Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

6 May

Perceiving White People: Part 2

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Culture, post-modernism, Religion, Social Issues. Tagged: , , , , , .

uniqueA part of human experience is the need for identity, “who am I?” to quote Zoolander. This is because it is in identity that we find significance. Identity is an expression and conception of a person’s individuality. Now I am not saying this to sound smart, but to make a point about ‘white people’. It has been my observation from being around enough white people, and from being around myself, that white people often find their significance in their uniqueness. Could this be why a common racist taunt is “they all look the same”, as if a lack of uniqueness in appearance makes a person less significant?

We all know that teenage boy with the fringe over the eyes, sitting in the corner, wearing black… who loves the thought that he is so different that everyone hates him. Or the exuberant lady in the coffee shop who talks about how she enjoys watching humans interact, just sitting and examining this species relate around her, as if she was looking into a bowl of goldfish. There is a hunger in white people (not to say that other people groups don’t feel this) to be a unique person and therein find significance. This attempt to achieve uniqueness varies in degree from person to person, but basically it is all about how far into ‘wierdville’ someone is willing to go, and still enjoy it- some people go as far as tattooing their face, others just pretend to like Opera ;)

Generally, I believe that this doesn’t plague conservative type whites as much as it does their liberal counterparts, but it is still common place among the former. In the same way, it is more common among westernised modern to post-modern whites as opposed to those that are more traditional. Consider my favourite rugby team: Bemowo AZS-AWF Warsaw (since no one has heard of them the uniqueness points go up in my identity).

Christian Lander makes the following satirical observation using Apple Mac computers:

On the surface, you would ask yourself how white people could love a multibillion-dollar company with manufacturing plants in China and mass production, and that contributes to global pollution through the manufacture of consumer electronic devices. The simple answer: Apple products tell the world you are creative and unique. They are an exclusive product line only used by every white college student, designer, writer, English teacher, and hipster on the planet.

He goes on to explain…

You see, a long time ago Macs were superpopular among layout artists and graphic designers. Then apple released Final Cut Pro, and it became the standard for film editors. As a result, lots of creative industries used Apple computers instead of PCs. Eventually, people started making a connection between creativity and Macs, and all of a sudden all white people need to have a Mac.[i]

This may have led to some of the success of the YRR (Young Restless and Reformed) movement. Since the reformed faith sank into disfavour among evangelicals in the early 1900’s, the feeling of belonging to a very niche theological group has its appeal, as it satisfies some of the desire for uniqueness and thus significance. Add in a Charismatic element to make that little break with the left over-fuddy-duddy reformed churches and you have the makings of a truly unique little community.

While I may or may not be right, I do see this as an influence, at least to a point, on the creation of the emergent movement. Points that lend to this is the ever so evident homogeneity of this niche ‘ Christian’ group (all white, mostly young, often yuppies and techno-unique-margaretmeadnerds). It’s great to be the one who follows a mainline religion but has figured out how not to be ‘bigoted’, except against those who are sure of something (like Jesus being the only way to the Father; those outside of Christ go to hell etc). They are unique since they can watch all the blind people describe different parts of the elephant, while they sympathetically see that they only know in part.

All earthly identity factors of necessity create oppression because they all give us a feeling of superiority. They make us feel significant. It’s not always to the same degree, but it’s always there. Because whatever makes you feel unique, if that thing is your identity, will lead you to feel superior to those who… don’t know the difference between a Shiraz and a Bordeaux; think homosexuals should be allowed to marry; think homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to marry; follow the religion of their parents; are racist; are so myopic that they think Jesus is the only way; don’t know that Christianity is the true religion and on and on I could go.

identity-fraudWhile your identity makes you feel significant, what makes you feel significant makes you feel superior. Superiority lends itself to oppressing and/or marginalising those ‘beneath’ you, or those less ‘enlightened’ than you. But there is an identity factor that doesn’t need to lead to a feeling of superiority. The Bible teaches that Christians have a unique identity factor; they are ‘in Christ’. That is a huge theological theme that is beyond this scope of this post, but basically it means that all the promises of God are real for you, God’s attitude towards you is the same as that of His attitude to Christ. And this unique status is not due to some discovery that you made, it’s not due to intuition or wisdom, it does not originate in you in any way- It originates in God. This is called the doctrine of election, the teaching that God chose us, not because of anything that he saw in us, not because there is anything attractive about us to Him, but because of his own good pleasure, he chose individuals to be ‘in Christ’ before the foundation of the world. He loved us because He loved us.

Now since this identity is in Christ, and you get this identity as a gift and not because of anything in you; it creates humility not superiority. This makes being ‘in Christ’ a uniquely unoppressive identity. This  point then, when preaching and sharing your faith with white friends, is an important factor to bear in mind; our identity is not to be found in things around us anywhere on Earth- things may explain us but they do not (or should not) define us.

[i] Stuff White People like. Page47-48

13 Apr

How to have a Devotion/Quiet Time

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Devotional, Religion, Worship. Tagged: , , , , .

Bible readerOne of the sad things about being in many Bible teaching churches is that people are often afraid to ask questions. Especially questions that they feel will make them look silly. While that is a whole ethos issue on its own that needs to be dealt with, I would like to use the opportunity today to answer the question, “How do I have a private devotion/quiet time?” Now if you already have a strategy for devotional times, I still encourage you to read this as you might find some of the ideas enriching to what you are already doing.

