Theology
What Is Church For?
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- Written by: Ben Underwood
What is the business of church? 1 Why does the congregation congregate, and when they get together what should they be doing and why should they be doing it?
In answering this, our thoughts might first turn to the kinds of things that we do in church, things like praising God, learning from the Bible, praying, sharing with and serving our fellow Christians. But is there anything that holds these things together, some purpose that they all serve?
This seems to be a useful question to ponder. For if we were clear what church was for, it would help us participate in church, and give us a way to help others participate too. More than that, knowing what the congregation was supposed to be doing when it met, and why, would also help us assess how well church was serving its God-given purposes.
I notice that reformed and evangelical Christians take different approaches to this question (to say nothing of those with other theological outlooks). I want to explore two contrasting approaches to these questions: those of John Piper and of D. Broughton Knox.
Church is for the pursuit of worship – John Piper
One answer that might occur to you is that the God-given purpose of church is the worship of God. The church service is ‘corporate worship’. Speaking this way about church places the emphasis on us making some response to God, and towards God, whether that response is the reverent and orderly participation in a proper liturgy or joyful praise and adoration in song, or receiving God’s word with open ears and ready hearts.
John Piper is a pastor and writer for whom worship is a fundamental category for talking about the Christian before God, and his thinking on the church as worship is worth our attention. In what follows I am following his seminar notes ‘Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning: The Pursuit of God in Corporate Worship’.2 Piper sees the business of the Christian life as worship, and the business of church as corporate worship, unfolding as an awakening, a pursuit and an experience, all of which are worship in some manner, for they show forth the glory and worth of God. The awakening as that we are stirred up to pursue satisfaction in God by hearing the word of God, supremely in preaching, which is an act of expository exultation. The pursuit is pursuit of satisfaction in God in the common activities of the church service, and the experience is of satisfaction in God,1 in which God is glorified by our enjoyment of him.
The Experience: Worship
Piper works backwards through this triad, because for him the essence of worship is the experience of satisfaction in God, and the awakening and pursuit are only worship inasmuch as they lead to the experience. So, as he often does, Piper begins with the foundational thesis that there is no other greater than God and that our great good and purpose is to glorify him (i.e. worship him) by enjoying him forever. Worship is an inward, spiritual experience. In his words, ‘The essential, vital, indispensable, defining heart of worship is the experience of being satisfied with God because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. The chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying him for ever.’3
It may seem to fly in the face of the New Testament to think about church from the category of worship, but Piper faces this difficulty explicitly. He looks at NT usage of two main words that might be translated ‘worship’ (proskuneo and latreuo) and acknowledges that these are not used to describe what happens in the Christian gathering. Piper seeks the explanation of this in Jesus’ aim to divert attention ‘away from worship as a localized thing with outward forms to a personal, spiritual experience with himself at the centre. Worship does not need a building, a priesthood, and a sacrificial system. It needs the risen Jesus.’ 4
Piper takes Jesus’ words that ‘true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth’ (John 4:23) to mean that ‘this true worship is carried along by the Holy Spirit and is happening mainly as an inward, spiritual event, not mainly as an outward, bodily event.’5 And, as Piper sees it, the New Testament writers continued Jesus’ programme so that in their writings worship ‘is being significantly de-institutionalized, de-localized, de-externalized. The whole thrust is being taken off of ceremony and seasons and places and forms and is being shifted to what is happening in the heart – not just on Sunday, but every day and all the time in all of life.’6
Piper suggests that for the NT writers to use worship language for church would too much have suggested an identity between worship and certain occasions or acts. Hence, by avoiding worship language and categories in speaking of church gatherings, the NT does not marginalise worship, but underscores that worship is located ultimately in the heart, not in any outward form, place or act.
