I’ve now moved into the twenty-first century with my Internet habits, because yesterday I set up my home both for broadband and wifi. So I’m now happily blogging away from my laptop in my bedroom, no wires attached. Which is great fun, though the installation process wasn’t, since when I tried to network the computers in the house together, the Internet connection cut out, and I spent all afternoon getting it working again.

So what have I been doing with my new zippy-fast Internet connection?

• Watching film trailers

In particular, the one that looks absolutely Lord-of-the-Rings-scale fantastic is the trailer for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s so amazing, I think I’ll watch it again now…

…just done that, and doesn’t it look great? Lucy, stepping up slowly, wonderingly, to the wardrobe, and stepping though into the snowbound world beyond… pure magic. And that’s just the start – all sorts of creatures: fauns, dwarves, unicorns and so on, plus the Witch herself, and her nemesis, the Great Lion himself, Aslan. It looks like it has some of the same beautiful and epic scale of Lord of the Rings, but is brighter, more vivid, a bit larger than life. Forget Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – well, don’t, since it also looks pretty good, but on my Excitement-o-meter it clocks in far lower than the first of C S Lewis’s brilliant series.

• Listening to Adventures in Odyssey

Adventures in Odyssey is a Christian family radio drama, and it’s really fun. It’s set in the small town of Odyssey, and concerns a gentlemanly inventor, John Avery Whittaker, known as Whit. He runs an “ice-cream parlour and discovery emporium”, which is full of displays and inventions. The series shows the lives and adventures of those who come to his shop and who live in the town of Odyssey. One of his inventions is The Imagination Station, a kind of virtual-reality machine that allows people to experience the past through their imaginations, and so as well as “slice-of-life” episodes, the series does time-travel stories, as well as mystery, comedy, sketch show, thrillers, romance… it runs the whole gamut of genres and emotions.

It’s good enough for both adults and children to enjoy it, and has been running for years. I was a big fan of it when I was younger, contributing reviews to fansites like AIO-HQ, and although I don’t follow it with the same fanaticism, I still enjoy listening to the odd episode now and again. That’s all the easier now that I can play episodes on demand on my laptop over the Internet!

• Playing Chess against Becky on Messenger

Now I can be online on my laptop, while someone else is online on the desktop, so we can do stuff like this. A bit pointless since we’ve got a chess set, but fun to give it a go. On our first game, I beat Becky in only around 8 moves or so. She fell right into my trap without seeing it coming – bwhahahaha! (Becky claims she wasn’t concentrating because she was watching Coldplay and talking on Messenger – that’s her excuse!) I need to get in practice because I’m helping run the Chess tournament at Contagious.

• Downloading new applications and extensions like Firefox Cymraeg

Yes, that’s right – Firefox, the open source browser which is the program of choice for the discerning Internet surfer, is available in Welsh, as I saw at the Eisteddfod. I also downloaded the Firesomething extension which randomises the program name. At the moment, I’m using Mozilla Supersalmon!

Now, with all this new tech, Nuzzink in ze vorld can shtop me now… (from wasting loads of time online, that is!)

Tags: Broadband Entertainment Technology Movie trailers Narnia Harry Potter Adventures in Odyssey Adventures in Odyssey radio drama Firefox Welsh

The Cardiff CU website will be undergoing a revamp at the hands of Mr Dave Corkish, and one of the plans for it with which I am involved is an articles section. The idea is to have articles on all sorts of subjects, such as living as a Christian at university; stuff about student life; issues like postmodernism that people are likely to encounter; reviews of books, films and music; Christian living and theology, and so on and so forth – all written from a Christian perspective. This will hopefully be updated on a semi-regular basis – every few weeks or so.

But, of course, this needs writers. I’m planning some articles, but I’m also trying to recruit some others who want to write something – either as a one-off or on a repeated basis. The website is obviously intended to be Cardiff-centric, but probably we won’t limit it to CU members students.