First a few helpful disclaimers: Firstly, none of the ideas in this post are original to me, they came through listening to others and seeing what works and doesn’t work for me. Secondly, this is not the only way to have a devotion, this is just one possible way that I have found most helpful. Thirdly, I am not dealing with principle issues around ‘quiet times’/devotionals. Issues of frequency, guilt associated with not doing devotions and the motivation for doing one’s devotions will not be covered. To deal with those and other issues I will merely point you back to the gospel. You can never do enough devotions to make God pleased with you, conversely a lack of devotions is not going to bring God’s wrath down on you. If you know Jesus Christ in a way that has assured you of your acceptance with God and showed you the wickedness of your heart than you are at a place to think about doing devotions. If you use devotion times to try and replace the acceptance with God you should have in Christ, they will kill you.

devotionHaving said that, let’s begin.

Pick a section of Scripture. Why not begin with the book of John? Or any book for that matter. But because I think John is a good place to start I’ll suggest you try that if you don’t have your heart set elsewhere in Scripture. In most Bibles there are normally breaks in a chapter that subdivide the book into shorter sections. In the Bible I am currently reading John’s first chapter has an opening section of 18 verses entitled, “The Word Became Flesh”. Now my suggestion is that every day you take a section like that and read it slowly two or three times.

After you have done that, ask the following questions of the text:

1)    What does this passage tell me about God?

2)    What does this passage tell me about Jesus Christ?

3)    What does this passage tell me about myself?

4)    Are there any examples to emulate or avoid?

5)    Are there any promises to claim?

After having answered these questions, choose two or three insights that you found particularly helpful. Then take each insight and ask the following questions:

  1. Adoration – How can I love and praise God on the basis of this? What do I see here that I can praise him for?
  2. Repentance – How do I fail to realize this in my life? What wrong behaviour, harmful emotions or attitudes result when I forget this?
  3. Gospel Thanks – How can I thank Jesus as the ultimate revelation of this attribute of God (#1) and the ultimate answer to this sin or need of mine (#2)?
  4. Aspiration- How does this show me what I should or can be and do? How would I be different if this truth were powerfully real to me?

Basically this is what we are doing – taking a Scriptural truth and asking three questions of it ( I know it looks like 5 when I wrote it outimages, but in reality they are just three). How does this show me something about God to praise? How does this show me something about myself to confess? How does this show me something I need to ask God for? Adoration, confession, Thanksgiving and supplication(ACTS). Luther proposes that we keep meditating like this until our hearts begin to warm and melt under a sense of the reality of God. Often that doesn’t happen. Fine. We aren’t ultimately praying in order to get good feelings or answers, but in order to honour God for who he is in himself.

I hope this helps some of you out there.

10 Apr

Perceiving White People: Part 1

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Culture, Current events, Religion, Social Issues. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

South Africa is a diverse nation. Part of the diversity includes white people like me. If you are going to effectively witness and preach to this people group it is incumbent upon you to understand them. What their idols are and what motivates that; what drives them to worship, and what they worship

There are two key features that I would like to highlight, but for today I will look specifically at ‘guilt’.

While I believe that guilt is a universal problem concerning all races and cultures, there is a very special guilt that white people bare and it drives them to one of two poles.  The special guilt I am referring to is a consequence of the horrors in history that have been  whiteguiltinflicted by  (though not exclusively) white people groups: the crusades, the western slave trade (as opposed to Arabic or African slave trade), colonisation, systemic socio-political racism, apartheid. This is not an in-depth look at the topic of white guilt, but a surface touch on the issue to get you thinking. There seems to be two key ways this corporate historic guilt is dealt with…

  1. The Conservative approach

The first way is not very popular at the moment; it involves trying to rewrite the damages done in the past in the most positive ways possible. The argument always follows a sort of, “Yes we did that, but look at this good that came out of it” sort of line. While this conservative approach does highlight some unpopular points that you could do well to take note of, it doesn’t actually deal with the guilt. If you had to narrow it down, their argument would sound like this, “Yes I know I raped 20 women, but I gave half of those women children that will look after them in their older years, plus I improved their standard of living by taking them to a fancy hotel. – I acknowledge that it probably wasn’t the best thing to do”. Crude but true.

The conservative approach mistakenly thinks that if you acknowledge you are bad, and can also see enough good in what you do then you are okay. You are absolved. The good scale outweighs the bad scale. But this approach fails to see the true evilness of evil. They are applying on a large scale a standard they would not apply in a criminal court.

