Be there.

What are we waiting for?

"Waiting for glory." That's what my msn tagline currently reads. It's what Romans 8 would have us know - even as we have glory now in freedom as God's sons, yet we wait - through suffering now - for glory to be revealed to us, which is beyond comparison with the present suffering.

Yet as I read the recent Paternoster book, What are we waiting for?, I got the impression that we aren't waiting for very much. What is ahead, we're not sure of, and anyway, it's mostly already in the here & now so that's what we should work at. I'm grateful to Authentic for the free copy, and I applaud the aim of the editors to replace the default Left Behind popular eschatology with something better than an 'embarassed silence'. My own grandfather did such a thing in his own generation, which has been very influential ever since. But on an admittedly quick read, I was disappointed by the variety between chapters. The impression I had was that, sitting down for a good, many-course meal, I'd been fed some good food and some Spam. Interesting discussion is good, but I'd rather the sheep were fed.

Some of the chapters are notably good, such as Krish Kandiah on escatology and pop culture, and Tim Chester's Eschatology and mission. Others seemed to emphasise the now so much I'm really not sure what we're waiting for. We should indeed seek to further the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, to care for others and the rest of God's creation, as Christ has inaugurated the new heavens and new earth. But what hope do we offer to the dying thief on the cross? Or the terminally ill cancer patient? Or the Christian thrown in jail in Azerbijan for having a Bible in his home?

It's all very well to have healthy conversation - something which this publisher seeks to encourage by being broad in its theological range. But for love of the Church, let's be very careful not to gut our future hope - for some, it is not merely a different way of saying, 'our present kingdom-work', but is all they live and die for. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen, eternal.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Swim against the tide of fun

"Have fun!" I've often used that as a well-wishing comment. Seldom seriously meant it: more often I've meant, "I hope what you're heading to will be helpful, or enjoyable, or even painful but good for you in the long run." But I've said, "Have fun!"

Our culture militates against taking life seriously. It's one of the serious crimes against British sensibility (cf. Watching the English) - to appear too serious, too much in earnest. People start squirming, a little embarassed, feeling that such enthusiasm for things of import should be locked up somewhere. We know too much to be engagedly committed to ideals. To spend time and effort taking life seriously. We know that our ideals are broken, our previous idols smashed, or philosophies found wanting, our religion dead. We know that our lives are meaningless, our history bunk, our politics mindless and our character predetermined by biological, social and economic factors. We're either patronisingly amused or admiringly puzzled by American political zeal. We know from our neighbours that plus ça change... So we take up with the rest, in mind-numbing media, utilitarian education, and short-fix comfort government, to fill our ears, eyes, bodies and hearts with light relief.

I've found myself recently, when home tired at the end of the day, relaxing to the sound of BBC 7 repeats of radio comedy taking the Mick out of the news, while playing Minesweeper. Light relief. Satirising events in the news may help take life less seriously, but I don't think that's our main problem. Certainly my problem, tuned in to radio satire while numbing my tired mind at the end of a day, is not that I take the world or myself too seriously, but that I don't take God seriously enough.

Listening to better things this morning: Piper on Romans 2.6-10, from 1998 -

I feel such a burden for us as a church to swim against the tide of almost every current in our culture. More and more and more, America is a nation given over to play. The industries of play are huge! Houses are built today with entertainment centers. Computers and videos and television and stereo all coordinate to give us ever more stimulating and captivating distractions from the realities of the world. When we need to be dreaming, for the glory of Christ, about how to spend our lives alleviating ignorance and sickness and misery and lostness, we are becoming more and more addicted to amusement.

Make a little test of evangelical vocabulary, and calculate, for example, the increasing frequency with which we use the world "fun" to describe almost everything we like. But when do we describe our good experiences as "meaningful" or "significant" or "enriching" or "ennobling" or "worthwhile" or "edifying" or "helpful" or "strengthening" or "encouraging" or "deepening" or "transforming"
or "valuable" or "eye-opening" or "God-exalting"?

Examine yourself with this text: Whatever else it teaches, this is clear, it teaches that after death there is eternal life and glory and honor and peace, and there is eternal wrath and indignation and tribulation and distress. And in the twinkling of an eye, even before this service is over, you could be irreversibly in the one or the other. I am a watchman on the wall. And I have warned you as clearly as I know how. Get ready and stay ready.

