Christmas Reflections (Scripture)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This will be my last post for 2024 and the next post will be circa mid January 2025 so the little grey blogging cells have a chance at a recharge. I have updated this post a little to reflect concerns raised in the comments about inaccurate, even heretical thinking. I have used italics to indicate the updates

Continuing one theme this year past (and other years), What is going on in the gospels?, especially as we try to make sense of the differences between the gospels, and the significant difference between the Synoptic Gospels and John's Gospel, I have a few thoughts about "Christmas" and the gospels.

For instance, if we think about what is essential to all four gospels and what is not, then we see that across all four gospels it seems essential to the shared core gospel narrative, that John the Baptist features, there are miracles, there is teaching by Jesus, there is recognition of Jesus being the Son of God, there is building conflict between Jesus and Jerusalem-based religious authorities, one part of this conflict involves an incident in the Temple in which Jesus' upsets economic activity there, a plan is hatched to do away with Jesus, Judas is drawn into the plan, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, placed on trial, Peter denies knowing Jesus, Jesus is committed to being crucified, he is crucified, dead, buried by Joseph of Arimathea, and rises again on the day after the Sabbath which follows the day of crucifixion.

What is not essential is a narrative about the conception, birth and infancy of Jesus: Mark has none, nor does John.

What unites the gospel writers is that Jesus has an origin: Mark locates Jesus' origin in the prophetic scriptures of ancient Israel, and comfortably reports him described as "the Son of David." Behind the Markan Jesus is Israel's history fuelled prophecies, that a new David would come to Israel. Matthew locates Jesus' origin in genealogical terms (descended from Abraham) and spiritual action (conceived by the Holy Spirit), with numerous prophecies fulfilled in his birth, infancy and adult mission. Luke locates Jesus' origin in spiritual action-come-angelic announcement (conceived by the Holy Spirit, connected to a miracle overcoming barrenness in a relative who will be the mother of John the Baptist), connects him genealogically further back than Abraham, to Adam the son of God, while also locating Jesus into the prophetic tradition of Israel, his active role in Israel's life fulfilling ancient prophecies about the restoration of Israel.

John whizzes past David, Abraham and Adam to locate Jesus' origin in the very being of God: Jesus is the Word through whom the world is created, the Word become human flesh, the revelator of God who comes into the world from the very heart of God.

If Matthew and Luke tell a narrative in which Mary is the mother of Jesus and God the Holy Spirit is the agent by whom Jesus is conceived of a human mother without a human father, then John tells a narrative which invites us into the intimacy of Jesus God's Son with God Jesus' Father. Put another way, Matthew and Luke open up the question, What does it mean that God is Jesus' Father and Jesus is God's Son?, and barely offer an answer. John takes up the question and provides a full answer to it.

Yet, not to neglect Mark, if Mark is the earliest gospel, then Mark presents the reader with Jesus doing God-in-action things: forgiving sins, healing people, delivering demons, feeding multitudes, ruling nature. Matthew and Luke also present Jesus in this way, but develop Jesus the teacher imparting wisdom, law, announcement of Good News. John takes up what all three propose and develops their proposals: In Jesus God is present in the world, through divine actions of Jesus God offers life for the world, what Jesus says and does is a full and complete revelation of God. To see Jesus is to see God; to seek God, you should meet Jesus because only in Jesus is the fullest representation of God to be found in the context of human history.

Essential to the Gospels, all four, is encounter with Jesus is the means to eternal/abundant life.

End of the Communion as It Always Should Be or Necessary New Chapter In Its History?

Call me old-fashioned but I am pretty keen on the notion that an Anglican is someone who is in communion with the See of Canterbury.

It is not a bad notion, by the way, for diplomatically distinguishing Anglicans from Anglicans: if many people describe themselves as Anglican (or Episcopalian), what kind of Anglican they are can reasonably turn on whether they are in communion with the See of Canterbury. On this definition, for example, ACNA is not in communion with the See of Canterbury and, so, accordingly, not a member church of the Anglican Communion. But on this definition we also do not need to get stuck on whether members of ACNA are Anglicans or not: they are but they are not Anglicans in the Anglican Communion.

Nevertheless I am but a tiny voice, a long way away from Canterbury and my notions amount to nothing much at all when pressure is on the Communion with various actual member churches of the Communion raising questions about whether they can be in full communion with the See of Canterbury, given that See's current association with polity in the CofE is at odds with the polity of many member churches. Further, there is an increasing sense that the holder of this See, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is simply unable as one single human being to do justice to all demands made on her or him, from within the CofE, in respect of social/political expectations in the nation of the United Kingdom, supporting the Royal Family, leaning into significant ecumenical relationships and leading the Anglican Communion through actual travel to provinces of the Communion and to its various conferences and councils. There is also the question of whether Communion expectations (in a majority) that the Archbishop be a man unfairly presses the CofE to not consider any of its women as serious candidates for the role. (To be clear, notwithstanding my keeness expressed above, I am enitrely sympathetic to all these concerns.)

In response to these kinds of concerns, IASCUFO has been doing a bit of thinking about a new way forward, in respect of what "communion" means for Anglicans of the Anglican Communion and in respect of what the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury might be if it were to be changed.

See further here on the Anglican Communion website.

The "money" proposals are these:

• Proposal 1 – Updating the definition of the Anglican Communion 

  The first proposal offers an updated statement (for the first time since 1930) of the nature and status of the Anglican Communion, a statement that reflects the “maturing of the 42 sister churches of the Communion.” 
  
  The proposed hopeful description states that (1) the churches of the Communion seek to uphold and propagate the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order, as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer; (2) they are properly autonomous, rooted in their various localities; and (3) they remain bound together in four respects: “through their shared inheritance, mutual service, common counsel in conference, and historic connection with the See of Canterbury.” The latter four characteristics “capture the present reality and ideals of the churches of the Communion, by which they seek to foster the highest degree of communion” with one another and with all churches and communities of the Universal Church.

• Proposal 2 – Broadening how the meetings of the Instruments of the Communion are led 

  The second proposal suggests broadening how the meetings of the Instruments of Communion are called, convened, chaired, and presided over, in order to diversify the face of the Instruments of Communion. 

  This includes “a rotating presidency of the Anglican Consultative Council between the five regions of the Communion, elected from the membership of the Primates’ Meeting by the same; and an enhanced role for the Primates’ Standing Committee in the calling and convening of both Primates’ Meetings and the Lambeth Conference.” These suggestions “fit with the identity and ideals of the Anglican Communion in a post-colonial era. The leadership of the Communion should look like the Communion.” 

There is a bit or even a lot to think about here!

Does, for example, "historic connection" cut it as a way through the maze of considerations about "communion" when some wish to not be in "full" communion with Canterbury?

Is the only way for the leadership of the Communion to look like the Communion a "rotating presidency"? Surely this could also be met by, say, the Archbishop being chosen from around the Communion (perhaps with York chosen within the CofE to be more of a national Anglican voice within the UK society and parliament?)?

Thoughts?

An Observation in Advent

I mentioned something in my sermon this morning for Advent 1, in relation to the strong sense in the gospel reading, Luke 21:25-26, that before Christ's Return, there will be significant convulsions in the world, including in the sea (climate change?). The last aspect being a feature unique to Luke's account of Jesus' end-time predictions.

That something is the curious feature of today's world that despite its many convulsions - wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, threat of war in the Asia-Pacific region - there seems to be very little interest in the Christian world about interpreting these signs as signs of the time of the End.

