Theological Study Conference 2017 1

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

David M. Green, Vice-Principal, London Seminary

Two Preliminary Caveats

Before addressing the subject of this paper, two preliminary matters must be dealt with relating to the interpretation of Old Testament texts and their application to contemporary Christian life.

1. Who are the people of God?

The question of who the people of God are, in the Old Testament, is less straightforward than in the New. Apart from a few doubtful cases, like Simon “the sorcerer” in Acts 8:9ff, it is usually clear that those identified by the New Testament as the people of God are believers, regenerate by his Spirit. When it comes to Old Testament Israel, however, we may seek to draw lessons from individuals whom we have no real basis for regarding either as “regenerate” or “unregenerate” in the New Testament sense. At times in the discussion which follows, the “people of God” may refer to the people of Israel as a whole as they actually were, or as they were called to be under the terms of the Sinai covenant, or only to the godly remnant within a largely apostate Israel. This calls for a nuanced approach to making comparisons with the New Testament church and the experience of the New Testament believer, and in drawing lessons for Christians today.

2. Culture

One aspect of the subject of this conference is the relationship between the culture of the people of God and the culture(s) of people around them. This relationship is also far from simple. At times, the people of God think and behave in similar, if not identical, ways to other men and women of their time and place; at other times, their beliefs and practices are radically different. Sometimes the similarities are benign, sometimes they are symptomatic of syncretism, assimilation and spiritual and moral decline. At times, we must determine whether the attitudes and actions in a given biblical text stem from theological convictions or cultural pre-determinants.

There are some obvious examples of the cultural question in the Old Testament, polygamy and slavery being perhaps the best known. There are other aspects to the cultural question, however, that have only become apparent with the discovery of comparative Ancient Near Theological Study Conference 2017 2

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

Eastern literature. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, for example, it would have been natural to assume that the celebration of three annual festivals, according to Yhwh’s stipulations in Exod 23:14-19, etc, was unique to Israel. It is now known, however, that this pattern of festivals was observed in the city of Emar on the Upper Euphrates, in texts dating from the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200), contemporary with the period of Exodus – Judges:

• Text “Emar 373” (13th C BC) describes a zukru (√“remember”) festival on the 15th day of the first month, the same as Passover. • Text “Emar 446” describes a “head of year” festival (cf. Heb. rō’š haššānāh, Jewish New Year) in the autumn.1

The simple conclusion to be drawn from this is that the uniqueness of Israel’s religion lies not in the celebration of three annual harvest festivals between spring and autumn, but rather in what they celebrated at those festivals, principally the events of the Exodus. We may go further and conclude that to some degree God accommodated the stipulations of the Torah to the cultural conditions of the time. In other things, by contrast, the Israelites were explicitly called to be strikingly and self-consciously different from the culture around them, e.g.

When you come into the land which Yhwh your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. (Dt 18:9)

The fact remains, however, that culturally speaking, Old Testament believers at times resemble their Ancient Near Eastern neighbours far more than they resemble modern, evangelical Christians and that we must not immediately assume that, in this, they are at fault. At times, their culture acts as a critique of ours rather than vice versa.2 We must also take care not to draw lessons for contemporary Christianity from the attitudes and practices of characters in the Old Testament without understanding the rationale behind them within the culture of their time. This second caveat also applies to some extent when considering New Testament texts.

We may now proceed to the substance of the paper.

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the Old Testament people of God to the people outside of their faith community, with a view to drawing some lessons for the Christian church today. In tackling this question, it is necessary to give some attention to

1 Richard S. Hess, Israelite Religions: An archaeological and biblical survey (Nottingham: IVP, Apollos, 2007), 112-122 on documents from Emar. 2 Contemporary Western society’s individualism and entitlement mentality, for example, would leave an Old Testament believer nonplussed. Theological Study Conference 2017 3

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament methodology: how Christians legitimately derive lessons from the Old Testament. The fact that we find meaningful parallels or examples for our Christian experience and church life in Old Testament texts does not make those parallels necessarily legitimate. It would be possible, for example, to conclude from Joshua chapter 6 that the church’s mandate is to obliterate unbelievers from the face of the earth, or from Esther chapter 2 that Christian parents should encourage their daughters to enter beauty contests in order to gain advancement in the secular world. Such ideas may be “obviously” absurd (and offensive) but we need methodological reasons for dismissing them if we are to avoid drawing conclusions which are less obviously wrong but equally spurious.

For example, a contrast might be drawn between Daniel’s courteous, tactful and sympathetic attitude to Babylonian officials (Daniel ch. 1) and Mordecai’s confrontational and inflammatory refusal to show proper respect to Haman (Esther ch. 3) which precipitated the edict to exterminate the Jews within the Persian empire. From this, we might draw the lesson that it is better to be nice, like Daniel, and not spiky like Mordecai towards unbelievers, especially those in authority over us. There are several problems with this, however. First, Daniel’s niceness did not prevent persecution (chs. 2, 4, 6). Secondly, Haman’s hatred is towards the Jewish people as a whole (Esther 3:8) and his dispute with Mordecai is merely the flashpoint for his anger. There is an underlying theology of enmity between Agag king of Amelek and king Saul (cf. 1 Sam 15), played out in their descendants Haman and Mordecai (Esther 3:1 and 2:5) which the writer of Esther would have expected his readers to recognize. This strongly suggests that the narrative is about something other than how we should behave towards unbelievers in power. Thirdly, there are times when it is right to confront, as Daniel confronts Belshazzar and Esther later confronts Haman. Therefore, although it is good to be considerate, tactful and sympathetic, we learn this from ethical teaching in Torah, wisdom literature (and passages such as the Sermon on the Mount), not from narratives.

The Old Testament abounds in narrative, and unwarranted theological and practical conclusions are all too easily drawn from narratives, which are often, wrongly, regarded as simple to expound and easy to apply. Instead of regarding the Old Testament as a treasury of instructive examples, we need to approach it as an essentially theological corpus with a coherent, if complex, message. The Old Testament did not become Scripture when Jesus and the apostles spoke of it as such; it is the “God-breathed” Scripture which finds its fulfilment in Christ. For this reason, the approach in this paper is not to begin with examples from Old Testament narratives of Israelites interacting with peoples outside of Israel, but with the theology of Israel’s relationship to the nations.

The Theology of Israel and the Nations

For a theology of Israel’s relationship to other nations, we must begin with the descent of all humanity from Noah. Noah’s sons become the originators of all the nations of the known Theological Study Conference 2017 4

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament world. Noah is represented as a new Adam, through whom God preserves human- and animal-kind from the de-creation of the Flood. After the Flood the concept of nations arises, in Genesis 10, where a list of 70 descendants of Noah comprises the known people-groups of the ancient near-eastern world, and their homelands. These are distinguished according to their lands, languages, families and nations (v. 5, 20, 31).3 The chapter ends with the summary statement that,

These are the clans (mišpᵊḥōṯ) of Noah’s sons, according to their descendants (tôlᵊḏōṯ), in their nations, and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood.

The Table of Nations demonstrates God’s blessing in the fruitfulness of humanity, that from Noah’s three sons, the whole earth was populated, Gen 9:19, in an echo of the original creation mandate of Gen 1:28. At the same time, there is a suggestion of division among those nations (10:25) which resulted at least in part from the judgment on Noah’s sons in 9:24-28. The Table of Nations is followed immediately by the Babel narrative (11:1-9) which relates an event which preceded the spread of nations throughout the world. People attempted to stay together in one place and to make a name for themselves. The verb translated “populated” in Gen 9:19 is, literally, “spread” (nāpaṣ) and finds a parallel in the related verb “be scattered” (pûṣ) in 11:4, 8. The dispersal of the nations throughout the world, therefore, was brought about in part by the judgment of God on their attempts to remain in one place. In this judgment there was also grace as God acted to prevent them from being able to achieve their (presumably godless) ambitions (Gen 11:6). All this speaks of a purpose which God had for the nations of the world. The Davidic Psalm 86:8-10 speaks of God as maker of the nations:

There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there deeds like yours. all the nations which you have made will come and bow down before you, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you are great, and one who does wonders, you are God alone.

This not only suggests that the nations derive their origin from God, but that his purpose is that they should worship and glorify him. Both ideas find further expression elsewhere in the Old Testament.

The Table of Nations ends with the line of Shem, and this line of descent is taken further after the Tower of Babel narrative to trace Shem’s line down to Abraham. In this way, Israel’s

3 On the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, see William Osborne, “Nations, Table Of”, in T. Desmond Alexander & David W. Baker, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch (Leicester & Downers Grove Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 2003), 588-596. Theological Study Conference 2017 5

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament relationship to the nations begins. In God’s call of Abraham we see not only his election of Israel but also the means through which God’s purposes for the nations will be brought about. In Genesis 12:1-3, Abraham is called to leave his homeland and forsake his family in order to be made into a great nation. We might say that he is “called out of the world”, and yet this does not represent a repudiation of the rest of humanity on God’s part. All the clans of the world will receive blessing or cursing from God according to their treatment of Abraham and his descendants. This aspect of blessing for the nations through God’s call of Abraham is reiterated in the subsequent patriarchal narratives: 18:18; 22:18 (God to Abraham); 26:4 (God to Isaac, with reference to his promises to Abraham); 28:14 (God to Jacob).4 Along with the gift of land and the promise of numerous descendants, blessing for the nations is an essential part of the “everlasting covenant” (17:7) God made with Abraham.

A less discussed aspect of God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is that, under God’s blessing, they will also become the ancestors of many nations, not just of the people of Israel. Initially, Yhwh’s promise to Abraham is that he will become a great nation and that all families of the earth will find blessing in him (Gen 12:2, 3; cf. 22:18). Abraham’s ancestors will become as numerous as the dust (13:16; cf. 22:17) or the stars in the night sky (15:5), but a further development of the promise is later given, that God would make Abraham a “father of many nations (hᵃmôn gôyim)” and the ancestor of kings (17:4-6). The fulfilment of this promise within the Abraham narratives is seen in the birth of Ishmael (cf. vv. 18-20), and the six sons of Keturah (25:1-6). For the fulfilment of the parallel promise that Sarah would “become nations” and kings of peoples would come from her (17:16), we must look to the descent of the Edomites from her grandson, Esau. These nations were also assigned their territories by God (Deut 2:5, 9, 19). The reiteration of the “father of nations” promise to Jacob is more intriguing, however.5 In sending Jacob off to Laban for a wife, Isaac invokes blessing from “God Almighty” (’El Šadday), the blessing which had been upon Abraham, that Jacob may become an “assembly of peoples” (qᵊhal ‛ammîm), Gen 28:3.6 When God appeared to Jacob at Bethel after his return from Padan Aram, he not only changed his name to Israel, but promised that “a nation and an assembly of nations (gôy ûqᵊhal gôyim) will come from you” (Gen 35:11). At the end of his life, Jacob recalled this promise and the phrase “assembly of peoples” (qᵊhal ‛ammîm), when he blessed the sons of Joseph (48:4). Unlike Abraham and Isaac, Jacob is not recorded as being the father of children outside of the promised line; indeed, his name “Israel” is synonymous with that line. To refer to him as a father of a crowd of nations or peoples, therefore, has no immediately obvious genealogical fulfilment and suggests that in some way Jacob will become the “father” of nations not physically descended

4 On the different verbal stems used in these verses, see Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word Biblical Commentary, vol 1 (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1987), 277-278. in Genesis 35:11 and the Abrahamic Promise of Blessings for the גים“ ,On which, see Chee-Chiew Lee 5 Nations”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 52.3 (2009), 467-482. 6 The use of qāhāl in the general sense of “company, crowd” seems to be restricted to these passages in Genesis, Num 22:4 and Pr 21:16 (of the dead). Elsewhere, it refers more specifically to a convened assembly, congregation, company or community, BDB 874; KB 1079. Theological Study Conference 2017 6

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament from him. This also suggests that the promise of Abraham’s becoming a father of many nations expects a fulfilment beyond the physical descendants of Hagar and Keturah. Jacob’s “fatherhood” might find fulfilment in the subjection of peoples and nations to him (Gen 27:29, cf. 49:10), but we may look for a further eschatological fulfilment in the reign of the Messiah whose dominion will stretch from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth (Ps 72:8), and before whom kings will bow (v. 11). In an evocation of Genesis 12:3, people shall be blessed in him (v. 18, cf. Jer 4:2). Yhwh has a purpose for the nations “in Jacob” which transcends the immediate context in the Pentateuch. Rather than a rejection of the other peoples of the world, God’s choice of Isaac over Ishmael, and Jacob over Esau must be regarded as the means by which God enacts his purposes for those peoples.

A further link between Israel and the nations may be suggested by a correspondence between the seventy names in the Table of Nations in Gen 10 and the seventy members of the family of Jacob who went down to Egypt in Genesis 46:8-27. Later Jewish tradition connects this with the statement in Deut 32:7-8:

Remember the days of old ... when the most high (‛Elyôn) divided the nations when he separated humanity (lit. sons of ’āḏām) he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites (lit. sons of Israel).

A contrast is drawn in this verse between two sets of “sons”: the sons of Adam/humanity and the sons of Israel. A textual question hangs over this second phrase: LXX, supported by the DSS and other Qumran literature (→ ESV), reads “sons of God”. The MT’s “sons of Israel”, supported by the Targums, is retained by most English versions. If the LXX represents the correct reading, the meaning is that God divided the peoples of the world and allotted their times and places according to a number of angelic beings (cf. Dan 10:13, 20, 21). If the MT is correct, however, the contrast is between the children of Adam (or humanity) and the children of Israel. We could then see in this verse a reference back to the names of 70 nations descended from Noah in Genesis 10 and the “number of the children of Israel” would refer to the 70 descendants of Jacob listed in Genesis 46. This reading of Deut 32:8 is in keeping with the genealogies in 1 Chronicles 1: Israel is seen as an elect nation, part of, but distinct from other nations of the human race, other sons of Noah and Adam. At the same time, the fate of the nations is somehow dependent upon God’s chosen nation, Israel, the “kingdom of priests and holy nation” (Ex 19:6). We can thus trace a theological trajectory from Noah through Deuteronomy 32 and 1 Chronicles, to the genealogies of Christ and on to Acts 17:26:

[God] made from one (blood) every nation of mankind… having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place… but now he commands all men Theological Study Conference 2017 7

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed…

This makes Israel’s role among the nations proleptic of Christ’s: God has appointed a man, part of, but distinct from, the rest of humanity, through whom the nations may seek reconciliation to, and fellowship with, God. This messianic role for Israel to the world is further elaborated by Isaiah (see below).

God’s purpose for the nations in the call of Abraham encourages us to look again at the promised gift of land for Abraham’s descendants to live in. The land of Canaan, although relatively small, is in the centre of the world. It was a corridor traversed by ancient trade routes between Mesopotamia and Egypt. As such, it placed the nation of Israel where regular contact with other peoples was inevitable. As Old Testament history unfolds, we see Israel’s contact with those other peoples progressively expand through Canaan to Aram, Assyria, Babylonia and Persia. The story of the Old Testament is one of widening interaction with the nations of the world.

Israel and the Nations in Old Testament History

Having considered the theological basis of Israel’s relationship to other peoples in God’s promise that Abraham and his descendants will be the locus of his blessing and cursing to all the clans of the world, we can move on to survey the outworking of this in Israel’s history.

The immediate fulfilment of God’s promise to curse those who disrespect Abraham and bless those who bless him is in Abraham’s residence in Egypt, 12:10-20. In the great plagues (nᵊḡā‛îm gᵊḏōlîm) on “Pharaoh and his house”, Gen 12:17, we are meant to see a foreshadowing of the “great plagues” of Exodus 7-12 (neḡā‛, cf. Ex 11:1). Often regarded as examples of the patriarchs’ weakness and lack of faith, this incident and its two parallels (20:1-18 and 26:1-33) are perhaps better understood as examples of how Yhwh preserves his plan for, and through, Abraham and his “seed”.7 Even though Abraham deceived the Egyptians and their offence against him was unintentional, they nonetheless suffer at God’s hands for their treatment of the one chosen by God for his saving purposes. This may seem a counter-intuitive interpretation of the passage, but I believe it is the one which Old Testament Israelites would have understood.

I am an advocate of reading Genesis from the perspective of the Sinai generation for whom, I believe it was largely written (notwithstanding a little later editing). From this perspective, Genesis 16 is about the origin of the Ishmaelites, and Israel’s relationship to them, and not a

7 Throughout the Abraham narratives, Egypt represents an alternative to God’s promised destiny for Abraham. On this point, see Iain M. Duguid, “Hagar the Egyptian: A Note on the Allure of Egypt in the Abraham Cycle”, Westminster Theological Journal, 56 (1994), 419-421. Theological Study Conference 2017 8

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament story from which to draw morals about family life. More generally, in the life stories of the patriarchs, the Sinai generation would find an explanation of Israel’s place in the world and relationship to its peoples, rather than examples of how they should live. In the patriarchs’ interaction with the inhabitants of Canaan, the Sinai generation would have seen foreshadowings of their relationship to the Canaanites in the conquest. The rationale for the conquest is provided in the judgment on the iniquities of the Amorites, declared to Abraham (15:16, 18-21). Judgment on those iniquities is seen in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham’s intercession perhaps a foreshadowing of Israel’s role as a priestly kingdom.

We also see the blessing/cursing principle of Genesis 12:3 worked out in Jacob’s twenty-year residence with Laban in Aram. Laban was unwilling to see Jacob leave because he recognised that he had experienced blessing on account of Jacob (30:27, cf. v. 30).

In the Joseph narratives, we have the clearest outworking of the blessing/cursing of the nations principle seen with respect to Egypt. Joseph becomes the means of blessing on Potiphar’s household, and the channel of revelation to the Baker and Cupbearer. He then becomes the means by which Egypt is saved from famine and becomes prosperous and powerful. When we read (Gen 41:57), that “every land came to Egypt to buy grain, to Joseph” we are meant to hear an echo of “all the nations” of 12:3. When Jacob is brought by Joseph into Pharaoh’s presence, we read that “Jacob blessed Pharaoh”, 47:7, 10, another clear echo of 12:3. Jacob’s blessing finds an immediate fulfilment in the agrarian policies of Joseph, 47:13- 26 which amassed wealth for Pharaoh and strengthened his power. Potiphar, the jailer, the baker and cupbearer, and Pharaoh himself all esteemed Joseph and thereby received blessing. When a new dynasty arose in Egypt, whose Pharaohs despised Abraham’s descendants, we see the outworking of the curse aspect of Genesis 12:3 in the events of the Exodus.8

We are used to describing the sequence of events preceding the Exodus as a series of ten “plagues”, a term (maggēpāh) which the Pentateuch does use. More often, however, it uses the terms “sign” (’ōṯ, 4:17; 7:3; 8:17; 10:1-2) or “wonder” (môpēṯ, 4:21; 7:3, 9; 11:9-10) than “plague” to describe the hardships inflicted on Egypt, and the first of these terms indicates that there is a revelatory character to God’s dealings with Egypt.9 It can be argued that the plague-signs are, in fact, an emphatic answer to Pharaoh’s dismissive question (Exod 5:2),

Who is Yhwh that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I do not know Yhwh, nor will I let Israel go.

8 In promising to Abraham’s descendants all the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates, (Gen 15:18), Yhwh had already made it clear that prior to this, they would be strangers in an unspecified other land and serve its people and be afflicted for 400 years (Gen 15:13-18). 9 On the revelatory and missional themes in Exodus, see W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The missionary heart of the book of Exodus, New Studies in Biblical Theology 28 (Nottingham: IVP, Apollos, 2012). Theological Study Conference 2017 9

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

A repeated refrain in these early chapters of Exodus is “that they may know that I am Yhwh” (7:5, 17; 8:10 [MT 6]; 8:22 [MT 18]; 9:14, 16, 29; 14:4, 18). Even in judgment, Yhwh’s purpose is to make himself known to the nations. And a representative company of the nations are also saved at the Exodus, in the “mixed multitude” (‛ēreḇ raḇ), a term which suggests that people of a large number of other races went out with the Israelites (Exod 12:38, cf. Num 11:4 and Dt 32:43). According to Ezekiel, even God’s merciful treatment of Israel’s covenant violation in the golden calf incident was so that his name would not be ‘profaned among the nations’ (Ezek 20:9, 14, 22, cf. Exod 32:12).

In the inauguration of the Sinai covenant there is a suggestion of Israel’s role among the nations, in her calling to be a priestly kingdom (Exod 19:6). Although not explicit, the implication behind this designation is that the whole nation of Israel was to exercise a mediatorial role between God and the nations. This role would be multi-faceted. It would involve the conquest of the land as an act of judgment on the Canaanite nations for their sins, the “iniquity of the Amorites” of Genesis 15:16. It would then entail maintaining their exclusive devotion to Yhwh and the theological and ethical distinctives laid down in the Torah. It would also include, however, the assimilation of foreigners into the covenant people of Yhwh. This began with Rahab and her household, and extended to the Gibeonites (Joshua 2:11-14; 6:25; ch. 9). The presence of Uriah the Hittite and Araunah the Jebusite living within Judah in David’s day indicates that people of other nations were incorporated within the community of Israel. The extent of the land-grant to Abraham’s descendants, from the Nile to the Euphrates, in Gen 15:18, reiterated to the Israelites in Deut 1:7 and 11:24, and Josh 1:4 was scarcely realised in practice, although under David (cf. 2 Sam 8:3) and Solomon political dominance in the region was achieved for a brief period. Under Solomon, not only did the wealth of the nations come to Jerusalem, but “men from all peoples came to hear Solomon’s wisdom, from all the kings of the earth, who heard [of] his wisdom” (1 Ki 4:34; MT 5:14). This presents us with a glimpse of a benign revelatory role within the nations that Israel might have enjoyed, had her kings maintained covenant faithfulness. Psalm 72:8 expands this into an idealised eschatological vision in which the Messiah’s kingdom will stretch “from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth”. In sad contrast to this, however, is the reality of Old Testament Israel’s persistent unfaithfulness, which meant that contact with other nations more often came through their being the instruments of God’s chastisement of his people. It is significant that all but one of Israel’s enemies in the book of Judges came from outside the land of Canaan. Judges does not record strife with the original inhabitants over ownership of the land, but suffering under oppressors from outside sent by God in response to his people’s apostasy. As the Old Testament unfolds, the oppressors come from further and further afield, eventually overrunning the land and carrying off Israel into exile in a reversal of the Exodus. It is surely significant that Nebuchadnezzar is said to have taken all the land that belonged to the king of Egypt “from the River of Egypt to the River Euphrates” (2 Kings Theological Study Conference 2017 10

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

24:7) in an ironic echo of the land-grant to Abraham. It is as though Israel never actually possessed the land God promised to Abraham’s descendants.

Nevertheless, the Babylonians (and other nations) exceeded God’s purpose in their triumphal plunder of Israel and, particularly, their haughty dismissal of Israel’s God. The nations are often viewed and denounced as powers hostile to God, his kingdom and his purposes in the world. Babylon, in particular, becomes symbolic of the hostile spiritual forces at work in the world, even within the Old Testament itself, although this culminates in Revelation 17 and 18. Opposition to God and his people could not remain unpunished and in the Old Testament, we see successive world powers rise and fall, while the remnant of Israel remains preserved. This explains the distinct genre within the prophetic literature known as “Oracles against the Nations”. Nahum and Obadiah are books which consist entirely of this, and major sections within Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and parts of the other prophetic books also fall into this category. Rooted in the curse aspect of Genesis 12:3, these oracles demonstrate a perception on the part of the prophets that Yhwh was no mere tutelary deity restricted by the borders of Israel, but that he exercised dominion over all nations. As Paul Cook expresses it,

…it is clear that prophets very rarely viewed Israel in isolation from events that were unfolding on the international scene. Rather, the prophetic literature most often reflects the assumption that Yahweh’s activity held implications at home as well as abroad.10

It is significant, in this respect, that Jeremiah is called as a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5, 10), not just to Judah. Sometimes, oracles against the nations include the promise of salvation for Israel, but not always. There are other aspects to the prophetic stance towards the nations outside Israel, as well. First, there is condemnation of Israel’s leaders for seeking security in foreign alliances rather than in Yhwh. Secondly, however, there are also promises of future blessing on the nations as they are brought to know and worship Yhwh. Sometimes this is referred to as “universalism”, in the sense not that all people (without exception) will be saved, but that people from all nations (without distinction) will come to worship Israel’s God. Passages of this character include Isa 19:18-25; 60:1-3; 66:18-21; Mic 4:1-3; Zeph 2:11; Zech 2:11; 8:22; 14:16-19. It is a feature especially of Isaiah chapters 40-55, where God’s light to the nations is his servant Israel, but also the messianic servant of 42:6, 49:6 (cf. Lk 2:32). Cook argues persuasively that the emphasis in these passages is not so much on the salvation of foreign nations per se, but on the universal acknowledgement and exaltation of Yhwh as the one true God. In other words, the rationale for universalism is monotheism, not pluralism: harmony among the nations will only come through universal acknowledgement of Yhwh as God. A number of Psalms also give expression to the idea of universal acknowledgement of God among the nations (e.g. Pss 22:27-28; 6:2-7; 72:8-11, 19; 86:9;

10 Paul M. Cook, “Nations”, in Mark J. Boda & J. Gordon McConville (eds.), Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets, (Nottingham & Downers Grove Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 2012), 563-568; 563. Theological Study Conference 2017 11

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

113:4; 117:1; 138:4-6). Arguably it is a major theme of the book of Jonah, in which pagan mariners and the inhabitants of Nineveh are spared from death and come to some awareness of Yhwh, “the God of heaven, who made the sea and dry ground” (1:9). Jonah’s mission to Nineveh can be regarded as a rare example of “centrifugal” mission in the Old Testament, that is an Israelite going outside the borders of Israel to take a message from God to people of another nation. More often, mission in the Old Testament is “centripetal”, with foreigners coming to Israel to seek Yhwh.11 Another striking feature of the book of Jonah is that the prophet assumed from the outset that God would behave towards the Ninevites according to his covenant character as declared to Israel in Exodus 34:6,7 (quoted verbatim in Jonah 4:2). Nahum, similarly, applied a different aspect of Yhwh’s character in predicting the downfall of Nineveh on the grounds that God will not acquit the guilty (Nah 1:3). This application to other nations of God’s character as covenantally revealed to Israel further suggests that the God of the Old Testament has a purpose which encompasses all nations. God’s covenantal dealings with nations is also suggested by Jeremiah 18:7-10, where God will relent of a predicted disaster if a nation repents of its evil, but will withhold promised blessings from a nation or kingdom which does evil.

Exile among the Nations

The Exile presented the Old Testament people of God with circumstances as theologically complex and challenging as they were nationally and personally traumatic. Faced with the loss of Jerusalem, the Davidic monarchy, the temple, and the land which represented each family’s stake in the covenant promises of God, both the Israelites who were carried into captivity and those who remained must have questioned in what sense, or even whether, they were now the people of God, especially as the final sanction for covenant unfaithfulness had been enacted (Deut 28:37, 41, 63-68). Nevertheless, there were also promises of restoration after exile for the repentant, in the Torah (Deut 30:1-10) and in the eschatological vision of the prophets. Moreover there was a seventy-year time-frame for all this, in God’s word through Jeremiah (Jer 25:11), and also practical guidance as to how to live in exile, in Jeremiah’s letter to the captives (Jer 29). The gist of that guidance is to settle down and live quiet lives in harmony with their non-Israelite neighbours because they will be there for several generations, with the promise that God would bring them back to Israel after the 70 years. In other words, waiting for the fulfilment of that promise did not mean treading water or retreating into a bunker, but fully engaging in life, working towards and praying for the peace of the place where they found themselves. They were also to be careful whom they heeded, rejecting the false hopes of self-appointed “prophets” in favour of biblical realism as represented by the word of Yhwh through Jeremiah. All this was underpinned by a robust

11 On this point, see Daniel C. Timmer, “Jonah and Mission: Missiological Dichotomy, Biblical Theology, and the Via Tertia”, Westminster Theological Journal, 70 (2008), 159-175, and A Gracious and Compassionate God; Mission, salvation and spirituality in the book of Jonah, New Studies in Biblical Theology, 26 (Nottingham: IVP, 2011). Theological Study Conference 2017 12

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament theology that as God had taken them into exile he would bring them out again (vv. 4, 14), and a deuteronomic call to seek God whole-heartedly (vv. 12-13). There is nothing in the letter about any active attempt to spread the knowledge of Yhwh among the nations, what we might call “evangelism” or “proselytising” however.

In the person of Daniel, we see the practical outworking of a theology for exiles. He was careful to maintain his distinctive Israelite identity, whilst fully engaging in affairs of state in the Babylonian civil service and treating his Babylonian superiors with courtesy, deference, tact and apparent sympathy. All this flowed from an obvious familiarity with Scripture (see 9:2 and biblical phraseology in his words), and a habit of praying towards Jerusalem at the times appointed for daily sacrifices. In this way, he constantly reminded himself of the primacy of his citizenship of Judah.

Daniel is hardly a typical exile, however and the narratives in the book of Daniel are sometimes grouped together with the Joseph narratives and the book of Esther under the heading of “Court Tales”. In this genre, individual Israelites find themselves in positions of influence at the seat of pagan power. Primarily, they are to be the means through whom God will preserve his people in the face of danger (famine or the whims of hostile rulers or officials). They are there also there to be God’s witnesses, to show that there is a higher power than the king or emperor in whose court the events take place. This was especially important in Daniel’s case, to demonstrate that Babylonian ascendancy was a temporary gift from God and that his kingdom was the enduring one.

The Post-Exilic Context

In many ways, Israel in the post-exilic context offers the closest parallels to the church in a “post-Christian” context. Partly this is because of the loss of many of the features of pre-exilic Israel which are most remote from the New Testament church – (most of) its territory, political autonomy and the Davidic monarchy. Judah was now defined more in terms of religion and ethnicity than by its geographical boundaries. With no Davidic king and usually non-Jewish governors, the high priests came into increasing prominence as leaders, and they are also the expositors of Scripture. In other words, many of the features of first-century Judaism are arising, which is the context in which the church was born. As Derek Kidner put it, Israel emerged from the Babylonian captivity, “no longer a kingdom but a little flock with the making of a church”.12 There are more specific parallels with the Western church’s present context, however. The Persian empire exercised “pluralistic toleration”. Unlike the Assyrians who annihilated any national consciousness on the part of subjugated peoples by their policy of resettlement, and the Babylonians who asserted the supremacy of their national gods, the Persians encouraged subject peoples to return to their homelands and re-establish

12 Derek Kidner, Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC (Leicester & Downers Grove, Ill: IVP, 1979) 13. Theological Study Conference 2017 13

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament the worship of national deities. In this they would give generous state support. When Ezra returned to Jerusalem (Ezra 7-8), he carried with him gold from the Persian treasury worth around £80 million today to finance the temple and cult in Jerusalem. All the same, the returning captives found that there was an iron fist within the velvet glove of Persian bureaucracy, with frequent harassment from regional government in Samaria which viewed Jerusalem and Judah as stubborn and rebellious. The book of Ezra-Nehemiah is under no illusions about the seeming toleration of the Persian empire. 13 Under Persian rule, Israel is still in exile (Ezra 9:7) and the emperors are compared with the Assyrians Esarhaddon (Ezra 4:2) and “Osnapper” (i.e. Ashurbanipal, Ezra 4:10). The Book of Esther also shows how quickly toleration can turn to persecution when an enemy of God’s people rises to a position of influence. In describing Haman as an “Agagite”, the author is referencing an ancient spiritual enmity between Israel and Amalek. Mordecai was a Benjamite, a descendant of Kish, a name which recalls the ancestry of king Saul (2:5). This points us back to the incident in 1 Sam 15, when king Saul spared the life of king Agag of the Amalekites, contrary to God’s command (see also background in Exod 17:8-16).

The leaders of the returned exiles also had internal trouble to deal with, in the form of social and financial inequality (Neh 5), the depopulation of Jerusalem (Neh 11) and a tendency for people to pursue their own comfort while neglecting the cause of God (Haggai chapter 1). Even more seriously, the very existence of the people of God was under threat through inter- marriage and assimilation (Ezra 9-10; 13). In dealing with this latter issue, an opposite danger arose, that of retreat into a pious ghetto and regarding those from outside with hostility, tendencies within first-century Judaism denounced by the Lord Jesus.

We can draw lessons from the post-exilic community’s priorities. The book of Ezra- Nehemiah presents three great reform movements in the hundred or so years of history it covers: the rebuilding of the temple; the teaching of the Torah; the building of Jerusalem’s walls. In general terms we can see in these a hierarchy of priorities beginning with worship (the maintenance of fellowship with God), extending to consecrated living through the application of Scripture and seeking the security of the church in the world. All three were happening to some extent concurrently, of course, but the order of the reform movements is suggestive of priorities. We might draw a parallel with Ezekiel 37, where the reconstitution of skeletons as corpses – which equates to the rebuilding of infrastructure, productivity of the land and repopulation (Ezek 36:28-38) – amounts to nothing without the life-giving breath of God’s Spirit – which equates to the inner work of God in giving the people a new mind and spirit (Ezek 36:26-27). In other words, the priority of the post-exilic community was to fulfil the covenant obligations as articulated in Deuteronomy before their entry to the Promised Land (see Deut 30:1-10). Despite the changed context, the essentials remain unchanged.

13 See Gregory Goswell, “The Attitude to the Persians in Ezra-Nehemiah”, Trinity Journal, 32 NS no.2 (Fall 2011), 191-203. Theological Study Conference 2017 14

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

Wisdom and the World

The Old Testament acknowledges that there is value and wisdom in the “world” outside of Israel. This notion is inherent in Old Testament wisdom literature which not only expounds principals which are universally true for all nations “under the sun”, but also incorporates wise sayings from people of other cultures, provided they are consistent with Israel’s underlying theological framework provided by Torah. The very fact that Solomon’s wisdom is compared to that of men from Mesopotamia and Egypt (1 Ki 4:31 [MT 5:10]) is itself an acknowledgement that it may have been superior but was of the same kind as theirs. By contrast, it would have been unthinkable for the Torah of Moses or the oracles of the prophets to have been compared to the instructions or oracles of other nations. Wisdom literature, therefore, says something about the universal nature of knowledge: that all people are made in the image of God and retain something of an ability to exercise dominion over the world through understanding how nature and human society function. In order to be reconciled to God, we are still dependent upon revelation from him, but in living within the present created order, the people of God do not have a monopoly on insight. In other words, the fact that society functions better and life is improved where people are humble, honest and industrious was true whether one was an Israelite or an Egyptian, and it was not only Israelites who observed this. Similarly, there are aspects of Christ’s teaching and Christian values that the unbelieving world recognises as true and beneficial, and there are helpful insights into human behaviour provided by “secular” science and the arts.

Summary

We have seen that the relationship between the Old Testament people of God and other peoples is rooted in God’s choice and call of Abraham and his descendants through the line of promise represented by Isaac and Jacob. The choice of this one particular individual, family and then nation was central to God’s plan for all nations as their creator and sovereign ruler, and the one to whom all people must give account. According to their treatment of God’s chosen people, those nations would experience either blessing or curse from God. We see this principle at work even when God’s people are powerless themselves to influence events, such as in the time of the Exodus or in pronouncing the demise of great empires such as Assyria and Babylon. At other times, Old Testament Israel has an active part to play in fulfilling the terms of Genesis 12:3, in fulfilment of their role as a priestly kingdom.