  1. The Liberal Approach

On the other hand, the far more popular view due to its apparent virtue, is the ‘liberal’ approach to white guilt . This approach can be summed up well in the words of French philosopher Pascal Bruckner “Nothing is more western than hatred of the west[i]“. This hatred manifests itself in many ways. One is religion: as one author, Christian Lander puts it, “White people will often say they are ‘spiritual’ but not religious. This means that they will believe in any religion that doesn’t involve Jesus[ii]”. Because Christianity has in some form been dominant in the West in recent history, this generation closely associates it with the violence and sin of the previous generations; so in order to somehow get away from the guilt, they throw out anything associated with it. Perhaps one could say that if white people do accept some version of Christianity it has a Jesus who basically only said the same stuff as Ghandi. Another way to express separation of one’s self from the west is through choices of friends. Lander generalises but hits the nail on the head when he writes, “… White people love having black friends. They serve many valuable functions. The most important role…. Is that they can be used as physical evidence that white people are not racist[iii]“.  Or consider a third option in recreation. Even though yoga started in India, it is now a main past time of many rich whites. Lander continues, “…Yoga feels exotic and foreign. …deep down, white people feel that their participation makes up for years of colonial rule in India.[iv]” Through these somewhat caricatured and satirical images a bigger picture begins to emerge.

imagesWhat constitutes something as good? For example, what is a good movie? Any movie so long as Eastern, African or  anything but western wisdom  is seen as profound and deep; where the native of a foreign land nobly sacrifices him/herself in defiance of the corporate destructive western machine. The only good whites are the ones that immerse themselves in the native culture and abandon their own culture (Avatar? Dancing with Wolves? Pocahontas? The Last Samurai?).

Che Guevara (though he would have killed the majority of whites who wear his shirt) was ‘cool’. Though essentially he was as tolerant of other cultures and nationalities as Hitler, but fortunately less successful in slaughtering large groups of people. He was not white, so he must be right.

Here in South Africa this is demonstrated in much the same way, but with the comparatively recent apartheid regime fresh in people’s minds. However, Steve Biko the anti-apartheid activist, pointed out that the liberal approach to dealing with white guilt just ‘provides vague satisfaction for the guilty-stricken whites.[v]”

In fact I am rather sure that much of what is being said in the emergent church movement regarding hell, and the exclusivity of Christ, can be traced back to a motivation  of white guilt (after all, for all their talk of diversity, the emergent ‘leaders’ and movers/shakers are streaming out of one little niche demographic i.e. White, middle to upper-class, current/ex/transitory techno-nerd.) This guilt manifests itself, because the ideas of hell and the exclusivity of Christ has an exterior that looks just as intolerant and arrogant as the way whites have behaved in much of their destructive patterns in the world. I say exterior, because I believe it is only a very superficial understanding of the Christian gospel that leads to this view.

Without going into a full diatribe and investigation on the liberal approach to dealing with guilt, you can see something of it. Here the approach to dealing with guilt is to again, perform some good works; look at how tolerant I have become; look at how accepting I am. These good works necessarily lead to ‘a new kind of arrogance’, “thank you God that I am not like those Pharisees over there; I am so loving. They are so judgemental and bigoted”.

The aim is also selfish. If we do something because it is the cool/in/popular/tolerant/conscience appeasing thing to do we are still living a self-centred life. You are living with yourself as the centre of the universe, with your culture as the centre of the universe. Everything from global warming to an ethnic uprising in Central Africa is ‘white fault’. And the more we bathe in the blame, the more we place our ethnic group in the centre of the world. Everything happens or occurs because of our group. Not only are we the soul arbiters of evil, but we think pointing it out and creating awareness’ absolves us of the wrong that’s been done[vi].

The problem with both approaches is that they are motivated by guilt in the first place. We try  to do some good things, but with the wrong motivation. We create idols to appease our guilt; we serve tolerance, freedom, and individuality blindly. Or we are a slave to nationalism, tradition and morality.

How can I love the good in my own culture without feeling bad and yet still rejoice in the image of God in another culture? How can I acknowledge the guilt of my forbears and yet still see that this doesn’t let others off the hook for the wrongs they commit? How can I in a balanced way call out the sins of the west and rejoice in the goods that it has done without trying to justify the wrongs it has done?  Or lets be real for a  moment, How can I talk to a black person or any other race that is not mine, befriend him/her and take an interest in their culture, without feeling superior to those whites who don’t take the time to do it, without being filled with pride at my “enlightened and progressive” way of thinking?

The answer must be to see that this collective guilt is actually just a manifestation of an actual guilt that all humans feel to some degree for having broken God’s law. We are an unclean people in the midst of an unclean world. In all our strivings, even those that are goodsoldiercross we merely plunge ourselves deeper into pride and selfishness. Its only when you realise that Christ was oppressed by the mighty, that he was downtrodden by the influential, and that he cried out to the Father, “Forgive them for they know not what they do” and that very night the same Roman soldier who plunged the killing spear of oppression and organised systemic oppression into Christ’s side, was saved and forgiven. He was never the same again.

Now when the Roman Soldier, who not only comes from a people group who had been oppressive, but was one of the agents of that oppression, saw someone from the subjugated ethnic group, he would not take money from him by force or accuse that person falsely (as John the Baptist commands repentant soldiers). This is because he did cling to his ‘guilt’ of having been an oppressor. Instead he saw in the oppressed the image of the God who gave him life. He realizes that he as an individual is far more evil in his heart than he ever dared believe, but far more loved than he ever dared imagine. He loves for loves sake, because he has been shown love.

[i] The Tyranny of Guilt. Pg 33

[ii] Stuff White People Like. Pg 4

[iii] ibid, pg 15

[iv] Ibid pg 17

[v] I Write What I like. Pg 23

[vi] Stuff White People Like. Pg 21

28 Mar

Relevance and Anti-Relevance

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Religion, Worship. Tagged: , , , .