This is a marked contrast to my youth - well a period roughly the 1970s and 80s - when the Bible was scoured for texts relating to then contemporary events, especially in relation to Israel (the re-establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, wars in 1967 and 1973), formation of the EEC with ten nations (predicted, it was argued in the Book of Revelation), expansion of the role of the UN as a prelude to a to-be-feared "one world government," and so forth. The interest of Russia in the Middle East was - naturally! - Gog and Magog of ancient scriptures forecasting invasion from the north. In 1980 I heard a Kiwi, Barry Smith, speak at Canterbury University, billed as "the world's leading prognosticator". I don't recall anything about what he said, save one focus was on the coming (or even, already present in hidden form) one world government which would require us all to have a personalised identity number - the mark of the beast! 

Today's gospel text includes reference to these kinds of things taking place before "this generation" passed away - always a difficult text - but back in those days I recall a linkage to the re-formation of Israel in 1948: was one further generation 25 years on (note the Israel-Egypt war in 1973 = 1948 + 25) or 40 years on (note that the end of the world in the 1970s and early 1980s would be therefore before 1988 = 1948 +40).

In 1983 I had the opportunity to visit Israel and recall meeting an American Christian man in Jerusalem. On asking him what he was doing there, he replied that he was waiting for the Messiah to come. On some of the interpretations alluded to above, a perfectly reasonable idea. But some 40 years on from that visit, I occasionally wonder if he is still there ... waiting!

Anyway, with those days in my memory, it is remarkable that today, despite the huge focus on Israel at war through this past year and a bit, with new technology connecting us all into "one world", a once again expansionist Russia and the threat of rising seas and destructive high tides, I am unaware of any end-time anxiety like once featured in Christian discourse.

Or, have I missed something?

PS On just about any way of reading the writings of the 1970s and 80s on end time speculations, if a Trump figure had been foreseen, I reckon he would have fitted in well, in the thinking of that day, as the dragon/beast/antiChrist, especially with his tendency to deceive "even the elect." But that is not how Trump figures in the Christian mythology of today for many Christians!

Trump and Johannine Literature (2)

"Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people" (Proverbs 28:15 NRSV)

At the bottom of this post, a few more remarks re the CofE situation may be found. 

Trump. What are we going to do about this man (ditto Putin, Xi, etc)? Trump's weakness as a leader (already known from his first Presidency, 2016-2020) is poverty of wisdom. This has already been displayed in his proposals for key offices of state. One has already fallen on his sword, Matt Gaetz. Another is very alarming not only for the health of the USA but also the world: Robert F. Kennedy Jnr seems ideal if you are against vaccinations and if you are for vaccinations then ... well, let me not say words unbecoming to such a fine blog as this one!

Something I have been pondering about what I consider to be the utter madness of Trump being re-elected to be President of the USA is what light the Bible might shed on this moment in US and global history.

I have been drawn - somewhat expectedly - to the Book of Revelation in my pondering.

To be clear, I do not see Trump specifically identifiable as a figure within that book (e.g.) the beast or the dragon. Nor do I see the USA as identifiable with, say, Babylon - though the USA has features (and has had them for a long time) in respect of trade which resonate with the fallen city of later chapters in Revelation.

Funnily enough, reading Daniel 5, the story of the fall of Belshazzar, for a sermon yesterday (Christ the King Evensong lectionary reading), I realise there is something of a closer fit between Belshazzar and Trump (focusing on hubris, not on imminent removal and replacement) than between Trump and any figure in Revelation.

No, my pondering has yielded this thought - set of thoughts. In Revelation there is (literally) revelation or disclosure of what is hidden from usual sight. Through John the seer, we, readers, see that behind the appearance of normal life (civic authorities making decisions about sacred life, wars and threats of wars, other kinds of disaster, commercial life driven by a dominant commercial power) there may lurk the most monstrous evil, including the spilling over onto earth the heavenly warfare between the angels and demons). Now, we can argue (as Christians have done) over whether Revelation (and similar apocalypses/disclosures such as Daniel) are an insight into life "all the time/all through time", or some of the time, or just at the end of time. 

Nevertheless we can note that Daniel seems to arise from the particular pressure on Israel of the Greek Empire, especially under the rule in that region of Antiochus Epiphanes, and Revelation seems to have been generated by a real fear of imminent (or, possibly, actual) persecution, with the horror of Neronian persecution in the background, from some 30+ years earlier. And, further, interest by Christians through the centuries in Revelation (and Daniel etc) has been sparked periodically by extreme conditions of life. Is it possible that Daniel and Revelation are not guides to everyday life (albeit evil lurks everywhere) but to specific, but recurring periods in history?

Furthermore, might this era be one such period, the hint being given by the evil we can see in the world today, including the unholy character of Trump (let's never forget he is a convicted felon, etc) and of the people he surrounds himself with or wishes to surround himself with? 

Incidentally, a close read of Revelation highlights the deceptive character of the evil figures within it. To wonder and worry about Trump as a manifestation of evil in the world today does not mean we see no good in his policies and promises. It does mean we see the good he might get done as deceptive - masking the imminent danger the world is in as the leader of the democratic world pals around with dictators, with vaccination deniers and tariff imposers.

What then are we to do, as readers of Revelation? Pretty simple really: we heed the several calls within this book to remain faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ.

We are not called to defeat the Trumps of this world through worldly means. We are called to trust that God is on his throne (Revelation 4) and the Lamb has won all the victory we need (Revelation 5, 7, 14, 19). Filled with such faith we are to be faithful to Jesus, bearing testimony to him - and none other. We worship neither gods, nor emperors, nor angels.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The situation in the Church of England: I have nothing to add to my very few words last week. Not least, this is because a very good set of links has been posted in comments to last week's post (thank you to the "linkers"!).

Clearly the CofE has a lot of work to do, at least at the top, in order to give confidence to insiders and outsiders that the CofE is "safe." The same can be said of many other churches, including my own, in which we have made progress and are not yet perfect.

Pause on Trump and Johannine Literature (aka CofE this week)

Partly or even mostly because of time I need to not attempt a post this week which would be part 2 on a mini series on "Trump and Johannine Literature." This is possibly not a bad thing as the fuller disclosure of the current mode of Trumpianism is being made as [pop your own adjective in here] nominations for senior cabinet office or ambassadorships are made. Suffice to say for now that Trumpianism's (core?) business of creating chaos is unabated and, in my view, no voter for Trump should oppose what is now happening. You shouldn't have voted for him in the first place ...

Further, it is not appropriate this week to write no words about the resignation of Archbishop Welby as the first Archbishop of Canterbury to resign for reasons other than retirement or simply closing out the role in order to do other things.

What to say?

I want to say very little. What do I need to offer when so many things are being said by others?

So, I advise heading to Thinking Anglicans which, as always, offers a great round up of news and views (across more than one post, so keep scrolling down).

I also think worth attention is watching this interview with Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley (Newcastle). +Helen-Ann is direct, clear and concerned for survivors. She also has interesting comments on the extent to which "careerism" may be affecting some bishops through a season such as this. (Finally, she is asked about assisted dying legislation in the UK, and in her answer references her experience of similar legislation here in NZ.)

Trump and Johannine Literature (1)

 After such great comments through the past week on my last post on John's Gospel, I can scarcely not continue to think out loud about John's Gospel.

After Trump's election, I can scarcely not comment on it.

Might the two topics come together?

Definitely if we consider Johannine Literature, i.e. move more widely from John's Gospel to John's Revelation (yes, I know likely two different Johns are involved) and Trump. Next week's post has just about written itself in my mind and the key word is "madness." Perhaps a second key word is "false" and its synonyms.