First and foremost, Israel’s calling was to remain distinct in exclusive allegiance to Yhwh, demonstrated through keeping the Torah. This did not mean being different in every respect from the surrounding cultures, but in the essential matters of belief about God, how to approach him and discern his will, and in practising consecratedness to him (“holiness”) in family, home and society (see the scope of “holiness” in, for example, Leviticus 19). An Theological Study Conference 2017 15

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament example of this working well is provided by the book of Ruth, where the conscientious practice of Torah by Naomi and particularly Boaz, draws Ruth into the community of Israel.

Secondly, Israel was sometimes called upon to be the agent of God’s righteous judgment on nations for their defiance of him, pride and aggression. This was true at the conquest, in others of Israel’s wars, and in the pronouncement of oracles against the nations. It is important to see this as judgment on the nations as spiritually opposed to God and as representing hostile and rival kingdoms to his. Individual members from those nations who changed their allegiance to Israel’s God could be accommodated within the people of God. Thus, Rahab and Ruth took their place not only within Israel, but in the genealogy of Christ.

Thirdly, there are examples of friendly relationships between Israel and those outside, such as the Pharaoh of the Joseph narratives, Hiram king of Tyre and the Queen of Sheba. Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah enjoyed good relationships with Persian emperors, although the Old Testament’s stance towards these rulers is not uncritical. Contact with Israelites on the part of these foreigners often resulted in blessing, in fulfilment of Genesis 12:3, even though there is no suggestion of a switch of allegiance to Israel’s God. It always resulted in some degree of revelation about the nature of the true God. Friendly relations also included interchange of ideas between the nations and Israel in the wisdom tradition.

Fourthly, from the early chapters of Genesis onwards, it appears that God has a purpose for the blessing of the nations, which we find more fully expounded in the prophets’ eschatological hope of acknowledgment of Yhwh among the nations, and that people from outside ethnic Israel will seek him by coming to Jerusalem and being taught by the Israelites. In some Psalms and the Servant Songs in Isaiah, this hope is focussed particularly in the person of the Messiah. This leads us to consider the fulfilment of these themes in the Christian church, and to reflect on what lessons may be drawn for Christian people and the church in the western world today.

Application

The primary fulfilment of the theme of Israel and her neighbours is in Christ, the new Israel. He is the “seed” of Abraham in whom people of all nations may find blessing but the one whose rejection by them will bring a curse. Secondarily, as the body of Christ, the church is now privileged with Israel’s role of priestly kingdom and holy nation in the world (1 Peter 2:9) and it can be argued that those nations or rulers who favour the church enjoy blessing whilst those who pit themselves against Christ’s church will be judged by God as a consequence.

Like Old Testament Israel, the church’s calling is first and foremost to remain distinct in exclusive allegiance to Yhwh in the essential matters of belief about God, how to approach Theological Study Conference 2017 16

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament him and discern his will, and in practising consecratedness to him (“holiness”) in family, home and society.

Secondarily, the church has a role to play in judging the “world” in the sense of the realm of spiritual darkness that sometimes works through human political powers and individuals. We must be careful to distinguish this carefully from a blanket condemnation of all unbelieving people. The church exists in part to be God’s critique of human society whilst also being the instrument by which God saves people through her proclamation of the gospel.

The Old Testament also presents us with the model of the people of God as beneficial within the world and its particular societies, and enjoying friendly relationships with unbelievers, even though they may remain in their allegiance to other gods. There is also fruitful interchange of ideas with people of other nations, under God’s common grace to all of creation.

Finally, the eschatological hope of people from all nations being reconciled to God is realised in their acceptance of the gospel of Christ, which provides the church’s missionary mandate.

Specific Application

Having traced a theological stance towards people outside of Israel, and briefly followed its trajectory into the New Testament, let us now consider where legitimate and fruitful comparisons for Christians are to be found in the Old Testament. In doing so, it is worth recalling the note of caution sounded at the beginning of this paper about the dangers of reading lessons for Christian living out of Old Testament narratives, especially when the main protagonists in those narratives are exceptional figures in Israel’s history and not what we might term “ordinary” Old Testament believers. When we read the New Testament, we are quite used to recognising that some aspects of the life of the Lord Jesus are unique to him and not true of us, and also that some aspects of the lives and ministries of the apostles are not transferrable to every believer today. We need to approach Old Testament narratives with the same sophistication.

The Patriarchs

The Noah cycle in Genesis 6-9 has almost nothing to say about the interaction between the righteous and the ungodly. We are merely shown the contrast between Noah and his surrounding culture. Any idea that salvation in the ark was available to other people if they had only heeded Noah’s preaching is foreign to the Bible. Hebrews 11:7 tells us that he effectively condemned the world by preparing an ark to save “his household” and 1 Peter 3:20 tells us that the ark was prepared for the salvation of eight people. We cannot build a theology of evangelism on Noah’s designation as a “preacher of righteousness” in 2 Peter 2:5, where Theological Study Conference 2017 17

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament the context is condemnation: of fallen angels; of the antediluvian world; of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Furthermore, Noah’s role as a second Adam and therefore father of all nations makes him too exceptional a figure for lessons to be drawn about Christian conduct. A similar note of caution needs to be sounded about other patriarchal figures. Before drawing lessons from their lives for Christian living, we need to consider who they were and whether their special place within God’s unfolding plan is actually the message of the narratives that deal with their lives, rather than moral and ethical conduct.

Similarly, we must be cautious about drawing lessons for Christian living from the narratives of Old Testament leaders, kings and prophets. The book of Joshua is about the acquisition and allotment of the land, in fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham, and yields no lessons about Israel’s subsequent foreign policy, let alone lessons for how the church should live in an unbelieving world. The main lesson for the church is covenant allegiance to Christ. We should be uneasy when the book is allegorised in such a way as to make unbelievers the enemy to be “conquered” by the church’s mission. The conquest was experienced almost entirely as the judgment of God by the Canaanites. In the same way, we must exercise great caution about spiritualising the narratives of the judges and drawing lessons about “spiritual warfare” from them. To do so in a way consistent with New Testament teaching will inevitably require being selective with the text, choosing what fits and disregarding what doesn’t, and will also mean that we miss the main point of these narratives, which is what God is doing in and through Israel. A similar caution must characterise the lessons we draw from Old Testament kings. Their position as Yhwh’s anointed and as federal heads of Israel and Judah immediately distance them from us. An Old Testament king can be (apparently) unregenerate and yet still the Lord’s anointed and federal head of God’s people. This does not transfer into the New Testament context. Similarly, when dealing with Davidic Psalms, it is wisest to ask first whether the psalm applies primarily or even exclusively to the Lord’s anointed and, therefore, to Christ, before we ask what it says, if anything, about the experience of the “ordinary” believer.

In the prophetic books, we must also recognise a difference in the prophetic ministry and ours. Prophets had a direct word from God which gave them the authority to denounce kingdoms and also to predict future blessing on the nations. We do not. Whilst there may be a theological basis for believing that the nations of the world are not merely the accidents of human history but, in some sense, determined by God (Deut 32:8; Acts 17:26), this does not justify our making assumptions about how God is dealing with particular nations in history or contemporary events. Circumspection is also required in drawing parallels between particular circumstances in Israel’s history and the contemporary world. If we draw parallels between the post-exilic community and the church in the West today on the lines suggested above, for example, this should not mean that we cannot apply the message of the pre-exilic prophets as meaningfully. If we draw lessons for today’s church from Israel in exile, we are probably Theological Study Conference 2017 18

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament ignoring the fundamental deuteronomic theology that Israel went into exile as a curse on her persistent covenant disobedience.

At this point (if not before!) some readers will object that surely the New Testament encourages Christians to look for examples of faithful and godly living in the narratives of the Old Testament. Two passages that may be cited in support of this are 1 Cor 10:11 and Hebrews 11. However, the ‘example’ in 1 Cor 10 is that of God’s judgment falling on his people for idolatry, immorality and complaining against God. This amounts to the general lesson about covenant obedience which I explore further below. Similarly, Hebrews 11 is not a general survey of the Old Testament, or an illustration of ‘faith’ in general from Old Testament characters, but a highly selective use of the Old Testament to illustrate the much more specific idea of enduring hardship in the present because of as-yet-unseen future outcomes, in line with the purpose of the epistle to encourage persecuted Jewish Christians to endure present afflictions. Chapter 11 provides no warrant for taking the entire life-story of the characters mentioned as an example of how to live the Christian life.14

I have raised many caveats and cautions in this paper not merely to limit how we use the Old Testament in the church today, but to point instead to where I think the safer and more fruitful comparisons lie. We must look to the nation of Israel as constituted in the terms of the Sinai covenant. Here the people are given identity as God’s people, a consecrated (holy) nation and priestly kingdom. They are also called first and foremost to an absolute and exclusive allegiance to Yhwh (Dt 6:4-5) and provided with a means of access to him. They are called to be a worshipping community who live in accordance with God’s revelation to them, and to reject alternative theologies, gods and many practices of the peoples around them. All this is fundamental, also, to what it means to be a Christian in any context and at any time. The particular form and appeal of rival gods is specific to time and place. We need to understand the nature of the threat facing Old Testament Israel and then, by extension, the nature of the threat facing the church today.

In Canaan, the Israelites faced the apparently irresistible appeal of local fertility religions. The attraction was simple and immediate. In Egypt, water was provided consistently by the river Nile (just as it was by the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia). In Canaan, the Israelites were dependent upon rainfall for the fertility of the ground and therefore, for life itself. The choice was either to trust in Yhwh’s promise to grant rain and fertility as a blessing for covenant obedience (Deut 7:7:12-16; 28:1-14) or to pay homage to the Canaanite deity Baal (Hadad), the storm god and bringer of rain and fertility. In practice, most were guilty of syncretism: not either/or but both/and. This is the underlying message of the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 17-19. Syncretism destroyed their distinctive

14 Other ‘example’ language in the NT can be found in: Jude 7 (Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of God’s judgment on sexual immorality); James 5:10 (the prophets an example of suffering and patience); Heb 4:11 (the Sinai generation as a warning against disobedience). Theological Study Conference 2017 19

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament witness as God’s people and made them ineffective as a light to the nations. For application to the contemporary western church, we must ask what are the compelling alternative theologies and rival gods of our times and call Christian people to repudiate them. We must ask what are those things in society which offer alternative but compelling routes to happiness, security and prosperity. Happiness, security and prosperity are not false gods in themselves: the false gods are the means of attaining them apart from God and the alternative realities which allegiance to them entails.

In post-Protestant societies, Christians often have difficulty in identifying where idolatry is to be found. Unlike predominantly Roman Catholic or Orthodox societies, and the religious context outside of Europe, where icons, images, statues and cult objects are commonplace, it is not so straightforward to know how to apply the injunction ‘dear children, keep yourselves from idols’ (1 John 5:21). Often it is said that anything can be an idol – your possessions, family, hobbies and enthusiasms. It is hard to reconcile this with the principles and practices of idolatry in the Ancient Near East or the Graeco-Roman world of the First Century. Both Testaments critique acquisitiveness and love of possessions, but this is distinct from ‘idolatry’ (see below on Col 3:5). A definition of idolatry may be helpful at this point.

Idolatry was the seeking of blessing by using material things (idols) to produce effects in the spiritual realm (the favour of the gods), and in denial of God as the only source of blessing. Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Eden shows this outlook in practice: they sought blessing (becoming like God, knowing good and evil) by means of the material (the fruit) to produce a spiritual effect, in denial of God as the source of blessing. For Israel, the temptation was to seek blessing through the use of idols to manipulate foreign gods into granting what only Yhwh could give, in contravention of their exclusive covenantal relationship with him. Another feature of their idolatry was that it involved them in practices forbidden by God but entirely acceptable in the wider culture of the time. Underlying idolatry was an alternative theology of blessing. Neither the desire for blessing nor the acquisition of material things were wrong in themselves. Idolatry is not the deification of possessions, other people or our desires. Nor can we say that the idols were the most important things in the lives of idolaters. They often feared rather than loved them (or the gods they represented) and only served them to the degree necessary to secure blessing. Idolatry is the deification of something outside of ourselves as the source of blessing, as a rival to God himself. In the aniconic, post-Protestant west, it may be that the false deity is ‘Man’, not as he actually is, neither humanity or the human race, nor other individuals, but an idealized notion of Man as benign, increasingly knowledgeable and increasingly able. He can ensure our safety, devise cures for our illnesses and entertainments for our minds. He can insulate us from the harsh realities of life and show a measure of compassion. Like the gods and goddesses of the Ancient world, he is not morally flawless or all-powerful, but just good enough and capable enough, and therefore ‘god’ enough. Like the gods of the ancient world, ‘Man’ does not exist, but in western society it is quite normal to worship him. Theological Study Conference 2017 20

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

Most of what the Old Testament has to say about idolatry concerns the worship of other gods through idols, thus encompassing both first and second commandments. A couple of passages arguably deal with the worship of the one true God, Yhwh, through idols (e.g. Exod 32:4-5; 1 Ki 12:28-30). Beyond these, however, we find an idolatrous mindset in the attitude of the Israelites to the Ark of the Covenant (1 Sam 4) the temple (Jer 7) and sacrifices in general (Isa 1:11-17; Hos 6:4-6, etc.). These cult objects were regarded as a means through which God could be manipulated into providing blessing, rather than his blessing being poured out generously on a covenantally faithful people. This gives us pause to examine our own attitude to the activities of worship and means of grace, and whether we see them as a means to secure God’s blessing irrespective of our love expressed in faithful obedience.

In the New Testament, most of what is said about idolatry concerns the practices of first- century Gentiles. For Gentile Christians, the avoidance of idols was literally that. The exception is Colossians 3:5, where Paul equates covetousness (pleonexia) with idolatry. This is an intriguing identification of the first and final commands of the Decalogue which appears to equate acquisitiveness with idolatry. A closer look, however, suggests that it does not simply equate possessions with idols, and that the understanding of idolatry I am proposing is compatible with Colossians 3:5. Covetousness is the desire for more than one ought to have, or for what one ought not to have. In other words, the sin lies neither in the desire nor the thing desired, but in the desire for a blessing which cannot be had within the terms of a covenantal relationship with God. To illustrate, it was not wrong for an ancient Israelite either to want or to have a house, wife, servant, ox or donkey. But someone else’s house, wife, servant, ox or donkey could only be had in violation of the covenant relationship with God. It was to pursue an alternative path to blessing in denial of God as the only giver of blessing. In seeking to warn contemporary Christians against the dangers of idolatry, therefore, the route lies not in making them feel guilty about acquiring and owning things, but in asking whether their pursuit of blessing is always compatible with a theology of blessings and obligations of love, in Christ.

Beyond Israel’s struggle to remain true to God in the land of Canaan, lessons for contemporary Christian life can also be drawn from the conduct of Israel in exile. Their calling was still to maintain their distinct identity, but with a couple of added emphases. First, they had to heed the prophetic word. This involved distinguishing the true prophets, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, from the false prophets who peddled attractive alternative explanations of Israel’s predicament. Secondly, it entailed putting down roots in the midst of a pagan society, engaging with it, and seeking the good of its people. This seems to me very close to the idea of being salt and light within the world (Matt 5:13-16). When drawing lessons from characters like Joseph, Daniel and Esther, we must bear in mind that they did not choose their circumstances. It is one thing to be an exemplary Israelite in a foreign court, but another thing to seek such a position for its own sake. Whatever lessons we might helpfully draw from Theological Study Conference 2017 21

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

Daniel chapter 1 for Christians going off to university, none of them will have been forcibly removed and subjected to a course of study of paganism against their will as part of God’s judgment on his people for covenant disobedience!

Finally, I think there are neglected lessons for us from Old Testament wisdom literature’s interaction with the wisdom of the world. The fundamental premise of wisdom literature is the Torah foundation of the fear of Yhwh. Nonetheless, within the framework of the Torah’s theology, aspects of human observation and wisdom can be accommodated. The value of this today is that we live in a “howling blizzard of signals”,15 an avalanche of information and opinion. All this needs to be evaluated but cannot simply be rejected or accepted wholesale. To acknowledge that there is wisdom in the unbelieving world is helpful, and to be seen to have beneficial, well-thought-out and coherent (“wise”) views is a good way of interacting with the people of the world. It provides an alternative paradigm to that of the church and the unbelieving world as implacable foes. It also corrects the impression sometimes given in Christian circles that all the world’s knowledge is to be regarded with suspicion or dismissed as valueless. We must remember that we share with unbelievers the fundamental fact of being created by God, subject to a fallen nature, living in a good but cursed world and desperately needing redemption. Perhaps the final lesson for us is not to accept the false gods and alternative realities of the unbelieving world, but neither to reject the people of the world outside of the church, or their observations about life, but to see ourselves as sharing a common humanity and called by God in order to be the means through which he works out his purposes for the world in Christ.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1) What light does God’s creation of the nations in Gen 10, Deut 32:8, and Acts 17:26-27 shed on contemporary debates about ethnicity and nationalism?

2) How does the church function as the locus of God’s blessing and cursing on the nations? Is the church passive or active in this role?

3) If the Old Testament rationale for “universalism” is monotheism, how does this help in addressing contemporary ideas about pluralism?

4) Why is there a contrast between the Old Testament’s predominantly centripetal view of mission compared to the church’s centrifugal approach to mission?

15 The phrase is from the art critic Robert Hughes in The Shock of the New: Art and the century of change, 1st edn. (London: BBC, 1980), 344. Theological Study Conference 2017 22

David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

5) What lessons can we draw from the Old Testament about the balance between engagement in society and maintaining Christian distinctiveness?

6) What are the false gods and alternative “theologies” that most attract Christians today?

7) What can we learn from the Old Testament wisdom for Christian engagement with the world?!

Select Bibliography

W. Ross BLACKBURN, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The missionary heart of the book of Exodus, Nottingham (IVP; Apollos New Studies in Biblical Theology 28), 2012

Daniel I. BLOCK, The Gods of the Nations: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern National Theology, 2nd edn., Grand Rapids (Baker; Baker Academic) and Leicester (IVP; Apollos), 2000

Daniel I BLOCK, “Nations/Nationality,” in Willem Van Gemeren (ed.), New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, 5 vols, Carlisle (Paternoster), 1997, vol. IV, pp. 966-972

Paul M. COOK, “Nations”, in Mark J. Boda & J. Gordon McConville, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets, Nottingham & Downers Grove Ill (Inter-Varsity Press), 2012, pp. 563- 568

Iain M. DUGUID, “Hagar the Egyptian: A Note on the Allure of Egypt in the Abraham Cycle”, Westminster Theological Journal, 56 (1994), 419-421

Gregory GOSWELL, “The Attitude to the Persians in Ezra-Nehemiah”, Trinity Journal, 32 NS no.2 (Fall 2011), 191-203

Richard S. HESS, Israelite Religions: An archaeological and biblical survey, Nottingham (IVP; Apollos), 2007

in Genesis 35:11 and the Abrahamic Promise of Blessings for the גים“ ,Chee-Chiew LEE Nations”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 52.3 (2009), 467-482

Brian Alexander McKENZIE, “Jacob’s Blessing on Pharaoh: An Interpretation of Gen 46:31- 47:26”, Westminster Theological Journal, 45.2 (1983), 386-399

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David Green: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the Old Testament

William OSBORNE, “Nations, Table Of”, in T. Desmond ALEXANDER & David W. BAKER, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, Leicester & Downers Grove Ill (Inter- Varsity Press), 2003, pp. 588-596

John N. OSWALT, The Bible Among the Myths: Unique revelation or just ancient literature?, Grand Rapids (Zondervan), 2009

Philip SATTERTHWAITE & David W. BAKER, “Nations of Canaan”, in T. Desmond Alexander & David W. Baker, Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, Leicester & Downers Grove Ill (Inter-Varsity Press), 2003, pp. 596-605

Simon SHERWIN, “‘I am against you’: Yahweh’s Judgment on the Nations and its Ancient Near Eastern Context”, Tyndale Bulletin, 54.2 (2003), 149-160

Daniel C. TIMMER, “Jonah and Mission: Missiological Dichotomy, Biblical Theology, and the Via Tertia”, Westminster Theological Journal, 70 (2008), 159-175

Daniel C. TIMMER, A Gracious and Compassionate God; Mission, salvation and spirituality in the book of Jonah, Nottingham (IVP; New Studies in Biblical Theology, 26), 2011.

Donald J. WISEMAN (ed.), Peoples of Old Testament Times, Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1973 ! Theological Study Conference 2017 1

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

Chris Bennett, Pastor, Wilton Community Church, London; Lecturer, London Seminary & EMW Theological Training Course

I have been granted some leeway in the interpretation of my title, so I am going to look at the NT teaching on the church, the people of God, with special reference to its mission – thus fitting in with the theme of the whole conference – and to certain areas of current debate among us and the authors we read.

Perspective

It will be helpful to know where I am coming from in certain regards.

1. Where on the line?

There is a line from total doctrinal indifferentism (what you believe doesn’t really matter at all) to extreme dogmatism (I can only cope and get to sleep at night if I’m sure all my theological opinions are right – so they are right! right?), and I am closer to the classic Princetonians (whose default position was, for example, that Roman Catholics are Christians despite doctrinal errors) than to James Begg, closer to Richard Baxter than many of his Puritan brothers, along this line. I think that many Christians who think of themselves as theologically conservative are closer to my second set of brackets than they ought to be; and that Paul in Philippians 3:15-16 is setting us free, on the basis of the ongoing enlightening work of the Spirit in every believer, from having to be dogmatic about everything.

2. Doctrinal development

B. B. Warfield’s theory of doctrinal development, or “progressive orthodoxy” (not to be confused with J. H. Newman’s idea of development!) is correct – that the Spirit is progressively opening up major doctrines to the theologising church: the person of Christ and the Trinity, then sin and grace, then atonement, then justification by faith, then the Spirit’s work, etc.1 And a major area where the church has not yet seen things very clearly at all is the doctrine of the church. We are all over the place on this, still – not helped by the missteps of the Reformers’ teaching on visible and invisible church (which even conservative thinkers like John Murray could see to be unbiblical – chapter 31 of The claims of truth is entitled: The

1 B. B. Warfield Studies in Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932) 78. Theological Study Conference 2017 2

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

Church: its definition in terms of “visible” and “invisible” invalid). So, thinking that the early church’s 4 marks or the Reformers’ 3 (or was it just 2 or even 1?) are going to settle much is to inhabit cloud cuckoo land. In line with this, I believe that the Bible is a complex book and doing theology well is very difficult, and while in this world, knowing so little, we are bound to see only part of the picture and to live partially in the fog; so that if our theology is not cutting corners and making everything artificially simple, there will always be questions and objections that we can’t answer satisfactorily. The best answer, at this point in church history, to the question, “What is the mission of the church?” is likely to be a messy answer.

3. Contextualisation

There is a good kind of contextualisation. Paul did it all the time in Acts and in his letters; and therefore the church, as a living thing, as well as its ministry, have to be changing all the time. Therefore it’s possible that putting huge emphasis on the true preaching of the Word was a fairly wise tactic in the 16th century, within the Christendom of Europe, but there might be something else, that God allowed them to partially ignore, that is vital for us. And such a view does not have to represent a disagreement with the Reformers, just that times change, so what we do and how we define our position should, in certain respects, change. As Lesslie Newbigin wrote: “in their doctrines of the church they [the Reformers] are defining their position over against one another within the context of the corpus Christianum. They are not defining the Church as over against a pagan world.”2

Summary

After a brief look at what the church is, I would like to say that it’s caught up into God’s mission and so is fundamentally missional (yes, everything is, or should be, mission); that this mission is holistic; that church as community is much more important than most of traditional Protestantism has dreamt; that conservative Protestants have tended to place undue relative weight on the church as organisation rather than church as organism; that contextualisation and perpetual change are essential; and that suffering including the pain of risk-taking is a mark of the true church. But first some exegesis or at least exegetical considerations.

The New Testament on the church

4. Creation and the kingdom

Matthew 1:1 is telling us loud and clear that the NT is a continuing story, and it is the story of the fulfilment of God’s promises to Abraham and David. The promises to Abraham beginning in Genesis 12 are to do with God’s answer to the sin and misery that came into his good

2 Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God (London: SCM Press, 1953), 2. Theological Study Conference 2017 3

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament creation in chapter 3. Therefore God’s salvation in Jesus Christ, the apex of his dealings with the human race and the centre of our good news, is about the restoration of creation and humanity, not about the saving of immaterial souls out of God’s world. This impression is confirmed when we look at the end of the story in the latter part of Revelation: the covenantal fact of God being our God, the God of his people, that began to be made explicit in Genesis 17, is stated loud and clear in Revelation 21, and the whole scene there and into chapter 22 is reminiscent of the situation in Eden before the Fall. Through Abraham and his seed the Fall and its effects will be reversed for the world and humanity as a whole, though not every human being will benefit (but every “people” will). The coming kingdom, the perfect fulfilment of God’s promises to David, which was to some extent seen on earth during the time of David and Solomon, must (because of the link between Abraham and creation, and between him and the good news of Jesus in Matthew) include physical and geographical realities. Salvation in Christ cannot consist in being taken away to heaven but must be about heaven coming down to earth, and about the new earth being this cosmos renewed, not about it being replaced. Otherwise the devil has won and the implications of Genesis 3:15 are false.

Hence Greg Beale can say, once he has factored in his plausible theory about the significance of the temple,

the cosmic symbolism of the temple represented Israel’s mission to the world… In John 2:19-21 Jesus indicates that his resurrection is the rebuilding of the temple because resurrection is the beginning of the cosmic new creation… to which Israel’s old temple symbolically pointed. At Pentecost Jesus sent his Spirit to incorporate the church into his temple (Acts 2). Accordingly, all those who identify with Jesus are identified with his resurrection, and the Spirit builds them into Jesus as the temple. This is why Paul, Peter and John (in Revelation) refer to the church as the temple of God... the mission of Adam and Israel to expand the temple of God’s presence is taken up by Christ and the church. They finally accomplish the task left undone by both Adam and Israel… Israel’s old temple was but a little model of the coming cosmos that would be expanded and transformed into the entire new creation. In Christ the original mission of the Eden sanctuary is finally fulfilled on behalf of his people, who had begun to spread the temple during the interadvent era.3

This soaking of NT words and concepts with OT thoughts, rather than the Platonist and Hellenistic thoughts that have been in a lot the church’s theology for over 1500 years, comes out everywhere once you look for it and forget about the page dividing Malachi from Matthew. So Peter’s exhortation to believers to be good witnesses in 1 Peter 2:9-12 depicts us as priests and refers back to Exodus 19; in Romans 15:15-16 Paul’s evangelism is a kind of priestly ministry. And so also Jesus’ tweaking of Psalm 37 in the third beatitude: “Blessed are

3 Greg Beale, A NT Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 912-3. Theological Study Conference 2017 4

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament the meek for they will inherit heaven and the spiritual non-material realm…” NO! The earth. My serious point is that the Richard Baxter of The Saints’ Everlasting Rest and virtually all of our Protestant hymn writers would not have said it the way Jesus did – just try looking for any solid, created reality in the future hope sections of hymnbooks. Jerusalem the golden is about the nearest we got.

This means that we must not see the coming of the kingdom in the NT as being only about forgiveness and moral transformation, nor must we think that the spiritual means the non- material. Nor must we think that salvation is basically personal and only secondarily corporate and wider than the communion of forgiven souls with their Maker. It is at least as valid to understand salvation as starting at the cosmic level and affecting the whole of God’s people and only thirdly affecting the individual, with Paul in Colossians 1:15-23, as it is to begin with the individual. This is one of the places where Christopher Wright4 has the better of the argument with DeYoung and Gilbert5, who on pp71-2 explain man’s job of working and keeping the garden as having to do only with fellowship with God and dominion over creation but say nothing about his job of developing it, and who sound like typical Western individualists when they say on pp247-8,

The beginning of the biblical story is about God with man. It is only secondarily about the perfect world they share… Universal shalom will come, but personal redemption comes first – first in temporal sequence, first in theological causality, and first in missions priority.

Ed Stetzer’s review of DeYoung and Gilbert is wise:

Wright proposes a robust doctrine of creation and humanity’s role in God’s plan for creation through the revelation of Jesus Christ and the calling of a people. DeYoung and Gilbert miss this. Their doctrine of creation presented in this book is muted, stressing primarily the unique relationship between God and his image-bearers. In this discussion, they misread Wright’s view of the value of humanity, saying he argues that we derive our value from being a part of creation (p. 70). Rather, Wright’s view is that humanity derives value by being created by God, and later he argues also that humanity has unique value in God’s good creation (The Mission of God, pp. 399, 404- 5). Creation, for DeYoung and Gilbert as it relates to mission, seems to serve as a preface to the story of how God remedies the alienation of sinful humanity. Thus, creation for them does not serve as a theological starting place for understanding the telos for all of history. Because of this, they do not consider the relationship between God’s commission to humanity in Gen 1:27-28 and Jesus’ commission to his disciples in Matt 28:18-19. The relationship that I am pointing to is not between the cultural

4 Christopher Wright, The mission of God’s people (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 59-60. 5 Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What is the mission of the church? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 71-2. Theological Study Conference 2017 5

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

mandate and the Great Commission but between God’s purpose in creation and in redemption. Jesus sends the church to accomplish what Adam, Noah, and Israel failed to do in filling the whole earth with God’s presence and the blessings that come with his presence.6

Here Stetzer is agreeing with Beale, quoted above. The church and its mission must be seen in connection with the doctrine of creation and its restoration, and with the fact that grace does not replace nature but renews it, as Herman Bavinck said so well; we should not look at the church and its mission in the NT through lenses that say: “OT physical, NT spiritual”.

5. The Great Commission

The Great Commission passages are the obvious places to look to determine the mission of the church. Mark does not have one, at least as we have the text handed down to us in God’s providence; John’s (20:21) seems very broad, at least if you look at it with Wrightian rather than DeYoungian spectacles, but we are trying to work out which are the right spectacles.

Matthew 28:18-20 at first glance may seem to put most (or even all, if you rely on the somewhat disastrous translations offered in the Geneva Bible and the King James) of the emphasis on making converts through the teaching of the word. But closer examination reveals, first, that matheteuo comes from the word for a disciple and must be translated make disciples, and secondly, when you think about what Jesus had done for the twelve, it was vastly more than teaching them. They had been with him for three years as Mark records at the time of their calling, and he had trained them by sending them out on missions in his name. As Christopher Wright comments:

…not even the Great Commission itself focuses solely or primarily on the proclamation task… It takes disciples to make disciples, and Jesus had spent three years teaching his disciples what it meant to be one. It involved practical and down-to- earth lessons on life, attitudes, behaviour, trust, forgiveness, love, generosity, obedience to Jesus, and countercultural actions toward others. This was what it meant to live in the kingdom of God – now. In short, you had to live under the reign of God if you wanted to go preach about the reign of God.7

In addition, teaching them to obey everything he had commanded them implied that they must be a loving community, not just a group gathered around a lectern, and also must care for the needy just as he had. It implied what could be called social ministry.

6 Ed Stetzer, Review of DeYoung and Gilbert, What is the mission of the church? Themelios (online, TGC website), Vol 36, issue 3. 7 Wright, Mission of God’s people, 163 Theological Study Conference 2017 6

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

Luke 24:45-49 focuses particularly on the command to be witnesses to Jesus. Of course, there must be a certain priority to verbal testimony to him in the mission of his church – it is by faith in him and his saving work that the renewed community of God’s people is formed and begins to grow. But when you look into Acts and see just what being witnesses meant, it was a lot more than verbal testimony: a community was formed, and one that served both one another and outsiders, and became a suffering community, ready to seal its word with its blood. Darrell Guder’s words are justified:

…there is a profoundly ethical dimension to the biblical understanding of witness, as it describes the church’s whole sense of its being, doing, and saying: “the most important social task of Christians is to be nothing less than a community capable of forming people with virtues sufficient to witness to God’s truth in the world.”.8

6. Acts and the Epistles

In Acts and the NT Epistles we get more indications of what the church’s mission is. The description of the first church in Acts 2 appears programmatic in vv42-47. It is word and worship and fellowship and prayer and remarkable works of the Spirit and practical fellowship, love, community of goods, with joy and sincerity, leading to more and more fruit. It justifies the idea that the Lutheran notion of the church as an institution for ministry and especially the ministry of the word is lopsided; and that Herman Bavinck is right: the Spirit does not so much indwell the word and its preaching as he does the church as a living body.

But even then [even when the Spirit works, as he usually does, in connection with the word and in the church, where the word is present and preached] he lives, not as the Lutherans represented it, in Holy Scripture or the preached word, but in the church as the living body of Christ.9

Preaching is very important but it is not everything and it is not even nearly everything.

Paul was appointed by the Lord to be an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles; that was his particular calling and mission. But he explains in Romans 15 that, even for him, care for the poor could take precedence over evangelising and church planting:

For Paul, care for the poor cannot be pitted against “gospel ministry”. The return to Judea to deliver the collection takes priority over Paul’s visit to Rome. As he explains to the Romans (Rom 15), this visit was to be the great launch of gospel ministry in the western half of the Empire all the way to Spain. We do not know if Paul achieved this

8 Darrell L. Guder, The continuing conversion of the church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 70 and quoting Stanley Hauerwas, Community of character, 1981, 105-6. 9 Herman Bavinck, Our reasonable faith, transl. Henry Zylstra, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 406. Theological Study Conference 2017 7

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

mission, but we do know that he delivered the collection. The collection was so vital that its delivery was at that moment a more urgent matter for Paul than his desire to evangelize and plant churches on the missionary frontier.10

And John Stott makes a similar point from the appointing of the Seven in Acts 6:

It is surely deliberate that the work of the Twelve and the work of the Seven are alike called diakonia (1,4), “ministry” or “service”. The former is “ministry of the word” (4) or pastoral work, the latter “the ministry of tables” (2) or social work. Neither ministry is superior to the other.11

The same things comes out in Peter’s two categories of gift and ministry in 1 Peter 4:11.

Ed Stetzer comments:

Paul honors the church of the Thessalonians for how “the word of the Lord sounded forth” from them through their example in a work of faith, labor of love, and steadfast hope, and he says there is no reason for him to say anything in the places where their witness and faith had gone forth (1 Thess 1:3-8). Probably the deeds that Paul celebrates in the church were accompanied by verbal proclamation, but he is surely commending them for how their “works” served to extol the gospel to the surrounding people. Then Peter instructs the church to watch their conduct so that others may “see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Pet 2:12). Because good deeds may extol the gospel to unbelievers, they can serve as the first stage of the disciple-making process.12

Ministry and mission are about more than the word and making more disciples and then building up their faith through the teaching.

7. Ephesians

Ephesians has long been recognised as the locus classicus in the NT on the doctrine of the church. Examination of it, especially the latter half of chapter 2 and the first half of chapter 3, reveals that Paul is saying that the church is where God’s salvation is starting to break out, since one aspect of that salvation (not just a consequence or by-product of it) is that people are reconciled to one another. Paul even goes so far as to describe God reconciling Jew and Gentile to each other before he reconciles them to himself in chapter 2! The church is part of

10 Jason Hood, “Theology in Action: Paul and Christian Social Care”, in Transforming the World: the Gospel and Social Responsibility (eds. Jamie A. Grant and Dewi A. Hughes (Nottingham: Apollos, 2009), 129-146, quoted p134 of Wright, Mission of God’s people. 11 John Stott, The message of Acts (Leicester: IVP 1990), 122. 12 Stetzer, Themelios. Theological Study Conference 2017 8

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament the gospel, as John Stott used to say, not just a consequence of it – i.e. the gospel includes the amazing news that God is reconciling all things, and that means not just to himself but to each other – the key statements of Ephesians 1:9-10 and Colossians 1:19-20 proclaim this loud and clear. These texts have been underrated in the past as great summary statements of what the whole Bible is about. They are surely closer to being “the Bible in a nutshell” than John 3:16.