The Pursuit of Worship
If, as Piper reasons, the essence of worship is the experience of being satisfied in God, then since we are to worship God, we should pursue this experience of being satisfied in God. This pursuit of satisfaction in God then becomes a kind of extension of worship out from its essence. The ambit of worship widens to include both the experience of satisfaction, and the activity of pursuing that satisfaction. Indeed all things in life should serve the pursuit of this satisfaction in God, including church. So, if Christians are convinced that ‘nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their aching hearts besides God’, then ‘This conviction breeds a people who go hard after God on Sunday morning. They are not confused about why they are there. They do not see songs and prayers and sermons as mere traditions or mere duties. They see them as means of getting to God or God getting to them for more of his fullness.’7
This pithy answer to the question What is church for? explains why Piper’s Philosophy Of Music And Worship begins with ‘God-centeredness’, which is expounded as ‘A high priority on the vertical focus of our Sunday morning service. The ultimate aim is to so experience God that he is glorified in our affections.’8
Congregation members are to ‘Come on the lookout for God, leave on the lookout for people.’ And they seek to ‘Remove horizontal intrusions between vertical acts.’ (I take this to mean that a focus on people should not interrupt the congregation’s focus on God.)
The Awakening of Worship
However, there is something else to be taken into account: ‘In the real world of ordinary Christians, the pursuit of satisfaction in God through supplication, thanks, and praise do not usually arise in the hearts of God’s people without being stirred up in some way when they come together.’9
The stirring up is accomplished by the Word of God, by the mouth of the preacher, augmented by the example of the preacher: ‘in this world it is normal to go backward without continual exposure to the Word of God awakening in us the spiritual affections God deserves from us.’10 ‘God also designs that some of this continual exposure to the Word of God be provided by leaders in the church whose calling it is to make truth known to the people and to be examples of Godward affection for them.’11 ‘The content of God’s Word will be woven through all we do in worship. It will be the ground of all our appeal to authority. Preaching (expository exultation) will be central.’12
This high valuation of the preaching of the word leads Piper to a further widening of the ambit of the word worship. Worship is not only the experience of satisfaction in God, and the pursuit of this satisfaction, but the stirring up of others to pursue satisfaction in God through preaching (‘expository exultation’) is itself worship too,
‘because the declaration of God’s truth and the demonstration of its value with appropriate affections is worship. That is, it displays the value of God in that it shows he is worth knowing and proclaiming and feeling strongly about.’13
Two observations about all this. Firstly, Piper is thinking out of a theological foundation into the practice of church against the background of Scripture and his context. Worship is the big theological category for everything in Piper’s view of what it is to be a human being before God, so worship is the foundation for thinking about church too. This is not surprising. What we should note is that in this analysis, church is complex – it is not a simple, uniform act of worship that goes on in a congregation, but centres about sluggish, forgetful human hearts being stirred up to seek satisfaction in God, centrally by the expository exultation of a preacher, and the congregation together using the activities of the service as the means of seeking and expressing that satisfaction in God.
The second observation I would make here is that this analysis is an antidote to any approach to church which does not place the relationship we have with God at the centre of what church is about. It is an assault on the church as social-cum-community group or cultural habit. It is a theological, un-sociological account of church designed to reveal the real significance of what it is to go to church.
Church is for the expression of fellowship – D. B. Knox
To be frank, Piper’s approach to church seems foreign to me (unsurprising, really, since he is from a slightly different culture). Engaging with Piper’s vision of church has sent me back to examine the influential voices in my own Christian culture to understand my own instincts about church. If the pointy end of John Piper’s theological vision is worship, then D. Broughton Knox, who taught influentially in Sydney Anglican circles, had a theological vision with a pointy end too, namely, fellowship. We Knox sees the business of the Christian life as fellowship, and the business of church as to express and enjoy that fellowship. We may summarise Knox’s view of the aims of church as the increase and expression of the experience of fellowship.
The Experience: Fellowship
Whereas John Piper thinks of the true end of human beings as the worship of God, Knox thinks of the true end of human beings as fellowship with God and one another in Christ. As Piper sees it, God’s basic delight is in his glory and its display. Our fundamental way of sharing in God’s basic delight is our worship, which is the enjoyment and display of God’s glory. As Knox sees it, God’s basic delight is the fellowship – the shared love and activity – of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our fundamental way of sharing in God’s basic delight is to come into fellowship with him, and his people.