ImageI recently read an article addressing the apparent exodus of young people from churches. Of the ten reasons the author gave one of them stood out as an ironic danger. “The church is ‘Relevant’”. The author rightly ridiculed the attempts of churches to package things as ‘cool’. Truth be told when churches try to be cool they often come across as cheesy instead. Skinny jeans and lattes are not going trick people into thinking the gospel is cool. On that note that article made an obvious point. On the other hand if you say ‘a pastor must not wear skinny jeans’ or ‘must wear a tie’ you have lost me completely. The externals are not the issue, the principles are.

There is danger that runs next to this ‘Relevance’; I’d like to call it ‘Post-relevance’. That is adopting a ‘means’ or ‘way’ that was relevant during the 1700-1800′s and assuming that it Imageis the right way to communicate truth today. We could say this  is the mindset of the traditionalist  over and against that of the progressivist. One is trying to be ‘grand’  (old word for cool) to an audience that  is no longer around, the other wants to be cool to the audience  that is around, but they just can’t hack it.

As far as I can see traditionalists are motivated by two things. One being fear, fear that others in my conservative and traditional circles will judge and reject me; I mean surly if they see me doing something beneath my ‘class’ to communicate with the riff-raff. This fear of man is renamed ‘fear of God’, because we all know God only likes 19th century British and Dutch culture right? Flip the coin over and we see not fear but cultural superiority. He doesn’t wear a tie, how can anyone take him seriously. It’s the assumption that a single moment in a single cultures history is the most excellent expression of Christian values for the whole world in every time. Now I am not saying that they were not expressing those values well, nor am I saying that we cannot learn from them. I am saying that Scripture and not that previous momentary expression of the truths of Scripture should be our rule.

 Image

As for the ‘progressivists’, we see a similar thing. There is a fear of becoming ‘unliked’ and thought of as regressive that drives much of the cheese. A fear of what people in the culture will think about us; which is cleverly renamed as ‘care’. Oh  we only  care about the  lost and so we want them to see how fun and  cool it  is to be a Christian; how in  touch with them we are- maybe if they see that we are cool, they will think Christianity is cool. This also manifests in a certain pride,  that looks  down on the traditionalists as regressive- it breaks unity in many churches and often caters only to one generation, because its only twenty and thirty something’s that need the gospel right. The whole idea of Christ breaking down  boundaries is foreign here, unless it means doing a short term missions trip… to the beach…  where we spend some time with  another generation, culture and class so they can  have one week  of hip and happening Christians among them. In churches it means that we don’t care about communicating  the gospel to anyone but western, middle to upper class, yuppies.

What do we see when we look at Christ? One who though He was rich, for our sake became poor. Who did not consider equality with God as something to be held onto but humbled himself and took the form of a servant. One who apparently had children and adults come to hear him speak, in the same setting. One who spoke to an agrarian society using pictures from the agrarian world,  or to students of the law using texts from the law. One Who had to be with people and bear with people that they might understand the truth; that the truth is a person.

The answer is not ‘wear skinny jeans when you  preach’, nor is it wear a tie when you preach. The answer is ‘how can I preach is such a way that I remove as many obstacles as I can from these people seeing Christ’. How can we sing in such a way that pressures the traditionalists to not  make an idol out of  an  era or  the progressivists not to make an idol out of a niche subculture. How are they missing Christ by not seeing Him as a Christ that offends every culture and yet is the deepest answer to every culture’s aspiration?

Perhaps a safer word that relevant is contextualize. Because unless you embark on some kind of generation colonialism (that works for both sides by the way) the only other alternative is to relate the solid unchangeable truth of Scripture in a way that the entire spectrum of the contemporary audience will be able to clearly see Christ. It will be loving people too much to care what they think about you and loving Christ so much that you will share Him in the clearest way possible.

6 Oct

3 Atheists and Religion

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

I think it is absolutely critical not to resist the critics of religion. Smart people hate religion, sensitive people hate religion, and instead of merely dismissing them we should listen to them. The reason we should listen to the critic is because Jesus Christ Himself in the Bible deconstructed religion savagely, repeatedly, relentlessly, but he had a different motivation then a lot of people today. This is why for Christians it is important to listen to the critics of religion, otherwise you might lapse into religion and miss what Jesus called His faith. Non-believers need to listen to the critics so that they can distinguish between religion and the message of Jesus.

Critic number 1: Freud

Freud saw how children related to parents and he correlated it to religion. Basically he concluded that religious people create a God that they can placate, to justify the way they live. People do things wrong deliberately, they live how they want; and then go to an angry God for punishment so that their consciences are appeased of the guilt. I’m sure we can think of more than one movie where this kind of thing is typified: The Godfather, Boondocks Saints, etc. People do wicked acts and then become self-righteous and ‘right’ with God. They are using this method with “a punishing made-up God” and therefore religion becomes psychological self-justification. This results in smugness and self-righteousness. Freud believed that God didn’t create people, people created God, so they could placate him and buy him, and thus have a decent self esteem.

Critic Number 2: Marx

While Freud saw religion as psychological self-justification, Marx saw religion as sociological self-justification (though Marx did not refute Freud). Marx’s famous quote, “Religion is the opiate of the masses” needs some explaining however. At the time of Marx, opium was a pain-killer, not a recreational drug. The poor and the oppressed could ease the pain of their suffering by looking forwards to a better afterlife. But the problem is that doing this reduces the revolutionary impulse. It reduces their desire to have justice right now, on this earth. Thus religion is “a way for the rich and powerful to secure their hold on their wealth and power”. People supposedly use religion to justify their own imperialism: our race, our nationality has the truth and everyone else is a barbarian, and so we can exploit them, we can enslave them. Religion is a way to sociologically exclude, “we are righteous and you are not” and it’s a way to pacify the suffering, “God will bless you in the next life if you suffer now.”