How about John's Gospel and Trump.

First, a few thoughts about John's Gospel, working from some of the comments made below to last week's post.

It is a stretch to see John's Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels as equally "histories" of Jesus of Nazareth. Sure, if the Synoptics have access to historical facts about Jesus then John's Gospel likely also had access, and potentially to historical narratives of Jesus based in Jerusalem and surrounds compared to the heavy emphasis in the Synoptics on Galileee-based narratives. But the resulting histories of Jesus read quite differently - despite some important common ground re matters as diverse as the centrality of Simon Peter among the twelve disciples, miracles such as the feeding of the 5000 and healing of a blind man, and importance of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. John's Jesus talks differently to the Synoptics' Jesus - so differently that he comes across in the former more as sophisticated Jewish theologian with mystical interests, occasionaly performing dramatic miracles compared to the latter where he comes across more as a wise Jewish teacher frequently communicating through parables and performing numerous miracles, including exorcisms. By contrast no exorcisms appear in John's Gospel. Notwithstanding the robust comments made through the past week, I still think John's Gospel is well explained (if not best explained) by presupposing that John knows the Synoptics and uses their stories of Jesus, along with some of his own, to compose a theological history of Jesus which has more theology than history in it.

I agree that the history of Jesus is important: The word became flesh in a specific individual, Jesus of Nazareth. His words and deeds are God speaking and God acting in a manner which is different in important ways from whatever God spoke through (say) Moses and did through (say) David or Elijah. Not least we say this because the death of Jesus matters for our salvation in a way in which no other death of a human being makes one iota of difference, salvifically, to you or to me.

Each gospel is, of course, an interpretation of the significance of the death of Jesus because the death of Jesus by itself is just a bare fact of human history: Jesus was crucified by Roman authority, as so many thousands were in the era in which Jesus lived. Paradoxically, the death of Jesus is important for salvation not because the death of Jesus itself conveyed any message about its significance but because God revealed its importance to us, partially through Jesus' own words (e.g. Mark 10:45) and more fully through other human beings (notably through Saul of Tarsus, but also through John the Evangelist).

John's Gospel is, ultimately, a revelation of the truth about Jesus which no mere history of Jesus could give - though words of Jesus give us many clues as to that truth. Even Jesus himself does not disclose that he is the word made flesh (John 1:14).

What then can we say about Trump from a Johannine perspective?

Here is a thought: he is a kind of incarnation - an embodiment of words (to be very clear NOT an embodiment of THE WORD!!). That is, and not the first politician to be such an embodiment, he is seen to embody an extraordinary collection of policies and proposals ...

- someone who will galvanise business in the USA (and make America great again = MAGA), despite wishing to impose tariffs etc which potentially will contribute to inflation, and despite proposing tax cuts which will make the rich richer while the poor will pay the tariffs;

- someone who will uphold free speech, undoing perceived censorship controls from left-wing do gooders (and MAGA), despite also threatening to "go after" various critics of himself;

- someone who will save (conservative) Christianity in the USA (and MAGA), despite being a man of very low morals, convicted as a felon, openly not a churchgoer and, in all likelihood, an intentional manipulator of voting Christians (e.g. note how he changed his tune on abortion going into this election);

- someone who will save Americans from their (deep state, inimical, ordinary people hating) government by becoming President (and MAGA) and essentially maintaining the apparatus of government.

Themes of "Saviour" and "Messiah" emerge from the list above!

But Trump is not the Saviour, not the Messiah, and not the Incarnate Logos. He is a very naughty boy ... If anything he is the antitype of Saviour, Messiah, Logos.

And that takes us to the Book of Revelation ... more next week.

 

Theological shifts in John's Gospel relative to the Synoptic Gospels

For the past 25 years I have had a deeper interest in the four gospels than in my preceding years of adult engagement with faith, theology and spiritual life in Christ. 

Among questions significant for me to explore has been the question of the relationship with John's Gospel to the Synoptic Gospels. (That is, to Matthew, Mark, and Luke which have their own differences from each other, but have much common material, and essentially present Jesus in a similar manner, as a wandering Galilean rabbi who is only engaged with Jerusalem at the end of his life.) 

There are many differences between John and the Synoptics - so many that many scholars think John's Gospel was composed without knowledge of the other three gospels. My own estimation is that, actually, John did know at least one of the other gospels well, and is precisely different because he chooses to be different - different through theological/christological/pneumatological development of ideas and themes in the Synoptic Gospels so that a deeper meaning or (taking up an ancient word used to describe John's Gospel in distinction from the other gospels) or a spiritual meaning is presented in John's narration of the story of Jesus' life and teaching.

Some of this development is pretty obvious as we read through John's Gospel. For instance, within John 3 we encounter the last times the phrase "the kingdom of God" is used, henceforth to be replaced by the phrase "eternal life." In John 6 there is teaching on the meaning of the bread and wine of communion to an extent and to a depth found nowhere in the Synoptics. Throughout the whole Gospel, the meaning of the relationship between Jesus the Son and God the Father is a recurring theme, presented in a variety of ways, well beyond any talk in the Synoptics of Jesus as "the Son of God", God as "Father" or "Our Father", and Son in relationship to Father and vice versa. The whole of the Gospel of John, from the perspective of Father/Son is a development of a verse common to Matthew and Luke (Matthew 11:27/Luke 10:22).

Recently I thought of another shift. (I am not claiming to be the first to have thought of this shift - only claiming it is the first time I have thought of this particular shift.)

That shift is from Jesus talking in ways which categorise his disciples as "servants" (we could think, for instance, of passages such as Mark 10:33-37 // Matthew 18:1-5 // Luke 9:46-49; Matthew 25:14-30 // Luke 19:11-27) to "friends" (John 15: 13-15). This shift is reinforced by Jesus having special friends: Lazarus (John 11:3, 11) and "The Beloved Disciple" (John 13:23 etc).

This shift to talk of the disciples in more intimate human relationship terms than "servant" is at one with the themes in John's Gospel of the intimacy between God and Jesus (Father/Son) and the role of the Spirit as indwelling the disciples.

And, for me personally, I have been gently challenged: do I think of myself as a "friend" of Jesus (and vice versa) rather than as a "servant"?

Conferencing to encourage our living faith

Between a lovely day off on Monday (public holiday here in NZ) and a busy day yesterday (travelling to Auckland for a day and evening meeting) this week's post is delayed till ... it's Wednesday already!

On Saturday we held a day long diocesan conference with the theme, Living Faith.

About 400 people participated (thanks be to God) and we heard from a variety of plenary speakers and panellists, the lead three of whom were Bishop Eleanor Sanderson (Hull, England, formerly of Wellington, NZ), Dallas Harema (Christchurch), and Grant Norsworthy (Nelson, with music background years in Australia and the USA).

 Everyone was great; the music was excellent, the organisation was superb; the venue was amazing (CBHS auditorium) ... and the weather was lousy (wet, cold, miserable) but at least no one was sitting there thinking about what they could have been doing in the garden (Labour Weekend being an excellent time in Christchurch for planting things outdoors such as tomatoes). Again, thanks be to God!

What were the takeaways from the conference? There were many but they (in my summary view) boiled down to this: all we have to offer a questioning, cynical, indifferent community beyond the church is our Jesus-shaped lives. Discipleship - discipleship which multiplies - disciples making disciples - Jesus-shaped people encouraging Jesus-shaped people is critical to the present and future of the church.