But not only is the church the place where God’s saving kingdom is starting to break forth, the church is also the main means by which the work goes on, as the whole fact of the church’s ministries shows. At the same time the church actually shows and puts on display what God is doing in his wisdom, even for the heavenly beings – they discover more about God’s glory from the church according to Ephesians 3.

Therefore Lesslie Newbigin is not astray in teaching that the church is the sign, agent and foretaste of God’s salvation and kingdom:

What is true in the position of the social activists [he has been criticising them – church leaders who have left clear gospel teaching behind] is that a Church which exists only for itself and its own enlargement is a witness against the gospel, that the Church exists not for itself and not for its members but as a sign and agent and foretaste of the kingdom of God, and that it is impossible to give faithful witness to the gospel while being indifferent to the situation of the hungry, the sick, the victims of human inhumanity.13

8. NT eschatology

It has long been recognised that the Bible’s doctrine of salvation is eschatological, i.e. we now enjoy in the Spirit anticipations of what is fundamentally a future reality. We are going somewhere. Therefore, to see where the church is going will help us to understand its mission.

It seems entirely plausible, in the light of the church’s long-term Platonism and an understandable fear of enjoying God’s creation (since we sin so much in connection with it), that our spiritualising of the OT’s hope when we read the NT may be a big mistake. On the fear of enjoyment:

We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I

13 Lesslie Newbigin, The gospel in a pluralist society (London: SPCK, 1989), 136. Theological Study Conference 2017 9

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is not part of the Christian faith.14

Every man shall sit under his vine and his fig tree, the wealth of the nations and the glory of the earth’s kings shall be brought into the city, says Isaiah. All of this is summarised clearly in Revelation 21:24, 26. Why should this not mean what Anthony Hoekema, Chris Wright, Randy Alcorn (in his book Heaven) and N. T. Wright (in Surprised by hope) think it does?

Chris Wright says (he starts by summarising the view he rejects):

Human history is nothing more than the vestibule for eternity, so it doesn’t really matter very much. To this negative comparison is added the idea, drawn from a mistaken interpretation of the language of 2 Peter 3, that we are headed for total obliteration of the whole earth and indeed of all the physical creation… But the Bible presents a different prospect. God plans to redeem all that he has made… and included within that will be the redemption of all that we have made with what God first made – that is, our use of creation within the great cultural mandate. Of course, all that we have done has been tainted and twisted by our sinful, fallen human nature. And all that flows from that evil source will have to be purged and purified by God. But that is exactly the picture we have in both Old and New Testaments. It is a vision of redemption, not of obliteration; of the restoration and renewal of creation, not its replacement with something else.15

Again:

What will be brought into the great city of God in the new creation will be the vast accumulated output of human work through the ages… there will be some comparable resurrection glory for all that humans have accomplished in fulfilment of the creation mandate – redeemed but real.16

And again:

All human culture, language, literature, art, music, science, business, sport, technological achievement – actual and potential – all available to us. All of it with the poison of evil and sin sucked out of it forever. All of it glorifying God. All of it under his loving and approving smile. All of it for us to enjoy with God and indeed being enjoyed by God. And all eternity for us to explore it, understand it, appreciate it, and expand it.17

14 John Piper, Desiring God (Leicester: IVP, 2003), 20, quoting C. S. Lewis, The weight of glory and other addresses, 1-2. 15 Wright, Mission of God’s people, 226-7. 16 Ibid., 228. 17 Ibid., 229. Theological Study Conference 2017 10

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

Or this from Hoekema:

Is there, however, also some cultural continuity between this world and the next?… Can we say that some of the products of culture which we enjoy today will still be with us in God’s bright tomorrow? I believe we can… we may firmly believe that products of science and culture produced by unbelievers may yet be found on the new earth… our attempt to further a distinctively Christian culture will have value not only for this world but even for the world to come.18

2 Peter 3 has been seriously mangled to avoid these sorts of conclusions. It doesn’t say that everything will be annihilated but that it will be exposed to God’s gaze at the judgment and purged by fire as the earth was purged by water in Noah’s day. The new heavens and new earth are not going to be brand new, but this cosmos renewed. See Romans 8:19ff for more, with Matthew 19:28 (“at the regeneration”) and Acts 3:21 (“the restoration of all things”) as additional proof. This has long been the Reformed as distinct from the Lutheran view of things, but in most of our popular piety, as well as in much of our theologising, we just haven’t taken it in.

The future includes resurrected bodies in continuity with our bodies now; they must be in a created, solid place; that place is the new earth and verses referred to above show this is most likely to be this earth renewed. Jesus in his teaching repeatedly depicts the future kingdom as a wedding feast and involving enjoyment of creation as well as of God – all this on top of the references to Isaiah and Eden near the end of Revelation.

The church and its mission

9. What actually is the church?

A definition would be nice – but impossible. As R. L. Omanson points out:

…there is a multiplicity of images and concepts that contribute to an understanding of the nature of the church… Listing only a few of these… the salt of the earth, a letter from Christ, the bride of Christ, exiles, ambassadors, a chosen race, the holy temple, priesthood, the new creation, fighters against Satan, the sanctified slaves, friends, sons of God, household of God, members of Christ, spiritual body.19

Let me contribute my own penn’orth with some help from Ed Clowney’s trinitarian approach:

18 Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 39-40. 19 “The church”, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.) Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 231. Theological Study Conference 2017 11

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

The church is the body of Christ (one with each other and him), called by the Father into covenant relationship with God, and now (as the renewed and expanded Israel) sent into the world in the power of the Spirit as prophets, priests and kings to be the instrument of God’s mission to renew all things.

Ephesians and Colossians, which are clearly key integrative texts on the church, make much of the church as Christ’s body (e.g. Colossians 1:18, 24), and, given the importance of our union with Christ in the whole doctrine of salvation, it seems valid to make the image of the body of Christ fundamental to what the church is.

And the logic behind saying the church is renewed, expanded Israel is this: By the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, after he had returned to the Father and the 120 were praying and waiting in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, the core of the believing remnant of Israel consisted of those 120 (mostly) Jewish believers, led by twelve whom Jesus had chosen (clearly modelled on the twelve tribes and saying “here is the new start for Israel”). And then the Spirit came at Pentecost. And what happened? Faithful Israel was not swept aside or “replaced” by the early church; rather, Israel (the true Israel, the believing remnant) was renewed by the Spirit and then expanded by the addition of many more believers, and to this day by hundreds of millions of believers. And so the church has not replaced Israel; the church is Israel, renewed and expanded, for as well as noticing how the church started, as believing Israel, it is to be noted that the NT is clear that everyone who believes in Jesus is a child of Abraham, Galatians 3:7, 29. (This is not, of course, to deny that in addition many branches of physical Israel, at present not part of the church, the Israel of God (Gal 6:16, NIV) – will be grafted back into the “olive tree” before the Lord returns (see Romans 11 for more on that. In plain terms, there will be a large-scale turning to Jesus among Jewish people before the Lord returns). Chris Wright notes that Jesus pretty clearly got his great commission from the OT:

The church is nothing less than the multinational fulfilment of the hope of Israel, that all nations will be blessed through the people of Abraham.20

He also says,

And as they [the nations] do so [worship YHWH alone], God himself will bind them into covenant relationship, such that the distinction between Israel and the nations will eventually be dissolved in a multinational community belonging to YHWH…21

The sentness of the church comes out clearly in a short passage in 1 Peter 2:4-12. The church is God’s temple where he dwells; we are stones in that temple – indeed, we are also the priests

20 Wright, Mission of God’s people, 43. 21 Wright, The Mission of God, 500. Theological Study Conference 2017 12

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament in it now, under our great priest, Jesus Christ, and we offer spiritual sacrifices through him. We were chosen for this; we are also kings; we are God’s own people, his Israel now, his nation, for him and his glory; and what does this mean in practice? Is it just, or mainly, a matter of coming together for worship services and singing his praises – as John Murray seems to imply in his chapter on The church and mission:

Thus, as the church is the assembly of God’s people, the household of God, and the body of Christ, as living stones built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, the central function is the worship of God.22

The idea in the background in Exodus 19, as well as the following verses, 11-12 in 1 Peter 2, weigh decisively against Murray here, as do the Psalms that exhort the nations to know and worship the true God because of his great deeds; the central function of the church is just what the commission of the Lord Jesus before his ascension would lead us to suppose – telling the world, by deed and word, how great and good and worthy of trust and worship our God is. In other words, mission! Hence the main significance of the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, and of the history of the church in Acts, is to show us that we are now in the age of mission, supremely. As Hoekema says, “The characteristic activity of the present age is missions.”23

Ephesians 1:9-10 and Colossians 1:19-20 show that God’s mission is not to rescue souls from the polluted physical world but to reconcile and reunify all things, with clear implications for the church’s mission – hence my definition above ending with “to renew all things”.

10. The church and God’s mission

During the past 35 years, since the publication of Graeme Goldsworthy’s Gospel and Kingdom, there has been a plethora of books summarising the whole Bible’s plotline. This is entirely to be welcomed – our forefathers were so much better at systematic theology and the theology of piety than they were at so-called biblical theology. They didn’t see as clearly as many Christians do now that the Bible is most fundamentally not a law book nor a book of analytical theology (precious and crucial as Romans is) but a story. Geerhardus Vos obviously did some great work on parts of the Bible’s storyline but the new movement of thought kicked off by Brevard Childs and Goldsworthy is helping millions of Christians to read their Bibles better. The most satisfying and enlightening key to what it is all about that I have thus far come across is Chris Wright’s, in his book The mission of God. The much shorter treatment along similar lines by Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen, The drama of Scripture, which Wright commends, is also helpful.

22 John Murray, Collected Writings vol.1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 247. 23 Hoekema, The Bible and the future, 33. Theological Study Conference 2017 13

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

It is God’s mission in relation to the nations, arguably more than any other single theme, that provides the key that unlocks the biblical grand narrative.24

Guder’s less felicitous way of putting the same basic point is this:

The gospel is the person and work of Jesus as the salvation event toward which God’s mission has been moving and from which that mission now moves into the entire world.25

This is all of a piece with the clearly summary nature of the great statements of God’s plan in Ephesians 1:9-10 and Colossians 1:19-20, where Paul says that God is reconciling everything and bringing unity back into a world ruined by alienation, through Christ. He is on a mission to bring shalom (the wholeness of everything being in right relation to everything else) to a runaway planet. Francis Schaeffer’s helpful way of putting this (in his Pollution and the death of man) was to say that in Christ God is remedying the four fundamental alienations that man’s rebellion has brought about: Godward, psychological, social, and natural (physical). And yes, ecology does come into this somewhere – as Wright says, quoting Nash,

The monotheistic doctrine of creation does not desacralize nature. Nature is still sacred by virtue of having been created by God, declared to be good, and placed under ultimate divine sovereignty.26

The fact that God in Christ is saving the world, reversing the Fall as promised in Genesis 3, and doing it through a people since Genesis 12, and has now equipped us with his Spirit to go and make disciples since Acts 2, and that Jesus gave such prominence to mission in his parting instructions to the disciples as recorded in all the Gospels – all this points in only one direction: that Emil Brunner was right in saying that the church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning. In Guder’s words:

It has often been noted that the NT writings do not explicitly command the church to do mission – they assume that mission is what these communities were all about.27

So it is not as clever as it sounds at first to say that if everything is mission, nothing is mission. Rather, seeing that God is on a mission to save the world, and it is first his mission not ours, and that he has and is taking the initiative, not only in sending prophets long ago and then sending his Son, but also, then and now, sending his Spirit – this changes nearly everything in the church and in the work of the gospel. We are not on our own; and we don’t

24 Wright, The mission of God, 455. 25 Guder, Continuing conversion, 49. 26 Wright, The mission of God, quoting James A. Nash, Loving nature: ecological integrity and Christian responsibility (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991) 96. 27 Guder, Continuing conversion, 52. Theological Study Conference 2017 14

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament have to wait for times of “revival” before we can be confident of divine help in any aspect of church life and work. We are joining in what God the Spirit is doing. He is making things grow and we are just being used as his instruments in planting, watering and other such tasks – and the Spirit is even helping us to do that planting etc. Yes, we have a burden to carry, a yoke to bear, work to do, but the heavy end of it is carried by Jesus Christ. Seeing that God is the missionary and the church is caught up into his mission, changes how we view church life, both in its formal and informal parts. It means that every part of church life should have, in Timothy Keller’s phrase, “an outward face”. It means that everything the church does can directly or indirectly lead to more people coming to saving faith in Jesus. It means that one essential strand in walking in the Spirit is to have this outward looking, hopeful, expectant attitude – and conversely, that a generally inward-looking church is in danger of lapsing into not being a church at all. It means that if we find ourselves in a ministry that seems like that of Jeremiah, we don’t just settle down and talk to ourselves about being faithful; we say that though we can learn a lot from him, we are now in gospel days, the era of the Spirit and mission, in a way that he was not, so we look for fruit, though it may have to be with patience and tears – and if our labours are in the Lord, that fruit will not be 600 years away, as most of it was for Jeremiah.

Clearly, not everything is cross-cultural evangelistic mission, but everything a Christian and a Christian church is, says and does, should be missional in its conscious participation in the mission of God in God’s world.28 and At a fundamental level, starting right here in Genesis, that is “who we are” – the children of Abraham; and that is “what we are here for” – to participate in God’s promised mission of bringing people from all nations on earth into the sphere of God’s redemptive blessing through Christ.29

11. Holistic mission

Building on the biblical evidence above, we can say that though there is a certain priority to the teaching of the word of God in the church’s mission, it cannot possibly be confined to that. That would be out of keeping with the holistic nature of God’s salvation since its first promise in Genesis 3, with the rest of the OT, and with the holistic ministry of Jesus and the training of his disciples, which form the context of his Great Commission (see earlier quotation from The Mission of God’s People on p5).

A moment’s thought helps to confirm this. Why should the world hear our message? Because our good works, wrought in us by the Spirit, lead them to pay attention, get curious, take us seriously, as Matthew 5:16 and 1 Peter 2:12 indicate. But who is “us”? Not just or mainly the

28 Wright, Mission of God’s people, 26. 29 Ibid., 81. Theological Study Conference 2017 15

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament individual believer, but the church, the body of believers. “But we need to distinguish between the church as an organisation and the living body, the organism.” Yes, for certain purposes that is necessary, and it no doubt is the case that each local church must ensure that whatever practical good works it gets involved in, the word of God and prayer remain firmly in place at the heart of its activities, just as an individual believer is unwise if they let themselves get so busy or committed to projects and people that they have no time to be still and meditate on God’s word.

However, if a church says, “We run worship services but not youth clubs, because we don’t believe in holistic mission; but if some of you members want to run a youth club, that’s great, get on with it, God bless you”, the next thing that happens in practice is that the group of Christians who have it on their hearts to run the club want to use the church’s building, and then they have to persuade the leaders to let it count as church activity for insurance purposes; and once that battle is over, you get to a situation where there is some gospel being taught to the youths and yet the leaders of the club are not formally accountable in this work to the church leadership, and then if it goes really well, the youth leaders start getting spiritually encouraged in their prayer and planning meetings, and if they are not accountable to the main church leaders, it might all end in division. If you get through all these practical hassles, what do the youths and their parents think anyway? They just assume it’s a church-run youth club – so what have you gained by not believing in holistic ministry, in practice? Just a load of hassle and confusion.

“Ah, but such a youth club is gospel ministry, not holistic ministry, because it is all being done for the sake of the gospel talk half-way through.” No, that won’t cough: if the youth leaders don’t genuinely want to help the kids in a general sense, out of love, as well to help them to know Christ, they are hypocrites; and also that would mean that the table tennis or trips out or the music were just being done as carrots, to get the kids to listen – where is trusting the Spirit in that?

The biblical (in the sense of the whole-Bible, not just NT verses interpreted while we forget the OT) and practical way forward is holistic mission, yet with some priority given in the life of the local church, as organised, to the teaching of the word of God. (Even Chris Wright and the Lausanne movement grant such a priority, in their own ways, by the way.)

Newbigin on the unity of word and deed in the church:

This [question-provoking community life and action in the Spirit] is why St. Paul in his letters does not find it necessary to urge his readers to be active in evangelism but does find it necessary to warn them against any compromise with the rulers of this age… it is clear that to set word and deed, preaching and action, against each other is absurd. The central reality is neither word nor act, but the total life of a community Theological Study Conference 2017 16

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

enabled by the Spirit to live in Christ, sharing his passion and the power of his resurrection. But the words and the acts of that community may at any time provide the occasion through which the living Christ challenges the ruling powers.30

Therefore saying that the church should tell the folks around about Jesus without serving them practically, to help set them free from some of the miseries that flow from sin in a fallen world, seems absurd. It’s all one.

He also says, “it will be a community that does not live for itself but is deeply involved in the concerns of its neighbourhood”. He then says that the local church must be perceived in its own neighbourhood as the place from which good news overflows in good actions. Again,

…it [the church] will be a community of mutual responsibility. If the Church is to be effective in advocating and achieving a new social order in the nation, it must itself be a new social order… The local congregation is called to be, and by the grace of God often is, such a community of mutual responsibility. When it is such, it stands in the wider community of the neighbourhood and the nation not primarily as the promoter of programs for social change (although it will be that) but primarily as itself the foretaste of a different social order. Its members will be advocates for human liberation by being themselves liberated.31

Guder, along similar lines, while acknowledging the primacy of witness to God in the mission of the church, says,

Mission is witness. In particular, evangelistic ministry, as the core of mission, is most appropriately defined and explained in terms of witness. The concept of witness provides a common missiological thread through all the NT language that expounds the church’s mission. It serves as an overarching term drawing together proclamation (kerygma), community (koinonia), and service (diakonia). These are all essential dimensions of the Spirit-enabled witness for which the Christian church is called and sent.32

This is not only true but important because Christians with too narrow a view of the church’s mission are likely to be too narrow in their lives and the impact of their witness – I once heard Vishal Mangalwadi, a disciple of Francis Schaeffer, attribute the lack of impact from US missions in India in the 20th century, compared to the impact of some of the older mission work from Carey onwards, to the narrowness of their idea of mission – they were just saving

30 Newbigin, Gospel in a pluralist society, 137. 31 Ibid., 229, 231. 32 Guder, Continuing conversion, 53. Theological Study Conference 2017 17

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament souls, not aiming to transform the culture in the way that Carey and his fellow Postmillennialists were, to some extent, despite Platonist wobbles.33

Along this line, Wright says (having considered Col 1:15-23):

The church is not just a container for souls until they get to heaven, but the living demonstration of the unity that is God’s intention for the whole creation. The bad result of breaking up this “whole” is that Christians who are evangelized by truncated versions of the biblical gospel have little interest in the world, the public square, God’s plan for society and the nations, and even less understanding of God’s intention for creation itself. The scale of our mission efforts, therefore, is in danger of being a lot smaller than the scope of the mission of God.34

Confirmation of the general situation in the early church comes from John Dickson:

We know, for instance, that by AD 250 the Christian community in Rome was supporting 1500 destitute people every day. All around the Mediterranean churches were setting up food programs, hospitals and orphanages. These were available to believers and unbelievers alike.35

It has been interesting and amusing to me to note, over the years, that even churches that don’t, in theory, believe in holistic mission, if they have practical and wise leaders, end up practising a measure of it – their hands are better than their heads. Many an independent Baptist church in England, whose leaders might be inclined to favour the thesis of DeYoung and Gilbert, behaves much of the time like an Anglican church, with a parish, that agrees with Chris Wright.

12. Church as community

I used to think that the most important aspect of a church’s life was the preaching, for example when it came to deciding which church to attend. Circumstances alter cases and if you are a young, untaught Christian, live deep in the countryside and don’t have an internet connection, that may still, at least for two or three years (until your understanding of the faith has improved) be the most important factor for you. But for most people in this country today that is not the case. The church is not first and foremost a group of people gathered round a pulpit, nor is it a collection of Christians meeting weekly to worship and participate in and alongside the worship in the heavenly Zion – not in the first place. If this latter were the case, the church would not exist during the other six days of the week! Rather, it is the people of

33 See Ruth and Vishal Mangalwadi, Carey, Christ and cultural transformation (Carlisle: OM Publishing, 1997). 34 Wright, Mission of God’s people, 274. 35 John Dickson, The best kept secret of Christian mission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 92. Theological Study Conference 2017 18

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

God, the body of Christ, God’s prophets, priests and kings caught up into his mission to reconcile all things. As Herman Bavinck – not a leading figure in the Emerging Church nor a prominent Anabaptist – wrote in 1908:

In thinking of the church he [Calvin] did not think in the first place of the offices of that church, of the church as institute, but he saw in it above all a gathering or communion of believers who by their confession and walk had to prove themselves to be God’s people, and who were all personally anointed of Christ to be prophets, priests and kings. The church is at once the mother and the community of believers. It is something different and something more than a crowd coming together in one place on Sunday to hear the preaching; it is a community or communion which during the week also makes its influence felt both towards the inside and the outside. The preaching office is but one of the offices… there is… the office of deacon, which must show mercy to the poor and the sick…36

The primacy of the godly community of believers in God’s mission to the world comes out as early as God’s instructions to Abraham in Genesis 18:18-9:

Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him. (NIV)

Deuteronomy 4:5-8 says that the nations will know what God is like by seeing the godly community of Israel obeying God’s commands and praying to him and receiving answers; the NT commands us to love one another, and therefore (in the light of Genesis 18) must be concerned not only with what is inherently pleasing to God and edifying to our brethren, but also with what is glorifying to God in the eyes of the outsiders – and a church whose main activity is going and listening to sermons will not fulfil that purpose. It is possible, in some churches where the preaching is overwhelmingly the main thing in church life, not to know the other believers well enough to find loving them a challenge at all, as long as they don’t snore during the sermons. It’s possible to know each other so little that we never have to forgive one another! Something is wrong if that is the case.

We cannot legitimately counter this by saying that Acts 6:2 makes it clear that the ministry of the word is more important than waiting on tables and doing practical community life together. Most of our translations have served us ill at that point. The apostles’ remarks in vv1-4 contrast the diakonia of the word with the diakonia of tables – they are both, equally,

36 Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, 539. Theological Study Conference 2017 19

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament ministry; there is no superiority of the one over the other. It is just that the apostles had a particular calling.

Here is what Richard Hayes says about 1 Corinthians:

The theological constant underlying Paul’s counsel throughout the letter is that he imagines God’s eschatological salvation in corporate terms: God transforms and saves a people, not atomized individuals. Consequently, the faithful find their identity and vocation in the world as the body of Christ. Thus, to do “ethics” apart from ecclesiology is utterly unthinkable for Paul. Ethics is ecclesiology. Ethics is simply the church’s imaginative outworking of its identity as the Israel of God.37

Here’s Tim Chester:

The Christian community is both a sign and a promise of God’s coming liberation. We are the presence of God’s liberating kingdom in a broken world. We are the place where liberation can be found, offering a home for exiled people. We are to welcome the broken people to a community of broken people. We are the community among whom liberation is a present reality – the jubilee people who live with new economic and social relationships.38

Newbigin says,

…if we ask, what was the explicit provision which Jesus made for the extension of his saving power to the whole world, we must answer that it was the fellowship which he called, trained, endowed, and sent forth… “The Word”, says Luther, “is the one perpetual and infallible mark of the Church.” The natural result of this position is that the question of doctrinal correctness becomes the all-important one. And, ex hypothesi, this question has to be discussed in isolation, apart from consideration of the character of the fellowship in which the doctrine is taught. The Church is defined in terms of agreement about doctrine, and this doctrinal agreement must be agreement on paper. A written theological statement becomes the one determinative centre of the Church’s life.39

Of course, he is talking about general tendencies, not what happens everywhere always. It would seem to me that, in reaction to liberalism, Barthianism, mysticism and the sentimentality/easy-believism/cheap grace-ism of Evangelicalism, modern conservative Protestants have often overreacted straight into the position that Newbigin describes. I regret

37 Richard B. Hayes, Ecclesiology and ethics in 1 Corinthians (in Ex auditu, 1994) near the end. 38 Tim Chester, Good news to the poor, 97, quoted in Wright, Mission of God’s people, 112. 39 Newbigin, The household of faith, 60-61. Theological Study Conference 2017 20

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament to say that I noticed some of this in Iain Murray’s Evangelicalism divided, where he appeared to set up the doctrinally more dogmatic Christians as the goodies and the less dogmatic ones as the baddies – as if the level of doctrinal clarity and commitment were far and away the main issue in the life of the church.

In practice, as Tim Keller has said,

Accordingly, the chief way we should disciple people (or, if you prefer, form them spiritually) is through community. Growth in grace, wisdom, and character does not happen primarily in classes and instruction, through large worship gatherings, or even in solitude. Most often, growth happens through deep relationships and in communities where the implications of the gospel are worked out cognitively and worked in practically – in ways no other setting or venue can afford. The essence of becoming a disciple is, to put it colloquially, becoming like the people we hang out with the most.40

And this from Newbigin:

How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.41

13. Organisation and organism

Conservative Protestants have tended to put a lot of emphasis on church structures, church as organisation. I understand this – it is nice to feel that the church won’t be able to change in the near future and abandon hard-won beliefs or ethos or core values. We all like having important things nailed down. But this preference can go too far, especially if something is meant to be largely relational and alive and ever-changing – like the body of Christ.

I love James Bannerman’s wonderful 2-volume treatment of the Church of Christ, recently republished again by the Banner of Truth. It is beautifully written, well informed, deep-diving in the thoroughness of what it does treat, and it is clear that the man loved and enjoyed God – there is a sense of God in the writing; it is spiritually edifying. And yet it is almost wholly concerned with the structure, ordinances and organisational power of the church; it is like a beautiful description of scaffolding, while the key issues of prayer, community, love, faith, service, mission – the issues that the NT makes so much of in the epistles – hardly come into it. We decry the Roman Catholic church for being over-concerned with the outward and with

40 Timothy Keller, Center Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012) 311. 41 Newbigin, Gospel in a pluralist society, 227. Theological Study Conference 2017 21

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament sacraments, but our emphasis on having the right confessions and forms ends up at times being very similar. Church simply must be first and foremost the body, the people, the relationships, the life in relationship to God and one another. This is why, perhaps, in God’s good providence we have needed to have Anabaptists and Quakers and Primitive Methodists and Pentecostals and Charismatics, because of our imbalance. Will we learn?

Church as organism is overwhelmingly more important than church as organisation.

14. Contextualisation

Ask ten theologians what contextualisation means and you will get ten answers. Using it in the way Tim Keller does, I would say that it is essential – it always was important; we can see Paul doing it in the very different approaches he takes in Acts 13 (a Jewish synagogue) and Acts 14 and 17 (two different kinds of pagan situations), to say nothing of his much-argued- over words in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 and the somewhat-less-malleable passage at the end of 1 Corinthians 10, where he says that he seeks to please everyone in every way, and then tells us to follow his example (yes, in certain ways that cautious, conservatively-minded people do not like, Paul is telling us all that we need to be people-pleasers). The upshot is that because our target audience is changing all the time, never mind the fact that the body of Christ as a living thing is constantly changing, we, the church, including the local church, must in certain respects be changing all the time. Natural conservatives have to learn how to be flexible, radical conservatives (just as natural radicals, poets and artists) have to learn how to be conservative radicals.

So what is Keller’s definition of contextualisation?

…it is giving people the Bible’s answers, which they may not at all want to hear, to questions about life that people in their particular time and place are asking, in language and forms they can comprehend, and through appeals and arguments whose force they can feel, even if they reject them. Sound contextualization means translating and adapting the communication and ministry of the gospel to a particular culture without compromising the essence and particulars of the gospel itself.42

We get help from Scripture as to how to contextualise from the realisation that the detailed instructions for the life of the church, in terms of forms and structures, are few and far between, and also from reading the book of Proverbs and bearing in mind the notions of common grace and general revelation. The so-called Wisdom books of the OT are clearly open to discern God’s wisdom in other cultures, as well as in creation and the way the world is made and works. We can learn lessons for gospel ministry from virtually any source under

42 Keller, Center Church, 89 Theological Study Conference 2017 22

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament the sun, and “creativity” should not be a dirty word in such a context. There is an interesting talk by Keller on contextualising our gospel for postmoderns on YouTube, put up in May 2013, entitled Postmodernism, Tim Keller at Desiring God. There he pleads for our very best theologising to devise a gospel presentation that is neither the systematic-theological approach of Evangelism Explosion, Bill Bright or John Blanchard’s Ultimate Questions (that pattern of God, sin, Christ, faith, which is very similar to George Smeaton’s 19th century Scottish one of ruin, redemption and regeneration, is not cutting it with postmoderns) nor the kingdom gospel of the full-on Emerging Church, but something that learns from the insights of this new movement yet says more than they do about God’s wrath against sin and about propitiation.

Keller has become somewhat of a controversial figure in some circles, including some British ones, though a basically very irenic person. Having heard some of the criticism, my hunch is that the big differences between him and those who don’t like what he says are twofold: this contextualisation matter and his refusal to be as dogmatic as some would want (in effect, his penchant for the sort of thing that J. I. Packer says from time to time, that a certain semi- heretic’s heart is better than his head). I confessed being somewhat Packerian myself at the start of this paper. I don’t regret it, partly because if it’s good enough for John Owen (who was not exactly doctrinally indifferent), it’s good enough for me – in his treatise of justification in volume 5 of his works, he crosses swords all the time with the Roman Catholic theologian Bellarmine and yet clearly, in some footnotes, says that he believes the man is actually trusting in the work of Christ, not in himself.

15. Consolidation by advancing

The church will have to suffer in all kinds of ways, in union with Christ. Colossians 1:24 is not just for Paul – see most of 2 Corinthians, as well as Jesus’ statement that we have to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for me and the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35). Notice that the command to carry the cross is given in the context of being part of Jesus’ Messianic mission of redeeming and reclaiming his world. He must go to the cross to secure his Messianic destiny. But he then puts that same mandate on his followers. This is not firstly about “being a good Christian” or “putting our sin to death”, but primarily about us becoming a race of suicide bombers of love who give up our lives so that others might live.43

One small but relevant part of this cost and suffering is risk-taking and not indulging ourselves in the comforting business of consolidating before we advance in mission, which the control-freak in all of us would like to do. As Newbigin says:

43 Robert Heppe, private paper. Theological Study Conference 2017 23

Chris Bennett: Light to the Nations and Aliens and Strangers: An overview of the people of God in the New Testament

It is taken for granted [wrongly, he is saying]… that existing gains have to be thoroughly consolidated before we go further afield; that the world-wide Church has to be built up with the same sort of prudent calculation of resources and costs as is expected of any business enterprise. Must we not contrast this with the sort of strategy that the NT reveals, which seems to be a sort of determination to stake out God’s claim to the whole world at once, without expecting that one area should be fully worked out before the next is claimed… “Consolidation” will not be the alternative to advance: on the contrary, advance will be the method of consolidation.44

Warfield’s wonderful sermon, Imitating the incarnation,45 is well worth consulting on what denying yourself for Christ and his mission means.

Conclusion

My overarching concern is that we realise the extent to which the very spectacles through which we look at the NT are coloured in part by our place in history and in Protestant and Western Christian tradition, and in part by the idolatry and control-freakery that is just part of fallen human nature and thus part of the flesh we all have, which leads us to want to be in control and have things nailed down, when actually God is inviting, nay calling us, to be part of his mission where only he knows all the answers to all the questions.

Sounds frightening? It’s meant to be. !

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Given that Scripture is one story, how closely tied together are creation and salvation? As closely as Chris Wright thinks?

2. Has the church, especially since 1500, been individualistic and also somewhat “Platonist” in the sense of “immaterial – good; material – bad”?

3. How do Matthew 5:16 and 1 Peter 2:12 apply to the local church?

4. Are Christian unions, missionary societies and seminaries church or para-church?

5. How concerned is the NT about church structures?

6. How can we, in our busy, over-organised, individualistic society promote church as community? Is there any place for communes or community living, even?

44 Newbigin, Household of God, 195, 198. 45 To be found in B. B. Warfield, The Saviour of the World, 1916 (repub. Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, 1991). Theological Study Conference 2017 1

Paul Helm: Augustine, Pilgrimage and Ourselves

Augustine, Pilgrimage and Ourselves1

Paul Helm, Formerly Professor of the History & Philosophy of Religion, King’s College, London

The reactions of Christians to the arrival of the Goths under Alaric in the City of Rome on 24 August 410, were not all the same. When the news reached Jerome (347-420) this is how he reacted:

The city which has captured the whole world is itself taken captive. Who would believe that Rome, built up by the conquest of the whole world, has collapsed, that the mother of nations has also become their tombs… When the brightest light on the whole earth was extinguished, when the Roman Empire was deprived of its head and when, to speak more correctly, the whole world perished in one city, then “I was dumb with silence. I held my peace, even from good, and my sorrow was stirred” (Ps. 30:2)… The world sinks into ruin… The renowned city, the capital of the Roman Empire, is swallowed up in one tremendous fire; and there is no part of the earth where Romans are not in exile.2

In another letter he added,

I was so confounded by the havoc wrought in the West and above all by the sack of Rome that, as the common saying has it, I forgot even my own name. Long did I remain silent, knowing that it was a time to weep.3

Jerome was a learned Christian thinker, somewhat irascible. He lived in Bethlehem. He was not alone in his reaction. Pelagius, (360-418) by this time a refugee from the city of Rome, remarked that,

It happened only recently, and you heard it yourself. Rome, the mistress of the world, shivered crushed with fear, at the arrival of the blaring trumpets and the howling of the Goths… Everyone was mingled together and shaken with fear, every household had

1 I am indebted to an article by the late David F. Wright, “Rome, August 24, 410, and New York, September 11, 2001: Augustine and the End of the World”, (Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 21, 1 Spring 2003, 57- 71.) This has provided the initial direction to what follows, and guidance in the literature. 2 Jerome, Epistle 127.12. 3 Ibid., 126. 2. Theological Study Conference 2017 2

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its grief and an all-pervading terror gripped us. Slave and noble were one. The same spectre of death stalked before us all.4

These reactions of shock and horror were not shared by Augustine (354-430). In this paper I will try to explain why this was. This will involve us in going back, to the treatment of Christians in Rome and the Roman Empire, and the changes to the outlook of Christians on Constantine’s conversion and what followed, and then tracing some of the developments and changes in Augustine’s own thinking. Augustine’s thinking developed, it seems, independently and more or less single-handedly, and it is to this thinking and what we can learn from it, that the main part of this paper will be devoted. The first part of this will have to do with contextualising for us that far-off world of Christians and the Roman Empire.

The Sack of Rome

But first it is necessary to say a word or two more about the Sack of Rome itself. This was Alaric’s third siege of the city, and he was not the first Goth to threaten it. So (as David Wright put it) Rome saw its downfall coming. There were several such attempts by the Goths to invade Italy itself. In the third of these incursions, Attalus was proclaimed as Emperor by them in an attempt to force Rome to negotiate. In response to an advance to Ravenna, Alaric’s army was attacked, and he retaliated by reaching Rome itself in 410, the Sack of Rome.