In his essay ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, Knox defines fellowship as, ‘friends sharing a common possession, leading to a common activity on the basis of that sharing’.14 For Knox, although ‘fellowship is a basic and delightful human experience’15 , fellowship begins in God – the full, perfect and blissful fellowship within the Trinity. Their common possession is the self-giving love the persons of the Trinity have for one another, and all the divine works of creation and salvation are their common activity.16
Human enjoyment of fellowship with one another ‘springs directly from the image of God in which men and women have been created’.17 We are made for fellowship. This fellowship is to be with God, and with one another, and although the fall has broken that fellowship with God and one another, in Christ, that fellowship is restored. A favourite verse of Knox’s is 1 John 1: 3; ‘that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.’
In Knox’s view a verse like this describes the heart and reality of the Christian experience and the goal of salvation. Christ (that ‘seen and heard’) has brought Christians into fellowship with himself and his Father, with one another (‘we’) and, through their proclamation of Christ, with still others (‘you’).
Elsewhere Knox writes: ‘In the Scriptures, God has made known his plan and purpose and final objective for mankind, which he is bringing to pass. It may be summed up in one word – fellowship; God has made us for fellowship. Heaven is fellowship with one another in God’s presence’18
Fellowship is friends sharing in a common activity19 , and Knox sees this fellowship with God and one another as being experienced by the Christian in several areas of activity. Christians share together in the praise, thanksgiving and intercession directed to the Father, led by the Son and helped by the Spirit.20 We share together with Christ and one another in the fellowship of evangelism, of living by faith in God, of suffering, of generous giving, of hope, of the inheritance of God’s people, of the Spirit.21
Knox writes that ‘our truest fellowship is the sharing of Christ’, and, ‘to be conscious of this fellowship means being conscious of of our relationship with God and one another in God.’22
This is the Christian life – a life of fellowship with God and one another, which is fundamentally a delight. So then, as Christians, we should seek to express and to increase this fellowship.
Expressing Fellowship
Church, then, is an expression of this fellowship. ‘The church service should provide this fellowship’, writes Knox, going on to say ‘The real reason [for church] is that the Spirit of God has drawn [the congregation] into each other’s company to meet with Christ in each other, in accordance with his promise to be present with them. The Spirit has drawn them that they might experience the fellowship of the Spirit whom they all share.’23
Knox lamented the failure he perceived in his own culture of church to appreciate the centrality of fellowship – ‘friends sharing in a common activity’. Neither pulpit nor pew thought they were in church for fellowship, and the formal, solemn, quiet, constrained conduct of church services provided little opportunity ‘to see the faces of our fellow-Christians […] shining with the face of Christ’.24 Rather, Knox laments that in his church culture, ‘the only thing a worshipper at Morning Prayer sees of his fellow worshipper from the moment he enters the building, til the time he leaves it again, is the back of his head.’25
Rather, the expression of Christian fellowship, friends sharing Christ in common, as we meet, ‘doing together what we do on our own, seeking Christ’s face for he is in each of us and we meet him in one another.’ I’m not sure what Knox would have said to Piper’s ‘Come on the lookout for God, leave on the lookout for people’ quoted above, but he might have said, ‘If you are on the lookout for God, look for him in his people.’ Knox is concerned our recognition and appreciation of one another as we gather is natural, genuine and primary in our engagement as church.