We who have a living faith long to see others also have what we treasure and what shapes our lives for good. When we look to Jesus to see what he did, we see Jesus making disciples who make disciples.

Let it be so.

Using my reserved right to write about cricket ... and some serious religious stuff

What a weekend just past: NZ won the America's Cup [yachting] - not unexpected; and our Silver Ferns [netball] team beat the Australian Diamonds [it does happen]. But the "blows me away" factor for the weekend are two amazing cricket victories, happily, one for our women and one for our men.

The White Ferns beat South Africa to win their first ever T20 World Cup competition - and all the more surprisingly because in the run up to the tournament the team had lost 10 matches in a row!

A mere 10 or so hours before this wonderful triumph, the Black Caps beat India, in India, their first victory over India in India for 36 years (and just third victory there ever). Again, a very unexpected result, not just because a long time coming, but because recently, elsewhere in the Asian region [cricket pitches generally being a bit different there to here, favouring spin bowlers], the Black Caps had just lost two tests to Sri Lanka (not world champions, unlike India).

So, lots to smile about, read about and generally delight in.

Perhaps not quite the same if we look at religion in Aotearoa New Zealand through a "win/loss" lens.

On Saturday our local paper, The Press published an article on the currently rapid decline in religious allegiance as declared through the census. (See also here.) We are now at more than 50% of the population declaring they are not religious. The first two sentences of the article put the state of affairs bluntly:

"The deep Christian roots of New Zealand are disappearing, new census results show.

Aotearoa is becoming a more secular country as more Kiwis abandon the church."

The churches have known this for some time since our own attendance figures show decline.

If religion were a sport, the churches are currently on the losing side.

There is some news, we might call it "good", that religion may be being "replaced" by spirituality, including a new civic spirituality.

But, for Christians, who love our Lord Jesus Christ, that is not the Good News - not the news of the love of God experienced through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

We are in a tough period in our history. Whether or not this is the toughest time to be a Christian (aside from actual persecution), this is a new era for Christians, the post Christian era in which Western society, but very noticeably our Kiwi society, is collectively saying about the Gospel, "Been there, done that, no longer interested or bothered about matters of eternal significance."

From a different part of Western society, I noticed this on X/Twitter over the weekend:

The background here (I assume, as the article by Ross Douthat is behind a paywall) is the new interest in belief in God a la Tom Holland, Jordan Peterson, Russell Brand, and co. Even as "religion" declines, there can be a longing for what is lost ("a vague nostalgia for belief") but that - the argument appears to be - is insufficient for reclaiming what has been lost. [UPDATE: thanks to a correspondent I can now offer a link to another media site where the article is carried, here. At this point in time I have no time to engage with a very well considered reflection by Douthat.]

Either way, whether I am second guessing what Douthat is on about or not, there is plenty to think about in this article by Luke Bretherton.

One thing to think about is to be committed, through thick and thin, to the basics of the Christian life, including basic worship action: turning up to church regularly, which, for clarity, I propose is "at least weekly."

I suggest a challenge, putting all articles linked to here together, is whether we see the future of the church as the church - as the body of Christ, as the people of God united by belief in Christ and commitment to follow Christ - or as something else (for example, as keepers of a certain past of our society, or as useful guides and helps on the way to a new spirituality emerging).

Domestic bliss?

I had a lovely week on annual leave last week. Lovely because (a) the weather was good (b) I got to stay in comfy accommodation (c) I enjoyed some physical exertion (d) I achieved some goals. Or, in other words, I stayed home and sorted out some things that needed doing in the garage and garden :). But it was truly lovely - relaxing, undemanding, and with plenty of time to do what needed to be done.

Meanwhile, the world is burning up - with wars (nothing improved in the Middle East yet, nor Ukraine, nor Sudan), and with climate change (albeit the "burning" in the news was Hurricane Milton's devastation). And news for those with eyes to see and ears to hear on the NZ economic front is just terrible: ballooning government debt (despite best attempts to reduce spending) because, not to put too fine a point on it, we are not growing our economy so not growing our tax take. Singularly unhelpful for those of us who stay in NZ: increasing attractiveness of Australia as a place to live/work/make money and, one news item I listened too, the full, attractional effects of Australia's now easier path for Kiwis to secure Australian citizenship making their mark.

Last week, in my relaxed state of mind, with warm spring sunshine, there was no place I would rather have been, other than heaven itself - which is not to diss Australia (I have enjoyed every visit I have made there), just to say, I feel no pressing need to migrate. 

Funnily enough, at the end of this week of "domestic bliss" I came across this quote of C.S. Lewis on X/Twitter:

So, from that perspective, maybe the NZ government is doing its job :).

Clearly this is not the way the whole of the world is - not even the whole of NZ. There are many challenges to be overcome to ensure "domestic bliss", a la C.S. Lewis, for all citizens of our planet.

Of course, my domestic bliss, with a garage and garden to potter around in, may not be your domestic bliss, which may require the sea to sail in, mountain tracks to cycle on, theatres to see plays performed, or just a friendly neighbourhood pub where the darts fly well, the beer is fine, and the All Blacks always win on a Saturday night test. So, politicians have more than, say, provision of good housing for all, to aim for, and thus complexity in political life is introduced by our diverse wishes for the good life.

In this mixed bag of a world, the call of God to people is to seek more than domestic bliss, it is to seek eternal bliss in the presence of God. The church or gathered people of God are called to witness to the goodness and grace of God and to the permanence of God's faithful, everlasting love for God's people. For a large section of the world, the Western world, God's call on our lives is demanding because, despite our grumbles about our lives and our governments' deficiencies, we typically live a life of material, physical (good health) bliss, for a long number of years, beyond the wildest dreams of, say, our forebears just over a century ago. Hearts are hardened to the gospel message: why bother with God when the surf is up, there is snow on the slopes and my body feels fine?

Some recent published census stats about NZ religious allegiance (i.e. my willingness to not only attest in a census to generally being religious but to identifying as "Anglican" or "Catholic" or "Baptist") show further rapid decline in specific Christian identification in our nation.

As Christians we must be thankful - and there is much to be thankful for as we live lives of material, physical contentment - but as Christians we also cry out to God, When will revival of love and appreciation for the goodness and grace of God as both Creator and Redeemer come on our nation?

7 October 2023 - A Difficult Anniversary

Today is 7 October 2024, the anniversary of the attack on Israeli citizens (and other citizens of other countries) by Hamas terrorists on 7 October 2023. Terrible things happened that day and understandably, Israel retaliated against Gaza.

Harder to understand is why Israel's retaliation has involved killing, wounding and maiming so many Palestinians, including children. Similarly, since it was Hamas terrorists from Gaza who cruelly killed, wounded and raped people on 7 October 2023, it is difficult to comprehend why the West Bank has also suffered excursions and exploitations by Israel.

Now, Gaza is almost lost from the news as the conflict in the Middle East embroils southern Lebanon as the IDF engages with Hezbollah. Again, while this conflict is understandable (Hezbollah has rained down many rockets on northern Israel for a long time), innocent Lebanese people are suffering.

Somewhere in all the events, before, on and after 7 October 2024, Iran is a "great power" behind the attempts to obliterate Israel from the map, and Israeli Jews from existence. Can Iran be held to account?

What are we to say today? And, when we live far from the conflict zones and/or we as individuals feel literally powerless in the face of the real powers involved (e.g. nations supplying weapons), is there anything we can say which amounts to more than handwringing in the face of horrible, terrible, tragic human suffering?