But at the Sack of 410, the loss of life and destruction of property were not great. The city was occupied only for three days. The Goths, who were Arians, respected the church buildings. Nevertheless, Rome, the eternal city, had never been captured before and certainly not by “barbarians”. The symbolic effect of this violation was very great, as we have noted.

The first recorded response of Augustine was in sermon 15A (22 September 410), on Psalm 32 and Job 2. In another sermon three days later he referred to accusations from non- Christians that the Sack was a failure of God to protect the city. However, it was later in the year before there is an explicit reference in a sermon to the sack, referring to the traditionalist pagan claims that the city had fallen because the worship of the pagan deities had been forsaken. Sermons 296 and 105, preached the following year come back to these themes. His response has its definitive expression in Books 1-3 of the City of God. 5

So Augustine began to write his massive City of God under the direct impact of the Sack of Rome. But it must be borne in mind that though the book was begun in 413 (Books 1-3), in

4 Pelagius, Epistle to Demetrius 30 trans. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London, 2000), 287. Pelagius was born in England or perhaps Ireland. Fluent in Latin and Greek, and learned in theology, he moved to Rome in 380. Following the sack of Rome he fled to Carthage, and by 415 he was in Jerusalem. 5 I am indebted for the details in these paragraphs to Jeremy Williams, ‘Barbarian Invasions’ in Augustine Through the Ages. Ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1999), 92.

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417 Augustine was only up to Book 11. He was working further in 425, on Book 18. The work was finished in 427. Later, we shall give considerable attention to both his preaching and the views expressed in the City of God. But we must fist travel back in time.

Christians in the Roman Empire

We turn the clock back to the persecutions of the Christians, and then to the sudden and unexpected conversion of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, and its consequences. But, first we shall take in the sweep of history from the death of the Apostles through the persecutions of Christians to the conversion of Constantine. Then follows the “Christian- isation” of Rome, that is, the situating of Rome in the saving purpose of God, and we shall try to show how its Christianisation affected Christian thinkers about Rome. Only then shall we appreciate the significance of the different views that Augustine developed, first in his preaching in 410 and then in the years during which he was writing the City of God, views which themselves developed as he wrote. These views were novel to him, for there is reason to think that prior to this he himself was tarred by the “Christianisation” brush.

(i) The New Testament

Apart from general references in it to coming persecutions, a reading of the New Testament does not prepare one for what is to come. References to the occupying Romans include, of course, Pilate whose basic stance is to leave issues between the Jews to the Jews themselves to settle, unless it was a serious disorder offence. In the Acts of the Apostles Lucius Junius Gallio (who was the brother of Seneca the philosopher), a pro-consul in Achaia, 52-3, “cared for none of these things”, because he took the view that Christians were merely a sect of the Jews. The “things” were an attempt to prosecute the Apostle Paul (Acts 18:12f.). His refusal is on the grounds that no criminal charge had been brought.

Paul himself takes advantage of his Roman citizenship, especially his appeal to Caesar, which is an important structural point in the Acts. It is as a result of his appeal that Paul is brought to Rome. Paul was safely in the care escort of Roman soldiers (Acts 23). The persecutions of the early Christians referred to in Acts (beginning with the martyrdom of Stephen) are the work of Jews, not Romans. James was executed by Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:2).

(ii) The persecutions

The persecutions start as events in the various provinces and towns, at the discretion of governors, who could favour a private prosecution, or decline to support one. Tertullian’s Theological Study Conference 2017 4

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Apology is addressed to governors. Then in 64 Rome was burned in the Great Fire, and Nero6 found a scapegoat in the Christians. For some reason Christians had earned a notoriety that made them the automatic choice. This was extended to the provinces. There were persecutions under Domitian’s reign as emperor (81-96) from 81. The Jews were to be taxed, and Christians in the Roman mind were to be counted with them. But they asserted their separate identity, and were exposed. Lane Fox puts this animosity down to Paul’s being found guilty by Felix of acts “contrary to Caesar”.7

Under Emperor Domitian things worsened again. This seems partly because the emperor styled himself “Master and God” and the oath to the emperor was required. Both Jews and Christians were adversely affected, though the problems of the Christians seem to have been less publicised. The charge was “atheism”. So, as Christians, they were identified with the executed Paul.8 It seems that at this time persecutions continued to be at the discretion of provincial governors. Nero was the exception, and then not until the time of Decius (201-51). In the intervening period persecution was local and sporadic. So the church was “protected” by these factors, and became established.9 But what made the Christians persecution-worthy at this early stage is not clear.

In general, the Roman government was inclusive when it came to religion, new local gods being added to the Roman array as they invaded and took new territories. The Jews who had no images and no sacrifices outside Jerusalem, and who claimed exclusivity, presented a problem. Nevertheless it was managed, as we see from the NT. They were tolerated until the revolt of 66-70, leading to the destruction of Jerusalem. Why should Christians not receive similar toleration? Whatever the reason, within a few years the mood changed markedly. The decisive change seems to have been the worship of the Emperor, which Christians refused.

In Bithynia by 77 to persevere in Christianity was a capital offence.10 Why this change? It is not very clear what the answer is. One theory is that as Christianity spread there was less demand for meat for sacrifices. The affected providers appealed to Pliny, the governor of Bithynia, who executed Christians who were not citizens and sent those who were to Rome for trial. Was being a Christian by itself an offence, or is it what they did that was actionable? The correspondence between Pliny and the Emperor Trajan made it clear that the Christians were not dangerous. They were a strange combination: religiously stubborn, which lost them sympathy and toleration, but virtuous members of society.11

6 Tacitus, Annals, xv 44. 7 For much of the account of the persecutions I am indebted to Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, (London: Penguin Books, 1988). 8 Fox seems somewhat confused at this point. His account depends on the assumption that Paul was executed, for which there is of course no direct evidence. 9 Fox, Pagans and Christians, Ch.9. 10 Pliny, Epistles, x 96, 97. 11 Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), 28f. Theological Study Conference 2017 5

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In a later phase of persecution, Polycarp bishop of Smyrna, Ignatius bishop of Antioch and Justin at Rome were martyred between 162 and 177. Christians were reckoned to be atheists by the standards of pagan religion, and were blamed for catastrophes such as floods and earthquakes. But these sporadic persecutions were not enough to slow the expansion of Christianity in the Empire. In any case there were different attitudes to persecution. There was the argument that pagan gods did not exist (1 Cor 8), and so worshipping them was purely a formality, and may be allowed, and that the food offered to them, if eaten, does not compromise any who consume it.

Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one. For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords” – yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we exist (1 Cor 8:4-6).

So the Roman gods were not of the same order as the one true and living God.

During this period there is evidence of the growth of Christians openly taking on responsibility for their faith, and actively courting martyrdom, to which prestige came to be attached, because of supposed spiritual rewards to the martyr. No doubt this fell short of suicide “martyrdoms” of our own day. Nevertheless, it seems in the Christians’ reaction to the threat of persecution there were elements of both provocation and compromise.

But the deification of the Emperor was rather different. Here was a palpable figure to whom religious devotion was expected, to whom 1 Corinthians 8 could not be applied.

Pagan worship began to involve the worship of the Emperor as part of a sort of cult of personality in the period of Emperor Maximin, in 235. In his reign there was a period of persecution deriving from the emperor’s own decisions, rather than being a matter of local government, as it had been previously. Origen (184-254), whose father had been martyred, was a Christian leader who discerned a sea change, as in his Exhortation to Martyrdom, addressed to his wealthy and well-connected Christian friend Ambrose, urging no compromise. Origen wrote his Contra Celsum, a dialogue between the Christian and Celsus, a Platonist, as a result of Ambrose’s urging.12

Gradually, the personal attitude of the Emperor became decisive on the question of persecution.13 Maximin was followed by Alexander Severus, who seems to have been more

12 Chadwick, The Early Church, 111. 13 Ibid., 117. Theological Study Conference 2017 6

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friendly to the Christians, and then Philip the Arab (244-9)14, who was also sympathetic and was said to be a believer, but this did not prevent him celebrating the Roman millennium in 247, with “Roma Aeterna” emblazoned on the coins, encircled by the gods. By 248 Origen recognised that popular hostility to Christians was growing. The Christians had cold- shouldered the millennial celebrations and were subjected to the violence of the mob.

Decius became emperor in 249, and systematic persecution began. He required that everyone should hold a certificate that he had sacrificed to the gods before special officials. Christians were entrapped, and there was systematic persecution, particularly of the better off – families with property. For its part, the church recognised as “lapsed” not only those who had sacrificed, but those who, through friendly connections, had managed to get hold of certificates. One is reminded here of the “Nicodemites” of Calvin’s day.

The severest persecutor was Diocletian who reigned from 284 until he abdicated in 305. Then the empire was reorganised and rule divided between the two “Augusti”, with two assistant Caesars. Diocletian and his Caesar Galerius ruled east of the Adriatic, and Maximian and his Caesar Constantinius, the father of Constantine, ruled in the West.15

The question of loyalty to the army became an issue, and Galerius required that Christians be coerced. Diocletian consulted the oracle of Apollo at Miletus, and the gods responded that false oracles were being brought about by the Christians who were present. Almost immediately an order was proclaimed that all churches were to be destroyed and Bibles and prayer books and sacred objects confiscated. Some time later citizens were required to sacrifice on penalty of death, but this seems to have been applied only in the East.

The persecutions that followed were implemented unevenly. In Gaul, Britain and Spain, Constantinius’ attacks were limited to the destruction of some churches. Constantine, like his father Constantinius, was a Sun worshipper but through the influence of his half-sister Anastasia (which means “resurrection”), in the crisis of his career in the war of 312 he called on the Christian God and was delivered. His becoming emperor meant that Christians in the provinces in his control were spared persecution.16

(iii) The martyrdom of Pionius

Roman persecution brings to mind imprisonments, the gladiators and the stake, suffered by Christians who would not worship Caesar. Such atrocities were carried out throughout the Empire, not only in Rome and Italy and Greece, but what is present-day Turkey, Libya and Tunisia. Lane Fox pieces together one of these, that of Pionius, a Christian elder in the church

14 Chadwick, The Early Church 117. 15 Ibid., 121. 16 Ibid., Ch.8. Theological Study Conference 2017 7

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of Smyrna, where the martyr Polycarp had been bishop. Smyrna is Izmir in present-day Turkey, on the Aegean coast. The account is distilled from several different written accounts of his trial and martyrdom, including Pionius’ diary, written while in prison in 250 AD.17 The Christian church in Smyrna was the second of the seven churches of Revelation.

Early in the second century Smyrna had suffered an earthquake, had been rebuilt, and possessed three temples. It was a fashionable and prosperous city. Pionius was arrested along with others after Polemon, an official of one of the temples, dedicated to the goddess Nemesis, the distributor of fortune, confronted him. “You know of course, about the Emperor’s edict, and how it bids you sacrifice to the gods”. Pionius retorted, “We know the edicts of God, in which he bids us worship him alone.”

Pionius was escorted onto the square, along with others, including Sabina, a servant girl. He refused to pay for a sacrifice, and was imprisoned. Pionius was dragged back to the altar, and argued with Rufinus, a prominent citizen, the civic magistrate of that year, who accused him of vainglory. But Pionius countered with the example of pagan heroes such as Socrates who had suffered martyrdom for the sake of principle. He, like such, but unlike his bishop, was intransigent. Rufinus was a Sophist, a public speaker and an orator, who valued public service and was a benefactor of Smyrna. To die, as Pionius was prepared to do, was in his eyes a showy self-indulgence. Yet in Pionius he met someone equally learned, though differently read.

While he was in prison he was visited by pagans attempting to persuade him to recant. It was then that the bishop of Smyrna (also in prison) lapsed, and Pionius was put under further pressure. They were waiting for the governor, Quintiilanus, who would preside at the assize as part of his regular tour of the region. But he was detained at Ephesus, along the coast, where there was trouble. When he came to Smyrna, he sentenced Pionius to death, and went on to Pergamum. Pionius had told him that Christians worshipped the Maker of the heavens. The governor was unimpressed, for Quintiilanus had been initiated into the pagan mysteries. He held conservatively to the traditional Roman religion. He thought that the Christians worshipped the air; it is Zeus, the king of the gods, who is in heaven.

Ironically, while he was being fastened to his cross, he was mistakenly made public as a follower of Marcion. His executors were not to know that Marcion was a Christian heretic. So Pionius burned on his cross as if a Christian heretic.18

It has been necessary to discuss persecution in some detail in order to appreciate the relief in the Christians communities in the Empire at the sudden adherence of Constantine to Christianity, and in a relatively short time, the positive re-evaluation that took place in the

17 Fox, Pagans and Christians, 461f. 18 Pagans and Christians, Ch. 9, 462-92. Theological Study Conference 2017 8

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minds of Christians of the inter-relation of Christianity and the Empire. The prosperity of the Church became allied to that of the Empire.

The “Christianisation” of the Roman Empire

So, with the sudden and unexpected conversion of Constantine (272-337) to the Christian faith, and the toleration of Christians, a rapid “Christianisation” of society took place. I use this word to cover not only the conversion of many men and women, but the change in culture and the eclipse of the still vigorous pagan cults, which was a consequence of this change at the top and centre of Rome.

I am not going to enter into the question of the genuineness and depth of this change, but it is natural to expect that all at once adherence to Christianity became fashionable, first in the Christian Emperor’s circle and then downwards to Roman society more generally, and outwards to the borders of the Empire, including North Africa. It became the thing to be Christian or be sympathetic to Christianity, even as the old pagan guard was subdued, though not eliminated, in the way that there was a society-wide change when the Anglo-Saxons brought Christianity to England.

As a result of Constantine’s changes, there was a considerable relief in the lot of Christians. But it would be a mistake to think that Christianity became the “established” religion of the Empire, the established church. The great thing for the Christians was that their religion was now tolerated along with pagans and Jews, in something like a pluralism of religions, yet having the personal backing of the Emperor.

Not only were there new loyalties, but a new ideology was developed that went with them and in time, no doubt, came to underpin these societal changes. The question was asked, what was the theological significance of these marvellous turns-about, when not only Constantine was sympathetic to Christianity, but also his successors, Theodosius I (emperor from 379-395) and Theodosius II (408-450), adhered to the faith and when persecutors became professors of the Gospel? The natural reaction was to conclude that doubtless the hand of God was in these abrupt and beneficial, seemingly miraculous changes. But in what sense was God at work?

What I shall briefly try to bring out is how incautious and enthusiastic was the conclusion that was drawn as it was exhibited in the Christian literature of the period. So I shall give some examples from the writings of the period of Christians and others who came to explain and extoll the virtues of Rome and things Roman during these “Christian times”.

A century before the conversion of Constantine, the church father Origen (d.254) held that,

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God was preparing the nations for his teaching, that they might be under one Roman emperor, so that the unfriendly attitude of the nations to one another, caused by the existence of a large number of kingdoms, might not make it more difficult for Jesus’ apostles to do what he had commanded them when he said “Go and teach all nations”. It is quite clear that Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus, the one who reduced to uniformity, so to speak, the many kingdoms of the earth so that he had a single empire.19

Here is the pagan poet Rutilius writing in 417:

Hear me Rome, queen of the world and brightest jewel In the vault of Heaven. Hear me, mother Of men and the gods – your temples bring Heaven near, We chant your praise as long as we have breath. No man will ever be safe if he forgets us, May I praise you still when the sun is dark. Your power is felt wherever the sun’s light shines, Even to the farthest edge of the world. The sun god revolves only for you, his horses That rise from your soil sink down to your soil. The parching death of Africa has not stopped you, The stiffening cold of the north made way for you. The earth has opened a path for you, wherever There are living things, here are you also. You have united the distant nations, under You, captivity has become profit. Men who have never known justice have been conquered And then been given rights under your laws, What was only a world you have made city.20

Closer to home, there was the Christian poet Prudentius, writing before the Sack of Rome:

God taught the nations everywhere to bow their heads under the same laws and become Romans – all whom Rhine and Danube flood… those who are nurtured by Ganges or washed by the warm Nile’s seven mouths. A common law made them equals and bound them by a single name, bringing the conquered into bonds of brotherhood.

19 Contra Celsum, II.30, trans. H Chadwick. See Markus 48-9. 20 Rutilius, Concerning his Return I. Theological Study Conference 2017 10

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Such is the result of the great successes and triumphs of the Roman power. For the time of Christ’s coming, be assured, was the way prepared which the general good will of peace among us had just built under the role of Rome.21

Rome, the gift of God, inviolable, the centre of the nations and the unifier of them in the name of Christ.

More significant for us, though, is the thought that Rome had become a player in sacred history, even, it may be, in redemptive history. Robert Markus expresses the euphoric mood of the Christians in these words:

The idols have gone, or are going; Christianity has spread to the four corners of the world: “the whole world has become a choir praising Christ”. In our own day, the Christian times, God has brought to a fulfillment the prophetic promises. He is uprooting the idols of the nations from the face of the earth, he is calling kings to serve his name… The establishment of the Christian Empire and the repression of paganism have entered the sacred history. They have become part of God’s saving work and are described in the categories of the biblical prophecies.22

The Christianisation of the Empire, the coming of the “Christian times” at the turn of the third century, is to be understood not simply as welcome relief from the hardships of Roman persecution, but as direct, identifiable, fulfillments of Scripture, as in effect the continuation of sacred or redemptive history; not the acting out of the saving events of Christ’s death and resurrection, but the continuing acting out of it.

Augustine’s Development

At first, Augustine adopted this outlook. We need to keep in mind Augustine’s understanding of history, divided into six ages or “days”. They are as follows:

The first age, as it were the first day, is from Adam unto the flood. And the second from Abraham, not by equality of times but by number of generations. For they are found to have the number ten. From thence now, as the evangelist Matthew doth conclude, three ages do follow even unto the coming of Christ, every one of which is expressed by fourteen generations. From Abraham unto David is one, from thence even unto the transmigration into Babylon is another, the third from thence unto the incarnate nativity of Christ. So all of them are made five. Now this age is the sixth, to

21 Prudentius, Against Symmachus II. 22 R. A. Markus, Saeculum, History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine, (2nd edition) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 30-1. I am indebted to Markus for his work on the development of Augustine’s thought. Theological Study Conference 2017 11

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be mentioned by no number, because of which is spoken “It is not for you to know the seasons, which the Father has placed in His own power”. After this age God shall rest as on the seventh day, when God shall make that seventh day which we shall be, to rest in Himself.23

This quotation is from the end of the City of God, but he seems to have held to this periodisation throughout his career. So we occupy the sixth age. What is this like?

It seems that Augustine automatically took over the “Christianisation” of the Empire outlook. In the period of the turn of the fourth century into the fifth, fifteen or so years before he began the City of God there are clear signs of Augustine’s adherence to the “Christian times” view of the relation between contemporary events and the revealed purposes of God. Several works composed at that time give evidence of this.

One forms part of a catechism composed in 399. The age of Theodosius, and then the conversion of Constantine disturbs the homogeneity of history of the sixth age. Augustine sees in contemporary events the fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, “O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the days of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth…” (Jer 16:19). The reading of the history of his own times as the fulfilling of prophecy has become no more than the claim – quite a considerable claim, nonetheless – that God is at work in all contemporary events, which then are open to having their divine significance understood by contemporary Christians.

The few pagans that remain fail to realize the wonder of what is happening… Now the God of Israel himself is destroying the idols of the heathen… Through Christ the king he has subjugated the Roman Empire to the worship of his name; and he has converted it to the defence and service of the Christian faith, so that the idols, on account of whose cult his sacred mysteries had previously been rejected, should now be destroyed.24

“The whole world has become a choir praising Christ.” Augustine is jubilant at this manifest triumph. Markus cites Augustine’s changing understanding of Psalm 72:11 over the period. The text is “May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!” This verse in the first instance supported Augustine’s earlier (390s) prophetic interpretation of the Empire’s Christianisation.

But after a decade or so of his taking contemporary events as the fulfilment of Scripture, the Christianisation of society seems to have faded from his attention. Nevertheless Augustine used this interpretation as a reason for using force against the Donatists. But in the new

23 Augustine, City of God, 22.30. 24 Augustine, De cons. Ev. 1.14.21. Taken from Markus, Saeculum, 30. Theological Study Conference 2017 12

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century “Christian times” begins to change from referring to the Christianisation of the Empire to the entire period since the Incarnation to the present, and until the Second Coming. His new attitude may be seen in his expression, “The City which begat us according to the flesh still remains; thanks be to God! If only it would be spiritually reborn, and go over with us into eternity!” 25 It is from this period that the sermons that we shall later consider are taken.

So, prior to the of Rome in 410 and the writing of the City of God, between 413 and 427, in the 390s, Augustine subscribes to the celebration of the “Christian times” that had arrived with Constantine. At the time of the death of Theodosius, Constantine’s successor, Augustine was 41, newly a bishop. He was caught up in the general celebration in the Christian community of the emperor-assisted triumphant progress of Christianity, and power of Christ that was exhibited in this.

He asserts to a correspondent that the history of salvation should culminate in “the present times of the Church”. The spread of Christianity via the help of true kings of the earth is a part of God’s work of salvation, fulfilling Old Testament prophecies. This is the biblical theology of salvation rather than the history of the church in his era. Instead of being a blank slate, theologically speaking, his times, the Christian times, are etched with events which can be taken as fulfilment of special revelation.

So God is at work in all events, visibly, giving them a place and significance in post- redemptive history. The visible work of God is either not distinguished from redemptive history, or it is a continuation of that history. Augustine held to God’s providential governance of all events, but a ‘Christianising’ or redemptive interpretation goes beyond this, in that certain events are identified with the positive salvific purposes of God identifiable in special revelation. His view of his times is now that they are situated between the first and second comings of Christ, when the gospel is being spread worldwide. There there is a silence between the work of redemption and its final consummation. Augustine’s writing keeps in this vein for ten years or so. 26 But after the sack of Rome even though the phrase continues to be used by the Christian community, including Augustine, this is not in the triumphalistic tones of “Christianisation”.

In the next decade or so Augustine came to revise this view. He comes to hold that since the saving events of Christ, historical events, including the Great Commission, the world is no longer such that its events are open to interpretation by biblical prophecies which address contemporary events. He continues to hold that this is the sixth age of the seven, the age between the coming of Christ and his final parousia. With his Second Coming the seventh age begins, the everlastingness of heaven. In this sixth age there is no prophecy which directly

25 Markus, Saeculum, 39. Markus develops these changes more fully than we are able to do in this paper. 26 Ibid., 11. Theological Study Conference 2017 13

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refers to events in it or invites interpretation of it. But in this age God is silent. The calling of God’s people continues until the end of the age; but the mighty acts of procuring redemption which occurred in history have ceased. In this sense redemptive history has come to an end.27

In writing fifteen years later he is much more reserved. In his later commentary on the same Psalm, Augustine seems deliberately to distance himself from that interpretation. It refers, he now says, to the persecuting kings. He comments, “not as if the persecuting kings had not also brought their gifts, without knowing what they were doing in immolating the holy martyrs.”28

If you think that the fact that the Jews now have their land again in the Middle East was in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, or that when the Beaufighter, a fighter with a rear gunner flew in the Second World War, this was in fulfilment of Revelation 9:10, the coming of locusts with stings in their tails, then (in Augustine’s way of thinking), this is mistaken in principle. Besides his device of the seven ages, he also uses a three-fold categorisation: before the law, under the law, and under grace.29 His four-fold distinction, between a state in which it is possible to sin, a second in which it is not possible not to sin, a third in which it is possible to sin and possible not to sin, and finally one in which it is impossible to sin, is rather different. Each set of distinctions complements the others.

Earlier in his life there are positive references to the millenarianism of such writers as Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Tertullian, references to a period when the saints shall reign gloriously with the returned Jesus Christ. This may be thought of as the residue of a teaching prevalent in the days of persecution. In his teaching on Psalm 6:1-2 Augustine denounced those who wish to calculate the time of Christ’s return, as paying no heed to Acts 1:7. Some of this old millenarian thinking was making a return with the conversion of Constantine, but Augustine’s thought was moving in the opposite direction. Augustine devotes a chapter of the City of God (20.9) to the millennium of John. But all traces of millenarianism vanish from his thinking. John’s thousand years are Augustine’s sixth day. In the City of God he is sharply critical of a postmillenial approach of a thousand years of peace. The idea of leisure to be enjoyed by the church at the end of the age now repelled him. He states that the chief reason for holding to a millennium was the view that,

saints should have a continual Sabbath enduring so long, to wit, a thousand years’ leisure after the six thousand of trouble, beginning at man’s creation, and expulsion out of paradise into the sorrows of mortality.

What was objectionable was that,

27 Markus, Saeculum 17-21, 23. 28 Ibid., 34. 29 Markus, Saeculum, 18-9. Theological Study Conference 2017 14

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The saints after this resurrection shall do nothing but revel in fleshly banquets, where the cheer shall exceed both modesty and measure. This is gross, and fit for none but carnal man to believe. But they that are really and truly spiritual do call those of this opinion Chiliasts.30

We should note Augustine’s different attitude to the Sack of Rome from that which had become prevalent during Rome’s “Christianisation”. The chief source of this is his sermons preached during the period of the Sack and similar sentiments in the City of God, finished in 427 by which time Augustine’s views seem to have become fixed.

The two cities are the city of this world, motivated by cupiditas, greed and lust, and the city of God, motivated by caritas, love of God and neighbour. Augustine gives the name of “Babylon” to this first city, as in 1 Peter 5:13 and in “that great city, Babylon” in Revelation 18:10, 21. Nonetheless, this city is in the providence of God ordered in various ways. Augustine has a life-long interest in this order, what drives it, and with how in the providence of God it may curb the worst effects of sin. The city of God, motivated by caritas, love, is distinct, but not separate, from the city of this world, intermingled in it. Its members are in the city of this world but not of it. He gets the idea of referring to the people of God as a city from Psalm 87:3, “Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God”. Yet there seems little direct reference to the city motif in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Augustine’s preaching after the Sack

This changed perspective can now to be seen more fully as Augustine’s preaching after the Sack of Rome in 410 exhibits his overall attitudes to his contemporary world.

(i) Keeping a sense of proportion

The city that was recently on fire amid the sacrifices of Christians had already been twice on fire amid the sacrifices of the pagans… So why do you like growling against God for a city that has been in the habit of being on fire?31

After all, Rome had been visited by the barbarians on previous occasions.

(ii) Is Rome special?

In one of his earliest comments on the fall of Rome, a sermon On the Fall of the City of Rome, Augustine rejects the comparison (that was evidently being made by some of his auditors and others) between Rome and Sodom. He made the point that Rome had not been laid waste,

30 Augustine, City of God, 20.7. 31 Augustine, Sermon 296.9. Theological Study Conference 2017 15

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utterly destroyed, as Sodom had been. There were still in Rome “such a great number of chaste men and women dedicated to God, in such a great number of servants and handmaids of God”.32 The two cases, Rome and Sodom, were not on the same scale.

(iii) The transience of human life

From the city of Rome how many have gone forth and will return, how many have remained and have escaped, how many in the holy places could not even be touched [because of the Gothic respect of asylum].33

Having died in a good life and in true righteousness and faith, were they not freed from the vicissitudes of human misfortune and have they not entered upon divine refreshment?34

Would that we were able to see with our eyes the souls of the righteous who died in that war! Then you would see how God spared the city. For thousands of saints are at rest, rejoicing and saying to God: “Thanks be to you, O Lord, because you have rescued us from the troubles and hurtful torments of the flesh. Thanks to you because we now fear neither barbarians nor the devil, we do not fear hunger on earth, we do not fear the enemy, we do not fear the persecutor, we do not fear the oppressor. We died on earth, never in your sight to die, O God, and this by your gift, not by our merits.”35

People are surprised… when God corrects the human race and rouses it by scourges of holy chastisement, when he imposes discipline before the judgment, and often does not choose whom he will scourge, since he does not wish to seek out whom he will condemn.36

Dreadful things have been reported to us: destruction, fires, acts of plunder, killings, tortures. It is true, we have heard many terrible things, we have groaned over everything, we have wept often, we have found it hard to be consoled. I do not refuse to believe, I do not deny that we have heard many terrible things, that many outrages were committed in that city.37

Come now, Christians… strangers on earth who seek a city in heaven… understand

32 Augustine, De Excidio Urbis Romae, Sermo 2.2, edited and translated by M. V. O’Reilly (Washington DC, 1955), 57. 33 Augustine, De Excidio Romae, Sermo 2:2, 57. 34 Augustine, De Excidio, Sermo 5.5. 35 Augustine, De Excidio, 6:6, 67. 36 Augustine, ed. O’Reilly, 1.9.8. 53, 75. 37 Ibid., 61. Theological Study Conference 2017 16

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that you have come here simply in order to take your departure. You are passing through the world… Don’t let lovers of the world disturb you…

These troubles and pressures are not scandals. Be righteous, and they will be training exercises. Trouble comes; it will be whichever you wish, your education or your condemnation. Which it will be will depend on what sort of thing it finds you to be – gold, or straw?38

Christ immediately starts talking to you. Why are you upset? I told you about all this long ago. The reason I foretold it was so that, when bad times came, you could hope for good times, and not go to pieces… Are you astonished at the world going to pieces? You might as well be astonished that the world has grown old. The world is like a man: he is born, grows up, grows old. Old age is full of complaints: coughing, phlegm, bleary eyes, aches and pains, weariness, it is all there… The world has grown old; it is full of troubles and pressures…

Don’t be eager to cling to an aged world, and unwilling to grow young in Christ, who says to you, “The world is perishing, the world is aging, the world is going to pieces… Don’t be afraid, ‘your youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s’ (Psalm 103:5).”39

Rome also has endured a single tribulation, in which the godly person has either been freed or been corrected… Let not the hardship of the godly disturb us; it is a form of trial. Unless perhaps we shudder when we see any just person endure harsh and heavy affliction on this earth, and forget what the Most Just and the Most Holy has endured. What the whole city suffered, One alone suffered. See who that One is, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who was seized, bound, scourged, heaped with every insult, suspended and crucified on a cross, and put to death. Weigh Rome in the balance with Christ, weigh the whole earth with Christ, weigh heaven and earth with Christ: nothing created counterbalances the Creator… Let us therefore bear what God wishes us to bear. He who to cure and heal us sent his Son, knows, as a physician knows, what utility there is even in pain.40

The City of God

Now we arrive at the final period, the writing of the City of God.

38 Augustine, Sermon 81:7, tr. Edmund Hill, The Works of Saint Augustine: Sermons III/3 (New York, 1991), 363-4. 39 Augustine, Sermon 81. 8. 40 Augustine, De Excidio, Sermon 8.9, (O’Reilly, 73). Theological Study Conference 2017 17

Paul Helm: Augustine, Pilgrimage and Ourselves

The City of God was completed three years before Augustine died. The Barbarians overcame North Africa later in the century. They reached Hippo in 430, the year of Augustine’s death. Christianity was wiped out. In this case at least, Tertullian’s saying that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church was inapplicable. The retrenchment of Rome from its outer provinces, the division of the empire into two halves centred on Rome and Constantinople, accentuated the importance of Rome in the West, and this was underlined by the Crusades, leading to the Holy Roman Empire of which you and I are heirs. The rest is history.

The book, long in Augustine’s mind, was begun in 413, with various pauses: Books IV-V in 415, Book XI by 417, Books XV-XVI by 425, Book XVIII in 425, with the work finished in 427, fourteen years after it was begun. It is a massive, meandering work, full of learning and argument, but rather higgledy-piggledy on first inspection. Augustine planned it, from the very beginning, to answer the pagan Roman charge that the disaster of 410 had come about as a result of the Romans’ foolish adherence to Christianity, and their rejection of the old Roman religion.

The book is about the nature of Rome, its destiny as a city, and the contrast with the city of God. It is of interest to us as providing indicators of Augustine’s mature thinking of the Roman empire, and of its place in the history of salvation.

I would have preferred to have written a paper on Augustine’s idea of two cities. It would have been nice to read off Augustine’s views regarding the city of God and the earthly Babylon, the Christians’ place of exile, from his writings in a piece of conventional exposition and analysis. But, as we have seen, these ideas themselves have a history. They are not simply an intellectual construction of Augustine’s genius, but they were developed and promoted by the events he lived through. His ideas were the result of a process of self-development, correction, and reaction as a result of changes in society and how these had been absorbed by the mind of Augustine. A certain amount of untidiness and of loose threads have been inevitable.

He analyses his current culture and civilisation in terms of the notion of two Cities. In the City of God he examines side-by-side their foundations, philosophies and aspirations. Let us both summarise and delve a little deeper.

Augustine identifies the city of God with the Christian church, the kingdom of God. Not the “mixed” empirical church, but the church of the elect on earth at any one time. It is to such people that Augustine is addressing his sermons. The City of God is composed of Christians, and the dead departed, and the yet to be born. They have a king, Jesus. Sociologically, in this present era, this kingdom it is seated within the terrestrial city, Babylon.

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Paul Helm: Augustine, Pilgrimage and Ourselves

So the people of God are physically within Babylon, and are also inhabitants of Babylon. There is friction between the two. The horizon of Babylon is this life, that of the members of the city of God, God’s eternity, and the coming of the seventh age. Babylon is governed by cupiditas, selfishness, the city of God by caritas, love of God and neighbour, the life of which will culminate in the age of glory, Jerusalem the golden. Unappreciated by the citizens of Babylon, the citizens of the City of God also are destined to live again after their deaths, and those who have never been other than citizens of Babylon are to be punished eternally. To our taste at least, as this is judged by what we talk about, there is a disproportionate emphasis on this side of things in the book. Augustine never ceases to extol the state of glory.

So the word “city” in “City of God” operates differently from “city” in the city of “Babylon”. We must put from our minds the idea that between the two there is any political concordat or covenant, or could be, but also that between them there are any physical barriers. The people of God are in Babylon in the sense that they live and work alongside Babyloners. Unlike the later Anabaptists, they are to actively promote their inevitable participation in it.

You may think that there is a fly in the ointment, however. It is a notorious fact that Augustine was prepared to use the coercive power of the Empire, Babylon, in an effort to unify the Donatists with the Catholic church, as sanctioned by his interpretation of Christ’s words “Compel them to come in”. The Donatists were African Christians who took a hard line against those who had compromised their faith in the era of Roman persecution by handing over copies of Scripture to be burned. They were North African Christians, not the Catholic Christians who came to Africa via Italy, like Augustine’s family had. The Donatists took a more “sectarian”, “gathered church” view of ecclesiology. So these coercive events took place around 417, the year in which Augustine published De correction Donatinarum.

In later life, due to a changed understanding of the place of Rome in the purposes of God, it is possible that Augustine himself came to incline more to Donatist ecclesiology. He certainly became more tolerating of the Donatists. Archaeological research of ancient Hippo has uncovered the church of Augustine with its complex of buildings, and across the street the remains of another church, thought to be Donatist.41

Augustine has an interesting chapter in the City of God on neighbourliness in Babylon, headed, “Of living sociably with our neighbours: how fit it is, and yet how subject to crosses”.42

He also has things to say about the emotional state of pilgrims:

41 See the articles, “Donatus, Donatism” (R. A. Markus) and “Archaeology” (W. H. C. Frend), in Augustine Through the Ages, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald. 42 Augustine, City of God, 19.5. Theological Study Conference 2017 19

Paul Helm: Augustine, Pilgrimage and Ourselves

[A]ccording to our religion and the scriptures, the citizens of God, as long as they are pilgrims, and in the way of God, do fear, desire, rejoice and sorrow. But their love, being right, straighten all these emotions. They fear eternal pain, and desire eternal joy. They sorrow for the present, because they sigh in themselves, waiting for their adoption, even the redemption of their bodies. They rejoice in hope, because that shall be fulfilled which is written. They fear to offend, and desire to persevere. They sorrow for sin and rejoice in doing good… And as they are strong or weak, so do they desire or fear to be tempted: rejoicing or sorrowing in temptation.43

The days of state and church and their relations was not yet. Constantine did not bring in a positive church-state relationship as part of the constitution of the Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire and its dissolution into various national concordats between church and state, and the life of those churches that dissented from any such relationship, was still to come. In Augustine’s day the only relation is that of the tolerance or intolerance of the city of God by the current political authorities. This is one important way in which Augustine’s conception of two cities is more than verbally distinct from Luther’s and Calvin’s conceptions of two kingdoms. For ideally, one of these kingdoms is ruled by the magistrate in a formal arrangement with the church, upholding the confession of the church. Augustine conceives of no such relationship.