Increasing Fellowship
Knox holds that the end of church is Christian fellowship, and this fellowship is not a means to a further end, and always exists as it has been established by Christ. However, our consciousness and enjoyment of that fellowship can be and should be increased. The means to Christians experiencing the fellowship of the Spirit ‘is remembering Jesus, dwelling in him, setting our minds on things above, where he is. All these phrases mean the same thing – namely being consciously in his presence.’26
One important way to increase our consciousness of the reality of our fellowship, our consciousness that we are together in the presence of Christ and his Father is teaching the word of God. ‘Christian fellowship is evoked on the word of God, and response to that word.’27 The word of God brings a knowledge which is the first thing necessary for the strengthening of fellowship. He writes,
‘Christian fellowship is based on knowledge; knowledge of our common possessions, our common calling. This knowledge stirs the imagination, warms the affections, energizes the will to work, to suffer and to hope, and unites us all into one, God and his people. Knowledge comes through being taught with a receptive, obedient mind.’28
Knox therefore treats the teacher of the congregation as one exercising a foundational function in the strengthening of fellowship. But his emphasis falls more upon the ‘receptive, obedient’ minds of we who hear, who ‘must act on our knowledge and direct our wills to the things of God’ to experience fellowship with him, whose fellowship is weak because we fail to set our minds on things above, where Christ is. 29
The things we do together at church help us to set our minds on things above – not only hearing his word, but praising him, thanking him, praying to him, sharing the Lord’s Supper. All these things help us remember Christ, and that we are in him and he is in us. When we do these things together at church, our fellowship ‘is not only directed towards God, but also towards one another, building one another up as Christians. The Spirit’s gift of love for one another will ensure that when we come into each other’s company, an important consequence will be helping one another to be better Christians through instruction, exhortation and encouragement’.30
There are obvious points of similarity between Piper and Knox. They both have an experience taking a central place in their vision of the Christian life. For Piper it is the inward, spiritual experience of being satisfied in God, for Knox it is friends sharing a common possession, namely Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And for both, church has important role in strengthening that experience for the Christian. And further, the preaching or teaching of the word of God has a central place in that strengthening role.
There are also striking differences. In Piper the oneness of God is to the fore. He is God and we are his worshippers, and the great pleasure of God is the display of his glory before his creatures for our joy and his. In Knox, the triunity of God is to the fore. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and his great pleasure is in his own fellowship, shared with his creatures for our joy and his. Perhaps as a result of these differences Piper also focusses more upon the individual ‘going hard after God’ for him or herself in church, with other parties somewhat secondary, whereas Knox focusses on the primacy of the sociality of church, of mutual recognition and appreciation.
Both Piper and Knox offer robustly theological accounts of church designed to reveal the real significance of what it is to go to church, and how we should see and engage with the activities of church and the people we meet there. I can’t read what they have to say without being challenged to examine what I am thinking and feeling and seeking when I go to church on Sunday. And I have a hankering to read what some of the reformers had to say on this topic.
1 I am using church here to refer to the actual meeting of the congregation, and not the congregation itself (which we might refer to as the church). Church in this article is primarily the church service, rather that the congregation. It is what the people are doing together, rather that who they are together. I’m not trying to focus on the being of the church so much as her doings when she congregates locally.
2 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning Seminar Notes from September 12, 2008. Downloaded on August 16 2011 from http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/seminars/gravity-and-gladness-on-sunday-morning-part-1.
3 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘2. The Intensification of Worship As etc. Thesis.’
8
4 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘2. The Intensification of Worship As etc. Possible Answer.’
5 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘2. The Intensification of Worship As etc. Question. What do etc.’
6 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘2. The Intensification of Worship As etc. The Language of etc.’
7 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘3. What is the Inward Essence etc. Some Implications 2. Worship becomes’
8 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘5. What Unites Us in Worship: A Philosophy Of Music And Worship’.
9 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘4. Worship Services Are Normative and Preaching Is a Normative Part; Thesis Three’.
10 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘4. Worship Services Are Normative and Preaching Is a Normative Part; Thesis Three’.
11 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘4. Worship Services Are Normative and Preaching Is a Normative Part; Thesis Three’.
12 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘5. What Unites Us in Worship: A Philosophy Of Music And Worship’.
13 John Piper, Gravity and Gladness under ‘4. Worship Services Are Normative and Preaching Is a Normative Part; Thesis One’. This quotation seems to hint at an implicit, more fundamental definition of worship at work in Piper’s thinking – that worship is the display of God’s value, and to worship God is to display his value. This more fundamental definition is also evident when Piper gives arguments for why Christians should go to church: because, ‘God’s aim in the universe is to be known and enjoyed by his creatures and thus to be shown more glorious than any other reality. Corporate worship is one essential way that God designs for this display of his glory to be expressed in the world’ (italics mine). And, giving another reason why we should gather to worship corporately: ‘Corporate unified supplication, thanks, and praise displays more of the glory of God than individual acts of supplication, thanks, and praise because harmony in diversity is intrinsically more beautiful than mere unison; harmony in diversity requires more grace from God to bring it about among sinful people’(italics mine).