So if you’re interested, join the mailing list which I’ve set up for sharing ideas, getting feedback and the like. You don’t need to be a skilled writer, just have something worth saying. This should be being publicised through official CU outlets such as the website and CU mailing list sometime soon, but at the moment all is quiet as people are busy over the summer. But I thought I’d try and get the ball rolling.

A simple bit of amateur philosophising got me this far in my examination of my beliefs. When I say “materialist” I’m not referring to someone who lives their life around the pursuit of material goods (though I’m not one of those either), but one who believes that the material world is all that exists. There is nothing more, the materialist claims, than matter and energy and the hard laws of science, nothing other than what can be examined and known by the measurements of science. I disagree. Why’s that? The simple fact of the experience of consciousness is enough to convince me that the mere movement of atoms and the play of natural forces are not enough to explain the universe. That there is a me-ness, a consciousness with a subjective experience of the world, that bit of me that looks out through my body, is a fascinating and telling piece of evidence. This isn’t an appeal to scientific evidence. From observing the outward, physical evidence, we humans could just be complex collections of atoms that behave as if we are conscious, when in fact we have no more real awareness than the solar system. However, I know from my own subjective experience that I do have the experience of being alive, the sensation of feeling things, of thinking, and of reacting to an external world. I can only make this argument to others on the basis of the assumption that if I have this subjective experience, then other people do so too. It’s based on the evidence of our experience, of the very fact that we are able to experience things, that I believe there has to be “something more”.

I’ve heard it argued we simply evolved this experience of consciousness at some point in the past once our brains developed sufficient complexity. I simply don’t see how dumb atoms could produce this experience. This isn’t just a lack of imagination on my part – I believe that it is a logical impossibility that the physical could produce something non-physical like consciousness. Some people have suggested that consciousness is an illusion, but I find this argument incoherent. How can it be an illusion unless there is something conscious to be fooled by the illusion? It’s like arguing that you are mistaken in thinking that you are thinking – sheer self-defeating nonsense. This is only a small first step in my investigations, and I’ve only got so far as concluding that there must be “something more” than the plain movement of matter. The second piece of evidence I’ll be considering is the common human belief that certain things are “right” and certain things are “wrong”. Does this indicate some real moral standard, or is morality just a shared delusion or invention? Those are the questions I’m thinking about at the moment.

Tags: Philosophy Materialism consciousness

While on holiday last week, I was totally out of touch with the news in Britain and abroad. So on returning to Britain on Sunday evening, the dramatic events of recent days came as quite a shock. I returned home to a Britain where once more an attempt had been made to bomb the capital; where the police are following a policy of shoot-to-kill, and where an innocent man died as a result of this. The Home Secretary is pushing for the creation of new offences, while the Police are calling for greater powers to act against terrorists.

Against this backdrop, how should we react? As our liberties are chipped away at in the name of safety, is this a sacrifice we must inevitably make in these dark times? How can we defeat terrorism?

These terrorists wish to destroy many of the things we hold dear, such as our liberty our freedoms and our democracy. Stand firm, and there is no way they can succeed. Live in fear, and there is every chance they will succeed. The threat to our lives is from terrorists such as these bombers. The threat to our liberties and our way of life is from how the politicians and those in power choose to react to this threat. If in attempting to fight terrorism, we give up the very freedoms and liberties we seek to defend, we have already lost.

I want leaders who will promise me liberty before they will promise me safety. Any promise of perfect safety is an empty promise, but the promise of preserving our liberties is one that our rulers have it in their power to keep. Life is fragile, and there are those who seek to destroy it. This has been the human condition throughout history, and we must recognise and accept that. It is good and proper to seek to improve our lot, but we in Western society have long laboured under the delusion that we can perfect out lot. Perfect safety, perfect protection, perfect control is not possible, and any attempt to achieve it is on the dangerous path to totalitarianism.

When death and destruction comes, as in life it inevitably does in many and various forms, we must weep for those who have died, mourn with those who have been bereaved, and carry on in courage and hope and boldness. Let us honour those innocents who have died at the hands of evil men by carrying on bravely with our lives, rather than letting ourselves be ruled by fear and terror. The passing of new laws and the creation of no offences merely to be seen to be doing something is to let fear control our actions. To curtail our freedoms in a probably vain attempt to prevent atrocoties like the London bombing is to give in to terror. This will not do.