For Augustine the relationship between the cities is much less formal. The ethics and ideals of Babylon and those of the church make living together possible. In the last section of the book Augustine makes this clear in the chapter mentioned earlier,44 subtitled “Of living sociably with our neighbour: how fit it is, and yet how subject to crosses”, and two others: “The grounds of the concord and discord between the cities of heaven and earth”45 and “The peace of God’s enemies, useful to the piety of His friends as long as their earthly pilgrimage lasts”:46

Wretched then are they that are strangers to that God, and yet have those a kind of allowable peace, but that they shall not have for ever, because they used it not well when they had it. But that they should have it in this life is for our good also; because during our commixture with Babylon, we ourselves make use of her peace, and though faith does free the people of God at length out of her, yet in the meantime we live as pilgrims in her. And therefore the apostle admonished the Church to pray for kings and potentates of that earthly city, adding this reason, “that we may lead a quiet life in all godliness and charity”.47

43 Augustine, City of God, 14.9. 44 Augustine, City of God, 19.5. 45 Augustine, City of God, 19.17. 46 Ibid., 19.26. 47 Ibid., 19.26. Theological Study Conference 2017 20

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The suggestion behind these words is that the relations between the two can be beneficial, and will ebb and flow, very different from his earlier “Christianisation” views.

So the citizens of the City of God do have business in the City of Babylon. Reading some of Augustine’s letters one is struck of the seriousness and naturalness with which he corresponds with Roman officials in Babylon about matters of administration, and how he seeks the advantage of the church thereby. . Robert Markus finds it a little strange that during the period of writing the City of God, Augustine kept up this correspondence with Roman high-ups in Africa. Among his correspondents were Boniface, the Roman military commander, and Marcellinus, an African official, for example. But it is not that Augustine is two-faced, but that he is, as a cultivated Christian Bishop, at the interface of church relations with Babylon. He wears two hats, as all Christians do in Augustine’s conception of the two citiesAnd in a similar vein, he wrote in the City of God in praise of the virtues displayed in early Roman history.48 There are several places in the City of God in which Augustine sets forth the ways in which there is concord as well as discord between the cities of heaven and earth.49

Augustine does not have a concept of common grace, though there are occasional references to the “good gifts” that God grants to the inhabitants of the city of this world.50 And he does have a rudimentary idea of natural law, the eternal law, from Scripture and from the Stoics such as Cicero. The members of the city of God have duties to their pagan neighbours. Earthly peace is important though not all-important. Hence his discussions of just and unjust wars in the City of God.

But, so it seems to me, such activity in the “cities” is thoroughly consistent with Augustine’s conception of their different character. Augustine was not an Anabaptist, and though other- worldly, he does not seek to flee from duties and responsibilities arising from the intermingling of the two cities. As a citizen of the heavenly city, he was also within the earthly city. The discharge of earthly duties is a social, and may be a political, matter. But a person’s religious view as a Christian is not, for Augustine, a political matter as far as the earthly city is concerned.

When in the City of God he compares the two cities and their inhabitants in some way, the theme of pilgrimage becomes prominent. As in chapter 17 of Book 19, “The grounds of the concord and discord between the cities on earth as being engaged in pilgrimage”.51 Such people live by faith and at the same time take advantage of the peace of the earthly city. They live “as it were, in captivity, and having received the promise of redemption, and diverse spiritual gifts as seals thereof, it willingly obeys such laws of the temporal city as order things

48 Ibid., 2.29. 49 Ibid., 19.17. 50 Ibid., 15.4. 51 Augustine, City of God, 17.19. Theological Study Conference 2017 21

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pertaining to the sustenance of this moral life, to the end that both the cities might observe a peace in such things as are pertinent thereunto”:

This peace [that is, the peace of the heavenly city], is that unto which the pilgrim in faith, refers to the other peace, which he has here in his pilgrimage; and then lives he according to faith, when all that he does for the obtaining thereof is by himself referred unto God, and his neighbour withal, because, being a citizen, he must not be all for himself, but sociable in his life and actions.52

Another ingredient in his two cities view was his recognition of the “ordinary daily judgments” of God53 as operating on the just as well as the unjust. His view was not that the profession of Christianity afforded a cover of protection against daily troubles and disappointments, a bubble in which those within could see the problems of others while having none of their own. But as we have seen in his preaching, for Augustine, being a pilgrim was fuelled by a disparagement of the achievements and standards of this world, and by the celebration of its passing and its supplanting by the eternal city of God.

He also has another argument for the same conclusion, an appeal to the “all things come alike to all” outlook of the book of Ecclesiastes.54 “[M]an, sometimes in public, but continually in secret, feels the hand of Almighty God punishing him for his transgressions and misdeeds, either in this life or the next”:

Thus in the things where God’s judgments are not to be discovered, His counsel is not to be neglected. We know not why God makes this bad man rich, and that good man poor; why he should have joy, whose deserts we hold worthier of pains, and he pains, whose good life we imagine to merit content; why the judge’s corruption or the falseness of the witnesses should send the innocent away condemned, and the injurious foe should depart revenged, as well as unpunished; why the wicked man should live sound, and the godly lie bedrid; why lusty youths should turn thieves, and those who never did hurt in word be plagued with extremity of sickness; why infants, of good use in the world, should be cut off by untimely death, while they that seem unworthy ever to have been born attain long and happy life; or why the guilty should be honoured, and the godly oppressed; and such contrast as these – which who could count, or recount?55

Augustine’s argument is that neither the incidence of ups nor of downs in life correlates with personal character. God’s judgments are unsearchable, and his ways inscrutable:

52 Ibid., 19.17. 53 Ibid., 20.1. 54 Ibid., 20.2, 3. 55 Augustine, City of God, 20. 2. Theological Study Conference 2017 22

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Although, then, we see no cause why God should do thus or thus, He is whom is all wisdom and justice, and no weakness nor rashness, nor injustice, yet here we learn that we should not esteem too highly those goods or misfortunes, which the bad share with the righteous; but should seek the good peculiar to the one, and avoid the evil reserved for the other.56

Reflections

In the West it appears that in the rise and rise of secularism we are experiencing the final dismantling of Christendom, which was established well after Augustine’s time. Christianity is not being sacked as Rome was sacked in August 410, but it is gradually being erased from public affairs and the social life that forms the substance of the media. The values of the gospel are not the default position. Christianity is not newsworthy. There is monumental ignorance of it, even among the so-called educated élite.

Yet some of what we have identified in Augustine’s history has a familiar ring. In the United Kingdom generations have been brought up to identify the gospel with the Empire. At the time this must have seemed a wonderful device, the gospel riding on the back of the brave explorer and the wise colonial administrator. The growth of Empire was taken to be an expression of, or accompaniment of, the growth of the gospel. The language of Roman poets in praise of Rome were echoed in the Christianising ethos of the British Empire. Our laws against blasphemy, or suicide, or homosexuality, we now see were not obvious, but were designed to make a safe space for the cultivation of the gospel at home and in British lands abroad.

The people allied themselves to the church, whether in its Anglican or its Dissenting expressions. They saw it as normal, as British, as bound up with its destiny as a nation and as an Empire. We cannot now disentangle this relationship, the two together. For all its compromising character, God was at work in it. In his inscrutable way, in that period there was true spiritual blessing, spiritual blessing in spite of that relationship, and yet providentially fostered by it; but also a legacy that is not pretty. In a similar way early Christian councils took place under the political aegis of the Roman Empire, Constantine and the Council of Nicaea.

Are we left alone? Of course we are not. This is one remainder of the attitude of Augustine and of the City of God for us today. The “protection” of legislation is being lowered, and habits and expectations are crumbling. But the church within such a society is nevertheless

56 Ibid., 20. 2. Theological Study Conference 2017 23

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the church of Jesus Christ, the City of God. She has his word and Spirit, but little of outward glory or political clout. But is this not how it should be? Is this not part of the weakness which is made strength that is characteristic of the New Testament, particularly of Paul?

But we are in such a case to ensure that the upholding of the gospel is as pure and genuine that we can make it. This is no time for the issuing of a false prospectus. We are to walk by faith, not by sight. Above all, Augustine would advise us, we are to live in the light of the vision of eternity:57

There we shall rest and see, we shall see, and we shall love and we shall praise. Behold what shall be in the end without end! For what other thing is our end, but to the kingdom of which there is no end?

When, therefore, death shall be swallowed up in victory, these things will not be there, and there shall be peace – peace full and eternal. We shall be in a kind of City. Brethren, when I speak of that City, and especially when scandals grow great here, I just cannot bring myself to stop.58

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. To what extent do you agree that Augustine’s mature view of the Christianisation of culture reflects the NT?

2. “In the world but not of it”. How would you explain this description of Christians?

3. Ought we to take advantage for the gospel of the remnants of Christendom in modern Britain?

4. Is “pilgrim” a fundamental description of being a Christian?

5. Has current Christianity lost the sense of the reality of “The Saints Everlasting Rest”?

6. What is a Christian pilgrim’s attitude to be in relation to culture, media and sport? !

57 Augustine, City of God, 22.30. 58 Augustine, Ennaratio in Ps. lxxxiv, c. 10.

Theological Study Conference 2017 1

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

The Church Militant and Martyred: From the Reformation to Today

Lee Gatiss, Director, Church Society Lecturer in Church History, Union School, of Theology

I was at a reception earlier this week, in 10 Downing Street. It was most encouraging to hear the Prime Minister speak about her faith, and encourage other Christians to speak about our “faith in Christ.”1 But the reason I mention this event is that the reaction to it has been enlightening, not least with regards to some of the issues we will be looking at in this paper. Theresa May’s office tweeted a video of her speech at that event, with the quote “Our Christian heritage is something we can all be proud of.”2 Some of the replies on Twitter and Facebook were perhaps predictable, but are worth some examination. What do they tell us about Christian involvement in society today? What do they say about the place of our faith in Christ in the public square, in twenty-first century Britain?

One Facebooker said,

But what she says and what her government does are totally the opposite. She needs to come down to a parish like mine and see the awfulness in which people live and work; and it is getting worse because of TORY policies. It’s a disgrace to the gospel.

Another replied,

Faith is demonstrated by actions and attitudes more than words. May’s words are contradicted by her political decisions & actions. She is no friend of poor people, or disabled people, or unemployed people.

Mrs May had not claimed that her government was getting everything right, of course, or that every policy of hers was a direct application of the gospel. All she said was “Our Christian heritage is something we can all be proud of.” Yet that did not stop people reacting to a Christian saying something positive about Christianity in this country. Twitter can be even more brutal than Facebook. It’s surprising how rude people can be in only 140 characters. Here are some of the tweets which responded directly to the Prime Minister:

• Shame you don’t show and practice Christian principles.

1 For the text of her speech, see https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/shrove-tuesday-reception-2017-prime- ministers-speech--2 (accessed 28 February 2017). 2 See https://twitter.com/Number10gov/status/836671325422903297 (accessed 28 February 2017). Theological Study Conference 2017 2

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• you have no right to be proud of Christianity; Jesus would be horrified by this govt’s actions to the poor, refugees, disabled. And families. • except now we are more of an atheist society than Christian. Out of touch with modern society. • How many British Christian Gypsies or Travellers were at this Number 10 event? • If she believes in freedom of religion, why force Catholic schools to teach 4 year olds about sex? • shame you don’t show Christian values when it comes to caring for the disadvantaged. • YOUR Christian heritage is something YOU can all be proud of. I am an atheist and I live in the UK which is a secular nation. • so many anti gay rights people in one room. This just after saying no to a gay rights advisor. • Next week we should have a party with the tooth fairy, monsters under the bed, fairies, voldemort, Xenu & Mo’s flying horse. • and how Christian is it to be cutting the benefits of those who rely on them and arbitarily deporting people? • Make the most of it while it lasts - the UK is rapidly becoming Islamic & no Christian things will be allowed! • Then give us more than lip service, less persecution and protect Christian values! • we went to war with many countries for the sake of spreading Christian missionaries not very proud of that tbf. • No true Christian would punish the poor and vulnerable by cutting spending on benefits, health care and social care. #liarliar. • is it though? How exactly? The wars in the name of @god or the claim our forefathers chatted with the creator of the universe? • I object to this rose tinted heritage which included murder, nothing to be proud of. Out with religion from state institutions. • except the millions of us that don’t need imaginary sky friends to get us through the day • can we please have a proper separation of church and state? Pluralism means we all thrive. • This is dangerous. World leaders should never ally themselves with any religion IMO. Theological Study Conference 2017 3

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

• Which part should we be most proud of? Misogyny? Homophobia? Sexual abuse by clergy maybe? • I feel ashamed of our Christian heritage. Crusades, witch hunts, N Ireland, child abuse, compulse w’ship. Outweighs any good. • So why do you allow the barbaric torture of animals during Halal and the barbaric torture of children during FGM? • is it Christian to deny help to those in need, like our poor, our homeless, our disabled, and refugees? Not all the responses were quite so negative of course. A few were more positive:

• Jesus preached #forgiveness- this society is very tolerant open and forgiving. • Well done ma’am. Religious leaders play a vital role in making the country and the leadership to be in the correct moral line. And one was from a Christian who had noticed that this was all happening on the same day as some street evangelists were being convicted of a public order offence after preaching the uniqueness of Christ:

• Hope you will intervene and help those Christians who have been convicted for sharing their christian Faith in public place!

What does this have to do with my brief? The brief I was given was this:

to paint in the background of the Middle Ages, and then concentrate on certain periods since when the church has been on the ascendancy in the culture (e.g., the 1650s in England) and times of great persecution (e.g., the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the ensuing persecution of the Huguenots). The speaker will inevitably have to be selective but two contrasting periods might be considered. The need to discern our times. What is the relationship between periods of spiritual awakening and persecution?

This is a complicated brief. It requires me to fill in some blanks for the sake of completeness, between Augustine and today. So there we have 1600 years or so of church history which I have to cover somehow. The phrase “the speaker will inevitably have to be selective” never looked so superfluous.

Then, I am asked to find certain periods within that gigantic swathe of history when the church has been “on the ascendancy in the culture”. How do we define what that means? What is ascendancy, and what is culture? Are we talking about spiritual revival with myriads Theological Study Conference 2017 4

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today of conversions, or about political and cultural infiltration – by the gospel, by the Bible, or by the church? And which culture do we choose – England, Britain, Europe, or what?

Then, the brief calls for a look at some times of persecution too. If we take 2 Timothy 3:12 at face value – that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” – then every period of history has been and will be a period of persecution in one way or another. The problem of selectivity starts to become acute, even before we consider the necessity to contrast the ascendency with the persecution.

Then the brief calls for a discussion of “the need to discern our times”. So, relating some of these things to today, perhaps helping us to see patterns in history which are being repeated in our generation, so that we can learn the fabled “lessons of history”?

History never precisely replicates itself, and so we cannot pretend that the past is an infallible guide to the future. The historian G. M. Trevelyan (1876-1962) once wrote that

“History repeats itself” and “History never repeats itself” are about equally true. The question, in any case, is which part of history is going to repeat itself. We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.3

Yet there may also be wisdom in the famous rejoinder that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes; sometimes there are certain patterns in history which do reoccur simply because humanity in all its sinfulness has remained the same (and so has God).

Broadly speaking, Christians have always written church history as a way of promoting the claims of the church to be an ancient religion (not a recent innovation), the true religion (as opposed to the teachings of heretics), and (through martyrologies) a religion worth suffering for. The Reformation sent confessional historians of all types back to the sources looking for signs of religious continuity, while the Enlightenment encouraged them to write without reference to God as an agent in the whole affair.4 So we have to think when we’re doing this sort of historical investigation, what our motivation or bias or agenda might be, and how that might be skewing our approach to the evidence or our criteria for selection.

Finally, I am required to answer an overarching question which impinges on philosophy, history, and all the sub-disciplines of theology: “What is the relationship between periods of

3 See his essay on “Stray Thoughts on History” (1948) in An Autobiography and Other Essays (London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1949), 84. 4 See Lee Gatiss, “Christian History / Church History” in The Encyclopedia of Christian Education edited by G. T. Kurian and M. A. Lamport (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), Volume 1, 268-269. Theological Study Conference 2017 5

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today spiritual awakening and persecution?” Assuming there is such a relationship, which could in itself be rather tendentious.

All this is in the context of a conference where we are considering the hostility of the world to Christianity, a situation where government and media are apparently “seeking to eradicate Christian influence”, and where Christians therefore struggle with the temptation to ghetto- ise. How can we be faithful when the moral order around us changes, and is inimical to the gospel?

Needless to say, I am entirely inadequate to this task and have wondered many, many times why I agreed to bite off so much more than I could ever chew, let alone digest and communicate.

This is certainly an epic task, or a Herculean labour if I may be allowed a classical allusion. And according to the Roman poet, Horace, a good epic narrator should start in medias res, in the middle of things.5 So I will jump in a little over half way through my 1600 years, to the 14th century.

We will then zoom in on the Reformation, and think about the nexus of issues in my brief from the point of view of how they worked out in the 16th and 17th centuries. Do I need more of an excuse than that it is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s stand against indulgences which catalysed the Reformation, to focus our attentions there? Yet the events of those centuries are formative for our self-understanding as Protestants and Evangelicals, and so I expect us to find there some crucial questions and resources as we think through the issues of our conference.

The Middle Ages

Many people would see what we call the Middle Ages as a period of ascendency for the church. Churches and cathedrals were constructed all over Europe, with universities and colleges built on explicitly Christian principles established in their wake to teach a Christian view of the universe (as opposed to the conflicting philosophies of multi-verses!). The church year dominated everyday life, with its regular rhythm of feasts, fasts, and festivals. Europe was not Islamic. It was no longer officially pagan. It was recognisably and intentionally Christian.

Yet in the 14th century, the great reformer John Wycliffe said, “I am certain indeed, that the truth of the gospel can, for a time, stumble in the streets and be silenced somewhat… but it

5 Horace (65 BC-8 BC) alluded to this exciting narrative device in Homer’s work, in his Ars Poetica, lines 147– 149. Theological Study Conference 2017 6

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today cannot be extinguished.”6 He recognised that, despite the Judaeo-Christian underpinnings of society in his day, the gospel itself was not always in the ascendency. In the streets, in the public realm, it could stumble and be silenced, and though he was confident of its ultimate triumph, he knew that the fortunes of the gospel (if I may put it like that) could ebb and flow depending on other factors.

Now many church history courses, books, and lectures only ever cover the late medieval church as a prelude to the Reformation which transformed it. But of course it is good to remember that the thousand years before Luther was not a period of uniform light or homogenous darkness.

The subject of the medieval church has become a battleground for those who have very differing accounts of what that Reformation did, of course, and whether it should be viewed as “a good thing”. The traditional view was one of ignorance, corruption, and growing anti- clericalism replaced by the re-discovered gospel, vernacular Bibles and liturgies, and increased lay devotion. This has been challenged in recent years by (amongst others) Eamon Duffy, whose Stripping of the Altars painted a picture of a vibrant and beloved church unjustly attacked and denuded by Henry VIII and his Protestant successors.7

More recently, G. W. Bernard undertook a searching examination of the late medieval church on its own terms, rather than just as a backdrop to something that came later.8 After all, as the famous German historian Leopold von Ranke said, historians should tell things like they were,9 and every epoch is immediate to God; every age can therefore be studied in its own right and not as something which led to something else.10

Bernard begins his counter-blast by claiming that much of the recent writing on this period, particularly of the Duffy “school”, does not tell the full story, and indeed leaves the subsequent Reformation “inexplicable.” Yes, there was vitality in the church of the Middle Ages, but within that there were serious and substantial vulnerabilities which have been

6 Stephen E. Lahey (ed.), Wyclif: Trialogus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 206. 7 Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (Second edition; London: Yale University Press, 2005). 8 G. W. Bernard, The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability before the Break with Rome (London: Yale University Press, 2012). 9 Leopold von Ranke’s first major work was his History of the Latin and Teutonic nations, 1494-1535 (published in 1824) where he famously claimed that as a historian he aspired to “show what actually happened” (wie es eigentlich gewesen). Whether he quite meant this in the reductionistic way some have taken it, is a controverted point. He probably meant that he wanted to discover the inner essence of events or perhaps even the divine hand behind them. See R.J. Evans, In Defence of History (London: Granta, 1997), 17. 10 By saying jede Epoche ist unmittelbar zu Gott, “every age is immediate / present to God”, von Ranke rejects the teleological approach to history and gives each moment of time a unique importance regardless of what may have developed from it later. See his Über die Epochen der neueren Geschichte. Vorträge dem Könige Maxmillian II. von Bayern im Herbst 1854 zu Berchtesgaden gehalten. Vortrag vom 25. September 1854. in Historisch-kritische Ausgabe (München: Helmut Berding, 1971), S. 60. Theological Study Conference 2017 7

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today ignored or played down. That is not to make the break with Rome and the eventual triumph of what the Coronation Oath calls “the true profession of the gospel… the Protestant Reformed religion” an absolute inevitability. Yet Bernard places provocative question marks over the revisionist accounts of late, and allows us to ask again what the proper criteria for judging the late medieval church should really be.

Bernard’s unfolding of the intricacies of “the monarchical church” of the middle ages – how kings controlled episcopal appointments and were both defenders of the church and extenders of the Christian faith – is deft and persuasive, and shows how the acceptance of royal supremacy under Henry VIII was by no means an untidy break with the past.

He assesses the role of bishops and clergy in the period, finding the former, for example, to be adequate administrators (“they muddled through”),11 but too deeply enmeshed in worldly politics to be of much spiritual good. One of the greatest vulnerabilities for the church in this period was the population’s ignorance of the Christian message: yes, they had sculpture and stained glass, a liturgical calendar and pilgrimages. Their whole lives were ordered in many ways around the Church and the calendarised remembrance of Jesus’s life story. But the form of faith this perhaps engendered was wide open to humanist and Protestant critiques. Indeed, he rather dismisses medieval religion by saying it consisted of “an underlying pagan-cum- magical religious understanding upon which christianity [sic] had more or less been superimposed.”12

This is, therefore, a salutary response to an overly-positive assessment of the medieval period.13 And it also shows us that there were both continuities and discontinuities between the medieval and Reformation eras.

Yet that point of Bernard’s is one we must come back to. A Christian-based society, like that of the Middle Ages, may look alive and dynamic and vital – but is it also vulnerable to another form of explicitly Christian critique, or even in some way just a veneer for a more carnal agenda? And how do we tell the difference or make a judgment between types of Christian society?

The Reformation Settlement

This is the problem we are faced with in the Reformation and post-Reformation periods, when thinking about the issues of Christianity and culture: one Christian form of religio-political establishment was overcome by another regime also built on Christian principles of one sort

11 Bernard, Late Medieval English Church, 67. 12 Bernard, Late Medieval English Church, 107. 13 See my review of Bernard’s book in Theology 116/5 (September 2013). Theological Study Conference 2017 8

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today or another – making it difficult from our more secular and post-Enlightenment standpoint many centuries later to understand sometimes what all the fuss was about.

For example, if we could return to a society where the family was more valued as a building block of civil society, where Sundays were not a time for shopping or working but going to church and resting from worldly pursuits, where sex outside of heterosexual marriage was considered a sin and even a crime, not something to be paraded with pride through the streets, where abortion or infanticide was viewed with horror rather than as a right or a way to make a living, and where Reformed Christianity was honoured as the national creed – I suspect we would think now of such a world as almost fantastical. And we would think it highly desirable if it was possible to move from where we are now, to such a world.

Yet that is the world that existed under Henry VIII, under Edward VI, under Elizabeth I, under James I, under Charles I, during the so-called Interregnum, and under Charles II. And yet, as you know, the religious settlement in each of these regimes was different. The truth of the gospel was in some sense “on the ascendancy in the culture” throughout that whole period, but it could look a little different in each reign.

But there was a substantial doctrinal core to the religious settlement during those days. When the high point of the Reformation came in 1689 – and even Baptists and Presbyterians were officially tolerated – it was under the banner of a Reformed Christianity. William and Mary swore to uphold “the true profession of the gospel… the Protestant Reformed religion”. That was the basis of the Act of Toleration. Not just Christianity. Not the Catholic religion or the Lutheran religion. But the Protestant Reformed religion, as defined by the Dutch Calvinist king – who subscribed to the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dordt – but also by the Anglican Queen under the Thirty-nine Articles who was also Queen of Scotland and her established church under the Westminster Standards.14 This was Protestant and Reformed religion, the true profession of the gospel.

Toleration was granted in 1689 to those who could subscribe to at least thirty-six of the Thirty-nine Articles, those only excepted which dealt with issues of church polity and traditions.15 So the official legal form of national religion throughout the mid-Tudor and

14 See my discussion of the Coronation Oath of William and Mary in Lee Gatiss, The True Profession of the Gospel: Augustus Toplady and Reclaiming our Reformed Foundations (London: Latimer Trust, 2009), 27-28. 15 The Toleration Act, 1689 (1 William III and Mary II, c.18) section 6 allowed toleration of non-Anglican churches on the basis that their ministers subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles with the exception of Article 34 (‘On the Traditions of the Church’), Article 35 (‘Of Homilies’), Article 36 (‘Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers’), and the first sentence of Article 20 (‘The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith.’) This is essentially what the Puritans had tried to achieve in 1571 with An Act to reform certain disorders touching Ministers of the Church (13 Eliz. c.12) which prescribed assent ‘to all the articles of religion, which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments.’ Theological Study Conference 2017 9

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

Stuart reigns, was substantially the same. All the arguments really came down between 1563 and 1689 was three or four of the less purely doctrinal of the Thirty-nine Articles.

Yet you know as well as I – since it is part of the DNA of our different denominations and groupings – that there were some fiery disagreements over those points of difference within that settlement. They weren’t unimportant. But neither was the wide arena of agreement something insubstantial.

So what does it mean to talk about Christianity “on the ascendancy” at this time? Even someone like John Owen (1616-1683) – the Atlas of Independency, who seemed to be fighting to change things in the church his whole life – was happy with the doctrinal content of the established religion in the Church of England.16

Owen (like his father) called himself a Puritan because he was not in favour of some aspects of the church’s governance and ceremonies. He eventually preferred congregational governance to episcopacy and wrote against the imposition of liturgies (though not against the use of liturgy per se). But doctrinally he always claimed to be entirely in accord with the confessional basis of Anglicanism, as it had been established by Parliament. As his latest biographer tells us, “It is unlikely that Owen had any difficulty with the doctrinal content of the articles: his publications in the 1640s would enthusiastically endorse the Thirty-nine Articles as being entirely opposed to the new Arminian menace.”17 Indeed, even in 1669 he could write that “the chief glory of the English Reformation consisted in the purity of its doctrine, then first restored to the nation. This, as it is expressed in the articles of religion, and in the publicly-authorized writings of the bishops and chief divines of the church of England, is, as was said, the glory of the English Reformation.”18

Rather than focusing on aesthetics or adiaphora, if we ask what Owen believed in terms of basic doctrine, we can point to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. As he himself says of those Articles, “What is purely doctrinal we fully embrace and constantly adhere unto.”19 Even after 1662 he was happy to say, “I embrace the doctrine of the church of England, as declared in the Thirty-nine Articles, and other approved public writings of the most famous bishops and other divines thereof.”20 That is tighter than the current form of subscription required of ministers in the Church of England!

16 My analysis of Owen’s basic contentment with doctrinal Anglicanism comes from my article, “Anglicanism and John Owen” in Crux 52.1 (2016) and my John Owen: The Genius of English Puritanism (London: Lost Coin, 2016). 17 Crawford Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeat (New York: OUP, 2016), 35. 18 W. H. Goold (ed.), The Works of John Owen (24 vols. Edinburgh: Johnson and Hunter, 1850-1855), 13:354. 19 Works, 13:551. 20 Works, 14:196. Theological Study Conference 2017 10

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

It is of course true that Owen would have had a political motive in affirming that he still held to the long-standing Reformed consensus of the church. He no doubt meant to shame those in the post-Restoration church who did not hold sincerely to those Articles (and who were at that time actively persecuting dissenters such as Owen by means of the so-called Clarendon Code). He could also imply that though they were now excluded and penalised by the iniquitous Conventicle Act and Five Mile Act, he and other nonconformists had not moved away from the teaching officially confessed by the Church for over a century by that time. Indeed, from his first book in the 1640s onwards, he was perfectly capable of attacking the established church while simultaneously defending its constitution. Owen was not forced to embrace and publicly affirm this as he did; but it remained his consistent doctrinal stance, for he always refused to cede legitimacy to those theological cuckoos who had invaded the Church of England’s nest.

So it is worth remembering that when toleration of dissenters did come with the Act of Toleration (1689), it was indeed on the basis of what Owen embraced as “the common doctrine of the Church of England”,21 i.e. the doctrinal parts of the Thirty-nine Articles. It was not on the basis of what some called “mere Christianity” (a term that was popularised in the twentieth century by C. S. Lewis, but certainly not invented by him). That is what some would have liked to be the basis of our national creed. In December 1654, Parliament specifically and deliberately agreed that, “the true reformed Protestant Religion” should be “the public profession of these nations”.22 Richard Baxter, however, had a different idea, and he pushed it in committee at the time. Baxter liked to call himself a “meer Christian” and tried to promote the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed as sufficient tests for orthodoxy (sometimes adding the Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments as additional touchstones). At least as early as 1659 he used the term “meer Christians”23 and this became one of his regular slogans in later years, so that in 1680 he could write,

I am a CHRISTIAN, a MEER CHRISTIAN, of no other Religion; and the Church that I am of is the Christian Church… I am against all Sects and dividing Parties: But if any will call Meer Christians by the name of a Party, because they take up with Meer Christianity, Creed, and Scripture, and will not be of any dividing or contentious Sect, I am of that Party which is so against Parties.24

21 Works, 13:552. 22 J. Coffey, John Goodwin and the Puritan Revolution: Religion and Intellectual Change in Seventeenth- Century England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), 243. 23 R. Baxter, Five Disputations of Church-Government and Worship (1659), 137. 24 R. Baxter, Church-History of the Government of Bishops and their Councils (1680), in the section entitled, ‘What History is Credible?’ See the use of ‘meer Christian/Christianity’ in his Christian Directory, or, A Summ of Practical Theologie and Cases of Conscience (1673), page 31; Which is the True Church? (1679), page 125; An Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry (1681), page 131 (mostly written 1668–9); A Paraphrase on the New Testament (1685) on Revelation 13:18. Theological Study Conference 2017 11

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

Indeed, one might say of Baxter’s autobiography that “his attraction to ‘meer Christianity’ functions as an organising principle throughout his narrative and colours the way he sees and describes events.”25 Both the slogan and this approach to ecclesiology were, however, held in common with some other groups, including anti-Trinitarians. Most prominently, Unitarian author John Biddle had claimed in the title that his Twofold Catechism (1654) was “Composed for their sakes that would fain be meer Christians, and not of this or that sect.” This sounded suspiciously like Baxter’s approach, and Owen and others noted the close connection at the time. But it didn’t bother Baxter when they said that even a Socinian could sign up to his mere Christianity approach.

And whereas they still said, [A Socinian or a Papist will Subscribe all this] I answered them, So much the better, and so much the fitter it is to be the Matter of our Concord.26

So, what I am saying is that from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, we have had a more or less stable doctrinal core in our public, established profession of faith: the Protestant Reformed religion. That was in the ascendency in our national life, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.

But how did that apply to the culture and morality of the day? And how did it affect others who were out of power for certain periods, and persecuted? Those two questions remain.

Puritan Culture Wars

The period between 1649 when Charles I was beheaded, and 1660 when his son was restored to the throne, has been fittingly described as the period of England’s Culture Wars, by Bernard Capp.27 He describes with agonising detail the implementation of the Puritans’ agenda for moral and cultural reform during the period of the Interregnum.

Cromwell pursued reforms not just in the parishes, with learned ministers preaching sound doctrine and living good lives of exemplary character. They tore through the old-fashioned Christian calendar, banning things such as Ash Wednesday and Lent and Easter – even Christmas.28 They were never entirely successful at replacing these with days of fasting or thanksgiving, or in making Christmas Day an ordinary working day in England. But they tried

25 Lee Gatiss, ‘The Autobiography of a ‘Meer Christian’: Richard Baxter’s Account of the Restoration’ in Churchman 122/2 (2008), 169. 26 Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696), ii.198. For more on this see my article, “Socinianism and John Owen” in Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 20.4 (2016). 27 See Bernard Capp, England’s Culture Wars: Puritan Reformation and its Enemies in the Interregnum, 1649- 1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 28 Durston, “Puritan Rule and the Failure of Cultural Revolution, 1645-1660”, in Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales, The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560-1700 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996), 211- 212. Theological Study Conference 2017 12

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today to reverse a millennium of Christian rhythms to the year, which had been used to educate generations about the foundational events of the Christian story. Yet governments during this period also put in place a series of legislative reforms to do with the Sabbath and swearing, sexual misdemeanours and crimes, drink and disorderly conduct, and various worldly pleasures such as dancing, plays and sports.

It is sometimes joked that the Puritans banned bull baiting, not because they cared for the bulls but because they didn’t like the fact that the people enjoyed baiting them so much – fun must be controlled and regulated! That may be half true – they were motivated not just by concern for animal welfare as by issues of public order, and bull baiting was an unruly and riotous pastime. Similarly, they banned horse racing from time to time, but this was less about a hatred of the sport and more about not giving royalist cavaliers a good place to assemble and gather in large numbers with their horses.29 Wagers and betting were also outlawed, out of concern for citizens’ livelihood and morality.30

It is too easy to caricature the Puritans, of course. Some critiques, taking contemporary satire and polemic at face value, make out that Puritanism was some deviant and pernicious sub- culture, when in actual fact it mostly promoted mainstream Protestant piety.31 It has always been easy to dislike Puritans, and “a sense of being despised and hated by the impious and unregenerate was a vital element in Puritan identity”.32 Yet even their cheerleaders find it hard to defend the Puritans’ inadequate view of recreation, their multiplication of rules, their pious moralising, male chauvinism, and partisan spirit.33

Bernard Capp concludes of the Puritans legislative agenda that “their law-making was no fanatical aberration; their new measures were consciously building on the acts and initiatives of earlier parliaments”.34 For example, they toyed with repeal of the Elizabethan statute requiring attendance at the local parish church, so as to allow people to go wherever they wanted on Sunday to worship. But they found eventually that they did not want to encourage atheism and sloth on the Sabbath, so it was again reintroduced, in an amended form.