14 D. Broughton Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’ in D. Broughton Knox, Selected Works, Volume II: Church and Ministry ed. Kirsten Birkett (Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2003), 58.
15 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 57.
16 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 61-63.
17 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 59.
18 Knox, ‘Heaven is People’, in Selected Works II, 247.
19 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 57.
20 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 64-65.
21 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 64-70.
22 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 70.
23 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 74. See also p76.
24 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 75.
25 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 75.
26 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 70.
27 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 74.
28 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 73.
29 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 73.
30 Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Selected Works II, 80.
Shocking Christmas
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- Written by: Dale Appleby
Dale Appleby reflects on the incarnation
Christmas is quite shocking. At least the big event at the heart of Christmas is. It is like the good shock we get when a very important person visits our home unexpectedly. We may wish later that the place had been cleaned, or that we had said at least something that was intelligent, but as we recover from the shock we feel pleased that we were honoured by their visit - even if we are not quite sure why they came.
We could feel like that about the birth of Jesus, because this is the creator of everything coming to visit and live with his creatures. Presumably he thinks this is important. Or he thinks we are important. Or we could think we were important because of his visit. All of that is true. But why?
Why did the Son of God want to, need to, take on human life, become a human being while still remaining God? And here is a different kind of shock. It was not so much that God needed to do something but that we needed him to do something. He saw that we had a problem that is focussed on death.
Heb 2.14-15 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
We see the answer to why he became human by observing what he did with the humanity he took to himself. Did he turn it into something glorious and noble, did he become the epitome of the legendary great human? Quite the opposite to startt with: as a human he seemed very ordinary and weak.
Phil 2.7,8 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death- even death on a cross.
The great shock is that he took the humanity to death. He killed it off. He took on humanity in order to put it to death.
Heb 2.17 Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.
Gal 4.4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.
To redeem humanity, to bring it back because of its sin, its rebellion, its turn-your-back-on-God and treat-him-like-a-servant attitude. Because it not only deserved death as Adam was told, but needed it.
Rom 8.3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh
Which doesn't paint humans in a very good light. But then God is not a painter, he is a creator. His interest is not in renovating humans, or giving them a make-over, but in recreating them.
The greatness of the shock of bringing Jesus' humanity to death is deepened when we see what God did next. He raised it from death. He didn't leave the humanity in the grave as though he was finally rid of it. He raised it to a new life.
1 Cor 15.21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.
The raised Jesus is the human divine Jesus who was killed. He took the humanity of Adam to death, and through death to a new life which is now directly connected with Christ rather than Adam. A new start has been made, a new humanity created out of the old. The shock is that God intends that humans should live in an entirely different way. The new life for humans is directly connected with the life of Christ. Who is no longer on the earth.
Eph 1.20 God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come
It is the same human and divine Christ who is now seated in the highest place. The humanity has not been left behind. The shocking fact that he has taken humanity to the throne of God gives a clue to God's intention for us.
Eph 2.6,7 God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
But how shall we enjoy this new life? It is not a life given to us independent of Jesus. It is not ours to do with as we like. It is the life of God as we know it in our relationship with Christ.
Col 3.2-4 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
So many shocks. That God sets such value on us that he goes to such great lengths to bless us in this way. And also that he declares that we do not deserve this life but that we have forfeited what he gave us in the first place.
In fact that we live under the shadow of death - a death promised by God in the beginning. But it is through death (the death of the New Human) that God does away with the judgment that hangs over us, and also brings to an end the old corrupted humanity and from it raises up a new human, united with himself in Christ.
Such a wonder. That humans who were once made as the image of God, should in the end share the likeness of God's only Son.
1 John 3.2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
Why did God the Son take human flesh? Why did he want to become a human? Why did the Father send his only Son into the world?
1 John 4. 9,10 God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
So? These are the kind of shocks applied to someone whose heart has stopped beating. Do you, will you, live for this God who loved you so much? The new life is directly connected with Christ himself.