However, it is not to give in to terror to seek to ensure we are doing nothing to provoke terrorism. The evil of those who fight against us does not negate our responsibility to act rightly and wisely, with fairness and justice in the world. The Western world is undoubtedly guilty of misusing its power on many occasions. This does not justify the atrocities perpetuated by fanatics who see Western society as nothing but corruption and decadence. But we must recognise this: what we sow in greed, injustice and arrogance, we will reap in a harvest of blood and hatred and terror.

The real way to defeat the power of terrorism is by refusing to be terrified. Let’s pull together as communities in solidarity and in kinship to deny the power of terrorism. Rather than using the illusive, ever-changing threat of terrorism to justify moves that take us ever closer, however well-intentioned our leaders might be, to a police state, we must fight terror and hatred with hope and love. This must be our mantra: Stand firm, be bold, and live in liberty.

Tags: Politics Current affairs Terrorism

Now that I’ve got a couple of months mostly free over the summer (apart from Contagious and time spent working at Somerfield) I really want to re-examine my reasons for believing in the Christian faith. I can’t be complacent about the thing I am basing my life on, and I need to do my best to ensure that to the best of my knowledge I’m believing in and acting on the basis of what is true.

As such, I want to examine various evidences, consider the plausibility of different worldviews and seek to examine what is true. It’s not that I’ve got any big doubts about Christianity, and I’m going to continue in my Christian walk, but as part of “serving God with all my mind” I believe that having rational sufficient reason and evidence for what I believe is very important. I hope I will be able to examine the evidence as fairly as possible.

So I’m going to be reading up on various things – the reliability of the Gospels, questions of origins (creation and evolution and all that mallarkey), the historical evidence for the resurrection and so on. I’ll be posting some of my thoughts on my findings on here, and so would welcome comments, discussion, recommendations of books and articles and so on. I’ve got the wonderful luxury of plenty of time to spend on the search for truth, so I hope to make full use of it.

I’ve also got some other stuff I’m planning to write, though. Some of the stuff that will hopefully be coming soon to a computer screen near you includes:

• A review of Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, and some musings on Christian responses to Harry Potter.
• The first in a series of reviews/articles about the recent series of Doctor Who, the second series of which has just begun filming – see the official Doctor Who website for more details.
• A few highlights of my holiday in Cephalonia.
• My thoughts on the Navigators summer conference I went on around a month ago.

So watch out for those!

Tags: Faith Christianity worldviews history origins philosophy

I’ve been a bit busy with writing, working at Somerfield and lazing around in the glorious sunshine, so haven’t had much time to write my blog. (Plus I’ve also got some other projects on the go – I’m working on the CU Freshers’ Welcome Magazine, for example). And tomorrow, early in the morning, I’ll be getting up at silly o’clock to travel to the airport to go on holiday to Cephalonia with my family. That’s the Greek island of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin fame, by the way, and not somewhere in Wales as a certain friend of mine thought!

Very handily, the new Harry Potter book is out just in time to take as holiday reading. Yes, it’s hideously over-hyped, but I still enjoy the books enough to want to read it. Books four and five could really have done with some proper editing to tighten them up. I’ve just reread The Order of the Phoenix, and there’s good stuff in there, but it would probably be twice as good if it were half the length.

Going off on another tangent, I had a strange night of dreams, which included being asked to sing in an opera (anyone who’s heard my musical efforts will be laughing their heads off now, I expect), a car chase through Victorian Cardiff, and being caught up in an invasion of an Iron Age village only to be issued with a questionnaire from the invaders asking such questions as “Do you have any particular skills or obligations within the village that may prevent you from being taken away to be trained up as a member of our army?” and “How likely are you to do the following: a) mount peaceful resistance? b) mount violent resistance?” and so on. I then tried changing into dark brown and green clothes so I’d be more camoflaged in the forest, but they arrived before I got my trousers on. I was running away up a hill from them, trying to use Harry Potter’s wand to summon my trousers with the spell Accio Trousers! However, my trousers did not come flying through the air towards me as I intended.