The 1650 Adultery Act was perhaps the most notorious piece of legislation in this period – making adultery a felony punishable by death, with incest made a felony too and fornication

29 Capp, England’s Culture Wars, 207-208. 30 Durston, “Puritan Rule and the Failure of Cultural Revolution, 1645-1660”, 218. 31 See Patrick Collinson, “The Theatre Constructs Puritanism” in D. Smith, D. Bevington, and R. Strier (eds.), The Theatrical City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), and his “Ecclesiastical Vitriol: Religious Satire in the 1590s and the Invention of Puritanism” in J. Guy (ed.), The Reign of Elizabeth I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 32 Alexandra Walsham, “The Godly and Popular Culture” in John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 290. 33 See Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 187- 202. 34 Capp, England’s Culture Wars, 31. Theological Study Conference 2017 13

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today liable to a prison sentence of 3 months. Prostitutes were to be whipped, pilloried, branded, and imprisoned for 3 years. This is how they sought to regulate the sex lives of the nation. Indeed, Anthony Fletcher says these years saw “the most sustained magisterial effort of the century to… impose a sexual code based on the Christian doctrine of chastity outside marriage.”35

They also tried to regulate marriage. They banned all church weddings for several years, so that the only legal weddings were civil weddings. Then they thought better of this and again allowed religious ceremonies. But the rules and changes caused massive confusion which would lead to headaches for the Restoration regime.36

If today someone spent the morning in church and then went for a walk with their children in the afternoon, we might consider them a godly family, worthy of emulation. To many Puritans, this would be an outrageous misuse of the Sabbath for leisure. Obviously all sport was out on the Sabbath day, and royal proclamations such as those of James I and Charles I in their “Book of Sports” which encouraged such leisure activities, were considered by the Puritans as “a royal endorsement of sin.”37 Work, travel, drinking, dancing and sports were all prohibited on Interregnum Sabbaths, with fines and worse for those who offended against this Keep Sunday Special campaign.

Unfortunately some of these measures led to a culture of informers and spying on others to catch them out in their personal lives, for financial reward. As Capp says, “Godly reformation sometimes relied on very ungodly instruments.”38

Throughout this period, the church remained tightly under state control. Even independents such as John Owen, argued for state control of the church, whose ministry should be maintained by compulsory tithes and regulated by a committee of Parliament. Owen also thought that the State had a duty to stop anti-Trinitarians infiltrating the church, and to silence those who rejected justification by faith alone.39 The magistrates could enforce that, in his view; indeed it was against the light and law of nature, he said, for supreme magistrates not to exert their authority to support, preserve, and further the cause of the gospel and forbid, coerce, and restrain false teaching.40

35 Anthony Fletcher, Reform in the Provinces: The Government of Stuart England (London: Yale University Press, 1986), 260. 36 Durston, “Puritan Rule and the Failure of Cultural Revolution, 1645-1660”, 215-217. 37 Capp, England’s Culture Wars, 100. 38 Capp, England’s Culture Wars, 107. 39 The most recent published demonstration of this can be found in Sarah Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pages 205- 232. See also the excellent Martyn Cowan, The Prophetic Preaching of John Owen from 1646 to 1659 in its Historical Context (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012), 134. 40 See for example Owen, Works, 13:509-510. Theological Study Conference 2017 14

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

In one way, some of these reforms look very strange to us. In trying to make a more Christian society, they withdrew the church from national life: in the calendar reforms, in marriage, and in the secularisation and simplification of death rituals too. In others ways it seems odd to many today that they retained such firm state control over the appointment of ministers and the regulation of the church. But that is the point: what might look like a good tactic for Christian influence in one age, might be considered ungodly and unhelpful by another. What one generation of Christians would say to another generation of Christians on Twitter (if they had had such a thing) can only be imagined! Yet each was trying to do its best to shape the church and society of its day according to a particular Christian vision, in complex and often fragile circumstances.

Protestants Persecuting Protestants (and others)

Elizabeth I tried to root out dissenters of various kinds by making it compulsory to go to the local parish church on Sunday. Anyone who did not, was fined. This flushed out, and fleeced, two main types of noncomformist: Brownists and Roman Catholics. The Brownists were separatists, who wanted to keep themselves pure from what they considered the corrupt worship of the Church of England. There were never a large number of these, and many ended up leaving the country. There was no sense, yet, that it was possible to be an obedient subject of the Queen and not worship in the same Church as the Queen, using the same Prayer Book. So many centuries of official conformity in public worship had had such a deep and long-lasting impact on the church and the national psyche, that it is difficult for us to imagine, in our denominationally rich days, the powerful tendencies towards uniformity. And so Protestants could persecute protestants and it did not feel wrong.

The other group exposed by making church attendance compulsory were the Roman Catholics. But theirs was not merely a religious problem. When the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth and pronounced her – in effect – a bastard heretic, he instantly made the entire Catholic population of England into terrorist suspects. For the Pope promised an indulgence for anyone who would kill her, that she might be replaced by a rightful Catholic heir to Mary I. This risky move by the Papacy led to the deaths of many Roman Catholics – often killed not so much for their faith alone (which was still nonetheless officially suppressed) as for their seditious activities in plotting to overthrow the Queen. There was suppression of Roman Christianity in often heavy-handed ways, by a Protestant Christian Queen.

James I did not see eye-to-eye with the more Puritan factions in his court and in the church, and refused to grant some of their early petitions for reform. They were not persecuted as such, however, merely frustrated in some of their reforming aims as they had been in the second half of Elizabeth’s reign too. James sent delegates to the Synod of Dort in 1618, closely identifying Britain with the international Reformed community. Catholicism remained suppressed. Theological Study Conference 2017 15

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

Under Charles I, however, things began to change. Urged on by Archbishop William Laud and avant-garde ceremonialist and Arminian courtiers, he plunged the country into a much fiercer internecine battle. Together, they tried to swing the Church away from the Reformed Protestant consensus and, if not towards reunion with Rome, then on a Romanising trajectory. This broke the brotherly bonds which had kept various factions in church and state together since the Reformation and eventually led – with some other economic and political factors – to many Puritans emigrating to the New World and to the civil wars. Broadly speaking, the Puritans came out on top in that military confrontation.41

The Puritan revolution began in earnest by banning bishops, and The Book of Common Prayer. This was suppressed at times with needlessly strong force. Laud paid for his persecution of Puritans with his life – losing his head on Tower Hill in 1645. The King’s head followed four years later. Unless you were a Catholic or a Prayer Book Anglican, almost everything else was tolerated in some way under the Commonwealth, though there were arguments about exactly how far that toleration should spread. Lots of undesirables who disagreed with these policies were kicked out of their rectories and colleges and schools, and replaced with good Puritan folk. No doubt many who lost their livings at this point were scandalous and malignant and immoral. But not all were. The Puritans managed to persecute and suppress others, just as effectively as previous regimes.

In 1660, the monarchy was restored. So were lots of those who had been unceremoniously kicked out of their vicarages and college rooms. There were at least fifty Baptists ministering in local parish churches. They had to leave, as did others who had been forced into place by the Puritans. But at this stage there was still the prospect that these people could go on to take other posts elsewhere, and many of them did.

It was only in 1662 and the Act of Uniformity that things became much more difficult. Hundreds of ministers, lecturers, and schoolteachers were ejected from their livings because they could not, or would not, subscribe to the Act of Uniformity and use the Book of Common Prayer attached to it. This required a more severe form of subscription than had previously been imposed, and required people to renounce solemn oaths they had taken during the Commonwealth period, which of, course, many felt they could not do.

Other laws were then also put in place against dissenters, barring them from civic roles on councils and in Parliament, forcing them to live at least five miles away from anywhere they had ever ministered before, and banning them from holding “conventicles” in public or in private.42

41 This is of course a gross oversimplification (though also a useful shorthand), not least because Puritanism was a diverse phenomenon containing “Episcopalians”, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and other shades of opinion. Also, it might be said that the Puritans lost the war, if the end of the conflict is dated 1662 instead of 1649, though they won some major battles. 42 For more on this terrible episode, see my The Tragedy of 1662: The Ejection and Persecution of the Puritans (London: Latimer Trust, 2007). Theological Study Conference 2017 16

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

Enforcement of the penal laws against dissenters was never as rigid as it might have been, and varied from place to place and from time to time depending on the attitude of local officials. Even so, more than two hundred of the ejected ministers ended up in jail, along with countless lay people.43 Andrew Marvell famously described the Second (more rigidly enforced) Conventicles Act as “the Quintessence of arbitrary Malice”. What was clear is that (as John Coffey says),

Anglican persecutors could now appeal to “a formidable legal arsenal which, potentially, made possible a Puritan holocaust.” Although the worst possibilities were never realised, the Restoration did witness a persecution of Protestants by protestants without parallel in seventeenth-century Europe.44

It is a wonder that more did not emigrate to America, as many had done in the 1630s.45

Despite several attempts, even by the King, to mitigate the effects of this official persecution and suppression, it lasted (with a short but unconstitutional respite in 1672) until the end of Charles II’s reign. Only then did the various elements of Protestantism within Britain come together again – to resist the spectre of a renewed Catholicism under James II. When he was replaced in the coup of 1688 by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, the time was ripe for a settlement which would end the Protestant on Protestant persecution. It did not, however, bring about the emancipation of Catholics or freedom of religion in general. But it did solidify that Reformed Protestant umbrella under which the United Kingdom entered the great period of expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Conclusion

Someone once said, “we read to know we’re not alone”. That is certainly one good motive for reading church history. As we unwind all the tangled threads of cultural, social, and economic context, the story of the great political and theological battles of the past enables us to glimpse just a little that we are not the first or only generation to face such pressing anxieties and questions.

43 J. Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558-1689 (London: Longman, 2000), 70. Jail was not always as bad as it might have been. Although some did die in prison, Baxter’s time in jail in 1670 was not so unhappy and, he says, “my Wife was never so cheerful a Companion to me as in Prison, and was very much against my seeking to be released.” Reliquiae Baxterianae, Part III, p. 50 (my italics). Coffey quotes Terry Waite comparing his own confinement to Bunyan’s with these words: “My word, Bunyan, you’re a lucky fellow”! (op.cit. 175). 44 Coffey, Persecution and Toleration, page 169 quoting M. Goldie, “The search for religious liberty, 1640- 1690”, in J. Morrill, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain (Oxford, 1996), 300. 45 Coffey, Persecution and Toleration, page 177 claims that only fifteen ministers crossed the Atlantic and just ten settled in the Netherlands. See Matthews, Calamy Revised (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), xiv. Theological Study Conference 2017 17

Lee Gatiss: The Church Militant and Martyred, from the Reformation to Today

What this brief and inadequate historical survey shows clearly, however, is that when we reach the shores of a better land there will be many there to greet us who bear the scars of similar battles, valiantly fought in the name of Christ – who also made mistakes like we do. What can we learn by reading history, and facing the challenges of our day with them beside us?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What do the reactions to the Prime Minister’s speech show us about the perennial questions and problems of perception facing Christians who want to influence society?

2. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the medieval church in terms of influencing the cultures of the day?

3. How strong is the Reformed Protestant religion as the established creed of the United Kingdom today?

4. Would “mere Christianity” have been a better basis for the religious settlement in the 1650s onwards? Why/why not?

5. Why is it that some Christians always end up being persecuted or alienated and marginalised when other Christians are in power?

6. Would you repeat all the reforms of the Puritans in 1650, in the ways that they implemented them? If not, why not? Theological Study Conference 2017 1

John Stevens: Knowing the Times

Knowing the Times

John Stevens, National Director, FIEC

Knowing the times

“Knowing the Times” is a collection of addresses delivered by Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones on various occasions between 1942 and 1977.1 In the course of these addresses Dr Lloyd-Jones analyses the state of the church and of the contemporary culture, with a view to ensuring gospel faithfulness in the light of the challenges of the day. Such analysis is of crucial significance if we are to contextualise the gospel effectively, and prioritise our energies appropriately. In every generation there is a need for gifted theologians, pastors and cultural commentators to help the church to understand the context and respond accordingly. In the latter half of the twentieth century Francis Schaeffer performed this role,2 as more recently have David Wells,3 Nancy Pearcey,4 Charles Taylor5 and Tim Keller,6 much to the benefit of contemporary evangelicalism.

This paper is a more modest attempt to chart the contemporary context in which we are called to minister the unchanging gospel message: namely the United Kingdom in March 2017. Such a task is inevitably different to the other papers that will be presented at this conference. It will be less theological in nature, and more missional in application. It is an exercise in gathering the fruits of empirical research and cultural observation. It will draw on anecdotal evidence and personal experience, especially from my ministry as National Director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches,7 a network of 565 gospel churches in Scotland, England and Wales.

In many ways this is also a difficult time to engage in such cultural analysis and assessment. The decision of the British people to pursue Brexit rather than remain in the European Union in the referendum of June 2016, and the election of President Donald Trump in the USA have sent shockwaves through the political establishment and the media. Some regard these results as signs that the prevailing liberal consensus has been rejected, and that a new epoch is beginning, which will be more nationalistic, isolationist and traditional. However it is far too

1 Knowing the Times, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1989). 2 See especially How then should we live? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005) 3 No Place for Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993); God in the Wasteland (Leicester: IVP, 1994); Above All Earthly Powers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005); God in the Whirlwind (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014). 4 Total Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004) 5 A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007). See also James K A Smith, How Not to be Secular (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014). 6 The Reason for God (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2009); Making Sense of God (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2016) 7 www.fiec.org.uk Theological Study Conference 2017 2

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early to say whether this is the case, and in any event both results were extremely close and indicated deeply divided societies rather than the emergence of a new paradigm that commands the overwhelming support of the public.8

The UK is also a much more diverse country than it was during the period of the ministry of Dr Lloyd-Jones. Mass immigration has meant that there is no longer a homogeneous culture, and, whilst there might still be a majority culture, the rise of individualism and a rights mentality has displaced the collective class consciousness of a previous era. It is impossible to survey the rich variety of cultures that comprise contemporary Britain, and the main focus will be on the majority culture, which is predominantly white and middle-class, from which the governing élites tend to be drawn. However the multi-cultural nature of the country is one of the key issues facing contemporary evangelicalism, which has tended to be most adept at reaching the majority culture.

My hope and prayer is that delegates will recognise the picture that is painted, and that it will resonate with them and their ministry experiences. More than that I long that it will encourage them to remain faithful to the task of proclaiming the gospel, building the church and growing the Kingdom of God, in the sure and certain hope that the sovereign purposes of the Lord Jesus will be accomplished and that his victory is assured.

Knowing the eschatological times

Whilst this paper will primarily analyse a specific moment of human culture in a defined geographical place, it is important to start by recognising that each and every generation of Christians finds themselves living in the same era of salvation history. This means that beyond the particularities of their unique location, both specially and temporally, there will be universal generalities that will be true everywhere at every time. The Bible therefore provides us with sufficient knowledge and understanding to meet the challenges of every time and place. The work of cultural analysis is simply a helpful additional tool to see how the truth revealed in the Scripture is being unfolded at a specific moment, and to sharpen the application of the biblical commands given to the church as she undertakes her mission in obedience to her Lord.

As Christians living in the United Kingdom in 2017 we find ourselves living during the “last days”. We need to understand our context from the perspective of eschatology. Biblically, the “last days” is not a short period of time immediately preceding the physical return of the Lord Jesus to establish his kingdom on earth, but the whole era of salvation history from the moment of the ascension of the Lord Jesus and the outpouring of his Holy Spirit, to the

8 In the UK 48% of votes wishes to remain in the EU, and in the US Hillary Clinton gained over 2 million more popular votes than Donald Trump. Theological Study Conference 2017 3

John Stevens: Knowing the Times

Parousia.9 Whilst this is disputed by many from a pre-millennial and dispensational background, the book of Acts regards the “last days” as having been inaugurated at Pentecost, and the New Testament authors teach the early church that it is living in the period of the last days.

Nowhere is this more evident than in 2 Timothy 3:1-4:5, where Paul is facing his own death and urging Timothy to follow in his example of faithful gospel ministry amongst the churches. The churches face many difficulties, but these are simply a consequence of the fact that it is the “last days”,10 with the result that Timothy should not be surprised or wrong- footed by the challenges that are afflicting the church. The “last days” will be marked by problems for the church from within and from without. Rather than people loving God and seeking his glory, they will be lovers of self, money and pleasure. False teachers will gain power and influence in the church, leading people astray from the truth and denying the power of the gospel. People will not want to hear the word of God preached, but will turn to teachers who will entertain them and confirm them in their sinful living. Persecution is inevitable for those who seek to live a godly life in Christ Jesus.

The picture that Paul paints of the last days is therefore meant to be trans-cultural and trans- geographical. It helps us to appreciate that the church in our generation is not facing unique challenges that have never been faced before, but that it is facing manifestations of the challenges that afflict every generation. Two books that I have read recently have brought this home to me. Ian Murray’s new biography of J C Ryle11 records his battles against liberalism and nominalism in the church of the nineteenth century. Richard Lovelace’s classic work The Dynamics of Spiritual Life12 reflects on the challenges facing the church in the late 1970s, wrestling with the aftermath of the 1960s counter-culture, liberalism and narrow fundamentalism. In both cases the wider culture at the time was marked by outworkings of the love of self, money and pleasure, and the church had to confront false teachers who were denying the gospel and infiltrating the church.

We should not, therefore, be surprised that we face similar challenges in our generation, nor that we can see these same dynamics of rebellion and false teaching at work in both the world around us and the church. However the New Testament perspective is carefully nuanced. The “last days” are marked not simply by cultural conflict but also by the growth of the gospel and the church. The “last days” are both the time of apostasy and persecution, but also of evangelism and expansion. We see this dynamic at work throughout the book of Acts, as the gospel goes out from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth,13 provoking opposition and hostility

9 See for example, Cornelis P Venema, The Promise of the Future (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2000); Daniel J Lewis, Crucial Questions about the Last Days (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998). 10 I H Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 771. 11 J C Ryle: Prepared to Stand Alone (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2016). 12 The Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove, IL: IVP,1979) 13 Acts 1:18 & 28:11-31. Theological Study Conference 2017 4

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at the every same time that it is attracting converts. In this last era of salvation history the Kingdom of God is breaking into the “present evil age”,14 and there is an overlap between the rule of Christ over his kingdom and its people, and the rule of Satan over his kingdom, from which men and women are being redeemed.15 There is thus a “two-kingdoms” dynamic operative in this current age, but this is not a distinction between a sacred and secular sphere,16 but rather the distinction between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan, both of which can be found to be operative in the context of the visible church and the “secular” world. Whilst the last days will, from one perspective, be “terrible times”, they will also be times of gospel growth and increasing triumph.17 This eschatology, which might be termed an optimistic amillennialism, avoids the damaging negativity of dispensational pre- millennialism, which inhibits cultural engagement and a long-term missional perspective,18 and the damaging idealistic overconfidence and complacency of postmillennialism.19

Whilst the overall trajectory of the last days is that of gospel growth in the face of fierce hostility, the balance of growth and hostility varies by location and by time, so that it is not identical in scale at all times and in all places. This is also evident in the New Testament, especially through the book of Acts. There we see how the same apostolic gospel was preached in an identical way, in the power of the same Holy Spirit, in multiple different contexts, with varying results. In some instances thousands believe,20 whereas in others it is few.21 In some places there is violent persecution, whereas in others the authorities provide protection for the church and its leaders.22 The overall message is that God is sovereign and his word will accomplish his purpose.

The New Testament does not, therefore, enable us to know how the gospel will be received in any specific context, but rather helps us to understand how we should minister the same gospel in any given context, and enables us to trust God for the response and consequences that such faithful ministry in fact produces. The pastoral purpose is to reassure us that hostility and little response are not necessarily a result of any failure on our part, or an indication of the ineffectiveness of the gospel message.

14 Galatians 1:4. 15 Colossians 1:13. 16 For a traditional “Two Kingdoms” model see David VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010). 17 This is exactly the point of Jesus’ “Parables of the Kingdom”: Matthew 13:1-52. 18 See for example Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2014). 19 See for example Iain H Murray, The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2014). 20 Acts 2:41. 21 Acts 17:33. 22 See the contrast between the fates of James and Peter in Acts 12:1-19, and the treatment of Paul in Philippi (Acts 17:22-24) and Corinth (Acts 18:12-16). Theological Study Conference 2017 5

John Stevens: Knowing the Times

The New Testament thus prepares us for the fact that ministry in the particular place and time in which we find ourselves may see little fruit and much hostility, little fruit and little hostility, much fruit and little hostility, or much fruit and much hostility. Church history confirms that this is indeed the case, as the same gospel ministered in the same way, with the same prayerfulness, produces very different results. In some places there is revival, whereas in others there is dogged survival.23

As we turn to consider the specific context in which we find ourselves in the UK at this moment, it is thus helpful to remember our broader eschatological context. We are living in the “last days”, so we should expect to see our culture rejecting the gospel in favour of love of self, money and pleasure, and false teaching entering the church. At the same time we should expect to see the apostolic gospel bearing fruit to some degree. I will attempt in this paper to identify some of the ways in which these dynamics are at work, and then to consider how we should respond to them.

Knowing the political and legal times

The formal constitutional status of Reformed Protestant Christianity in the UK is complex, reflecting the different nations that comprise the union and their divergent histories. The Church of England is an established church, and the Monarch is the Supreme Governor of the church. The coronation oath contains a promise to uphold and protect the “Protestant Reformed Religion established by law”. The Church of Scotland is the national church but not an established church, and there is no established church in Wales or Northern Ireland.

Evangelical Christians tend to put great store on the constitutional position of the church,24 but the reality is that this has little meaningful significance as regards the missional context of the church, and none on the practice of politics other than the payment of lip service to a civic Christianity of an essentially liberal kind. The UK is a multi-ethnic and multi-faith country,25 which upholds religious freedom for all, as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and the basic law of the European Union, and rejects discrimination on grounds of religion. Charity law has long taken the view that the law must stand neutral between different religions, and the historic conviction that “any religion is better than none”26 has given way to a broader approach that grants equal status to atheistic and humanistic philosophies. The mere fact that the Queen has made more references to the Christian faith, and to the general precepts of Christian morality, in recent Christmas broadcasts does not mean that the UK is a

23 This contrast in reflected in Don Carson’s book Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, recalling the ministry of father in French Canada (Wheaton, IL: Crossway 2008). 24 See, for example, David Holloway, Church and State in the New Millennium (Glasgow: HarperCollins, 2000); Nick Spencer & Jonathan Chaplin, God and Government (London: SPCK, 2009). 25 According to the 2011 census the population of the UK was 59.5% Christian, 4.4% Muslim; 1.3% Hindu, 0.7% Seikh, 0.4% Jewish, 0.4% Buddhist and 25.7% no religion. 26 Neville Estates v. Madden [1962] Ch. 832 at 853. Theological Study Conference 2017 6

John Stevens: Knowing the Times

Christian nation, nor does it guarantee that her successor will follow in her footsteps in this regard. Indeed it is highly questionable whether the New Testament has any concept of a “Christian nation”, but rather views salvation history as the growth of the Kingdom of God within and amongst “the nations”27 until Jesus returns and his kingdom supplants them all. The next coronation may well be a seminal moment for reconsideration of the identity of the nation, leading to a review of the constitutional position and perhaps of the established status of the Church of England.

For all intents and purposes the UK functions as secular liberal democracy, which allows religion but does not enforce or uphold it. The de facto exclusion of Christian religious belief from a meaningful role in public and political life is evident in the exclusion of express Christianity of any stripe from the evolving concept of “British values”.28 There is no concerted attempt to legislate in support of the moral values of Christianity, as the prescriptive society has given way to the permissive society, and more recently to the pluralistic society. The legislative agenda has seen the progressive dismantling of a social order based on a Christendom paradigm, where it was commonly accepted that it was best for both individuals and society to legislate against sin and encourage righteousness. Homosexuality has been decriminalised, abortion legalised, divorce liberalised, discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation outlawed, and the age of consent reduced. Public policy arguments derived from faith claims are widely derided or regarded as illegitimate. Society now celebrates behaviour that was legally condemned a mere fifty years ago, and Christians feel increasingly pressured not just to tolerate the behaviour of others but to express approval of it along with the rest of the culture.

The primary reasons for such significant changes lie in the wide scale collapse of Christian faith as a meaningful reality for the majority of the British population, and a shift from a political system in which a relatively small élite were able to govern the mass to a more inclusive form of democracy in which there is universal suffrage rather than some form of property qualification.29 The result is that the political system reflects more accurately the beliefs and attitudes of the people. It is a common Christian myth to view the changes in the political and legislative landscape in the post-war years as the result of the policies of a liberal élite who have imposed their (im)morality on the population as a whole. However there is a good case to be made that politicians were slow to catch up with changed attitudes of the people, especially in the 1940s and 1950 when the political leadership were drawn from an older and upper-class generation reared on Victorian and Edwardian values. For example, when Lord Montague and others were convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to prison

27 In the perspective of the Bible, both Old and New Testament, humanity is divided between Israel and the pagan nations, with the great irony that, as a result of their rejection of Christ, Israel has become just one of the nations that needs to be reached with the gospel. See, for example, Matthew 28:16-20. 28 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guidance-on-promoting-british-values-in-schools-published. 29 See Callum Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000, 2nd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009). Theological Study Conference 2017 7

John Stevens: Knowing the Times

huge crowds turned out to support them, and the change in public mood ultimately led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality between consenting adults.30 Similarly, it is estimated that there were already between 100,000 and 235,000 abortions conducted per year in the UK prior to its legalisation in 1967.31

It is not, however, the case that every development of the past half-century has been a declension from biblical values. Common grace means that in every generation there will be ways in which the dominant culture reflects and promotes biblical concerns. The culture in the UK is much more aligned with biblical thinking in regards to the rejection of racism and systemic discrimination against women in the workplace, and in its transformed attitudes towards domestic violence and child abuse, both of which are now treated with the seriousness that they deserve. Greater sexual permisssiveness has been paralleled by a much greater concern for social justice and equality, which has eliminated many of the extremes of poverty that marked the pre-war generation.

We need to recognise that the contemporary political context in the UK is a direct result of the collapse of Christian belief, rather than its cause. Christians “values” and a Christian political structure linger long after Christian belief has declined. Far too many Christians hanker for a lost, and largely mythical, past. We need to face the reality that our political system functions in the way that it does precisely because this reflects the beliefs, values and aspirations of the majority of the population. Their priorities are the right to love themselves, and to pursue the love of money and the love of pleasure. We should not be surprised when our political system fails to legislate to underwrite the values of the coming Kingdom of God, if indeed this were possible, and pays no regard to the voice of the church, expect in as far as it is courted like any other lobby group or potential body of voters.

Evangelicals often look back nostalgically to the transformation of British society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and the abolition of slavery and social improvements achieved at the instigation of the Clapham Sect. However they forget that these changes were accomplished only on the back of the Great Awakening and subsequent revivals, and through the combination of evangelical Anglican political power and evangelical Methodist success amongst the populace. William Wilberforce was adamant that moral reformation could only follow from evangelical revival and evangelism:

But fruitless will be all attempts to sustain, much more to revive, the fainting cause of morals unless you can in some degree restore the prevalence of Evangelical Christianity. It is in morals as in physics; unless a source of practical principles be

30 Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (2007, Macmillan), p135. 31 Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (2007, Macmillan) p256. 10,00 private abortions were taking place in Harley Street and other west end clinics and around 35,000 women per year were being treated by the NHS for botched abortions. Theological Study Conference 2017 8

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elevated, it will be vain to attempt to make them flow on a high level in their future course… By all, therefore, who are studious of their country’s welfare… every effort should be used to revive the Christianity of our better days.”32

Christian campaigning organisations have fought a long war of attrition against the dismantling of a pseudo-Christian state, especially with regard to the liberalisation of sexual morality, but have failed to recognise that this battle was lost long before governments introduced the relevant legislative changes. Christianity was rendered implausible as the basis for civic life and the legal framework because it no longer exercised any hold on the hearts and minds of the people. Very often this was a failure of the church itself, whether because of its failings, abuses, pride, presumption, bigotry, intolerance or tolerance of false teaching, which thought that it could advocate for morality without faith.

Evangelical Christians have been particularly impacted in recent years by the introduction of laws prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and the criminalisation of so called “hate speech”. Christians have been required to supply good and services to gay couples or individuals, even if this conflicts with their own consciences. A number of high profile cases, including for example the refusal of evangelical bed and breakfast owners to allow a gay couple to stay in a double room, have created the impression that Christians are subject to persecution and restriction. Similarly, some street evangelists and preachers have been arrested and investigated for the language they have used to denounce homosexuality. There is no doubt that Christians who own and run their own businesses no longer have the right to bring their personal faith convictions into their decisions as to who they are willing to serve, but the vast majority of evangelicals work for public or private sector employers who require them to uphold and apply a diversity policy. The state has granted churches and Christian organisations very considerable exemption from anti-discrimination provisions, provided that they can establish a genuine occupational reason for so doing. The Ashers Bakery case has prompted something of a backlash against the application of the current legislative framework, and the removal of any remaining civil stigma on homosexuality has meant that attention has shifted to the potentially negative impact on the Christian community of the current balance. Anti-discrimination legislation is a two-edged sword, since it also protects the rights of evangelical Christians against discrimination, which is increasingly important in a hostile secular environment. Those who provide goods and services to the public, for example schools that hire out their facilities to community groups, cannot refuse to serve evangelicals simply because of their religious beliefs.

The legislative framework is an attempt to resolve the tensions of a multi-faith and plural society, in which sub-groups hold diametrically opposing and mutually contradictory opinions of each other. It brings home the reality that evangelical Christians are now a small minority

32 Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country Contrasted with Real Christianity (1797, T Cadell and W Davies), 418-419. Theological Study Conference 2017 9

John Stevens: Knowing the Times

that is having to seek exemptions from the general law, rather than dictating the legal agenda from which other communities might wish to seek special provision. Evangelicals will need to do much more work to differentiate between those areas where their loyalty to Christ demands civil disobedience, and where the legislative changes simply mean that they will be unable to indulge their personal preferences in a way in which they once did. They have not needed to ask these questions in previous generations. Another instance in which such tension might occur is in regard to physical chastisement. UK law has already significantly restricted the meaning of “reasonable chastisement” so as to outlaw corporal punishment that would have been exercised by some Christian parents in previous generations, and it is likely that further restrictions will follow in the future. This inevitably raises the question as to whether Christians’ right and liberties are being restricted, or whether Christians need to reassess what the Bible requires of them.

Christians in the UK thus need to return to a genuinely biblical political philosophy, shorn of the mistaken assumptions of Christendom, which see the state as a vehicle for the enforcement of the morality of the church. The New Testament has a far more limited conception of the role of civil government, and seeks the preservation of public order and the liberty to preach the gospel.33 A more limited understanding of the role of human government, and a strong distinction between the church and the state, which recognises that it is the church rather than the state which is the New Covenant equivalent of Old Testament Israel, is essential to developing a workable model for a plural community that encompasses people of many religions, and of none. Christians need to recognise that, until Jesus returns, they will live as resident aliens in hostile territory. Ironically, even when Christendom was at its height, it was hostile towards those who were truly born-again believers, either persecuting, mocking or shunning them. Christians need to recapture the Pauline dichotomy set out in 1 Corinthians, under which they exercise appropriate discipline against unrepentant sinners in the church, but eschew the goal of judging sinners in the world.34

Knowing the cultural times

Whilst the constitutional position of the United Kingdom grants, to some degree, a formal position for Christianity, it is quite clear that the church is located in a non-Christian culture. Whilst a considerable percentage of the population continue to identify with Christianity in the decennial census,35 most have little or no conception of what Christianity is, still less a personal faith as born-again believers in the Lord Jesus who seek to honour him as Lord in every aspect of their lives.36 The best statistics would suggest that little more than 3% of the

33 For key texts see: 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 3:13-17. 34 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 & 6:12-20. 35 In 2011 59.5% of respondents indicated that they were Christian. 36 Recent statistics suggest, for example, that no more than 800,000 people attend the Church of England on an average Sunday. Theological Study Conference 2017 10

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population as a whole are born-again believers who are meaningfully associated with a local church. Bible-believing Christians are a tiny minority in a mass of unbelief, vague spirituality, or other religious identity.

It is therefore unsurprising that the culture of the UK is fundamentally secular, and increasingly so. This is reflected in political and intellectual life, and above all in the all- dominant media which reflects a consistently negative attitude towards Christian belief, ranging from outright hostility to apparently benign disinterest. Most people live as pagans precisely because they are pagans, and they live in practical ignorance of the claims of the Christian faith. A younger generation may have had very little exposure to church or genuine Christian faith. The prevailing ideologies are individualism, hedonism, and libertarianism. They are rooted in the philosophies of the Enlightenment, refined by nihilism, scientific naturalism and postmodernism, and have eclipsed the once-dominant grip of Christianity. It should not surprise us that the wider culture has largely abandoned biblical standards of sexual morality, nor that marriage has been redefined so as to encompass same-sex relationships.37 These are simply the praxis of the dominant philosophies, under which the only constraint on behaviour is that is that it does not harm others against their will.

Again, this is not quite the whole picture, however, as there are subcultures within the UK that radically reject the prevailing culture, most notably large sections of the Islamic community, which are epistemologically pre-modern rather than post-modern. However, at present they are insufficiently large or influential to reshape the wider culture, other than by forcing the adoption of a pluralistic public policy to reflect the empirical reality.38

The wider cultural context poses significant challenges to the contemporary evangelical church, and also presents a unique missional context. Churches form a relatively isolated subculture within society as a whole, and a very large number of ministers and congregations have simply failed to grasp the extent to which the culture around them has changed, and how marginal they have become to the political, cultural and philosophical life of the nation. They have failed to appreciate that what seems self-evident to them, as for example biblical sexual morality, is seen as at best anachronistic, and at worst dangerously bigoted, by the majority of the population at large. The vast majority, particularly the younger generations, have little intellectual or experiential knowledge of Christianity and its basic beliefs. They think that they know enough about Christianity to dismiss it as implausible, irrelevant or intolerant, and therefore have no interest in finding out more about it, as they regard this as unnecessary. The average person is much further back in their understanding than they were even a generation ago, and therefore models of evangelism that have worked in previous generations no longer have the same effectiveness.

37 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. 38 As D A Carson pointed out in The Gagging of God (Leicester: Apollos, 1996), empirical pluralism has inevitably led to the adoption of philosophical pluralism Theological Study Conference 2017 11

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The prevailing philosophy is that of a practical Buddhism, as evidenced by the increasing popularity of “mindfulness”, and for most people there is no sense of legal guilt before God or of fear of death. Death, they believe, is followed either by oblivion or certain paradise, with the result that there is no point worrying about it either way. Whatever agnosticism they have about life after death, they are categorically sure that they will not face a judgment that might condemn them, and they are sure that hell does not exit. People therefore live to accomplish as much of their “bucket list” as they can. Objective guilt has been displaced by feelings of subjective shame and low self-esteem, which require therapy rather than salvation.

At root the culture is no longer asking the questions to which the gospel provides the answers. In past generations the brute fact of Christendom meant that the church was able to set the cultural agenda, so that at the time of the Reformation, for example, everyday life was dominated by questions surrounding death, judgment, hell and purgatory.39 Luther was able to recover the genuine biblical answer to these questions, in contrast to the false works-based salvation system of Roman Catholicism, but the culture was already open to hear and receive that good news. In contrast today the gospel seems both implausible and redundant in the context of a culture that has delivered a life of peace, security, health and long-life that echoes the prophetic hope of the Old Testament40 without the need for God.