Via a friend I have received the following talking points, provided by Palestinian Anglicans - the full set can be found here. There first three are:

I do not ask readers here to agree or disagree with these talking points in all their nuances and emphases: for example, on 7 October itself, we might put more emphasis on Israel's suffering a year ago, and on the continuing holding of hostages from that day.

Nevertheless, I am sure we all as Christians are concerned to stand with all people suffering in the Middle East (each is a person made in God's image) and to pray for peace which is lasting and genuine and thus can only be a peace which involves justice. (Our own "peace with God" always rests on God's just resolution of our conflict with God due to our sin, and resolved through Jesus' death on the cross. There is no peace which is actual peace without justice.)

Something often said is apt: there are causes in the world worth dying for, there are no causes worth killing for.

Can any of us say that true peace with justice in the Middle East is nearer because of the death and suffering these past 366 days have involved?

A tricky Bible passage

Yesterday, for a 150th celebration of a church, our readings included Epehsians 4:1-14 (i.e. not the usual lectionary epistle reading).

In this passage, verses 7-14 discuss the grace of God given to each of us, focusing on gifts that mean that some of us are apostles, prophet, evangelists, teachers and pastors, all for the purpose of equipping the saints so that the body of Christ is built up. If that were all there was to the passage it would be, in the light of passages about ministry gifts, such as Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, unremarkable in its straightforward proposal that God helps the church through the gifts of the Spirit.

But Paul (or the disciple of Paul) who writes this passage introduces a Scripture-based reason for asserting that Christ gifts the church by writing in verse 8,

'Therefore it is said, "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people".'

There is no dispute that Psalm 68:18 is being cited in this verse.

Therein lies the problem, the trickiness to which the title of this post refers, because this is how Psalm 68:18 reads:

"You ascended the high mount, leading captives in your train and receiving gifts from people, even from those who rebel against the Lord God's abiding there."

Even when we turn to the Greek Old Testament (LXX) where we find a version close to what is being cited in Ephesians (here citing The Bible translated by Nicholas King), we are still challenged:

"You have gone up on high; you have taken captivity captive; you have received gifts among humans; for they were disobeient in pitching their tents."

Paul says, citing this verse, that it talks proleptically about Christ giving gifts to humanity. The verse itself, in either the Hebrew or Greek versions familiar to New Testament writers, as far as is generally the case across New Testament writings, talks proleptically about Christ receiving gifts from humanity.

Giving does not equal receiving. This is a challenge for Biblical scholars to explain!

Look up any commentary and you will find interesting, clever attempts to explain how A = B. Essentially, the best explanation is that Paul is citing an unknown version of the passage (which does exist via the Syriac Peshitta or the Aramaic Targums, but these likely date later than Ephesians). If he is doing this, then there remains the oddity that he is "pick and mixing" his versions of the Psalms to suit his expositional cause. It is, incidentally, simpler to assume that Paul is simply making of Psalm 68:18 what he wishes - anticipating, so to speak, what later versions will also do (perhaps influenced by Paul's exegetical bravado?).

But in turn, this means, on any reckoning of how Paul got from "receive" to "give", that he employs the Old Testament in support of his "New Testament" theology in a fairly free manner (whether he himself is being free or he finds help from others who have been free) - where "free" means comfortable to adjust and adapt the text before him to suit current purposes.

Generally speaking in today's modern world we who count ourselves as respectable in respect of the role of serious biblical study in preparation of expositional materials such as sermons look in great askance at preachers etc who are as "free" as Paul himself seems to have been with scriptural texts!

Now we could, time permitting, which it is not, head down various interesting roads of reflection on Ephesians 4:8/Psalm 68:18 in respect of the Bible and how it came into being, reflecting on the Bible’s quirkiness if not its trickiness at various points in its creation and composition.

My one reflection in this post is that Scripture is a complex set of writings. We may need to both accept that as a fact and respect it as a fact with implications for how we understand Scripture as inspired, sacred writings.

Paul was human!

Evangelism is hard in the Western world

Recently I have had access to the Australian Church Record, specifically the [Sydney] Synod 2024 issue.

On pp. 3ff is an article "Attendance Decline Report."

It discusses a report going to the Diocese of Sydney Synod which addresses the matter of a decline in attendance across Sydney Anglican churches, summarised thus:

"The report itself is clear in its major findings. Across the 436 Church Centres that existed within the Diocese between 2013 to 2023, the overall adult attendance declined in raw percentage numbers by 6.7%, or by 14.4% when you consider population growth."

In part the article proposes the Synod is honest about the statistics. In part the article notes that statistics always need some delving into. In another part the article encourages ministry leaders to be faithful - God measures our faithfulness and not our attendance statistics. Amen. Amen. Amen.

But something the article does not reflect on is this. The Sydney Anglican diocese has good form, whether through its leadership boycotting Lambeth Conferences and the like, or leading individuals who tell the rest of the Anglican world whether it is "faithful" to the Gospel or not, "orthodox" or not, and truly "biblical" or not. Implied in such claims, of course, is that on the side of such claims is impressive attendance statistics: look, we're right and have the numbers to prove it; you're wrong and your attendance figures show what a lost (liberal/progressive/whatever) cause you are (mistakenly) following.

Now, it is very true that Sydney Anglicans have very impressive attendance figures relative to other Australian Anglican dioceses. It is also very true that there are forms of Christianity which are not cutting the attendance mustard in the modern or post-modern Western world: genuinely "liberal" or "progressive" congregations are hurting with falling numbers.

But this decline in Sydney Anglican attendances suggests a bit of reflection, beyond what the article envisages, as to what the nature of the Gospel is in the ever changing face of Western society. If the Sydney version is not growing the church, if its best claim is (say) that it is declining less rapidly than other dioceses hereabouts, then is there not a question whether we (Sydney as well as the rest of us) are all missing an acute, adept, adapted understanding of the Gospel which will win a hearing and secure a growing church in the 21st century?

Might we, further, continue our common quest to find what the Gospel is for this day and age without the rancour of lobbing claims about (un)faithful, (un)orthodox, (un)biblical, etc at each other. Instead of lobbing theological grenades, might we humbly continue dialogue within ourselves and, indeed, dialogue with our Western society as to the meaning of the Gospel for today?

Evangelism is hard in the Western world. The Sydney stats bear this out - they undergird what other dioceses know only too well. It is tough out there to share the Gospel in a post-Christian world - a world which operates on the basis that Christianity has come, produced mixed results in society, and thankfully is on its way out. (That same post-Christian world has not come up with anything which much improves on the Christian gospel as a basis for a just, kind and grace-filled society!)

Amidst all the turmoil in Western Christianity (e.g. how have we become so confused that we think Trump is a saviour and eschewing vaccines is cutting edge discipleship?) we need - as faithful, orthodox, biblical Christians - to continue working on what the Gospel is for our world.

In the first century, the earliest Christians managed to:

- change the Aramaic preaching of Jesus into four differing Gospel narratives written in Greek

- shift gear from agrarian Galilee oriented parables to engagement with Hellenistic philosophy (e.g. 1 Corinthians, Hebrews)

- reflect on what the Jewish Jesus's gospel's common ground with contemporary Judaism(s) was and what was distinctive about it as Jews and Jewish Christians worked through the meaning of Jesus Christ's teaching, life, death and resurrection (e.g. Romans, Galatians)

- rework Jewish apocalyptic literature such as Daniel, resisting the encroachment of Hellenism as a culture and Hellenistic imperialism as anti-Israel's God, into Revelation which resisted the encroachment of Roman imperialism in both economic domination and idolatrous practices by proclaiming the kingdom of God and Christ.