Well, I just have to survive a day in Somerfield during the Sesiwn Fawr music festival which is currently taking place here in Dolgellau, which means the shop will be absolutely chock-a-block with people buying booze. I’ll blog again in a week or so…

Tags: holidays Cephallonia dreams

Following some comments by Claire and Jon in response to my previous post, I think there’s a bit more I’d like to say on the subject. So in response to their comments, and with a few more thoughts, I’ll waffle on a bit more:

Christianity shouldn’t be merely a sub-culture – it ought to be cross-cultural and counter-cultural.

That people don’t get anything out of the hold hymns is a great pity, because they are very beautiful in language and music. But language shifts and changes, and words, meanings and entire languages disappear over time. It’s sadly inevitable that the treasures of the past will slowly become more and more incomprehensible.

The Biblical principle is not abandoning other languages (which is what the language of the past becomes over time, another language to that spoken in the present) but ensuring that there is an interpretation – that the meaning of what is said is explained. When was the last time you heard a hymn sung in church where any archaisms and the like were clarified first? If recently, then great, but it’s not something I’ve come across much.

Please note that I’m not talking about “dumbing down”. That’s the last thing I want. One of the other things that bothers me is that Christians have a very rigid mindset of what “preaching the word” involves – usually Mr Jones in a suit standing at the front delivering a three-point sermon under alliterative headings. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, neither is there anything inherently right or God-ordained about that form of preaching. I think that our current culture is one where many people are very suspicious of what they perceive as an authority figure lecturing them on how to behave, and one of the things we need to consider is how to faithfully preach the Gospel but with a style, structure, delivery and format that allows it to be communicated as clearly as possible so that the message can have maximum wallop! It’s so that our preaching can be more challenging, more complex, more in-depth that I want clearer, better forms, though the standard form can be used excellently.

We also need to be careful not to mix up the Gospel and our own culture which we layer on top of it. We want people to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, not Jesus plus our cultural baggage of our Christian subculture. This is the cross-cultural aspect of the Gospel – people should work out the implications of the Gospel for their own culture and seek to redeem it (because God’s plan isn’t just about redeeming individual souls, but restoring all of creation). There might be bad things about their culture they need to reject – there certainly are with our culture – but part of our call as missionaries to the world is to translate the Gospel faithfully into every language and culture.

Also, we shouldn’t all be trying to reach everyone. No-one can learn every language in the world, or individually be a missionary to every part of the world. That is the mission of the church collectively. But we need different people to reach different groups, who have the ability to relate to them effectively, be they students, pensioners, businessmen, academics, manual workers, parents or whoever. Have different people speaking the different languages rather than trying to speak to them in lowest-common denominator language. That isn’t to deny the importance of us all trying to share the love of God to all those we come across in life, but we should be particularly trying to reach those we are in a position to be able to relate to and communicate with most effectively.

I ought to have broken down the various types of Christianspeak, so I’ll do so now:

Firstly, there are the pet phrases, clichés and subcultural quirks of language which infect the speech of us Christians. Often these aren’t at all beautiful or useful, and simply allow people to string together a collection of religious phrases without really thinking about it. These should be ditched altogether.

Secondly, there are the Biblical and theological terms, which are important for understanding the riches of what the Bible teaches and for making discussion easier by having technical terms, as Jon observed. These must always be explained if there are those who do not understand them present – which if we are working to bring people to know the Gospel should hopefully be the case in our Sunday services.

Thirdly, there are those hymns and versions of the Bible that are beautiful and majestic in their language. I agree with Claire that we shouldn’t lose this rich heritage: the beauty of the truth of the Gospel (what we are saying) should be matched by beauty in the form of our communication (how we say it). The Children’s Translation of the Bible that I had when I was young was good in some ways, but it really mangled the beauty of any poetic passages, and many evocative names and phrases were simplified to the point of ugliness – the Ark of the Covenant was “the Box of the Agreement”, for example. Bleugh! But again, no matter how beautiful a hymn or reading is, it is of little benefit if people don’t understand the meaning of what is said – it must be explained.

