring us closer to what’s true.

The fear of debate is a weakness I see at times in the Christian Union. Various issues, both theological and practical, aren’t discussed for fear of rocking the boat, for fear of divisiveness. One example is the issue of women speakers. Rather than having a thought-out theological position on the role of women and how that relates to a CU situation, there is a de facto policy of no woman speakers for the talks, except when we do, in which case it’s a seminar! Someone even suggested to me that is better that the CU avoid tricky debates and discussion, because it would prove divisive and destructive. I see their point, but I really don’t want them to be right.

If we really have confidence in the truth of the Gospel, then we need not be afraid of examining it, asking questions, working through different issues and so on. A fear of debate is a lack of trust in the Gospel; it’s also often a lack of trust in other Christians to allow them to think things through properly, especially when leaders and leadership structures don’t allow for open and constructive discussion.

I do see that to try and move immediately into a more open conversation on tough issues is potentially destructive if those within the group are not mature enough to cope with that. However, I strongly disagree that it is better to keep going in immature ways because maturity is difficult. The question is – how can we strive to become mature enough as individuals and as Christian communities to be able to weigh everything up, to test everything, holding on to the good, to seek to come closer to the truth through discussion and diversity?

I’ll return to that question later, with particular consideration of some of Paul’s writing on the subject of divisions in the church in 1 Corinthians. Next time, however, I’m going to look at evangelical thinking more broadly, and how the evangelical scene caters for people of a certain psychology while being potentially hostile to people of other ways of thinking.

I’m off on holiday for just over a week tomorrow, with my family to Holland. So I probably won’t have chance to blog while away!

I was hoping to get my article on the Doctor Who episode Rose up before I left and my first installment on the state of the Church, too. One reason that I haven’t is that the weather has been so great, I’ve been too busy lounging around in the sun and visiting the beach and stuff.

And in the case of the stuff on the Church, I’ve been having conversations and reading more books and articles that have been developing my thoughts further just over the last week and days, so I’m already going to have to revise what I started writing!

Before I go, I’ll just say that Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? by James K A Smith is probably the most important book I’ve read so far this year for me. To find out why – and also why Contagious both saved me from postmodernism and made me a postmodernist – you’ll have to come back in a week or so!

(I exits stage left, chuckling evilly at my cryptic comments that will hopefully have people worried about what on earth Caleb has been reading now)

… then wireless internet access is the evil criminal mafia boss heist mastermind of time!

Earlier I was taking part in a discussion of the article The Meaning of Meaning on the TrueU site’s accompanying forums, in particular whether the comparison between left-wing literary theorists and radical Islamic terrorists is a valid one. (Incidentally, I’m currently reading Derrida in preparation for writing my English dissertation, which I’m planning to do on Christianity and literary theory, possibly focusing on Deconstruction. The article under discussion is rather simplistic, to say the least.)

Here’s one of Michael Bauman’s defences of his article, to give a flavour of the debate:

The comparison I drew was between some cultural leftists and some Arab terrorists. The two groups are not alike in that they both are killers. They are not. That is not their similarity. They are alike in that they both nurture a strong animosity toward traditional western culture and values and they both work to undermine them, albeit in quite different ways. After all, there’s more than one way to undermine (and eventually to replace) a culture and its values. Violence and literary criticism are but two of them.

So is the “Western tradition” really “the greatest human legacy the world has seen” that we should be seeking to defend from Arabs, literary critics and other ne’er-do-wells? Well, what follows are my responses to the debate in edited form.

Firstly, the idea of the “Western heritage” needs to be explained, because it’s such a broad term as to be useless without elaboration. Obviously, there are both good and bad things in the history of the West. Bauman highlights some of the things that he sees as positive in his article: “rational analysis, representative government, freedom under law, unimaginable prosperity, scientific progress beyond our greatest dreams, and an unprecedented and unequaled spread of human rights and human liberation”, but there are many unsavoury skeletons in the closet.

For example, a traditional western cultural trait is for western cultures to use their technological and economic strength to exploit other parts of the world, maintaining a position of power. That’s one thing that is resented by terrorists. I’m sure that’s not an aspect of western culture we should be defending.

Or in the intellectual sphere, part of the western heritage is that of the Enlightenment, which views man as autonomously able to discover truth and unified meaning to all of life by himself. It’s the deification of man, and that pretention is one of the elements of the western heritage that Christians can join with many literary critics in opposing.

Seeking to oppose and to change elements the western heritage isn’t good or bad in itself – it depends on whether a particular characteristic is one that is worth keeping or one that needs changing.