Enter Critic 3: Nietzsche

Nietzsche went even farther than Marx and Freud. He said that all claims to truth are just power plays. Marx and Freud just used their critiques to create other movements that put themselves in power. Socialism didn’t liberate the masses; it just created a new revolution with a new set of rulers. Nietzsche pointed out the problem like this: religious people say that the problem of the world is secular people- they have no values and they are destroying the fabric of society. Secular people are just the opposite. They say that the problem of the world is religious people- they are bigoted and intolerant and keeping people down and destroying the fabric of society. But both groups share the same belief that they are the good guys and the other side is the bad guys. Nietzsche brought in what is called the ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’. He saw Marx call for justice and asked, “Ok, but why do you want justice? Are you motivated by justice?” Look at communism… hard not to see that whenever people who called for revolution get in power they just set up their own dictators, another group who has money, power and influence. Marx said that religion in the rich is basically people trying to accrue power; Nietzsche says that religion in anyone is just them trying to get power. Any moral statement, and truth claim is just a power trip.

Very powerful. Religion is using God to accrue power through your own performance and the result is self-righteousness and or anxiety, social exclusion and a general power trip. These critiques are excellent. I don’t want them to go away. I want everyone everywhere to see religion for what it is, and these men have done a good job of forcing it into the faces of the contemporary world. Butthese critiques get us stuck!

When you read the New Testament we read about the Pharisees (religious leaders of the time). Jesus said to them, “You tithe mint and cumin, [you go to church and you follow all the laws] and you devour widows houses” (Mark 12:40). That’s our idea of a religious person: someone who goes to church all the time, who reads the Bible all the time, but they use their power and position to abuse and control. But there is something scary about the sweet middle-class nice people. Imagine a middle-aged white lady who doesn’t understand racists; she is so glad she doesn’t treat black people badly, even though “they are so lazy”- she is always kind to them. She can’t fathom why that little boy from a poor area is naughty, if she were his mother he would be well behaved. She cannot grasp why the floor at the doctor’s office is dirty, if she ran the place it would be cleaned every few hours. And suddenly we start to see the power trip. Self-righteousness, exclusion and power.

How the critiques get us stuck is that all the critiques critique themselves. Freud says people use religion to justify their bad behaviour, but why Freud, did you ask the question of religion in the first place? It was when he realized that he had these deep desires that he held down for so long and never expressed, but now that there is no God, and religion is not true I don’t have to suppress my desires anymore…. that’s also self-justification. People have psychological reasons for believing in God, but they have even more psychological reasons for denying God.

Here is the point, Freud’s critique of religion actually critiques his own anti-belief view of life. If it’s really true that to say, “there is a God” is a way to justify your behaviour, how much more is saying, “there is no God” a way to justify one’s behaviour.

Nietzsche says “any truth claim is a power trip. Any truth claim is socially constructed by your group. Any group that says this is what the truth is, is just trying to get my group under their thumb.” But here is the problem… There is no greater power trip than to say, any truth claim is a power trip, but mine! (He is making a truth claim himself).

“Oh, everyone is bigoted… except me. Everyone is trying to control… except me.” Its just another power trip, another way to feel superior to ‘the others’. It falls victim to the very same thing religion does.

This is what is interesting. Jesus Christ is the most anti-religious person, the most anti-religious founder of any religion ever. Everything Marx said, is not only in the prophets of Amos and Isaiah- they say “if there is a God who you use to oppress the poor it’s not a true God”. But Jesus turns right around and when they ask if he is the true messiah he says to John the Baptist’s disciples to go tell John the Baptist what they see, “the poor have good news preached to them”. He says to the Pharisees, “You tithe and pray but devour widows houses”. Freud’s view shows self-justification- basically you are trying to buy God off… but in reality that’s everything the Bible says too! Jesus says “God can buy you but you can never buy Him” This is because you can’t placate God with your own works. If you believed, as religious people do, that by giving  money, doing good deeds, and every so often repenting and doing all the rig morals that God will accept me.  In every single situation in the Bible, where Jesus Christ comes up against someone like that, he just cuts them down. You cannot justify yourself. Remember the story where he slams the rich young ruler who asked, “what must I do to be saved”, and Jesus said, “love the Lord your God and your neighbour as yourself”, and he says,” but I do that”, he tries to justify himself (Mark 10:17-27). Jesus told that parable of the good Samaritan. Jesus Christ is the most unreligious, anti-religious teacher of religion of all. The word religion almost never shows up in the Bible unless negatively or ironically like in the last verse of James 1 (“Pure and undefiled religion is to visit the orphan and widow in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world”)

It’s ironic because Jesus showed how religious people use their religion to exclude people. People believe they are saved by their works, they believe they are saved by good deeds, and so they are not really serving God they are controlling God. Its’ a power trip. “By my power performance I make God let me into heaven, he has to do it.”