This, of course, is not a unique challenge, but is analogous to any missionary enterprise in pre-Christian cultures. It was the situation faced by the early church as it took the good news of the gospel from a Jewish context, where it was readily understood, into a pagan context in which the presuppositions of the gospel were entirely alien.41 The rapid growth of the church in the early decades after the resurrection is at least in part a result of the existence of communities of diaspora Jews across the Empire, and the presence of large numbers of God- fearers associated with the synagogues who were enculturated to the biblical categories. Gospel growth and cultural transformation is inevitably much slower when there is no such infrastructure of ready converts. One of the urgent needs in the UK is to recognise that we are in a missionary situation and not revival context. There of course remain existential and psychological points of contact for the gospel, and we need to both deconstruct the false worldviews that people hold and proclaim the truth of the biblical message, but this will be a long-term task that requires careful contextualisation.

39 A point made strongly by Charles Taylor in A Secular Age. 40 As for example in Isaiah 65:20-23. 41 Note the difference between Paul’s preaching in a Jewish context in Acts13:13-52 and a pagan context in Acts 14:8-20 and 17:16-34. Theological Study Conference 2017 12

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Knowing the church times42

The situation of the church as a whole in the UK is dire. Most of the mainstream denominations are in rapid decline, with increasingly elderly congregations. The prospects for the next twenty years are of the further marginalisation of the institutional church from public life.43

This decline is largely a result of the triumph of theological liberalism, which has seen the church abandon biblical religion and capitulate to the culture.44 For over a hundred-and-fifty years the church has effectively committed suicide by abandoning the gospel message and proclaiming to the population that it does not believe in its own historic doctrines, and their necessity for eternal salvation (if there were to be such a thing!). The church has thus announced its own irrelevance, and is now reaping the inevitable consequences because the population at large has believed them.45 The church sought to carve out a role for itself in social action and political campaigning, but these functions were either better performed by the growing state, or through the vehicle of ordinary political parties, trades unions and other interest groups.

Traditional liberalism, of the kind which directly denies the truthfulness of the Bible and the historicity of the resurrection, has unsurprisingly proved to be incapable of self-promulgation. Those who wish to pursue such an agenda are far more able to do so as political activists or lobbyist than through office in a declining church. The church no longer offers a viable platform to speak into the cultural or political life of the nation, nor the economic rewards or social status that were enjoyed in previous generations.

However this does not mean that liberalism has been eradicated,46 rather that it has begun to take new forms. Liberalism in the church is never self-replicating but is ultimately always replenished by defection from more orthodox evangelicalism. It is the bastard child of evangelicalism and revival. The emerging church movement, for example was largely a movement of disaffected fundamentalists who wanted to retain something of their Christian identity.47

42 For an overview of this period from the perspective of the mainstream denominations see Adrian Hastings, A History of English Christianity, 1920-2000 (London: SCM Press, 2000). 43 For a comprehensive study of church trends see Peter Brierley, UK Church Statistics No 2 2010-2020, http://www.brierleyconsultancy.com/statistics/ 44 See J Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2009). 45 Sinclair Lewis’ famous 1927 novel Elmer Gantry is not merely a satire directed at hypocritical evangelism and fundamentalism, but also at the ineffectiveness of theological liberalism to provide a viable alternative for the church. In his view both approaches that were adopted in the first half of the 20th century were destined to fail, as has been proven by subsequent events. 46 See, for example, Theo Hobson, Reinventing Liberal Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2013). 47 See D A Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013); De Young & Kluck, Why We’re Not Emergent (Chicago, IL: Moody, 2008). Theological Study Conference 2017 13

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The rise of hermeneutics has meant that contemporary liberalism takes the form of more subtle reinterpretation of core biblical doctrine than their outright denials. Few, therefore, will speak of the resurrection as a “conjuring trick with bones”, or claim “the assured results of scholarship” prove the Bible to be false. Rather they will assert that the resurrection is to be interpreted as purely spiritual, or that the church has misunderstood historic doctrines, such as propitiatory atonement, and that we have now recovered their true meaning.48

This new liberalism is most evident in contemporary debates regarding human sexuality, where loving same-sex relationships are affirmed despite the apparently clear and consistent teaching of Scripture, either on the grounds that the church has failed to interpret the key passages consistently, or that the trajectory of Scripture as a whole now enables us to be sure that God is saying something different today from what he said to the original authors.49 The church, it is therefore claimed, has either misunderstood the word of God for centuries, or the word of God in the Scriptures was only a provisional word rather than a final word. Either way, the new interpretation is presented as a faithful expression of fidelity to Scriptural authority rather than an outright denial of it and replacement by human reason. Contemporary liberalism thus claims to take Scripture more seriously than contemporary conservative evangelicalism, whilst simultaneously denying what it has always been thought to teach.

The overriding emphasis of the contemporary church is therefore on the need to be “inclusive” and to accept people on the basis of the identity that they choose to adopt for themselves. This is, once again, especially evident in relation to sexuality, where the assumption is that the church ought to be welcoming and accepting of LGBT people, especially in the light of past rejection and persecution. This is a distortion of the message and ministry of Jesus, who was willing to go to all people,50 but who proclaimed a message warning of coming judgment on sin and sinners, and consequently of the need to repent because the kingdom of God was near.51 Jesus came to call sinners to repentance, not simply to accept and include them while they continued in their sin. Zacchaeus is perhaps the paradigm covert, a collaborating chief tax-collector who came to faith in Jesus, repented of his dishonesty and greed and gave evidence of the genuineness of his repentance by making restitution to those he had cheated above and beyond the requirement of the Law.52 The need for repentance remains a great theme of the apostolic preaching in Acts.53 Neither Jesus nor

48 Examples of popular level evangelicals who have radically reinterpreted historic doctrines include Steve Chalke, Brian McLaren, Dave Tomlinson and Rob Bell. 49 See for example Alan Wilson, More Perfect Union? (London: DLT, 2014). For an analysis of the hermeneutical issues involved see William Webb, Slaves, Women, Homosexuals (Leicester: IVP, 2001). For an exposition of the biblical teaching see Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2001). 50 Luke 5:27-32. 51 Matthew 4:17. 52 Luke 19:1-10. 53 Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:21; 8:22; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20; 26:30. Theological Study Conference 2017 14

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the early church were willing to welcome and accept people “just as they are”, but only on the basis of their profession of faith, as evidenced by repentance from obvious public sin such as idolatry or immorality.

Knowing the evangelical times54

The state of the evangelical church in the UK is similarly complex,55 in part as a result of the reinterpretation of many of the core doctrines that have been taken to define evangelicalism, including the authority of the Bible, the substitutionary atonement of the cross and justification by faith alone.

However in contrast to the mainline liberal Protestantism, self-professed evangelicalism, broadly defined, has remained stable rather than declined,56 and comprises a relatively greater proportion of those who would identify as Christians. The greatest proportion of those who would identify as evangelical belong to the charismatic and “open-evangelical” streams, which would tend to be egalitarian rather than complementarian, and have a less clear position on homosexuality and sex-same marriage. Churches associated with the HTB network are probably the most influential within the Church of England, especially since the appointment of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury, and they have been encouraged to plant churches and undertake church revitalisations in many dioceses around the country. The black majority church and other ethnic churches are also growing rapidly, partly as a result of mass immigration, and are ensuring that the character of British evangelicalism as a whole is changing. These churches tends to be Pentecostal in character, often verging towards the prosperity gospel, but they are also often very conservative or even fundamentalist on doctrines such as the inerrancy of Scripture, the reality of eternal conscious punishment and the death of Christ for sins. It remains to be seen how these churches will impact the wider church in the UK, as at present there is relatively little integration between immigrant and indigenous churches.

54 For a survey of contemporary UK evangelicals and their attitudes see Greg Smith, 21st Century Evangelicals (2015, Instant Apostle), which collates the result of extensive surveys undertaken by the Evangelical Alliance. 55 There is no single comprehensive history of UK evangelicalism in the 20th century, but the following books and personal memoirs are useful in constructing an understanding of the period from different perspectives: Ian Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, (Banner of Truth); Ian Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones 1899-1981 (Banner of Truth); Alister Chapman, Godly Ambition: John Stott and the Evangelical Movement (OUP); Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott (IVP); Oliver Barclay, Evangelicalism in Britain 1935-1995: A Personal Sketch (IVP); Warner, Reinventing English Evangelicalism (Paternoster); Basil Howlett, 1966 and all that (EP); Andrew Atherstone & David Ceri Jones, Engaging with Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Apollos); Andrew Atherstone, Evangelicalism and the Church of England in the Twentieth Century (Boydell Press); Terry Virgo, No Well Worn Paths (Kingsway); R T Kendall, In Pursuit of His Glory (Hodder & Stoughton). 56 Operation World suggests that evangelicals in the UK have not declined, but equally have not grown as a proportion of the UK population as a whole. See for example, David Goodhew (ed.), Church Growth in Britain: 1980 to the Present (London: Ashgate, 2012). Theological Study Conference 2017 15

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The great conflicts within contemporary British evangelicalism all ultimately revolve around the character of God, and whether he is the way that he reveals himself to be in Scripture. Large swaths of UK evangelicalism find it difficult to believe that the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is a Holy God, who is rightfully angry towards those who have rebelled against him. They do not believe that the great human problem is the wrath of God,57 nor that salvation is primarily about being rescued from the wrath to come.58 They thus doubt the reality of an eternal hell of conscious punishment, and question whether Jesus’ death on the cross was a propitiatory sacrifice to turn away the wrath of the Father. They question whether salvation is exclusively received by faith in the Lord Jesus.

Many of these issues come into sharp focus in relation to issues of human sexuality which, rather like the issue of indulgences in the medieval Roman Catholic Church, happens to be the current point of cultural confrontation at which deep theological convictions protrude into political and pastoral reality. When God is conceived solely as a lover who is all forgiving, without any obligation to judge, then acceptance inevitably follows.

It remains to be seen how the challenges of the culture will affect UK evangelicalism, and many mainstream churches have already made an accommodation with same-sex relationships. Some actively promote such relationships as pleasing to God, whereas others such as the Church of Scotland and the Baptist Union have asserted the traditional position of heterosexual marriage, but have refused to exercise any discipline against those who take a different approach, thus allowing the appointment of clergy in same-sex relationships and/or blessing same-sex marriages. The Church of England continues to wrestle with these issues, and a compromise that satisfies both liberals and conservatives within the church seems unlikely, if not impossible. Any accommodation of same-sex relationships, whether amongst the clergy or the laity, will ultimately undermine the biblical teaching that homosexual practice is sinful and that sex is solely appropriate for heterosexual marriage. It is to be expected that this issue will lead to a refining of the evangelical church in the UK, with each and every minister and congregation ultimately forced to decide where they stand in regard to such relationships. In the long run this might lead to a smaller, but less compromised, UK evangelicalism, but it will be a painful process as erstwhile friends find themselves on different sides of the divide, and those who were once gospel allies show themselves to be false teachers.

This year also marks the 500th anniversary of the beginning for the Reformation, and this will prove another significant test that will divide UK evangelicals. Many already view the Reformation as a tragic mistake that fractured Western Christianity, and they see no difficulties with contemporary Roman Catholicism, especially where there is a shared charismatic experience. The anniversary will bring into sharp relief the theological differences

57 As is clear in Romans 1:18-32. 58 1 Thessalonians 1:10. Theological Study Conference 2017 16

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that led to the emergence of Protestantism, and force evangelicals to decide whether they still matter. This will determine whether they regard the Reformation as something to be celebrated, or as a cause for grief, repentance and reconciliation.59

Broadly speaking the conservative evangelical churches have shown remarkable resilience in the face of the prevailing church decline, and are slowly growing. Conservative evangelicalism was divided in the 1960s as a result of the split between Anglicans and non- conformists, and in the 1970s as a result of the rise of the charismatic movement. In general terms conservative evangelical Arminianism has declined or disappeared,60 and the majority of conservative evangelicals would hold to a Calvinistic soteriology, though they would not be Reformed in the full 17th century confessional sense. The Restorationist and New Church movements that confidently assumed that they would replace ossified traditional churches in the 1970s have grown, but they have failed to produce the revival that was expected. They have either declined, been absorbed into the mainstream, or become new small denominations that increasingly take their place alongside more traditional groupings.61

There has been a renaissance amongst theological colleges and seminaries within the conservative evangelical tradition,62 and a renewed emphasis on expositional preaching.63 UK conservative evangelicalism has been strongly shaped and influenced from Australia and the United States, whether through the Anglican Diocese of Sydney or the churches, seminaries and leaders associated with The Gospel Coalition.64

The majority of UK conservative evangelicalism has come to the realisation that there is a distinction between faithfulness to the biblical gospel, and faithfulness to a cultural form, with the result that there are fewer battles and divisions over issue such as styles of worship and use of music in churches. The majority of conservative evangelical churches adopt a similar approach to worship and ministry, singing a blended mix of traditional and contemporary hymns, projected onto a screen, and accompanied by a music group including keyboard, guitars and drums. There is a remarkable, and unprecedented, overlap between conservative evangelical Anglican and non-conformist ministry, and the cultural divide between these twin streams of English evangelicalism has been replaced by a growing unity of leader and churches.

59 Compare, for example, the different approaches of Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom in Is the Reformation Over? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005) and Mike Reeves and Tim Chester in Why the Reformation Still Matters (Leicester: IVP, 2016). 60 This is largely a result of the very significant decline of the Brethren movement, and the fact that many general Baptist churches would now be “open-evangelical” rather than “conservative evangelical”. 61 William Kay, Apostolic Networks of Britain (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2007). 62 For example at Oak Hill Theological College, West/Union, London Seminary and Edinburgh Theological Seminary. 63 Especially through the ministry of the Proclamation Trust. 64 https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/ Theological Study Conference 2017 17

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The situation in Wales and Scotland is very different, as a stronger base of traditional church- going kept decline and secularism at bay for a generation longer than in England.65 However churches in these nations have begun to decline at phenomenal speed, and secularism has swept in to a far greater extent than in England, partly as a result of the lower levels of immigration in these nations, whether of Christians or Muslims. The Free Church of Scotland has freed itself from the cultural restraints of exclusive psalmody and is now thriving and growing, and conservative congregations have left the Church of Scotland. Evangelicalism still remains strongest in Northern Ireland, but much of this resilience is down to issues of politics and cultural identity, and it seems highly likely that the next generation will witness steep church decline.

Contemporary conservative evangelicals have also tended to foster unity around core gospel doctrines, and to eschew division over secondary issues such as baptism, thus seeking to avoid the mistakes and fragmentation of the previous generation. This has led to a collapse of denominational loyalty at a congregational level, with individuals choosing to attend what they believe to be the best Bible-teaching church in an area, irrespective of its denominational allegiance. This unity is reflected in a network of para-church organisations and conferences, such as UCCF, the Proclamation Trust and Gospel Partnerships, which bring individuals and church leaders together for specific ministry purposes or to join in collective mission. This should be no surprise, as it has always been the tendency of evangelicalism to generate pan- denominational organisations to complement the ministry of local churches, and to facilitate mission and social action.66

It is perhaps especially encouraging that conservative evangelical churches within many UK groupings and networks are involved in church planting,67 and that they are beginning to have a bigger vision than that of simply planting more churches in city centre and student centres. Even though church plants still grow predominantly by transfer growth, which is inevitable in a highly mobile society, they tend to have a significantly higher-than-average conversion rate, which means that they are one of the best ways of reaching lost people who are not otherwise going to have opportunity to hear the gospel. Many older and smaller churches are resistant to church planting, and feel either threatened or critiqued by those who plant. However, in many cases existing churches have simply failed to make the changes that are necessary to reach the communities in which they serve, and lack the vision or leadership to change. Revitalisation is

65 See, for example, David Ollerton, A New Mission to Wales (Pwllheli: Cyhoeddiadau’r Gair, 2016). 66 John Wolfe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers and Finney (Leicester: IVP, 2006), 155-182. 67 For example Acts 29, FIEC, AMiE (Anglican Mission in England), EPCEW, IPC, Free Church of Scotland, New Frontiers, CoMission, St Helen’s Bishopsgate. Theological Study Conference 2017 18

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an option, but a local church can only be revitalised if it is willing to undergo significant change, and where this is not the case planting will prove to be essential.68

Those groups which have sought to be more confessional, narrowly Reformed or denominational, have tended to be, and to remain, smaller. There are also those who regard the majority of contemporary conservative evangelicalism as having become apostate, and so have separated themselves from it.69

Knowing the gospel times

Contemporary evangelicals therefore face a number of significant challenges as they seek to preach the gospel in the UK today, some of which have been highlighted above.

By far the most important is the relatively slow conversion rate, even when there is indisputably faithful gospel ministry. Our statistics from FIEC churches would suggests, and my personal engagement with church leaders in multiple networks confirms this, that few churches are experiencing more than 1% growth per year by way of conversions.

Even more pertinently, conversions are not evenly distributed across churches. The vast majority of conversions take place when people are under twenty-five, with most conversions occurring amongst the children of Christian partners, and amongst university students. This fact ought to give some comfort to those ministering in other contexts, and is perhaps unsurprising. It has always been the case that conversions have been more common amongst the younger generation, and that they have occurred when people have been outside of the constraints of their usual social attachments. This was true even in past eras of revival.70 UK students live in a homogeneous community, which is easy for Christians to penetrate and enter, and it is a stage of life at which people are searching for meaning and identity and more open to change. There is every reason to make the most of this remarkable gospel opportunity, which has been made possible by the massive expansion of higher education since the 1960s.71 City-centre student churches are thriving, and more are being planted every year. They are a powerful engine of contemporary UK evangelicalism, and the majority of future evangelicals will pass through such a church in their formative years.

Local church ministry in a non-student context is considerably more challenging, and faithful gospel ministry in such contexts is likely to see less-than-average conversion rates. The

68 See John James, Renewal: Church Revitalisation Along the Way of the Cross (Leyland: 10publishing, 2016); Mike McKinley, Church Planting is for Wimps (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016); Mark Devine & D Farrin Patrick, RePlant (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2014) 69 As for example the Metropolitan Tabernacle and the Bible League Quarterly. 70 Wolfe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism, 86-87. 71 In 2015-2016 there were 2.28m students in the UK, 1.8m from the UK. 20% of those from the poorest communities in the UK now go to university. In 2103 it was claimed that 49% of young people go to university. Theological Study Conference 2017 19

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evidence suggests a very mixed picture, as there seems to be significantly greater gospel response at present amongst the very rich, and the very poor, including amongst refugees and immigrants, especially amongst Iranians, who are turning to Christ in large numbers. It seems likely that the reason for this disparity is that these groups at either end of the social spectrum are those who have most awareness of their need of the gospel. The very rich have attained everything that society says will make them happy, and yet they then encounter existential emptiness and the futility that is captured so powerfully in Ecclesiastes. Those at the bottom have little prospect of achieving the dream, and in many cases have been abandoned by the system to a life of deprivation and exclusion. In both cases, but for very different reasons, they are looking for a better hope.

In contrast the most hardened communities to the gospel are those that are white-British, moderately affluent and aspirant. They have little apparent interest in, or need for, the gospel. They have a polite disinterest which makes sustained evangelism difficult. People tend to be more open at times of significant personal crisis or change, for example on the birth of a child, relationship breakdown, illness, bereavement or retirement. Ministries such as mum’s and toddlers groups seem best placed to connect with the community and build a bridge into the church.

The prevailing background culture means that local churches are likely to face a much greater diversity of pastoral challenges than was the case in the past, when many people’s lives followed the basic Christian template even if they were not themselves believers. A person who is converted after their 20s is likely to have been involved in several relationships, to be divorced, and to have children by multiple partners. They are most likely cohabiting. In the future converts may have experimented with issues of sexual identity, and may have transitioned their gender, or may be parties to a same-sex marriage in which they have had children, whether by adoption or surrogacy. Many churches are simply not equipped and prepared to welcome people whose lifestyle and experience has deviated so far from the Christian norm, nor to disciple them into obedience.72 The new context will be more akin to that which confronted the church in Corinth, and many of the same challenges will have to be faced.73

Contemporary sociological realities are also presenting challenges for local church ministry that have often not been taken into account. People no longer live their lives attached to a specific geographical place for much of their lifetime, which changes the nature of local church life and local church ministry. Many people will move several times over the course of their life, and belong to a sequence of different churches. Common life stages include: growing up with parents; attending university; first job; marriage; family with small children;

72 See, for example, the helpful work of Rosia Butterfield: The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, 2nd ed (Pittsburgh, PA:Crown & Covenant, 2014). 73 1 Corinthians 5:9-11. Theological Study Conference 2017 20

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family with school-age children; time after children have left home; retirement; living nearer to grown up children. People tend to move as they transition from one of these life stages to another.

This pattern will have a significant impact on local church life, as it will be increasingly affected by this high degree of mobility and transition. Most eighteen-year-olds, for example, will leave their “home” church when they go to university, and the majority will not return thereafter on graduation. A very high proportion of graduates aged 21-30s will live in urban areas, and especially in London, which has bucked the overall national trend of church decline.74 Most churches will see the people they invest in and train up for ministry move on to another church elsewhere, and they will receive others who have been trained somewhere else.

The fact that many people in church work a considerable distance from home also affects the ministry and mission of the local church. Many working parents will have little opportunity to build connections in the local community, and their primary “mission field” may well be in their workplace, amongst colleagues who live nowhere near their local church, and who would never come to it. The role of the local church thus needs to become one of supporting them in their evangelism where the Lord has put them, rather than expecting them to serve the programmes of the local church.

People are also changing the way that they relate to their home location. The emergence of social media, easy communication and travel, means that people no longer find their primary social connections in their geographical place. Rather they maintain their primary social connections with a group of friends, often those that they met during early adulthood. They are able to satisfy their emotional and relational needs through this “virtual” neighbourhood. They stay in near-permanent contact via social media platforms, and meet regularly. They do not, therefore, feel the need to build relationships with their geographical neighbours, and more importantly their geographical neighbours do not feel the need to build relationships with them because they have their own social network with others. This change in the dynamics of friendships and neighbour relationships inevitably impacts on evangelism, and renders “friendship evangelism” less effective as a long-term strategy for gospel growth. It is also partly responsible for changes in patterns of church attendance, which see people attending church less frequently and yet regarding themselves as committed to the local church. Greater wealth amongst the older population means that many are able to go away on holiday more frequently, with the result that congregations are rarely truly together when they gather for services on a Sunday. Attendance is often more regular at mid-week small groups than Sunday gatherings. It also means that people are more willing to travel to a church that is not in their immediate community, especially a church that suits their tastes and

74 http://www.brierleyconsultancy.com/capitalgrowth/ Theological Study Conference 2017 21

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preferences. Whilst this might reflect an unhelpful consumerism, it may also reflect the fact that they do not regard their immediate neighbourhood as their primary mission field, hence there is no driving motivation to attend a local church. The effects of family breakdown, which see children shuttling between parents at the weekend, further undermines the connection with geographical place, and makes it harder to sustain regular church involvement.

Demography also exercises a huge impact on the life of local churches, especially the way in which house prices determine the make-up of the community. In many areas of the South East, for example, house prices have risen so rapidly in the last two decades that even people on a good salary no longer have any realistic prospect of living in the area. Younger couples are having to move further and further out from London to find affordable housing, resulting in longer commutes and less local connection. Churches which are used to having a steady stream of young couples move into their area are finding that they no longer have 20s or 30s in their church, because this age group can no longer afford to live in the area.

These sociological and demographic factors are neither universal, nor to be regarded as either positive or negative in nature. They are simply contemporary realities that need to be taken into account in understanding and assessing gospel ministry. It is pointless to simply expect evangelical Christians to adopt a totally different approach to life, and in some cases this may not be realistic or possible. Rather we need to recognise just how cultural our understandings of church, mission and ministry often are, reflecting the prevailing patterns of a bygone era. In the 19th century the Anglican church failed to grasp the significance of industrialisation and urbanisation, and perpetuated a model of ministry that reflected the rural “squirearchy”. The result was that the growing cities became the preserve of the non-conformists, or were largely unevangelised. We need to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes today as we stand on the cusp of more major changes in the way that people order their lives. Models of successful church ministry from the past, or drawn from very different geographical contexts, are unlikely to be directly transferrable, or to generate the same outcomes if they are transplanted. Church leaders need to take careful stock of their specific situation, and to evaluate both the most effective strategies and their own success in their light of their immediate context. Many church leaders feel a burden of failure, often compounded by false comparison with others that is largely a result of unrealistic expectations or a lack of awareness of the more general state of gospel ministry.

This prevailing sociological and demographic fluidity is much less marked in poorer communities, with the result that models of successful middle–class ministry are highly unlikely to be replicable in working-class contexts.75 In these areas the challenge is that many of the brightest and best young people leave the area and never return, and that others are not

75 For a really helpful resource on effective ministry in disadvantages communities see Mez McConnell & Mike McKinley, Church in Hard Places (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016). Theological Study Conference 2017 22

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attracted to move into the area because it is unfashionable or has a poor reputation. It has always been a difficulty for evangelicalism that the gospel tends to produce a social uplift in people’s lives, delivering them from the damaging cost of sin and producing in them new aspirations for their families and for better education. Sustaining long-term gospel ministry in such areas will be difficult, and in many cases gospel works will be unable to be self- sustaining. As was the case in the New Testament, there will be a need for wealthier churches to give generously to support their brothers and sister in poorer contexts, and to provide support for the evangelist and pastor-teachers who minister there.76

The brute fact of the tiny percentage of evangelical believers in the nation also renders ministry hard or unsustainable in small rural contexts. Towns and villages with small populations that may in the past have been able to support one or more churches and chapels, will simply not be able to do so in the contemporary environment. Roughly speaking a community of 1700 people might, on average, be able to support a single evangelical church of 50 regular attenders.77 However the over-concentration of younger people in urban areas means that in most rural situations a considerably larger population would be required than this to sustain a viable church. Churches also need to achieve a certain level of critical mass so as to attract and keep families with children, as Christian parents are quite naturally concerned to ensure that youth and children’s provision is attractive to their children and provides them with the mutual support that is necessary in a hostile culture. It will thus be necessary to rationalise much rural ministry, if a gospel witness of any kind is to be maintained in communities, and to recognise that most people there are quite able to commute to a church rather than to require a gathering in their immediate community. Buildings and ministry will need to be shared so as to ensure that scarce resources are best used, and unnecessary competition between ministries and churches avoided. Village churches may well need to link with larger congregations in larger towns or regional centres so as to ensure that some Christian presence is maintained in the community, even if not in the form of a regular Sunday gathering.

Above all, churches and their leaders need to have a vision to serve the kingdom of God, and to grow the church of Jesus Christ as a whole, not merely to grow their own individual local church. Gospel ministry is far more interdependent and interconnected than in previous generations, and the nature of contemporary society makes this inevitable and necessary. Most churches will constantly be giving some of the people they have reached, discipled and trained away to others, and will be receiving those who have been converted and trained elsewhere. Churches ought not to hold onto people too tightly, but see themselves as part of the much greater gospel cause that is the church as Jesus sees it. The New Testament provides us with a picture of interconnected churches, with a high degree of interchange of members

76 Cf. Acts 11:27-30; 2 Corinthians 8:1-9:15; Philippians 4:10-19. 77 Assuming that 3% of the population are born again evangelicals. Theological Study Conference 2017 23

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and leaders between the congregations. This is already the case in the UK, and we would do well to work with it rather than against it.

Whilst God is sovereign and is able to move in remarkable and unexpected ways, in general we should expect faithful ministries to reflect the prevailing spiritual situation. It ought to be a cause for concern if some churches are experiencing revival in a country but others are not, but no cause for concern if no churches are experiencing revival within a particular culture at a particular time. Individual churches cannot expect to buck the trend, and there is no basis for expecting that God will bless them ahead of many others that are labouring equally faithfully. There is no “magic bullet” answer to the slow gospel growth that we are currently experiencing, although it is always a temptation to assume that more prayer, greater doctrinal faithfulness, greater church purity, greater passion, or greater effort will produce greater returns for our labours. Instead, we are called to be faithful in peaching and proclaiming the gospel and doing what is commanded by God for its own sake, and not for the purely utilitarian purposes of achieving what we regard as “success”. In a culture in which there is prevailing spiritual apathy and church decline, we may well find that we have to work harder just to stand still, and that maintaining stability is in fact a success by the standards of the time and place. We pray that God will do more in the future, but at present we find ourselves in a period that is not unlike that between the end of the Commonwealth and the Great Awakening of the 18th century.

Knowing how to respond to the times

Whilst there are many challenges facing the church in our generation in the UK, there are also tremendous opportunities and no cause for pessimism. As secularism and the progressive liberal agenda achieve near total cultural dominance, it is becoming increasingly evident that they have not been able to deliver the expected utopia. There is increasing public policy concern over issues such as pornography, and the way that this has distorted the sexual expectations of young men and women, and growing awareness of the immense social cost of family breakdown. Society is facing a huge challenge of caring for an aging population, and the increase in Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia is raising questions of the value of human life. Huge numbers of people are struggling with loneliness, and there has been an exponential growth of diseases and conditions that have their root cause in existential issues, such as depression and obesity. Religion has stubbornly refused to die, and has made something of a recovery in private life, if not yet in public policy.78 Conflict between different faiths is the most pressing global issue, to which western secularism has no real answer. There is a growing recognition that the moral values that we take for granted in the West are rooted

78 See, for example, Micklethwait & Wooldridge, God is Back (London: Penguin, 2009); Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Faith (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2015) Theological Study Conference 2017 24

John Stevens: Knowing the Times

in the Christian faith, not in the Enlightenment, and perhaps a dawning realisation that without the faith that gave them birth they will be impossible to justify and maintain.79

Whilst gospel growth in the UK is currently very slow, the gospel has been growing at phenomenal speed around the world. No doubt there is much that is shallow or even heterodox, especially in the prosperity teaching that has such a grip in Africa and South America, but we can take immense encouragement from the growth of the church in those countries which were the primary focus of western missionary efforts over the past one hundred and fifty years, such as China.80 Any suggestion that the gospel has failed, or that God is dead, is contrary to the facts.

Throughout church history God has moved in different places at different times, and there is no promise in Scripture that the UK should enjoy the blessing and gospel leadership that it enjoyed in the past. However we need to have confidence that God, in his sovereignty, has put us here at this moment in history, and this is where we are called to be his faithful witnesses.81

As we saw at the beginning of this paper, we are theologically located in the “last days”. Paul’s purpose in writing to Timothy was not merely to enable him to know what to expect in this final era of salvation history, but to instruct him how to minister in this time. In essence, Timothy is to continue in Paul’s footsteps, proclaiming the same message82 and following the same pattern of ministry.83 Timothy is commanded to “preach the word”84 of the gospel, whether people are wanting to hear it or not, and to fulfil his duty as an evangelist heralding the good news of the kingdom and calling people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

This is exactly what we need to do in the UK in this generation, and indeed in every generation. The gospel does not change, and it remains the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.85 We need to preach this unchanging gospel in appropriately contextualised ways, and to seek and save the lost just as Jesus did. This will be hard work, and we need to know both that we will be persecuted,86 but we will receive the eternal reward of the “crown of righteousness” if we persevere to the end, just as Paul did.87

79 See, for example, Nick Spencer, The Evolution of the West (London: SPCK, 2016). 80 See for example: Noll & Nystrom, Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia (Leicester: IVP, 2011); Phillip Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 3rd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 2011); Rodney Stark, A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2016); Scott W Sunquist, The Unexpected Christian Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 2015). 81 Acts 17:26. 82 2 Timothy 1:13-14. 83 2 Timothy 3:10. 84 2 Timothy 4:2. 85 Romans 1:16-17. 86 2 Timothy 3:11-12. 87 2 Timothy 4:8. Theological Study Conference 2017 25

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We need, therefore, to hold our nerve and not capitulate to the culture. We need to make sure that we do not re-interpret the gospel message so as to make it more relevant or palatable to unbelievers, yet at the same time we need to make sure that we put no cultural barrier in their way that would prevent them from hearing the gospel or following the Lord Jesus. Those who are most determined to be faithful to the apostolic gospel are sadly often those who are least willing to reflect the apostolic flexibility we see evidenced in 1 Corinthians 9:13-23, and to view every attempt to become “all things to all men so as to win some” as an illegitimate compromise of the gospel.

In order to meet the challenges of the day we need to ensure that we make evangelism and reaching the lost a priority for our churches and our ministries, rather than simply caring for those who are already believers. We need to re-envision local churches to see themselves as the mission stations they need to be, rather than as safe bastions of orthodoxy in a hostile culture.

We need to avoid drawing false antitheses between different kinds of ministries, and realise that we need all kinds of churches in all kinds of places if we are to reach the 97% of our population who do not know Christ. We will need thriving churches in urban areas, rural areas, suburban areas, city-centres, student communities, council estates and majority ethnic communities that are able to contextualise the gospel to their primary mission field. Most towns and cities will require multiple churches to reach all their people and the sub- communities that comprise them, not just a single church. This diversity will enable individual congregations to have sufficient homogeneity to contextualise to the people they are seeking to reach, and yet together reflect the diversity of the church as a whole, where barriers of race and culture are transcended by faith in Christ. Yet these very different churches will need to understand how their ministries mutually support and strengthen one another, and grasp that they are all necessary of the church is to accomplish its mission.88 We will need to be much more interconnected, and much less protectionist, territorial and tribalistic in seeking to build and promote our own churches and ministries.

The situation in the UK today is probably of such a character that we should not look to periods of revival as paradigms for our response. The reality is that the nation needs to be re- evangelised rather than revived, and conditions are not parallel to those of the 18th or 19th centuries, or even to those of the immediately post-war period that witnessed the last period of significant evangelical growth. We need instead to look to the help of resources from

88 The “body” image of 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 can be extended to the church as a whole, and not just to the life of the local congregation. Theological Study Conference 2017 26

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missionary contexts,89 and perhaps especially to the history of the earliest centuries of the church.90

We need to recognise that we are strangers and aliens who find ourselves in exile in a pluralistic and predominantly pagan culture.91 We need to develop patterns of evangelism and church ministry that reflect this, and to help our people to understand and embrace the situation in which they find themselves.92 The primary lesson from the history of the early church is the long-term impact of gospel faithfulness and slow, steady, incremental growth. It is a mistake to think that the early church experienced revival growth, and that within a generation it had made a significant impact on the Roman world. The reality is, rather, that by the end of the forty-year-or-so period covered by the book of Acts there were small Christian communities in many of the major cities in the east of the Empire. There was virtually no gospel penetration in the west or to the north. These small Christian communities were beginning to feel the full force of Romans suspicion and persecution, as it gradually became evident that they were not just a subset of Judaism, and that they were deeply subversive of the claims of the Emperor to divinity, and his demand for ultimately loyalty from his subjects. In any event, association with Judaism was no longer positive and protective at the end of the New Testament period, because the Jewish revolt had become a major political threat to the security and stability of the Empire.

Against this background the early Christians persevered, refused to compromise with the culture around them, and modelled a different and better way of life under the Lordship of King Jesus. This was attractive, especially to the marginalised and oppressed, including slaves and women. Over time the numbers of Christians grew to such an extent that they gained cultural dominance in the Empire.