Let me stick my neck out: I think that faithful and clear communication of the Gospel must be our first priority. But now let me nuance that: if we are stripping the Gospel of all beauty and majesty through the language we use, then we are failing to faithfully communicate it fully.

Or “If I speak in the tongues of theologians and the Authorised Version, but have not communication…”

The issue of spiritual gifts is a thorny one, and there are often sharp disagreements among Christians about what exactly they involve and how they should be exercise. But I’m not going to talk about that, but another phenomenon the pervades the church – Christianspeak, that peculiar form of language exclusively used within the Christian subculture.

The dialects vary from church to church, but every congregation uses it to some extent. If you’ve ever been baffled by phrases like “laid aside on a bed of sickness” and “travelling mercies”, or come across tortured syntax like “bless this food to our bodies” or puzzling terms like “unction” or overused euphemisms like “unhelpful”, then you know the kind of thing I’m talking about.

Even theological terms which we Christians take for granted can be baffling to the uninitiated. On the Navigators conference, in a seminar on Engaging Culture, we were set the task of explaining the Gospel in two minutes without jargon. Believe me, it wasn’t an easy task. “Sin”, “grace” and “atonement”, for example, need explaining to those not used to Biblical lingo.

Recently, I spent some time singing from the updated version of Christian Hymns (which my sister Becky has just bought the music edition of) and from Praise!, both of which are being considered by our church as potential replacements for our battered old copies of Mission Praise. After comparing the selection of songs, the general tone and the different ways they’ve updated old hymns, I have to say that I think Praise! is the better of the two. One of the major reasons I think this is that it does a much better job of translating old classics into understandable, modern English. Becky, on the other hand, doesn’t like it for much the same reason! She thinks firstly that Praise! mangles the hymns and secondly that people wouldn’t have a problem understanding the older language. She and Hannah, my youngest sister, disagreed that there was a cultural gap between the church and wider society.

I’m sorry Becky, but I don’t think you appreciate just how weird and alien the Christian subculture can be to non-Christians. Everyone currently in Bala Evangelical Church may well be able to understand the language of Christian Hymns, but our vision should be to bring new people into the church who aren’t from Christian backgrounds. The world shouldn’t have to learn our language before they can hear the Gospel and worship God.

I think Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is very instructive in how we should speak to communicate. In 1 Corinthians 9:19, 22-23, he says “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible… I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings”. Christians’ priority should not be sticking to the forms, conventions and vocabulary that we find comfortable, but using all possible means to communicate the truths of the Gospel.

Paul’s teaching on tongues is also handy. You might think that I’m torturing the text here by applying it to Christianspeak, but if you consider that some churches still retain the language of centuries ago, then I think it’s clear that we can indeed end up speaking something that is a foreign language to the culture around us. Paul says in 1 Cor 14:11, “If I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me”. Our use of Christianspeak makes this a very real danger.

So what principles does Paul lay down? Our priority should be using gifts that “build up the church” (14:12). “Building up” suggests both helping to edify those already in the church and to build up the number of people in the church. This must be our criteria for evaluating what we do in church. Let’s go through some of the principles laid down:

• Anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may intepret what he says (v13)

It isn’t wrong to make use of old language as long as it is explained so that all can understand. If we exclusively use plain modern English, we are in danger of losing much of the power and majesty of the language of the past. The King James Version helped shape our language, and its rhythms and wordings are often beautiful and poetic. That can be put to good use, but it must be explained, it must be translated. As Paul elaborates in verses 16 and 17, how can a man be edified or agree with what you are saying if he does not understand?

• For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful (v14)

We can be praying genuinely from our hearts when speaking in our Christianese, but in employing dry clichés and pet phrases, we are failing to really think through what we’re actually saying. Putting the truths of the Gospel into jargon-free language can really make us think about the wonder of what we are talking about. We can trot out words like “atonement” and “grace” as mere dry words, dull doctrines, and fail to appreciate how alive, wonderful and life-changing they are. Rephrasing is a useful way of meditating on the truths of God’s word.