But Jesus came and said, “I am God, who became weak! And I came down to earth to die. Christianity is the only ‘religion’ that even claims that our God came to earth to be abused, that our God came to earth and was trampled on by the powerful, No one even comes close to that. Christianity says that at the heart of our religion at the heart of the narrative of the gospel God became weak so that you could be saved, and now once you see that, you can’t buy God off, you gladly owe him everything and you now live a life of sacrificial service to other people.

Readers, I can’t go any further than that today, but I hope that as you continue searching you might see how Jesus frees us from the pride and fear of both religion and irreligion.

16 Jul

Conversations on Covenantalism: What is it?

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Doctrine, Religion. Tagged: , , .

This is the second post in a little series I hope to be doing on the topic of Covenant Theology. If you have not read the first post which compares Covenant theology and dispensationalism then click here to read it.  Today we ask, what is Covenantalism/Covenant Theology. Covenant Theology focuses on one overall major covenant known as the Covenant of Redemption. This is an eternal covenant between the members of the Godhead… The Father chose a people to be His own; the Son paid the penalty for their sin; and the Holy Spirit applied the work of the Son to His Chosen People.

This Covenant of Redemption or Grace is being worked out on earth through history in subordinate covenants beginning with the Covenant of Works and culminating in the New Covenant which completes God’s work of grace to man on earth.

As God works out His Covenant of grace the following are included:

  1. The Covenant of Works                         
  2. The Adamic Covenant
  3. The Noahic Covenant
  4. The Arbahamic Covenant
  5. The Mosaic Covenant
  6. The Davidic Covenant
  7. The New Covenant

Unlike dispensationalism, Covenant Theology does not see each covenant as separate and distinct. What I am trying to say is that in Covenant Theology’s division of God’s action in history, he does not work through one covenant, end it, and then move to another covenant (or division). Rather each covenant builds on top of the previous covenant and includes some aspects of the previous ones.  All these covenants eventually culminate in the New Covenant. If you will, ‘Covenant Theology’ is much like the development of the character batman… since the beginning of the Batman in 1939 till today; some things have changed in the character of Batman. At the same time much has stayed the same and just progressed to become what we appreciate as the defender of justice in Gotham. You would notice though that he is the same hero- a detective who knows how to fight. He has always had a Batmobile, it is just more developed now; etc. In the same way what one needs to grasp of about ‘Covenantalism’ is that each Covenant builds on the previous one, and now culminates in the New Covenant.

So with all this talk about a Covenant, what is it? The usual idea of a covenant is that it is a mutual agreement between parties or persons, whereby each agrees to render some benefit to the other. Think of a marriage Covanent and all the formality around it. While a Biblical covenant has some of these characteristics this definition lacks depth in describing in detail a Biblical Covenant. For example when speaking about a covenant between God and man we have to acknowledge that such a covenant is not one between equal parties. Rather God as the greater is the author and initiator of the covenant, while man as the sinner is the responder and benefactor of God’s grace in granting a covenant.

One theologian, Palmer Robertson defines a Biblical Covenant as ‘a soverignly administered bond-in-blood which relates God and man in a life and death relationship’. The word ‘bond’ speaks of the commitment of people one to another as God and man relate and commit themselves to one another in covenant. The phrase ‘bond-in-blood’ speaks to the ultimacy and seriousness of the Covenant between the two parties. The phrase ‘sovereignly administered’ speaks of a covenant as being superintended by God and not by man, since the covenant is initiated by God. The terms are set by God, and man is not a negotiator in the arrangement but the recipient of God’s goodness and grace.

Next week we will quickly survey the Covenants briefly. We will also show why the differences between Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology are so important. This will hopefully give you a better appreciation of why issues like ‘The Lord’s Day’, ‘End Times’, ‘children’, Israel as a nation’, and ‘cultural engagement’ have become areas of contention since the advent of Dispensationalism in the 1830’s.

8 Jul

Conversations on Covenantalism: The Introduction

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Doctrine, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , .

The issue of covenantalism and dispensationalism, may strike you in one of two ways. Either it sounds like a load of Christianese that is better left to the theologians… or you think that it’s just another divisive topic best avoided.  Truth be told, it easier to sneak up on a Kryptonian than to get to the bottom of this issue (not that hard on a planet without a yellow sun).

My hope in this post, and the posts I hope will follow, is to explain what a ‘Covenantalist’ is, why I am one, and then explore some of the implications that I feel are undeveloped with regards to a Baptist understanding of the Covenant. It’s important to start off with a quick disclaimer: I don’t know everything about the subject; I came to a Covenantal position after many years of being a dispensationalist, and after 9 months of wrestling with the two issues. What adds to the difficult of the issue is the fact that there are godly, far smarter men than me on both sides of the issue so it feels worse than Sofie’s choice.

Fortunately my goal in the coming posts is not to trash dispensationalism, but rather to show the consistency that covenantalism has with Scripture…. ok Tyrell, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about?! Well, that’s what I want to do in this first post. Today I want you to leave with a simple explanation of these two positions, just so that you know what’s going on in the weeks to come… So in the words of Gandalf, “It’s the deep breath before the plunge.”

Dispensationalism and Covenantalism offer to different understanding on how to understand the structure of the Bible… two different approaches for grasping the way the story of Scripture looks. One way of understand that there can be two different views is to think of the two ways of understand the Holocaust, for you history buffs its similar to the distinction between the functionalists and intentionalists (if that doesn’t help you, then I guess you have some googling to do).