2 Corinthians 5:14,15 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
1 John 4. 11,12 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Punk Theology
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- Written by: Peter Corney
Peter Corney reflects on his youth and the present and comes up with a New Theology
Punk Rock was created in the UK by the Sex Pistols in 1975 with Johnny Rotten, joined later by Sid Vicious; they were closely followed by another creative Punk band The Clash. They took the rock scene by storm and created a whole new wave of music that was a vehicle for a radical form of political dissent from the establishment. Their concerts often ended in a riot! They also inspired new styles in dress and fashion. Later this was followed by Punk art, Punk poetry and even Punk film such as the classic “The Decline of Western Civilisation.” They were anti-establishment, anti-authority, anti-capitalist, nonconformist and iconoclastic. They were for freedom, equality, direct action and free thought, opposed to selling out to the dominant culture.
The name and image has been hijacked now by all sorts of alternative and New wave arts and social movements who want to challenge the established artistic or cultural scene. There is even a self-styled “mystic Punk-art collective” called “Punkasila” based in Jakarta of all places that is to perform in Melbourne soon.
As someone who survived the 70’s it occurred to me that some contemporary theology could be described as “Punk Theology” - iconoclastic, rejecting the historic tradition and anti-authority. But where it differs from authentic Punk is that strangely it is not opposed to selling out to the dominant culture, a strong theme in genuine Punk. In fact much contemporary liberal theology is accommodationist – reducing and adapting the Gospel to the prevailing culture and its plausibility structure- what it finds easy to believe and is congenial to its morality. Despite its radical pose it is oddly intellectually provincial, reflecting the attitudes and values of its times. Rather than offering a critique of the contemporary culture and its values from the foundation of the historic faith it does the opposite. A visit to a “Progressive Christianity”, “Progressive Spirituality” or “Emerging Christianity” website will be enough to reveal how un-Punk much contemporary liberal Christianity has become. Alternatively read Ross Douthat’s very insightful book “Bad Religion” (Free Press 2012).
Ascended Fullness
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- Written by: John Yates
John Yates writes under the conviction that the ascension is one of the most neglected of all Christian doctrines. This brief article is written under the conviction that the ascension is one of the most neglected of all Christian doctrines. As a doctrine concerning the life of Christ its implications for our perspective on the nature of the Church and Christian ministry are numerous. Perhaps the lack of teaching on the ascension derives from the fact that apart from brief descriptions provided by Luke (Luke 24:50-52; Acts 1:9-11) the translation of Jesus to heaven is simply assumed throughout the rest of the New Testament (Acts 2:30-33; Eph 4:8-10; Heb 10:12).
Whatever the reason for overlooking the ascension, it is the pinnacle of the redemptive purpose of the Incarnation, the “taking of humanity into God” (Athanasian Creed). Unless Jesus returned to the heavenly glory he had with the Father before the world was made (John 17:5) we could never be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4). My hope is that by focusing on the ascension we will be more deeply grasped by “the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe” (Eph 1:19-20).
Christianity’s Radical Challenge to Cultural Relativism
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- Written by: Peter Corney
Peter Corney builds on some of the insights in Peter Sutton’s book (reviewed last issue by Joy Sandefur), critiques the cultural relativism of our society, and suggests ways in which Christianity challenges it.
A couple of years ago I read the most profoundly disturbing book that I have read for a long time: ThePolitics of Suffering:Indigenous Australia and the end of the Liberal Consensus, written by Peter Sutton, one of Australia’s leading anthropologists and an expert on Aboriginal culture. I recommend it to anyone who wants to try and understand why the results of our public policy on indigenous affairs have become such a tragic mess.
Peter Sutton speaks from the inside and he cares passionately about Aboriginal people, but he is deeply critical of the failure of many of our policies since the 1970s. One of the reasons he states has been the unwillingness to name and tackle a number of very negative practices and values embedded in Aboriginal culture that have been exacerbated by colonial conquest. One of the reasons for this is the influence of a romantic view of indigenous cultures that took hold in the early 1970s and the pressure of political correctness that protected it from any critique and has allowed it to go unchallenged until recently. This view is an example of ‘cultural relativism’.1
This raised a bigger issue for me and that is the wider influence of ‘cultural relativism’ today on Western culture generally.
Read more: Christianity’s Radical Challenge to Cultural Relativism