We should indeed seek to defend our freedoms and systems, but not “warts and all”, as one of those on the forum suggested, arguing that we should resolve them ourselves in the Western way rather than having lefties and terrorists “impose their viewpoints and social systems on the people through any means, fair or foul”. Where there are the warts of abuses and injustice, where there are problems and weaknesses and wrongs in our system and freedoms, we should not only be striving to fix those problems, working at making things better, but also willing to listen to the criticisms of others.

Funnily enough, “seeking to supress opposition and impose their viewpoints and social systems on the people through any means, fair or foul” is exactly what many people, not just “Islamic fundamentalists” and “left wing extremists”, see the West as doing, both in the past, and in the present (especially America right now).

We in the West may recognise “the innate worth of a person and their freedoms” in theory, but in practice, our record is far less shining, from Abu Ghraib prison to the firebombing of Dresden to the UK and US involvement in overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected government in favour of a dictatorship back in the 1950s, and many other activities besides. If we’ve had the right principles, then that makes the West’s abuses of its power all the worse: we should have known better.

Sadly, given our track record, hostility to the West is often all too understandable. What we sow in injustice, we reap in anger and hatred and bloodshed. We ought to listen to the critics of the West, both from outside (such as the Islamic world) and from within (such as academics who seek to criticize the philosophical and theoretical basises for our wrongs).

Of course, there are those who go to wrong extremes. To seek the wholesale destruction of all the West is and stands for is just as misguided as its wholesale defence, “warts and all”. We must indeed stand against those who seek such complete destruction of either Western lives through terrorism or Western values through the extremes of critical theory.

But extremism of one’s enemies doesn’t negate any legitimate grievances they may have. We should seek positive solutions, to build on what’s good from our past, and there is much good, as well as repenting of and making reconciliation for our evil, and there is also much evil.

A mix of good and evil and a lot of complicated stuff that isn’t easily categorised as either – that’s not just the Western heritage, that’s humanity in a nutshell, though we in the West have our particular inheritance of this mix, of course.

“Western Heritage Good – Nasty Terrorists & Lefty Critics Bad” might be a nice and comforting generalisation, but like anything to do with this God-imaged, sin-broken, redemption-in-progress humanity, it’s just not that black and white.

One of the books I’ve been reading recently is The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Knoll. It’s an excellent call to evangelicals to serve God with all our minds (more on which in my discussion of the immaturity of the evangelical mind, coming soon). The book gives an interesting look at the intellectual history of American evangelicalism (which is rather different to British evangelicalism, but there are notable cross-currents and similarities).

Two areas it focuses on are science and politics, both of which have seen significant developments in the 20th century, both of which it argues are symptoms of the weakness of the evangelical mind in these two areas. One is the rightward shift in evangelical politics, and the other is creationism.

The book looks at the development of Creationism, and highlights how it’s the product of very particular cultural and intellectual influences. Creationism is, the book argues, very culturally bound to scientific trends of the 19th century and the cultural influences of the mid 20th century, and is a very recent phenomenon.

The first interesting point Noll makes is that the insistence by Creationists on the “plain and literal” interpretation of the Creation account in Genesis as the only legitimate evangelical view is based on a distorted understanding of God’s revelation at odds with that of historic orthodox Christianity.

Creationism is the product of a “super-supernaturalism” which emphasises the supernatural at the expense of the physical world. Creationists are right on the point that as Christians we should allow the Bible to interpret and critique our interpretation of Creation (i.e. science); the problem is that Creationists do not allow science to interpret and critique our interpretation of the Bible. Since both creation and scripture are God’s revelation, then to interpet the Bible by science and science by the Bible is to interpret God’s revelation by God’s revelation.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that young-earth Creationism is wrong, but that historically Creationism arose not out of vigorous theology and science, but as part of an anti-intellectual reaction against an increasingly secularised academia.

Secondly, although it may seem to Creationists self-evident to interpret Genesis as entirely historical and literal, it only seems natural because of the particular cultural and social background and assumptions within which they exist. Specifically, the popularist Baconian science of the 19th century, the conflict among Christians in the early 20th century on how best to respond to the challenges of modernism, and other influences, all shaped the Creationist hermeneutic.

That doesn’t in itself mean that the literal reading of Genesis is wrong; it’s possible to hold a true belief without having all the good reasoning to back it up. But it’s disingenous to claim a literal interpretation of Genesis is a neutral one – those interpretive assumptions need to be vigorously examined, argued and justified.