Here is a Dispensationalist understanding of the structure of the Bible:

Some key understandings of a Dispy (affectionate term for… well Dispys)

  1. ‘Israel’ always means the literal, physical descendants of Jacob (ethnic Jews).
  2. ‘Israel of God’ in Galatians 6:16 means physical (national, ethnic) Israel alone.
  3. God has 2 peoples with 2 separate destinies: Israel (earthly) and the Church (heavenly).
  4. The Church was born at Pentecost after the Ascension of Christ.
  5. The Church was not prophesied as such in the OT but was a “mystery”, hidden until the NT.
  6. All OT prophecies for ‘Israel’ are for the physical nation of Israel (ethnic Jews), not the Church.
  7. The Church is a parenthesis in God’s program for the ages.
  8. The main heir to Abraham’s covenant was Isaac and literal Israel (ethnic Jews).
  9. God’s program in history is mainly through separate dispensations.
  10. God’s laws as given in the Old Testament are no longer in effect unless repeated in the New Testament.

Now here is a Covenantalist understanding of the Bible:

Some unique points for us ‘Covers’ (doesn’t have the same ring to it):

  1. Depending on the context, ‘Israel’ may mean either physical descendants of Jacob, or “spiritual Israel” (who are people with faith in Christ like Abraham).
  2. ‘Israel of God’ in Galatians 6:16 means spiritual Israel, parallel to Galatians 3:29; Romans 2:28-29; 9:6; Philippians 3:3.
  3. God always had only one people, the Church who gradually developed through the ages, in accordance with a Covenant worked out in eternity past between the “Three Persons of the Godhead.” (The Cov. of Redemption)
  4. The Church began in the Garden of Eden and grew in the Old Testament with the OT covenants and reached fulfillment in the New Testament with the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. God has one family, one church, one flock, one baptism, one way of salvation whether before the Cross or after – by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
  5. Recognizes that there are many OT prophecies of the NT Church, and that the NT writers also affirmed this fact (1 Peter 1:10-12; Acts 2:16-35; 3:22-25).
  6. Some OT prophecies are for national Israel, others for spiritual Israel based on context.
  7. God’s main purpose is His own glory, which is revealed in Christ and then through the Body of Christ – the New Covenant Church.
  8. The main heir to Abraham’s covenant was Christ, the Seed, and spiritual Israel which is “in Christ” (Galatians 3:16).  Thus all who have faith in Christ (are “in Christ”) are the participants in the Abrahamic Covenant.
  9. God’s program is history is mainly through related covenants, but all those covenants were derived from the eternal covenant that the Trinity made in eternity, the Covenant of Redemption.
  10. God’s moral laws are eternal and are thus in effect forever.  OT laws for the government of Israel and temple activity are interpreted through Christ since the inauguration of the New Covenant.

When it all comes down to it, the most powerful distinction between the two views boils down to how we interpret Scripture. Dispensationalists have many different ways of interpreting Scripture, from the hyper-symbolic to the hyper-literal; however the best of the Dispys claim to interpret Scripture using the historical-grammatical method, meaning basically that the grammer and the context should drive the meaning of any passage, in its own limited context. The Covanenalist while also following the Historical-grammatical method believes that ‘the Analogy of Faith’ is the over-riding rule to interpret the Bible. What that means is that the Bible is the best commentary on the Bible. If a New Testament author interprets a passage in a particular way; that is the correct interpretation of the Old Testament passage. This is consistent with the evangelical understanding of progressive revelation.

Important note: this is a brief characterisation of the two views… there is a middle road. As Dispensationalists have developed in their theology since the beginning of Dispensationalism in the 1800’s there has come a middle view known as ‘progressive Dispensationalism’, which is basically a slide to a more covenantal view. Time does not permit me to go into the entire thing suffice to say its a slide in the right direction J.

Hope that helps… Next week we begin the conversation concerning Covenantalism.

20 Feb

Thoughts on Age for Pastors and Everyone

Posted by tyrellh in Devotional, Personal, Reflections, Religion. Tagged: , , , , .

The other day my wife and I watched a particularly enjoyable film called ‘Midnight in Paris’. One major theme was the ubiquitous desire to live in another era- in the movie in question it was some past golden era. Similarly most of us have at some time or another felt that desire in a different way. If its summer, we complain it’s too hot, if it’s winter, we whine that it’s too cold, yet all these times have been given to us for a reason. I am also sure that you can relate to the desire to be a different age than you are. If you are on the older side of the ‘line’ you envy those who are younger, and if on the younger side, you envy those who are ‘older’.

I don’t think pastors are immune to this either, those on the younger side of the ‘line’ see its weaknesses (hopefully) and long for that remedy that age brings. Perhaps those on the ‘older’ side look at the capacity of the ‘younger’ to engage tirelessly is such a variety of activities.

I came across this scripture that speaks, I believe, to this issue, “The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendour of the old.” (Proverbs 20:29). I see in this,God’s encouragement that different phases of life brings with it different strengths. As a man on the younger side of the ‘line’ (whatever that means) I have energy levels, a “longer candle” now than I will have in the future… this is strength to glory in, as opposed to moping about because of my lack of gray hair. In the same way, when I do hit that ‘older side’ then my experience, wisdom and insight which should make for far more effective ministry will not be something to bemoan. I should not have envy in my heart at a hyper-active doing-everything younger pastor, but rejoice that God’s army has a variety of strengths.