• If the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? (v23)

One of the things we should be seeking is for people who have not heard the Gospel, who may have never been in a church, to come to our meetings and hear the wonderful news about Jesus Christ. If we’re talking gobbledegook, then they’ll be completely put off and think we’re a load of nutters. If just one soul is prevented from accepting the Gospel by our language, then it is a price infinitely too dear to pay. (I believe in God’s complete sovereignty in salvation, as in all matters, so this could not happen outside the will of God, but I also believe that this does not deny our own responsibility).

• If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God (v28)

You may find Christianspeak useful, but when we meet together, each of us should be seeking the good of others above our own. Unless what you’re saying will “strengthen the church” (v26), then keep it between you and God. Worship God however you like when you’re alone, but with others, bear with them.

I hope those are helpful. I think we really need to work at finding ways of communicating the Gospel both faithfully and clearly to a generation that has largely grown up not knowing church and not knowing the Bible. As missionaries to the world, in whatever area of life we find ourselves, we need to learn to speak the language of those we are seeking to reach. Cross-cultural evangelism is a reality not just for Christians abroad, but often for those of us at home here in the UK.

Tags: Christianity culture speaking in tongues evangelism language evangelical

I thought I’d quickly get another Revelation Study up. I’ll hopefully get back to some of the discussion raised previously soon.

Revelation Recap #3: Letters to Smyrna and Pergamum

Since they’re fairly short, and since I’m rather erratic in my Revelation recap, I’m covering both Smyrna and Pergamum. They both underwent persecution, but one needed encouragement and the other rebuking. Here we go…

Revelation 2:8-11 – Letter to the Church in Smyrna

The thing that strikes me particularly in this passage is that we need not fear death. The introduction reminds us that Jesus has come to life again (v8), so we can trust what he has to. His promises are “the crown of life” and to “not be hurt at all by the second death”. So even if our faith in him results in our death (v10), then we know that we have new life in heaven with Jesus, and are safe from the second death which is hell. Praise the Lord!

One of the books I have also has some interesting points about the added significance these words would have to the Smyrnans. Apparently, Smyrna prided itself on its loyalty to Rome, so the command to “be faithful” is an indicator that Jesus is more important than Rome. This wasn’t just academic – those who refused to participate in Emperor worship could be executed. Also, Smyrna’s goddess Cybele was commonly pictured as wearing a crown, so the “crown of life” that Jesus promises shows his supremacy over the old false gods. Jesus also doesn’t mince his words regarding Jews who reject the Gospel – they are a “synagogue of Satan”! I’m sure that could spark some, um, lively debate with Jews!

So, what are the important points of application, hmmm? “Do not be afraid!” and “Be faithful”. I think certainly for me, the battle is not so much against fear of physical persecution, which is mercifully not much of a problem at this time in our country, but rather against the fear of injury to my own pride and ego, and have the humility to help without worrying what people will think. One of my mose crippling fears is the fear that people will think that I’m doing good just to make myself look good, coupled with the fear that that is indeed my motivation!

Revelation 2:12-17 – Letter to the Church in Pergamum

“The city where Satan lives” – Pergamum was an ancient seat of emperor worship, and although the church here is faithful, it’s gone off track due wrong influences within the church.

The reminder here is that Jesus has “the sharp, double-edged sword” – i.e. his Word is powerful and true. They certainly need to pay attention to it with the dodgy teaching flying around, like that of Balaam (of talking donkey fame), back in Numbers, though I’m not exactly sure what it was that he taught, and I’m not going off on a lengthly tangent right now to investigate it.

It’s interesting that the church was considered faithful even though their teaching and beliefs were wrong. You’d think that the two wouldn’t go together, but the church was obviously still dedicated to Jesus even though they were doing lots of wrong things.