In the second and third centuries, the next generations of Christians took the engagement with and, as appropriate, adaptation of Hellenistic philosophy several steps further in the quest to spread the Gospel message.

Naturally there were many intra Christian disputes and dramas along the way of that working out of the meaning of the Gospel for the ancient world of the Mediterranean region (e.g. Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, the writings of (e.g.) Tertullian and Origen express such disputes). We are having disputes and dramas today. But, just maybe, recognising that we Anglicans are all struggling re attendances, we could turn the dial down a bit and work on dialogue as a way forward rather than dispute?

Can Pope Francis be saved (from himself)?

Postscript: This article, by Charles Caputt, pretty much raises my concerns below. One concern I do not raise which is worth careful thought, what is the meaning of martyrdom, if all relgions are equally valid pathways to God?

Original Post:

Why ask, Can Pope Francis be saved (from himself)?

I noticed a series of X/Tweets a couple of days ago [below], highlighting something Francis has said in Singapore (a melting pot place of faiths) about all ways leading to God.

1. The statement as cited is pretty unnuanced around Christianity being one way rather than the way or the highway into which other faiths are feeder roads.

2. Edward Feser, a sharp (and Catholic) critic of "sloppy" Catholic thinking raises the question whether Francis has spoken correctly in accordance with doctrine.

3. A respondent cites the Catechism in defence of Francis.

However that response still places the Gospel as the pathway to salvation, other faiths potentially being preparations for the Gospel being received.

A few observations from me:

Francis has form in saying things which receive quite a lot of reaction from a doctrinal perspective (notably in relation to human sexuality). Whether we think it helpful or not, this is part of the style of his papacy.

Is it reasonable to expect Francis to stop speaking publicly in ways which prompt criticism from within his own church? Probably not!

Is it reasonable to expect a church leader to speak in ways which conform to the doctrine of that leader's church? Yes.

There is a dilemma for current Catholic adherence to the teaching (informal, formal, let alone "infallible") of Francis as present incumbent as Pope.

To be honest, I am closer to Feser than to Francis on the issue at hand. We honour Jesus Christ when we point to what is distinctive about him (his life, death, teaching) and from that point of view both find everything that is good in other faiths (and, indeed, in the approaches to life of non-religious humanism etc) and all that is fulfilled within those faiths and -isms in Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

The consistent approach of the New Testament writers is to present Jesus Christ as true God among many surrounding claimants to be gods (Roman gods, Greek gods, Roman emperors) and true fulfilment of all prophecies voiced among the scriptures of Israel. 

Further, the cumulative approach of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ reshapes who the God of Israel is: in Jesus we see and through Jesus (and his apostle) we hear the final, fullest revelation of God. Religions which speak of a way to God which is not through Jesus Christ speak of a "God" who is never exactly the God who reveals God's self in and through Jesus Christ.

This leads to a further note about what Francis is reported as saying: Yes, all religions (in one manner or another), are paths to God, but religions are also revelations of God reaching out to humanity: in which revelation do we find that divine reach to us drenched in love, full of mercy, expressed in sacrifice of God himself that we might live forever?

I can only think of one such revelation.

A small reflection on the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament

On Thursday night last week we held a Diocesan service - A Liturgy of Lament - in our Transitional Cathedral. The text of the Liturgy is here. This post is intentionally not a reflection on the whole of the service nor on responses to the service, save to see that many people commented to me on how moved they were by it.

One aspect of the service to be reflected on here: a small group worked care-fully and creatively on the content of the service. The following readings were chosen.

Psalm 13

Lamentations 5:1, 14-22 (Prior to a Litany of Confession) 

Isaiah 58:5-11 (in the second part of the service, The Beginnings of Hope).

My reflection is simply that when I asked myself what New Testament reading might have been chosen, I could not think of one. There is not much by way of lament in the New Testament. Although Isaiah influences some passages in the New Testament about a new beginning in being a just people, none offers the length and depth of the Isaiah passage chosen.

On the one hand, this observation serves to reinforce the general tenor of the New Testament: it is the announcement of the Good News of God's salvation, of new life now and forever for the world.

On the other hand, our liturgy is a powerful reminder that the Old Testament is ever relevant to the whole of life, and, in this case, especially to its darkest and most troubling aspects.

Postscript: In the wider Anglican world this week ...

1. An extraordinary, unusual story about a newly appointed CofE bishop's recent episcopal eye-brow raising role in an ordination in Germany.

2. The Observer has a profile on a new book by Diarmaid MacCulloch. It is called Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity. It looks at least ... provocative!

The Abbey

I am still learning how to be wise. On Friday I went away for a three day weekend, Friday night to Sunday at El Rancho, Waikanae for The Abbey, a national Anglican youth leaders and young adults event, and then onto Auckland for a night (family) and day (various appointments) trip. I thought I could put a decent out of office message on my email and travel lightly electronically - including no laptop.

My (less than wise) bad. A stretch of important emails threaded into my Inbox including some attached documents to read - challenging when no laptop on hand!

Also, tricky to post a blog post per usual on Mondays. Now on laptop ... but it is Tuesday.

The Abbey was a lovely event - about 250 people present - from different parts of our church, though most from the Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch diocesan regions.

Main speakers were Lillian Murray, Dallas Hareama and Lorna Gray. There were lots of workshops facilitated by experts in many fields. Great MCs and an excellent band (co-ordinated by Paul Hegglun, a member of our Diocesan Ministry Team).

Thank you everyone!

One way to review such an event is to pose the question, What gave me hope?

Two things stand out in answering that question.

1. That we have in our church a wonderful group of people aged well below my age (!!) who love God, love the church and want to reach their communities with the Good News.

2. This group (along, of course, with many others) are very, very comfortable with a bicultural expression of our faith in Christ. Most of the songs we sang at The Abbey were in English and Te Reo. Quite a bit of the content of the plenary addresses was about how we who identify as Pakeha can fully engage in our bicultural society. 

If only some of our politicians could see this way of being Kiwi in action and worry less about removing Te Reo words from ministerial letters and road signs!

Does Anyone See Anything Coming? (Reflection on the Treaty of Waitangi)

In another world of conversation recently, the question came up, in my words, Why didn't evangelical historians see ahead and predict the emergence of Trump and evangelical support for him? There are some obvious answers about that: historians look back not forward; history never repeats itself exactly; since when was it a moral indictment on an historian to not also be a clairvoyant?!

A simple case in point involves Trump himself in the past month or so: suppose you had predicted ten or twenty years ago that a Trump would burst onto the US political scene and [many] evangelicals would swoon at his anti-abortionist feet. Well done you! But would you have predicted this year's turn of events in which Trump has suddenly and (as far as I can tell) unexpectedly changed tunes on abortion, stating a position closer to the centre of US politics, and pretty obviously designed to pick up (if possible) a bunch of votes otherwise likely unavailable to him in November. Cue angst and dilemma for a section of US Christian (Protestant and Catholic) pro-life voters: where does the lesser of two "evils" now lie when going into the polling booth?

Down Under, have we ever seen what is coming in respect of relations between Maori and Pakeha?

Marsden in 1814 could have foreseen the arrival of European settlers. He would not have foreseen the Treaty of Waitangi in the form it actually took.

The Treaty itself was the outcome of a variety of hugely interesting factors, from the local (the role of the likes of Bushby, Hobson, the Williams' family, Maori chiefs) to the wider movement of people (the interests of and interests by British, French, American settlers, sailors and sealers in carving out better lives through farming and trading), to the distantly international considerations of the British offices of state overseeing colonial developments and how they were, in their view, often a deeply evangelical Christian view, best shaped and supported by agreements such as the Treaty of Waitangi - all admirably told in various histories of our Treaty, most recently in respect of "big books" by Ned Fletcher, The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi, and in terms of "small books" by Alistair Reese in He Tatou Pounamu .