What I have found to be helpful in my ‘strength’ phase  (rather than despising my  youthful flowing brown hair), is to rejoice in my ability to do much, and surround myself with as many who appropriate the lack of hair/grey hair to help guide me. We younglings must learn from the mistake of Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12, who ignored the advice of the older men and suffered for it. I try to make it a practice to surround myself with those older than me in the ministry and seek their counsel as often as I can.

Likewise, when I am ‘older’ I pray that I would learn from Moses’ father-in-law in Exodus 13. Moses the wise-old-one knew that his glory was his grey hair and not his strength anymore, thus he took his father-in-law’s advice and appointed helpers. Instead of decrying my lack of strength, I pray that when I am old I would surround myself with many young, strong and active soldiers for the kingdom; just maybe my grey hair will guide their action to more efficiency and usefulness.

Believer! Fellow pastor! Whoever! Rejoice in the glory of the time God has brought you to. Use the strengths of those in other stages to most resourcefully build the Kingdom that God Himself is building.

1 Dec

The Dalai Lama, the Pope and Teresa of Calcutta Walk into a Consuming Fire

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Devotional, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

It’s not just the Dalai Lama that people think is holy; many people think the Pope is holy or surly Teresa of Calcutta. It’s not just the funny outfits either, if we changed the word from holy to good, there are many who would look around in their society and say that this or that person is ‘good’. Then the Bible comes along and says, “There is none good, no not one” (Romans 3:12). In fact, every religion excluding evangelical Christianity affirms the inherent goodness of man. Why is it so?

Calvin in his institutes gives a hint, he said, “For, since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself[i]”. He goes on to give this illuminating illustration, “… anything which is in some small degree less defiled delights us as if it were most pure: just as an eye, to which nothing but black had been previously presented, deems an object of a whitish, or even of a brownish hue, to be perfectly white[ii]”.

The issue is really what you use to make a comparison. Paul wrote “For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.” (2 Corinthians 10:12).

The place to begin to understand humankind, to understand your own heart is not by looking at yourself, or even others, but is to start with the one Who is too pure to behold evil, to begin with the One who will judge every wicked and evil thought, that same One with Whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. The ‘holiest’ of men on earth would not dare raise their head in the presence of the most Holy God.

So if you would take the advice of the famous philosopher Socrates and, “Know thyself”, you must invariably begin with knowing the God who is; the God who has spoken in these last days through His Son, Jesus Christ, and Who Himself is God.

[i] The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 1, Paragraph 2.

[ii] ibid

15 Oct

Surviving Zombieland! Part I

Posted by tyrellh in Christianity, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

She walked silently into her room… sat down and opened the ruffled pages of her Bible. She could hear the drunken cries coming from outside. Would her friends understand why she didn’t join them? Why she didn’t party the way she used to?

Or consider the following rewrite: She walked silently into her room. Sat down and opened a tin of beans from her food supply. She could hear the terrifying groans coming from outside. What would happen if the zombies found her, now that she’s alive?

Popular culture is fascinated with the idea of the zombie, some call them undead, others the walking dead, whatever your term of endearment these creatures of fiction are both gross and frightening.  Most films that depict them are apocalyptic films, that is films that depict the demise of civilisation with the onset of a zombie apocalypse; where a bite turns you from human to a crazed, flesh eating, and mindless zombie.

Now you may be asking the question, who on earth is Tyrell writing about zombies. Well I hope my opening paragraph gave you a hint. God’s Word basically teaches that we live in a zombie land! Ephesians 2:1 says that people are DEAD in trespasses and sin.  1 Corinthians 2:14 tell us that a man cannot naturally understand the things of God. Romans 3:11 describes unsaved man as without understanding, a verse later he is described at utterly useless. In verse 13 the zombie talk gets even more graphic, “their throat is an open grave… the poison of asps is under their lips”…. or consider verse 15-16, “Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths,”

Contrary to popular though, zombies are not something to fear in some future apocalypse, they are here right now, in fact, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ you used to be a spiritual zombie, but you got the cure (they never seem to find a cure in the movies). Zombie serve as a great illustration of the doctrine of ‘Total depravity’ also called ‘Radical Depravity’ (we could call this doctrine’ Spiritual Zombiefication’). The Canons of Dort in its third head of doctrine under the first article describes this doctrine:

Man was originally created in the image of God and was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of his Creator and things spiritual, in his will and heart with righteousness, and in all his emotions with purity; indeed, the whole man was holy. However, rebelling against God at the devil’s instigation and by his own free will, he deprived himself of these outstanding gifts. Rather, in their place he brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in his mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will; and finally impurity in all his emotions.

Zombies of science fiction if they existed could only destroy the body, but God is the one who can destroy both the body and soul in hell. Being a spiritual zombie is a far worse state to be in than a physical zombie.

One final proof from Scripture of this doctrine of Spiritual Zombiefication, John 8:34, Romans 6:6, 16-20 describe unregenerate man as a slave of sin. That is all people can do is sin, they are a slave to it, it is their master. In the same way sci-fi zombies are a slave to their desires for brains (not intellect, but food).

In the next few posts I hope to expand on this comparison, and look at the implications of this doctrine

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