The promises – “hidden manna”. Another OT reference, and I think this means providence from God to keep them going through the hard time. I’m rather more puzzled about the “white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it”. White – purity. Going by some of the other promises, refers to the new pure life, perhaps? Ah, well – it’s bound to be something wonderful! So the main command to “repent”, so we need to turn from our wrong teaching, and we need the word of God, the Bible, to overcome false teaching.

So, that’s all folks! Feel free to join in, argue, debate etc. by using the comments facility.

Tags: Christianity Bible studies Revelation

I’ve been reading, which is almost always a worthwhile activity. Even bad books often give an insight into humanity in an accidental manner, but I have fortunately had the good pleasure of reading some good books and articles.

I’ve been reading:

• Death in the City by Francis Schaeffer (one of the great Christian thinkers of the twentieth century), which looks at how Christians should respond to the post-Christian world by looking at the books of Romans and Jeremiah
• Ecology and the Death of Man, also by Francis Schaeffer. One of the particular things that struck me was the view of creation we should have – we are both part of creation, of the natural world, and stweards of it
• The Christian and the Business World – a series of articles on the blog Cerulean Sanctum by Dan Edelen, which in their analysis of business and how Christians should relate to it display a wholeness of thinking that is just what the Church needs in the present day. Check the series out, they’re really good, and the blog is well worth reading on a regular basis.
• Living Proof by someone whose name I have forgotten, but is about evangelism as a lifestyle, and not just an activity (rather like Out of the Saltshaker by Rebecca Manley Pippert, which I’d also recommend).

One of the common themes that has emerged in my reading recently is the importance of a wholeness in our Christian lives, which all these tackle in some way or other. One of the problems with contemporary Western Christianity is a failure to work out the implications of the incredible, wonderful, revolutionary teachings of Jesus Christ on every area of life. Christianity should be a faith that refuses to be confined to a personal, private “spirituality”, and permeates every area of our lives. If the Bible is true, then it is true in every area.I’m not arguing for a literalistic viewpoint, by the way, which insists on the Bible being taken literally on every point. It is both a work of literature and a work of truth, and it’s important to be sensitive to the genre, style and intention of the Bible’s diverse parts. It contains many different things – teaching, history, poetry, prophecy, letters, legal documents, parables and so on, often communicating different kinds of truth in different ways. The Bible is also at the same time unified in its overall message of revealing the truth of God and his plan of redemption. It’s a wonderful, staggering, complicated, beautiful work. The Bible, if true, is historically true when it speak historically, poetically true when it speaks poetically, doctrinally true when it speaks doctrinally, and so on.

Stuart Olyott, preacher, teacher and pastor to pastors in Wales, spoke at my church’s prayer meeting on Tuesday on the state of the church in Wales (which deserves a blog entry of its own, so I won’t go into that now). What I found very helpful in the course of what he said was the way he identified the three components of the Christian life:

• The intellectual – Christianity involves certain beliefs, such as in the existence of the infinite-personal creator God, the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and so on. It also involves working out what the truth of the Gospel means intellectually in various fields.
• The practical – the Christian life must be lived, not just thought. “Faith without deeds is dead”. We need to follow Jesus in the way we act, in what we do, enacting the love that he taught us, and working out what it means to live as a Christian in all we do.
• The experiential – Christianity is above all a relationship. It is not primarily about following a code of conduct or adhering to a set of doctrines, though those come in to it, but is about following a person, Jesus Christ. We should be experiencing a relationship with the Living God, spending time with him, listening to him, talking to him, being in a state of constant communication and communion with him.

These three areas are closely interrelated and reinforce each other. It is hard to be strong in one while remaining weak in the others. Most churches, however, tend to focus on one or two and neglect the others. What’s lacking are balanced, complete Christian lives, teaching and evangelism, which should relate to all three areas. The implications of this are wide-ranging and will need a lot more thought and writing to work through…Well, that’s almost all I have time for before lunch. I’m writing this in the library and the librarian has just handed me True Spirituality and Genesis in space and time by Francis Schaeffer, which I saw on the library catalogue were in storage and so asked for them to be got out for me. More reading – excellent!