I think I am right in saying that on 6 February 1840, no one signing the Treaty in with the English or Maori versions could see coming some 135 years later [1975], through till the present, and, no doubt beyond today, that having the Treaty in two versions would be highly controversial!

Also on that day, I assume that what the signers assumed was that the Treaty would be a document acknowledged appropriately as European settlement of Aotearoa developed through the decades ahead. Not so. Fairly quickly the Treaty was ignored. Its relevance to the settlement of our country died away as the document settled into a comfortable (for the settlers and their political leaders) existence in the bottom of the bottom drawer of the Premier's desk!

At the lowest point in the general fortunes of Maori (when illness decimated numbers of Maori in the late 19th century), no one foresaw the reviving of the relevance of the Treaty in 1975, let alone the revival of the number of Maori in our society (so that the general reckoning now is that 1 million of 5 million NZers identify as Maori).

And that initial reviving of the fortunes of the Treaty as a foundation document of our nation, through the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal, was not in 1975 a predictor of how as a society, including churches, educational institutions, local and central government, and departments of such governments, we would develop principles of the Treaty to guide us in giving effect to the Treaty. Or, more simply, that we would make actual big strides as a bicultural nation. We are far from becoming what the Treaty envisaged we might be; but we have moved on a long way from days when Maori were refused entry to some pubs and public facilities, and when we would go along with South African requests not to bring "coloured" players on All Black tours to that country. 

We do, of course, see that in 2040 we have opportunity to celebrate 200 years of the Treaty. Sixteen years to make further progress? Sixteen years to wind back the clock (per current machinations by the ACT Party)? While I am committed to not winding the clock of history backwards, I am not going to make a prediction about where we will be in 2040. (I would be 80 by then, so I am not even predicting I will be alive to ruminate on the state of Aotearoa New Zealand in that year!!)

Although last week's ADU post was not directly about the Treaty, a long string of comments were about the Treaty and related matters of relationship between Maori and Pakeha. The following are some ruminations on such matters (but not intended to be a point by point response to points made in the thread of comments).

There is no definitive understanding of the Treaty, there may never be, but there is a definitive state of affairs, namely, the present situation we face as a nation, as a society, as a series of community and whanau networks, and we have a choice to face the present with the Treaty informing us and influencing us, or to sideline it, to put it back into the bottom of the bottom drawer of the Prime Minister's desk. Like many - I suggest most - Kiwis, I think it better to keep on working out the meaning of the Treaty for life today, than to give up, to seek some other basis for how we honour and respect one another as the mix of indigenous and non-indigenous people that we are.

Nevertheless, even if there is no single definitive understanding of the Treaty, there are claims as understandings which are at best unhelpful and at worst injurious to our moving forward as a nation to a better state of affairs than we currently experience.

One such claim is the notion that the Treaty makes us all "equal" with the consequence that there should be no special advantage to Maori as measured by, say, some medical treatments being available to Maori ahead of Pakeha, or some other forms of material assistance in life. This is an odd claim to make when on a bunch of significant statistics, from prison population to academic achievement to life expectancy, it is very clear that in the warp and woof of life and how it unfolds for each NZer, Maori are not treated equally. Perhaps when we are statistically equal we could propose that everyone, irrespective of racial/cultural identity, is treated "equally." In the meantime we have a long way to go and we are only just beginning to understand the effects of colonization on Maori - let alone how those effects might be undone.

Another claim being advanced today is that the Treaty amounts to nothing more than property rights: I as a Pakeha have rights as to how I use and what I do on my suburban city property; a Maori (individual, whanau, hapu, iwi) also have property rights for lands and waterways to which there is clear title. But - the kicker - that is all: stay out of attempts to co-govern, say, the quality of water in the rivers of Canterbury; do not aspire to have specific Maori representation on city and district councils; and so forth. There is a lot to discuss about the meaning of the Treaty, and we may never settle on one single, agreed definition of what the Treaty means for each nook and cranny of these islands, but there is agreement by most scholars - historians, legal boffins - that the Treaty is not reducible to property rights. We need - I suggest - an approach to the Treaty which respects and assists Maori seeking to be Maori.

On Saturday I was at a bicultural event in one of the pa of the Canterbury district. A Maori leader made the simple point about this particular place (calling it a "reservation" - reserved from being for sale to settlors): It has allowed Maori to be Maori. How might our approach to understanding and applying the Treaty do this across our nation?

There are lots of questions to ask, discuss and find answers to. There are and will be proposals that need testing. For instance, also over the weekend, I saw a social media post along these lines: In institution X, a law professor teaches that there are and always have been two legal systems, Maori and Pakeha; this is a bad thing because there must be one law for all, and only one law for all. This sounds like something that needs testing: there can be two legal systems within one nation (the church has canons!!!!!!!), but can there be two wholly parallel systems without one system being available to appeal to when within either system a matter needs a final arbitration? (Even the church operates within its constitution and canons on the basis that potentially an appeal can be made to the secular legal system.)

Similarly, as we discuss concepts of sovereignty/rangitiratanga/kawanatanga, can we find a way to a single parliament within which are two houses, Maori and Pakeha, with all important decisions being agreed by both houses? The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has something to offer on this possibility.

Yesterday I spoke at a service on Micah 6:6-8, the threefold summary (in my view) of all the teaching in the OT: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.

At the heart of all debates on the Treaty, can we Christians engaging in the quest for the meaning and application of the Treaty today press for justice to be done and kindness to be shown? To do otherwise is incompatible with walking humbly with our God, is it not?

Might we be open to futures we cannot yet see which fulfil intentions in the Treaty and requirements of Scripture?

Postscript: a different topic

Also in the thread of comments to last week's post, this comment was made:

"People don’t go to Church anymore because they simply do not believe in the supernatural - outstanding claims require outstanding evidence. People need to be taught the deeper meanings within scripture if any form of Christianity is to survive. Science has beaten back the grey haired man in the sky that parts seas and raises the dead."

No doubt this is so for many people, even though I hardly ever hear people frankly express such explanation for non-involvement in church. People are polite!

Yes, there is "deeper meaning" within Scripture to find and to expound. John himself ensures this is so when he takes the kinds of miracles we now apparently object to (Feeding the 5000, Walking on Water, 6:1-21) and makes them the occasion for Jesus to offer "deeper meaning" about himself as the bread from heaven.

But may we so deftly set aside all testimonies to the supernatural within Scripture, whether Parting the Red Sea or Walking on Water, Healing the Sick or Raising the Dead?

On the one side of this question is the fact that "something(s) happened" which in OT times fuelled Israel's conviction that the "god" of Israel was like no other "gods" and in NT times fuelled Christian conviction that Jesus was more than another itinerant rabbi. Miracles, supernatural acts, call them what you will, were critical to the case advanced, whether in preaching the gospel to Jews or to Gentiles, that God's acts of power in and through Jesus, and supremely in raising him from the dead underscored the claim that Jesus was both son of David and son of God.

On the other side of this question is the result of "deeper meaning" as we engage with Scripture: that God is Being (not just a Supreme Being, or the Supreme Being), the very life and power of the universe able to work within the universe to do marvellous things. The distinction between "nature" and "supernature" can be argued to fade away when we dig deep into the meaning of God as Being itself.