Live in the light of eternity. And I do mean light, not shadow. When you have come to know your God, and love his Son so much that you can say, "For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain," then living in the light of eternity will replace your "fun" with deeper, higher, wider, longer, more unshakable, more varied, more satisfying, more durable, more solid pleasures than all the fun that entertainment could ever give. O come, and let us be a different breed of people for the few short years we have to live upon this earth! Dream some dream of making your life count for Christ and his Kingdom. "Only one life, 'twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last."

I mean to swim against the tide of fun. Not that I won't be amused by satire. Not that I won't enjoy life to the full. But precisely because I will enjoy life to the full, knowing that under God, life is serious. Enjoying God, I suspect that life (true life) is enjoyably serious, and ultimately seriously enjoyable.

Quote of the day: when you say, 'I see'

I implore you to remember the Irishman and his two stoves.* There are progressions in which the last step is... incommensurable with the other - and in which to go the whole way is to undo all the labour of your previous journey. To reduce [objective good and evil] to a mere natural product is a step of that kind. Up to that point, the kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through soemthing is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.

- C.S.Lewis, in The Abolition of Man

* I confess I've no idea to which doubly-bestoved Irishman he refers. Doubtless it's delightfully pertinent.

Longing for more

I recently read Ruth Barton's Longing for More. I didn't like it. It seemed emotionally driven rather than Biblically engaged, and woman-centred rather than God-centred. In an irony only driven by laziness, I also am going to 'review' this lightly, emotionally and not engage with the Biblical texts. Barton used the word self-esteem so often as the driving force that I almost gave up reading it altogether: she seemed quite emotionally sure that our main problem as Christian women is low self-esteem, because the Church has failed us. There was no reckoning of 'the Church is us and we fail each other' but only the male Church has failed us. I had hoped that from someone who wished to minister to others and was gifted in a speaking role, Barton would wrestle with some of the key texts and help us to see God's beautiful plan for his people, reflecting his Trinity, in which we're called to minister to each other in a glorious variety of ways within the Body with the Christ-like, self-sacrificing headship authority of some godly men. But no. We had an emotional appeal which started with 'I feel low self-esteem unless I'm in a leadership role', passed through 'Church quashes that role' and 'God must want us to have high self-esteem', and ended up with 'therefore you go girl: don't let yourself be restricted'. We had a short appendix in which she considered 1 Tim 2, or rather, took vv.11-12 out of context, reconstructed a context for the whole letter, and ignored the rest of the chapter including vv.13-15. All-in-all, extremely disappointing.

We may long for more, and we do fail each other in the Church (and it did seem Barton knew only a very traditional set-up, rather than actively complementarian), but the answer is not that we need our self-esteem built up, but that we need to see God and love each other in response (Mo wrote stirringly on this today). A woman who is gifted to speak God's word does not need to emotionally react to traditionalist structures by rejecting any role distinction or structure, driven by self-esteem issues; she may examine the Scriptures to see the glorious plan for the family of God, and seek to use her gifts to build up the Church accordingly. That may well, admittedly, require some facilitation on the part of others in more traditionalist structures, but this is not the book which will help those ladies seeking to use their gifts nor those seeking to encourage them. When I was younger I learnt much from Sharon James on this, and although I can't remember precisely what's in her book and what I learn from her life & teaching in person, I'm sure God's Design for Women is more helpful than Longing for More, which left me longing for... God's design.

Announcing the birth of...

We have a new baby! In UCCF, that is. And for a baby, it's remarkably loud and large... baby dragon perhaps. Watch out for the fire-breathing. It's dangerous, but it might just stoke up the fires of your heart for worship... And that tail has some mean idol-smashing ability. Remember, theology is the revolution. TheologyNetwork.org

Keep reading; oh keep reading!

I won't have this construed as a betrayal of my Midlands posse (impressive dancing); but why this man is thematic, he’s charismatic, he’s systematic,... he's Wayne Grudem, and I suspect he's never been celebrated quite like this: [HT: Bish]