So where do I stand at the moment on the question of the interface between science and the Bible, especially in relation to origins? Having been brought up with Creationist views, I’m increasingly dissatisfied with some of the claims of young-earthers such as Answers in Genesis. Not so much the idea of young-earth creationism – I’m perfectly happy in principle to consider that possibility against the scientific and scriptural evidence.

But I’m no longer convinced by claims that you have to believe Genesis to be true in a narrowly literal sense or you don’t really believe the Bible. One weakness sometimes present among evangelicals is an overly simplistic approach to what the Bible says – a lack of appreciation of different styles, genres and modes or writing, and a lack of awareness of how our background, culture and presuppositions shape how we read the Bible.

Those on both extremes of the Creation/Evolution “debate” share some common beliefs, broadly: Evolution necessarily implies atheism; Christianity necessarily requires Creationism. Both Ken Ham and Richard Dawkins would probably agree with these, because both operate within a very similar “fundamentalist” mindset. But I don’t think that either of those beliefs necessarily follow.

There’s an important difference between the science of evolution and the worldview of Darwinism. If evolution as a scientific theory is true, then that doesn’t necessarily mean that the agressively atheistic conclusions of the likes of Dennett and Dawkins are true. Disproving the science of evolution is not the only way to refute the philosophy of evolutionism – some Christian writers such as Alister McGrath have attempted to refute that there’s a logical link between the science of evolution and the worldview of Darwinism.

I think one of the strength of the Intelligent Design movement is that it seeks to challenge the philosophical conclusions that some people draw from science. (Unfortunately the aim of the ID movement is to find that elusive piece of DNA with “Hah hah it was me after all. Signed God” written on it. If God had wanted to leave incontrovertable proof that he designed everything, and it can’t all have happened naturally, I think he’s have made it obvious by now.) Christians should rightly be concerned about any attempts to use science as a justification for atheism, but creationism is not the only alternative.

I’ve also become persuaded that a non-literal interpretation of the Creation account(s) in Genesis is a legitimate evangelical viewpoint. Genesis is divided into a number of “accounts”, and there’s no reason that they have to be all in the same genre. A non-literal Creation account would no more undermine the literal truth of other accounts in Genesis and other books of the Bible than the Psalms being poetry undermines the literal truth of the resurrection. The patterning and poetic style of the Creation account may well, looking purely at the textual evidence, only be a flourish to a literal account, but it doesn’t seem to me impossible that it is indeed a non-technical and non-scientific account. I’m not saying that the Bible is not true, I’m simply open to the possibility that it is saying something different to Creationist interpretations of it.

So that leaves me of the opinion that wherever the scientific evidence points, either young-earth creation or old-earth evolution, it does not necessarily undermine my faith. There is no good reason why I should rule out the possibility of a creator as inherently unscientific, because if a creator has intervened with the material universe in a way that is measured and observable, we can consider that using scientific methods, at least to a point. Equally, it doesn’t seem to me impossible from a Biblical viewpoint that the first Creation account in Genesis could encompass longer ages of the Earth than six literal days, for example.

Both positions – literal creation and old-earth evolution – raise questions for me. On the one hand, if Creationism is true, why would God make the world look like it was far older than it really is, if you worked on the reasonable basis that the laws of science haven’t changed? Wouldn’t that make God rather deceptive? On the other hand, with evolution comes the whole issue of the idea in the Bible that death and suffering only came about because of man’s rebellion – how does that square with God using “nature red in tooth and claw” as a process of creating the world?

Well, I guess I’ll have to keep on studying both Scriptures and science in the hope I’ll understand our origins better. But it doesn’t worry me – I’m not scared of finding out the truth, whatever that may be.

I was asked to write a bit about Contagious, the Christian summer camp I go on, for the prayer meeting at Mack next week, where they’ll be praying for different summer camps and activities that are going on. I’m heading back to Dolgellau on Saturday, and so won’t be around, but penned the following explanation of what Contagious is all about:

Contagious is a Christian youth conference for 14 to 19 year olds, run by the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches. The dates this year are Monday 21st to Sunday 26th August. It’s not a holiday with a Christian epilogue tacked on to the end of each day – at the start of the week, the campers are warned that “This is not a holiday, this is a Bible boot camp!”After breakfast each morning there are Scripture Under Scrutiny (SUS) groups, which are small group Bible studies. This is then followed by two seminar sessions. These go in to the subject in more depth, including discussion of the practical implications of what we’re looking at. In the afternoon, various activities take place – sports, games, crafts and the like, as well as being able to just sit around and chat. Later in the afternoon there’s the optional Question and Answers session, in which some of the leaders try to answer people’s questions that have been written on the question board. After dinner comes the main meeting, which includes “the Big Teach”, which are the talks/sermons, and the speakers are usually excellent. After this, there are more activities, and then the leaders try to get everyone to bed in good time so that they’ll be fresh and bright for the next day! Also, one day of the week is the day out, where we head off to somewhere interesting to have some fun. Contagious is pretty intense, and grapples with big, often controversial, subjects. Previous years’ topics have included the Sovereignty of God, the book of Revelation, and the Holy Spirit, and this year the week will be looking at the Cross of Christ. But it’s very good at going into intellectual depth whilst also really trying to work out the practical implications. Some people thought that you’d never be able to do this kind of teaching with teenagers, but seven years of Contagious has proved them wrong! Last year, Contagious introduced a new scheme called Taskforce for those who have been coming on the conference but are now officially too old to come as campers. Taskforce is “a two year Christian service opportunity”, where former Contagious campers join the Taskforce team, which helps with many of the practical tasks of running Contagious, such as setting up and clearing up, running the tuckshop and bookshop, and generally freeing up the leaders to be doing things with the campers. The other side of Taskforce is leadership training, through seminars in service,
training in leading Bible studies and other things to equip young people to be
the next generation of leaders both on Contagious and also making them better
equipped for participating in the life of their home churches. Contagious has been a tremendous blessing to me down the years; the teaching has helped me grow in my Christian life and relationship with God, and I have formed many lasting friendships with people from there, including some who became Christians through it (even though the focus is more on building up young Christians – not many non-Christians would want to spend a week doing intensive Bible study!) Please pray that Contagious would continue to build up the young people who attend (and the older people, too – the teaching is just as challenging for the leaders as or the campers!) Pray that the teaching would be true and Biblical, and that it would really fire up those who go on it to live the Christian life in all its revolutionary and transforming fullness. Pray that practically all would run smoothly, and that there wouldn’t be any problems such as any issues regarding child protection or anything that would cause any harm to those on Contagious or to the work that Contagious does.

I’ll also be going on beach mission at Nefyn for the first two weeks of August with Scripture Union, and to the UCCF Forum conference from the 4th to 8th September at Quinta. Your prayers would be very much appreciated that these would go well!

Hey folks. I’ve not got Internet access at home at the moment, so emailing and blogging and stuff will involve me visiting the university library until I go home to Dolgellau at the end of the week.

I’ve started writing a series of posts on some issues that have been weighing on my mind recently – namely, the weaknesses of the church in Britain and the West generally, and the question of what to do to improve matters. It seems to me there are a number of ways in which my fellow Christians and I are failing to live the radical life of love that Jesus taught, and not following God as we ought.

The thoughts I’m jotting down are the product of various books that I’ve been reading, various discussions that I’ve had and so on. I’ve almost finished the first post, The immaturity of the evangelical mind, which I hope to put online in the next couple of days, with more to follow shortly.

Being an evangelical (that is, someone who seeks to be firstly Bible-based in belief and practice, to give a rough definition), I’ll focus on those parts of the church which take the same approach, so that I’ll hopefully be engaging in constructive self-criticism. I also don’t want to be a mere whinger, but to suggest constructive ways we can better seek to live the Christian life, both on an individual and corporate level.

[Warning: spoilers for last Saturday’s Doctor Who episode]

No, not the World Cup (though it can seem like it), but the explosive finale the current series of Doctor Who, due to air on Saturday evening at 7pm. The penultimate episode of series 2, Army of Ghosts, ended on a fantastic cliffhanger. Just as the Cybermen arrived in their millions across the globe from an alternate universe, the mysterious Sphere opened, to reveal the Daleks! Now, Daleks vs Cybermen might be a bit cheesy, but Doctor Who’s speciality is doing the cheesy with such charm and gusto and enthusiasm that it is massively entertaining and enjoyable. Saturday can’t come soon enough.

While on the subject of Doctor Who, the new companion has been announced, with Freema Agyeman following in the tradition of Peter Purves, Lalla Ward and Colin Baker of a minor character returning in a lead role in the series. Freema Agyeman will join the Doctor in the TARDIS next series, while the exact circumstances of Rose’s departure remain a closely-guarded secret…

Tags: Doctor Who Freema Agyeman