And then, perhaps as a third side of this question, is the matter of many Christians' own testimonies: that the Jesus we have met and who has met us, is precisely the powerful Son of God as well as the vulnerable, mocked, humiliated, executed son of Mary.

A is for Apokatastasis - you knew that!

Quite a bit is going on in my world. Yes, everyone kindly asks me about how I am in the midst of the newest chapter in the story of our Cathedral's Reinstatement (title of the current chapter, "How the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Hit A Large Block On the Way to Completion aka Lack of Funds Underlined By the NZ Government Saying No"). See here for latest Press article and there will be more media interest this Tuesday. But this is a hugely interesting time to be alive, as a citizen of the world and as a theologically-interested citizen of heaven.

For instance, in a world falling apart with climate change, wars and threats of war, economic challenges, Mpox runs around the world, socio-political tensions in some societies and disruption as political winds change - including Aotearoa New Zealand - "from left to right" and "right to left," where are we heading according to the divine plan for the universe? Creation sure is groaning (Romans 8), anti-God forces prevail in too many dicatorships and, some say, in democracies too (Revelation), injustice abounds (Amos), and, in contrast to the sunny gospel-optimism of Acts (the gospel spreads further and further despite setbacks here and there), the gospel is on retreat in parts of the world which not so long ago could glorify in the description "Christendom."

Yet, God's plan, Ephesians 1:10, is for the union of all things in Christ. The 21st century cynic might say, "So, how's that going?" A 21st century Christian might, picking up words from Sunday's epistle, cry to God, "How can we live carefully, making the most of the opportunities of this time, not as wunwise people but as wise?" (riffing on Ephesians 5:15-16).

Such a search for wisdom could take us to X/Twitter, where we find a continuing debate (among many unedifying debates!! And that's just talking about the Christian ones ... :),) about "DBH" or David Bentley Hart, doyen of current Orthodox theologians. In turn, reading there opened up for me a lovely, long (you deserve fair warning) essay by Fr Aidan Kimel on a specific aspect of ancient debate about the union of all things: vitriol over Origen and his reputed errors, including that relating to aspects of the union of everything and everyone in Christ. As Fr Kimel opens up for his readers there was a lot going on in the centuries after Origen did his voluminous theological work.

Fr Aidan Kimel's fascinating exploration of ancient opposition to Origen (my ancient theologian of special interest currently) is found in an article entitled, "Apokatastasis, Origenism, Fifth Ecumenical Council - with a Dash of Theophilus."

It begins with this citation from St. Gregory of Nyssa:

"By uniting us to himself, Christ is our unity; and having become one body with us through all things, he looks after us all. Subjection to God is our chief good when all creation resounds as one voice, when everything in heaven, on earth and under the earth bends the knee to him, and when every tongue will confess that has become one body and is joined in Christ through obedience to one another, he will bring into subjection his own body to the Father.

St Gregory of Nyssa

“The Father of Fathers”"

If this was all apokatastasis refers to, then no particular problems, but apokastasis tends to refer to a specific understanding that this union of all things includes the union of all (or ALL) sinful beings, i.e. universal salvation. Thus Wikipedia:

"In theology, apokatastasis (Greek: ἀποκατάστασις, /æpoʊkəˈtæstəsɪs/, also spelled apocatastasis) is the restoration of creation to a condition of perfection.^[1][2] In Christianity, the term refers to a form of Christian universalism, often associated with Origen, that includes the ultimate salvation of everyone—including the damned and the Devil.^[3][4][5] The New Testament (Acts 3:21) speaks of the "apokatastasis of all things," although this passage is not usually understood to teach universal salvation.^[6] The dogmatic status of apokatastasis is disputed,^[7] and some orthodox fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa taught apokatastasis and were never condemned.^[8]"

Gregory of Nyssa, like some All Blacks scoring their tries on Saturday night, glides his way past potential opposition. Origen not so much. As Fr Kimel points out, there was a very complicated political calculus going on in the ancient opposition to Origen. Try this for a flavour:

"Theophilus’ quick acceptance of the mob’s demand to denounce the writings of Origen raises questions. Did he have a St Paul conversion moment?—not likely, though cowardly duplicity cannot be totally dismissed. Did he always strongly object to Origen and is only now, under the threat of violence, revealing his true colors?—probably not. Theophilus would resume his opposition to anthropomorphism just a few years later. Or is he shrewdly exploiting the crowd’s disdain for Origen to advance his own ecclesial and political agendas?—ding! ding! ding! Now that sounds like the Theophilus we have all come to know and love.

So why was this moment the catalyst for Theophilus’ sudden and intense campaign against Origen? Because, Russell suggests, the leaders of the pro-Origen faction (specifically the Four Tall Brothers, as well as a priest and former confidant of Theophilus named Isidore) had become painful pebbles in the patriarch’s sandals. He shrewdly saw that by methodically attacking the orthodoxy of Origen, he might well strengthen his position in Nitria, effect the departure of Origenists from Egypt, and establish within the monastic communities a theological orthodoxy free from the influence of Origen and Evagrius Ponticus."

Anyway, just to be clear: this post is not arguing for or against universal salvation (it is not something finally settled in my mind). But it is arguing for us humans, especially us Christian humans, to work for the unity of all things, rather than for the disunity of many things.

On the way to a better Christian political outlook, I like this review by Stephen Driscoll on John Sandeman's The Other Cheek of Sydney theologian Rev. Dr. Michael Jensen's latest book, Subjects and Citizens The Politics of the Gospel: Lessons from Romans 12–15. The review is much shorter than Fr Kimel's article!

Finally, for now, looking at disunity in society, and hoping for unity, especially here in Aotearoa New Zealand, Damien Grant has some pertinent things to say about our tortured present re Maori-Pakeha relationships, under the gaze of the Treaty of Waitangi, the torture deepened by the Act Party's attempt to define "principles" of the Treaty.

I like the note he strikes in his concluding paragraph - there is one enduring principle we could perhaps all agree on:

"The enduring principle that we should take from 1840 was the willingness of both parties to seek creative and enduring solutions to what looked to be intractable difficulties. That required courage, wisdom, and a determined focus on what could be rather than an obsessive focus on past grievances."

Postscript: if none of the above draws you into reading and reflection, then try this interesting piece on the limitations of marriage metaphors in Scripture, by Kate Keefe. Not sure that I agree with her - metaphors invite us to think about the meaning of things (in this case our relationship as Christians, as church with God, with Christ) as much as they prompt us to think about the limitations of particular metaphors. 

Back to translations: more to NRSVUE than I thought

 "You be the judge!"

A few posts ago I engaged with a question or two re modern translations - plethora thereof - and upgrades of.

Today I note a post from the wonderful ETC blog - Evangelical Textual Criticism - on the NRSVUE - NRSV Update Edition.

I had thought the NRSVUE was the NRSVUE taken in an even more inclusive direction re language.

There is more going on, as Peter Gurry in this post makes clear.

Excerpt:

"In light of the emphasis on textual criticism, I wondered what changes I could find. This is just from my spot-checking, mind you. I haven’t found a list of changes anywhere yet.

• Matt. 19.9: “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” The longer reading was in the footnote before along with the reading of B and some others. I’m guessing this change is due to Holmes’s influence given his 1990 JBL article on the subject which you should all read and heed.
• Mark 1.1: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.” To which I can only say, booooo! (The right reading is in the footnote and at least they got Mark 1.41 right.)

"

But is this enough to buy a copy when one has (as I have) some five or six copies of the NRSV?

 "You be the judge!"