It might seem, for example, that the sexual values of secular liberalism have won the day in the UK, and that there is no prospect of reverse. However the same would have been the case in the first century, when he prevailing sexual ethics were utterly different to those of the gospel, and institutionalised abuse depending on social status. Kyle Harper’s study From

89 As for example Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (London: SPCK, 1997). 90 See, for example, Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Glasgow: HarperCollins, 1997); Cities of God (London: Bravo Ltd, 2007); Echkhard J Schnabel, Early Christian Mission (Leicester: IVP, 2004); Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (Eastbourne: Kingsway, 2003). 91 See for example, Piper & Matthis. Think It Not Strange: Navigating Trials in the New America (2016, Desiring God); Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006); Mark Sayers, Disappearing Church (Chicago, IL: Moody, 2016); Greg Forster, Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost its Cultural Relevance & Can Begin Rebuilding It (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014). 92 Many biblical books provide the theological resources to address the challenges facing the people of God as they live in exile, including Genesis, Exodus, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, 1 Peter and Revelation. The great mistake is to seek to apply texts that concern the life of the nation of Israel to the contemporary state, rather than to the church which is the true continuation of the Old Testament people of God. Theological Study Conference 2017 27

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Shame to Sin93 records how the growth of the church ultimately ensured that the sexual culture of the ancient world was transformed, and that long-standing beliefs, assumptions and practices were overthrown. There is no reason to assume that something similar could not happen again in the UK, if evangelicals persist in long-term gospel faithfulness, and quietly continue to believe, preach and live the gospel, and to pray that Lord might glorify and honour his name.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What do you think are the greatest encouragements amongst evangelical Christians in the UK today?

2. What do you think are the greatest challenges facing evangelical Christians in the UK today?

3. Do you think it is accurate to describe the UK as an essentially secular society?

4. What do you think are the main obstacles in evangelism today?

5. How do you think we might need to develop our ecclesiology or change our understanding of local church ministry so as to meet the challenges of the contemporary context?

6. Do you agree that the history of past revivals no longer provides a helpful paradigm for the way that we should expect God to work in the UK today?

7. What do you think we most need to repent of, most need to recapture, and most need to rejoice in, in our contemporary context?

8. How do you think Affinity could help UK evangelicals to meet the challenges of ministry today?

93 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013) Theological Study Conference 2017 1

David McKay: On Serving God in our Generation

On Serving God in our Generation

David McKay, Minister, Shaftesbury Square Reformed Presbyterian Church, Belfast; Professor of Systematic Theology, Ethics & Apologetics, Reformed Theological College

The assigned topic for this final conference paper is vast: in a profound sense, all of life is here. If we believe that Christians are called to serve God in every part of life, then nothing we say or do or think falls outside the scope of “serving God in our generation”. Necessarily we will have to be selective and focus on issues that seem to be of crucial importance.

Both inside and outside the church a confusing cacophony of voices offers advice regarding what we ought to be doing “in our generation”. The recommendations range from the distinctly spiritual through what may appear to be baptised versions of secular programmes to, at the opposite end of the spectrum, an abandonment of spiritual concerns in favour of pursuing this-worldly betterment for the human race, or perhaps the entire planet. Whilst many options can be summarily dismissed, there remains considerable room for disagreement among those equally committed to the authority of Scripture. Recent debates between proponents of a “Two Kingdom” theology and advocates of a “transformational” perspective are but one example of this diversity.1

Such a situation underlines the need for men (and women) like those from Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32, “men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do”. It is evident from the context that these are not men distinguished primarily for their political or sociological insight nor, in our contemporary context, men with facility in technology or social media. There is a place for such endowments, but what is surely of greatest significance is the spiritual insight of the men of Issachar, rooted in “the fear of the Lord [which] is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10). If we are to understand how to serve God in our generation our foundation must be the fear of the Lord, nurtured by engagement with his self-revelation in Scripture. Without that secure foundation our task is hopeless.

Despite the complexity of the circumstances in which we are called to serve God and what appears to be an increasingly overt opposition to the Christian faith in our society, we do not

1 See, for example, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms by David VanDrunen (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2010) and Kingdoms Apart. Engaging in the Two Kingdoms Perspective, edited by Ryan C McIlhenny (Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing Company, 2012). Theological Study Conference 2017 2

David McKay: On Serving God in our Generation

undertake this task in a pessimistic spirit. We are serving a God who remains sovereign over all things and in his Word we have a unique and authoritative revelation, a “God-breathed” revelation (2 Timothy 3:16). We have unique resources for the fulfilment of our calling. As Jared Wilson comments:

Make no mistake, in the public marketplace of religious conversation – in the entire world of spiritual, unspiritual, religious, irreligious, theistic, deistic, polytheistic, atheistic, political, moral, liberal, conservative, moderate, or whatever kind of ideas – Christianity is at a great advantage. Why? Because in the midst of this murky, multi- ideological fog, Christianity stands alone and above, a solitary lighthouse shining a real light. The truth claims of Christianity are unlike those of any other religion, philosophy, or system in the world.2

In considering how we should be serving God in our generation, our first inclination may well be to think of what we should be doing – proclaiming the gospel, planting churches, caring for the poor and oppressed and, perhaps, a multitude of other activities. That, however, would be indicative of the activism that often characterises evangelicals. Biblical priorities, however, are strikingly different. Whilst activity is required, the Bible’s chief concern, and therefore God’s chief concern, is with being rather than doing. Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees in Mark 7:6-7 is significant in this regard. By any standard the Pharisees were “doers”, trying to fulfil all the demands of God’s law and also their own traditions. There was no shortage of activity among the Pharisees, yet the Lord exposed their fundamental shortcoming, quoting Isaiah 29:13, saying, “This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men”. The key issue is the “heart” – the inner core of a person’s being which then manifests itself in his doing.

This perspective is reflected in some of Paul’s epistles, such as Ephesians. The apostle begins the letter with a consideration of the identity of his readers as those who belong to Christ and are united to him. Thus in Ephesians 2:5-6 he describes how God “made us alive with Christ… and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. Having laid that foundation he goes on to write in Ephesians 4:1, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called”. This pattern is often described as the indicative followed by the imperative.

This biblical priority of being over doing provides the overall approach of this paper, beginning with a consideration of who we are, then proceeding to examine what we ought to be doing as we serve God in our generation.

2 Jared C Wilson, Unparalleled. How Christianity’s Uniqueness makes It compelling (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016), 16. Theological Study Conference 2017 3

David McKay: On Serving God in our Generation

1. Who are we?

Issues of identity are currently being hotly debated in western societies. Who has the right to determine my identity? The answer offered by many is that ultimately I alone determine my identity. This is evident in discussions of sexuality, including homosexuality and trans- genderism. Increasingly individuals are claiming the right to self-identify in any way they choose, regardless, for example, of their biology. If someone is biologically, genetically male, but wishes to self-identify as female, then society must do everything necessary for the acceptance of that identity. Thus Facebook offers “male”, “female” and 71 other options for gender identity.

It is not only sexuality that is at issue. In one case a white social activist, Rachel Dolezal, was accused of falsely claiming to be black by her parents yet insists that she self-identifies as black. After noting some of these examples, Vaughan Roberts comments,

Although most people would feel that these self-identifications have gone too far, there is still an uneasiness about challenging any individual’s chosen self-expression. There’s a deeply rooted conviction that everyone is free to define themselves as they wish, and no-one has the right to question that self-definition.3

Such assertions of independence are, of course, nothing new, the first occurrence being in the Garden of Eden. One of the factors which contributes to contemporary confusion is the rapid development of the digital technology which has in turn fuelled the growth in social media activity. Having noted that the question of identity is as old as humanity, Ed Brooks and Pete Nicholas, writing in Virtually Human, go on to comment,

But it is pressed on us in a particular way in a virtual environment where attaching images, ideas, experiences and preferences to our personal icon effectively defines who we are.4

The apparent freedom that people have to define themselves is nevertheless an illusion, as Adam and Eve discovered almost as soon as they had rebelled. Their “self-defined” freedom left them cowering behind a tree, trying to hide from the sentence of their Creator and Judge. The pattern is endlessly repeated in human experience. Even in the supposed freedom of the digital world, electronic media are now seen to shape their users far more than the users realise, and in the end the technology becomes an idol. As Tim Challies notes,

3 Vaughan Roberts, Transgender (The Good Book Company, 2016), 30. 4 Ed Brooks and Pete Nicholas, Virtually Human. Flourishing in a digital world (Nottingham: IVP, 2015), 78. Theological Study Conference 2017 4

David McKay: On Serving God in our Generation

There are always spiritual realities linked to our use of technology. We know that there is often a link between our use of technology and idolatry, that our idols are often good things that want to become ultimate things in our lives.5

In this context of widespread confusion regarding identity and the increasing possibilities for expressing rebellion and supposed autonomy, Christians seeking to serve God in our generation must begin by asserting that identity is not self-generated, or self-invented, but is in fact given to us by God. It is our sovereign Creator who defines who and what we are. At the most basic level, as set out in the opening chapters of Genesis, we are made in the image of God, dependent creatures who ought to respond to the Creator’s goodness in loving worship and service. As image-bearers we are made for relationships, primarily with our Creator, a fact expressed in the covenant established with Adam in Eden. Adam, as representative of the human race, broke the covenant, sin entered the world and all mankind is implicated: “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

Creation in God’s image and the fall into sin are constitutive of the identity of all men and women. For Christians, however, the key element in their identity is their re-creation in Christ. In the language of 2 Corinthians 5:17 “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”. In Christ the greatest possible transformation is effected in those who were sinners, under the wrath and curse of God. The Lord’s people receive a new identity which is secure and liberating, shaped by the Holy Spirit and not by the forces of a fallen world. As Brooks and Nicholas say,

This unique identity, offered freely but at great cost, is infinitely secure because it is sealed in Jesus’ blood. It is infinitely liberating, given to us not because of anything we do but because of what he has done for us.6

Those who are seeking to serve God in their generation are therefore people who are being progressively conformed to Christ, transformed into his likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18), by the gracious work of God. This new identity can be thought of both individually and corporately.

(i) Christ-like people

What we are in Christ relates to every aspect of life. It is a matter of Christ being formed in us, as Paul expresses it in Galatians 4:19. We are to bear “the fruit of the Spirit” described in Galatians 5:22-23, each element being an aspect of the character of Christ, and all of life is included. In the pursuit of our calling to serve God, however, several key aspects of our new identity in Christ may be highlighted.

5 Tim Challies, The Next Story. Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 74. 6 Brooks and Nicholas, Virtually Human, 91. Theological Study Conference 2017 5

David McKay: On Serving God in our Generation

(a) We are redeemed As Peter expresses it, “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers… with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a Lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19). We begin our service of God in our generation from the perspective of those who “were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20), creating in us not a sense of self- satisfaction, but rather a spirit of humility and thankfulness, a gratitude to God that often expresses itself in joy.

It has to be acknowledged that often the world, with some justification, does not view Christians as people of humility or joy. To the world they may seem to be arrogant and self- righteous, joyless and censorious. Christians tend to be known for the things they are against rather than the things they are for. Knowing that we are saved solely by the work of Christ ought to make us the most humble of people who seek to share the riches of the gospel freely with others. Our thankfulness to God for his wonderful gift of salvation stirs in us a joy in the Lord and also enables us to rejoice in all that is good in his creation. It even enables us to “count it all joy… when [we] meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2). This is not a transient happiness, but a deep-seated spiritual joy that permeates the Christian’s life. We are even commanded, “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4).

Serving the Lord as redeemed sinners in humility and joy is a powerful testimony to the world. There will always be those who caricature Christians as joyless and judgmental, and when we give substance to such criticisms we should repent, but we ought to be characterised by humility and joy which honour the Lord and make service a delight. As Jerry Bridges comments with regard to joy,

To be joyless is to dishonour God and to deny His love and His control over our lives. It is practical atheism. To be joyful is to experience the power of the Holy Spirit within us and to say to a watching world, “Our God reigns”.7

(b) We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit To think of being conformed to Christ and of manifesting characteristics such as joy inevitably leads to thoughts of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and texts such as Romans 1:4 which refer to “the Spirit of holiness”. In fact every element of Christian life and service is dependent on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, from the new birth “of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5), through transformation into the image of Christ which “comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18), culminating in the gift to all believers of “a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44) – a body indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

7 Jerry Bridges, The Fruitful Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006), 86. Theological Study Conference 2017 6

David McKay: On Serving God in our Generation

Of particular significance for those seeking to serve God in their generation is the fact that the Holy Spirit equips the Lord’s people for service. The New Testament provides four extended lists of “spiritual gifts” in Romans 12:3-8, 1 Corinthians 12:8-11, 28-30 and Ephesians 4:7-12, along with numerous other briefer references. Leaving aside issues of the continuance of “miraculous” gifts, it is evident that all the people of God are provided with gifts for service. Thus Peter exhorts his readers, “as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). Those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit are equipped by him to serve the Lord. The gifts are not to be thought of in isolation from those who exercise them. As Edgar Andrews concluded after examining the New Testament evidence,

the New Testament charismata are not to be viewed simply as powers made generally available to Christians. They should be seen rather in terms of spiritually gifted persons specifically equipped for the benefit of the whole church.8

The implications of the Spirit’s indwelling for holiness will be considered below, but at this point we do well to remind ourselves that the indwelling of the Spirit means that we are fully equipped to serve God in our generation in all the ways that he has planned. We are not equipped to do anything or everything we may want to do, nor to pursue our own agendas or build our own empires. We are, however, completely sufficient for the implementation of God’s agenda as he brings in his Kingdom for his glory. Thus the disciple can say, “I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1), knowing that “our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

We need this assurance since we are called to serve God in a generation which is rapidly losing any vestigial respect for Christian truth or sympathy for Christian moral principles. Often apathy seems to be replaced by overt hostility. The danger in such an environment is that Christians allow themselves to be intimidated by the world, the result often being that they want to “circle the wagons” and adopt a siege mentality. Indwelt and equipped by the Spirit, we need not and we must not do that. God has provided everything we require for serving him: that has always been the case, whatever the generation in which his people have been called to serve. Our courage and confidence come from the Holy Spirit within us. Only thus are we ready to serve God.

(c) We are loving As the Apostle John reminds us, “We love because he first loved us” (I John 4:19). In response to the love of God that “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5) a responding love wells up in the hearts of his children. Fundamental is love for God “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Without that love our “service” will be drudgery that the Lord will

8 E H Andrews, The Promise of the Spirit (Welwyn: Evangelical Press, 1982), 172. Theological Study Conference 2017 7

David McKay: On Serving God in our Generation

not accept. Service of God in our generation that is not rooted in love for him will be utterly futile. When it springs from love, it will be a delight and keeping his commandments will not be “burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

We need also to take account of 1 John 4:11 “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” The community of God’s people is to be characterised by mutual love among its members. It is significant that as the Saviour in his Farewell Discourse (John 13- 16) prepares his disciples for his imminent departure by way of the cross and for their ministry, undertaken after his resurrection, as the foundation of the church in its New Testament form, he several times stresses this commandment. In John 15:12, for example, he says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” It is his sacrificial love, illustrated by his washing the disciples’ feet (John 13:1ff), and consummated at the cross, that provides the pattern and the power for disciples’ mutual love.

Christ makes it starkly clear that love is not an optional extra for disciples: “If anyone says, ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20). And this is not just an internal matter for the church: it is to be evident to a watching world. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35), and the converse is equally true – if disciples do not have love for one another, the world will be unable to identify them. Don Carson’s comment sums up this issue well:

The new command is therefore not only the obligation of the new covenant community to respond to the God who has loved them and redeemed them by the oblation of his Son, and their response to his gracious election which constituted them his people; it is a privilege which, rightly lived out, proclaims the true God before a watching world… Orthodoxy without principial obedience to this characteristic command of the new covenant is merely so much humbug.9

Such love will flow beyond the bounds of the church as disciples fulfil the second great commandment that sums up the divine law: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Whilst maintaining the priority of “the household of faith”, God’s people are to “do good to everyone” (Galatians 6:10).

Whatever the world thinks of when it gives some attention to the church or to individual Christians, it is often not “love”. Unbelievers are more likely to think of self-righteousness, hostility, divisions, hypocrisy and any number of negative characteristics. Whist this may at times be entirely unjustified caricature, thinly veiling hostility to the church’s God (Psalm 2:1ff), too often the church has provided the world with plenty of ammunition for its attacks. Obedience to God requires love in every situation, love for God, for brothers and for the

9 D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Leicester and Grand Rapids: Inter-Varsity Press and Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), 485. Theological Study Conference 2017 8

David McKay: On Serving God in our Generation

world, and in seeking to serve God in our generation, when the degree of overt hostility seems to be increasing, it is imperative that we serve in love. The danger is that in reaction to the world’s opposition we become hard and needlessly confrontational, conveying an attitude of superiority that undermines the gospel’s message of divine grace to needy sinners. Often fear may be at the root of such unloving attitudes as we see Christian truth and values disregarded. In serving the Saviour who has overcome the world (John 16:33) we are in fact set free to love as we should.

(d) We are holy It is vital to understand our true situation: it is not simply that we are to become holy (we are) but that we are holy. Passages such as Romans 6:1ff indicate that those united to Christ in his death and resurrection have been delivered from the enslaving power of sin. Since believers “have died with Christ” (v8), as a result “you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (v11). This may be termed “definitive sanctification”. The dominating power of sin has been broken: “sin shall have no dominion over you” (Romans 6:14). As Michael Horton puts it, “All that is found in Christ is holy, because it is in Christ”.10

An understanding of definitive sanctification is immensely liberating for Christians, but this must be accompanied by an awareness of our need for progressive sanctification. “The believer is a new man, a new creation, but he is a new man not yet made perfect”11, writes John Murray. By faithful use of the God-given means of grace, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, Christians are to grow in holiness. To be more specific, we are to grow in likeness to Christ. Notice how Paul expresses his pastoral concern for the Galatians “for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19), a theme also expressed in 2 Corinthians 3:18 “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another”.

Sanctification of course involves separation from sin: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5) and faithful Christian witness requires the denunciation of sin. Our focus, however, ought to be on separation to God, on what we might term positive holiness. This is evident in Paul’s description of the Thessalonians’ experience: “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thessalonians 1:9- 10). The emphasis is on turning to God in order to serve him. Ungodly character must be put off, but it is to be replaced with the character of Christ as described, for example, in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23.

10 Michael Horton, The Christian Faith. A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 652. 11 John Murray, Principles of Conduct. Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1957), 219. Theological Study Conference 2017 9

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Christians are more often known for what they are against than for what they are for, and the perception of them in the world is generally that they are negative and unattractive. Without neglecting our necessary testimony against sin, as we serve God in our generation we need above all a well-rounded, warm, joyful holiness that faithfully presents our Saviour to a lost world. We need more of the “splendour of holiness” (Psalm 96:9) that demonstrates the transforming power of God’s grace. There should be a holy attractiveness in the church that is rooted in our relationship with the Lord. Bryan Chapell captures this well when he writes that “those who are truly in union with Christ increasingly have the desires of the Author of that union, since his heart beats within them”.12 It is when we lose sight of who we are in Christ that we are paralysed and unable to serve as we should.

(ii) A covenant community

One of the main weaknesses of Evangelicalism is its rampant individualism. A proper emphasis on the necessity of personal salvation can develop into the idea that Christian faith and discipleship are all about “Jesus and me”. The perspective of Scripture is fundamentally different; the people of God are always thought of in terms of a community, a community united in covenant with God and consequently united with one another.

(a) United with the Triune God This is the foundation of the church’s existence. It is helpfully summarised by John Murray:

The church is the assembly of the covenant people of God, the congregation of believers, the household of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the body of Christ. It consists of men and women called by God the Father into the fellowship of his Son, sanctified in Christ Jesus, regenerated by his Spirit, and united in the faith and confession of Christ Jesus as Lord and Saviour.13

The church is therefore divine in its origin, not the result of human planning or pragmatic development. Historically, Reformed Christians in particular have had a high view of the church, reflected in Calvin’s comment that for those to whom God is Father “the church may also be Mother”.14 Indeed the goal of Christ’s redemptive work is stated in these terms in Ephesians 5:27 – “that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she may be holy and without blemish”. The church is at the centre of God’s gracious work in the world.

12 Bryan Chapell, Holiness by Grace. Delighting in the Joy That Is Our Strength (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 50. 13 John Murray, “The Church: Its Identity, Functions and Resources” in Collected Writings of John Murray (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), I.237-8. 14 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1559 edition, translated by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), iv.i.1. Theological Study Conference 2017 10

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The church is thus united to God in the Covenant of Grace. Among the implications of this truth is the unity of the church of Jesus Christ. That unity is a fact, on the basis of union with the Saviour in his death and resurrection, but it is also to be expressed increasingly clearly in a visible way. The burden of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21 “that they may all be one” has in view a unity that the world can see and, as result, “believe that you have sent me”.

In serving God in our generation we are not to be careless about biblical unity among the Lord’s people. Disunity hinders gospel witness and gives the world grounds, however spurious, for disregarding our message. Whilst denominational unity may be beyond our reach, we need to take whatever opportunities there are for visible expressions of unity among the Lord’s people. It requires, too, great care in how we talk to and about one another. Social media have provided new avenues for abuse and expressions of disagreement in terms that dishonour Christ. They ought rather to be used to promote the unity of the body of Christ in love and service. The leaders of God’s people, in this area as in all others, have a particular duty to lead by example.

(b) United with one another As Paul reminds his readers in Ephesians 4:25 “we are members of one another” and that union is vividly portrayed in 1 Corinthians 12 in the metaphor of the body: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (v17). The New Testament never envisages Christian service and discipleship divorced from the church. As Michael Horton expresses it,

There is no distinction in the New Testament between being a disciple and belonging to the church – not just to the invisible church (i.e., of regenerate believers), but to the visible church.15

The church is not an appendage or optional extra for Christian service. It is the place where service begins. Kevin DeYoung sums it up pithily: “Churchless Christianity makes about as much sense as a Christless church, and has just as much biblical warrant”.16

Having said that, however, we recognise that some, perhaps a growing number, believe that as Christians they are members of Christ’s universal church but are under no obligation to belong to a local organised congregation. They may argue that any gathering of believers is “church”. Institutional expressions of church are ignored or ridiculed; living spiritually is pitted against dead structures. Whilst recognising that structures can inhibit the work of the church and that institutional expressions of Christianity have at times eclipsed Christ and the gospel, nevertheless this understanding of church is not biblical. The New Testament

15 Michael Horton, The Gospel Commission. Recovering God’s Strategy for Making Disciples (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011), 164. 16 Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, Why We Love the Church. In Praise of Institutions and Organised Religion (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009), 164. Theological Study Conference 2017 11

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describes a mission that had as its goal the establishment of local congregations under the oversight of duly appointed elders, assemblies of God’s people where the worship of God is conducted “decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40), where authoritative instruction is given, where baptism and the Lord’s Supper are administered, where discipline is exercised and where loving care to those within and outside the church is provided. As Herman Bavinck says,

To say that Christ has founded a church without any organization, government or power is a statement that arises from principles characteristic of philosophical mysticism but takes no account of the teaching of Scripture, nor of the realities of life… The truth is, he founded a community of believers, a church, and from the outset organized it in such a way that it can exist, propagate, expand, and fulfil its task on earth.17

In this ordered community God’s people are to serve the Lord. It is here that they engage face-to-face as they cultivate fellowship with one another. Made for community as image- bearers of God they model what community could and should look like. The explosive growth of social media in recent years demonstrates this hunger for community. The film “The Things That Connect Us” directed by Alejandro Innurito and made to publicise Facebook ends with the words, “The universe is vast and dark and makes us wonder if we are alone, so maybe the reason that we make all of these things is to remind us that we are not”. It would seem, however, that many efforts to connect people digitally have had the opposite effect. Brooks and Nicholas reflect this view when they state,

We have moved from conversation to connection, from talking to texting, from solitude to isolation, from interdependent to interconnected.18

Writers who seek to make discerning use of digital technology have nevertheless noted the decline in face-to-face engagement, especially on the part of young people, and Tim Challies comments, “Studies now show that many young people are actually losing their ability to relate to one another in an offline context”.19

Such observations indicate the need for great caution in evaluating the growth in recent years of “digital churches” or “virtual churches”, online communities that fulfil some of the functions of a biblical church and in some cases have virtual church buildings. In a recent article by Pam Smith, web pastor and priest in charge of i-church, an online community started by the Diocese of Oxford, an interesting case is made for the value of online ministries

17 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Volume 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, translated by John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 413. 18 Ed Brooks and Pete Nicholas, Virtually Human, 104. 19 Tim Challies, The Next Story, 77. Theological Study Conference 2017 12

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of various kinds.20 There is no doubt that online ministry opportunities are numerous and ought to be utilised as far as possible, and there are many examples of how this may be done constructively and in a God-honouring way. We would, however, agree wholeheartedly with Smith’s comment, “Online church is not a competitor to offline church, but an extension of it”.21 Any online activity must be subordinate to the face-to-face interaction of the people of God in biblical churches where the ministry of Word and Sacrament is provided by those called by God and duly set aside for office. This may be very mundane, and a long way from the enthusiasm of Douglas Estes who says of the virtual church, “It has the power to break down social barriers, unite believers from all over the world, and build the Kingdom of God with a widow’s mite of financing”,22 but it is the God-ordained pattern.

In biblical churches with biblical ministry the people of God are to put into operation the “one anothers” of Scripture that build strong and attractive communities that are ready to address the needs and opportunities of our generation.

2. What should we be doing?

In a sense, the matters we have been considering so far with regard to Christian identity tell us what we should be doing as we serve God in our generation. The church must be the church, being what God has called it to be – the community of his blood-bought people living under the ministry of Word and Sacrament, salt and light in the world. By God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit the church is to be a “city set on a hill” (Matthew 5:14). There is the risk, however, that this remains at the level of generalities: we need to identify some of the specifics of the church’s calling and the particular challenges that face us in each area.

Before engaging with these specifics, however, it seems to me that in answering the question “What should we be doing?” we should first answer, “repenting”. Christians are often portrayed as arrogant and self-righteous, imbued with a “holier than thou” spirit. Much of this is grossly unfair caricature, maliciously motivated, but not all of it. When we look honestly at ourselves and our churches we see many failures, both with regard to what we are and with regard to what we do. We need to let John’s words sink into our hearts and shape our fundamental attitudes: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). In those who proclaim a gospel of forgiveness for sin the world needs to see an awareness of sinfulness that required such a gospel as well as a personal appropriation of “the blood of Jesus his Son [that] cleanses us from all sin” (v7). The spiritual heirs of Martin Luther do well to recall the first of his Ninety-Five Theses:

20 Pam Smith, “Meaningful communities: The growth of virtual churches” in The Bible in Transmission, Bible Society, Spring 2016. 21 Pam Smith, “Meaningful communities: The growth of virtual churches”, 13. 22 Douglas Estes, SimChurch, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 18. Theological Study Conference 2017 13

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When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” [Matt 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.23

In putting this at the beginning of his theses Luther recognised its importance. The servant church must see its own failings and avail itself of God’s remedy daily as it serves its Lord and Saviour. With this in mind we may go on to identify a number of things that we should be doing.

(i) Preaching the Word

None of us should need to be reminded of Paul’s exhortation to Timothy: “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). We should not require any convincing that preaching the Word of God to saved and unsaved is an indispensable element of our calling. We do, however, need to understand the challenges posed by the culture in which we find ourselves.

Writing in 2001 Graham Johnston identified three dangers that need to be faced in “preaching in a postmodern climate”:

The first is preachers could lose confidence in God’s Word, or with only a Bible in hand, feel overwhelmed by postmodernity’s tidal-wave-like force. The second: Preachers might stoop to a type of reduced perspective that shrinks God and His truth to accommodate listeners. Third: preachers might adopt an essentially pragmatic approach.24

Whether we believe we are in a postmodern world or a post-postmodern one, and bearing in mind that some of our listeners will be unreconstructed premodernists, these words still seem accurate. In the space available I will focus on our need to have confidence in God’s Word and also confidence in preaching itself.

(a) Confidence in God’s Word Scripture has always come under attack, with its inspiration, trustworthiness and relevance being questioned and denied. We are familiar with these challenges and an essential task of theological education is to prepare ministers and Bible teachers to address them. In our generation, thoroughly shaped by digital technology, we need also to be ready to state our confidence in the stability of God’s Word.

23 Martin Luther, “Ninety-Five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences”, translated by C. M. Jacobs and revised by Harold J. Grimm in Luther’s Works. American Edition. Volume 31 Career of the Reformer I. (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1957), 25. 24 Graham Johnston, Preaching to a Postmodern World (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2001), 61. Theological Study Conference 2017 14

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Most of us have become accustomed to seeing people in our congregations following the reading and the sermon on an electronic device (while hoping that they are not actually surfing the Internet or reading their e-mails). What we may be slow to realise is that apps for Bible translations may update the text without the reader being aware of it. On a large scale this happened when some discovered their app had updated the 1984 NIV to the 2011 NIV, without notice. A theologian such as Stephen Holmes of St Andrews University views such possibilities in a positive light and comments, “A truly digital Bible can embrace every advance in textual scholarship the day it is made, or can review or update one book a month”. He draws out the implication of this:

A natively electronic text will be in a constant state of flux – as unstable as the copied texts that everyone in the Christian world worked with before the fifteenth century.25

Our response might be to insist that one definitive version of any translation be produced and placed beyond alteration, but this has proved to be very controversial in practice. In August and September 2016 Crossway stated that it was producing a text of the ESV that “will remain unchanged in all future editions” and within weeks had to acknowledge the place of ongoing textual scholarship. Disagreement over the choice of wording in a verse such as Genesis 3:16 indicates the complexity of the issues. The idea of a Permanent Text ESV perished.26

Preachers must be able and willing to address these questions and equip themselves to be able to say with confidence to their hearers that we do have the Word of God reliably transmitted to us, the Word in which we can have full confidence and which we as preachers seek to expound faithfully.

(b) Confidence in preaching Many have abandoned preaching as a viable means of communicating God’s truth in a digital, visual, postmodern culture, and all kinds of substitutes are being proposed. At the root of a significant proportion of objections is the issue of authority: preaching is an exercise of authority as it presents the authoritative Word of God and calls for an obedient response, and in doing so it is profoundly counter-cultural.

The sinful heart of man has always resisted authority. The heart of the first sin was a refusal to submit to God’s Word, entertaining the devil’s question, “Did God actually say…?” (Genesis 3:1). There is nothing new in challenging authority, but our contemporary culture offers a multitude of new possibilities for expressing that inclination. We live in the age of

25 Steve Holmes, “From scrolls to scrolling: How technology has shaped our Bible reading” in The Bible in Transmission, Bible Society, Spring 2016, 7. 26 For the Crossway statement withdrawing their original proposal see: https://www.crossway.org /blog/2016/09/crossway-statement-on-the-esv-bible-text/. Accessed on 10 November 2016. Theological Study Conference 2017 15

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Wikipedia where millions of articles on a vast variety of subjects can be created and edited by millions of registered users, many of whom have no particular qualifications relevant to the subject and who may indeed be pursuing a personal agenda. Whilst there is such a thing as the “tyranny of the experts”, online sources of information readily undermine healthy concepts of authority or destroy authority altogether. Tim Challies sums the situation up accurately:

New digital technologies function as a great leveler, reducing the authority of the expert and elevating the authority of the amateur. The lifelong theologian has no more authority than the young child; the teacher has no more authority than the pupil; the parent has no more authority than the child.27

Indeed, a preacher might well have a listener checking his exegesis against some online source even as he delivers his sermon.

Whilst such factors should stimulate preachers to do their “homework” as thoroughly as possible, making good use of whatever resources are available, we must not allow ourselves to be intimidated by these cultural forces. The Lord who has “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18) has sent us to preach and our textbook is “God-breathed” Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16). Preachers sent by God therefore have a God-given authority. Note how in Hebrews 13:7 the writer refers to “your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God”. The statement of the Second Helvetic Confession, penned by Heinrich Bullinger in 1566, captures this thought well:

Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is preached, and received by the faithful.28

This is sometimes stated as “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.”

We can therefore preach in an anti-authoritarian culture with humble boldness, knowing that God’s Word will accomplish God’s purpose (Isaiah 55:11) and all the glory will be his.

None of this exempts preachers from making their best efforts to understand the context in which they are called to minister. We of course cannot be experts in every field, nor do we need to be, but we do need to have a good grasp of the main trends of thought in our culture. We need to engage with the forces that are shaping the minds of those who may listen to our preaching and so need to have an awareness of the New Atheism (looking a little jaded and not so new these days), of the religious options available in today’s spiritual marketplace (no

27 Tim Challies, The Next Story, 172. 28 The Second Helvetic Confession, chapter 1, in The Creeds of Christendom, edited by Philip Schaff revised by David S Schaff, 1931 edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), III.832. Theological Study Conference 2017 16

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longer confined safely to the far side of the earth), of the main developments in science which impinge on Christian faith and of the trends in the digital technology and social media which play a large part in the lives of the young, and some of the not so young. We need to answer the questions people are asking and, if necessary, leading them to the questions they should be asking. We must also avoid simplistic assumptions that pigeon-hole people according to a single category – “the millennial”, “the postmodern” and so forth. In his study of preaching Zach Eswine comments,

Throughout this book we will remind ourselves that the components of a culture are rarely “either this or that”. Generations are complex. A post-everything world is saturated with multiple contexts and cultural assumptions.29

His subtitle states the challenge: “Crafting Biblical Sermons That Connect with Our Culture”.

To address the challenge we need, among other things, a biblical flexibility in our approach to our hearers. Whilst maintaining fidelity to the text, we are unwise to allow ourselves to be imprisoned in a three (probably alliterating) points structure – what if the text has two or four points? There is surely great scope for creativity in preaching that does not compromise our commitment to a high view of Scripture and of preaching itself. This is an area where we have much thinking to do, where great discernment is needed, but also where there are significant possibilities for improving our preaching ministries.

(ii) Spreading the gospel

A church cannot fail to be outward-looking if it takes seriously the Lord’s final command: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Without obedience to that command we are not truly serving God in our generation. The Great Commission is a mandate that demands much of Christ’s church. As Michael Horton notes,

First, this Commission is deep in its intensiveness. The eleven disciples of the Lord are called to make disciples, not just converts. Secondly, this Commission is wide in its extensiveness. Not only are the nations streaming to Zion; Zion itself is a mobile, spirit-powered chariot winding its course throughout the earth.30

In considering what this mandate means for the church we need to recognise that there are conflicting understandings of it even among those committed to a high view of biblical authority. In recent discussions two main approaches may be identified: some focus on proclaiming the gospel with a view to sinners repenting and receiving forgiveness and justification before God, whilst others proclaim the gospel with a view to God’s people

29 Zack Eswine, Preaching to a Post-Everything World (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 11-12. 30 Michael Horton, The Gospel Commission, 91. Theological Study Conference 2017 17

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bringing all of life into submission to Christ and so transforming society. There has been considerable conflict in evangelical circles as a result of these differences, with charges of “reductionism” and “diluting the gospel” common.

A possible means of resolving these tensions is suggested by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert in What is the Mission of the Church? Their view is that both approaches are justified since the New Testament uses the word “gospel” in two senses:

Sometimes it looks at the good news of Christianity with a wide-angle lens, calling “gospel” all the great blessings that God intends to shower on his people, starting with forgiveness but cascading from there all the way to a renewed and remade creation in which they will spend eternity. Other times, though, the New Testament looks at the good news with a very narrow focus – with a zoom lens, if you will – and is quite happy to call “gospel” the singular blessing of forgiveness of sins and restored relationship with God through the sacrificial death of Jesus.31

The first step in making disciples is the presentation of God’s call to sinners to repent and receive the forgiveness that Christ offers and so in this section we will concentrate on the zoom-lens view of the gospel.

What needs to be emphasised in the contemporary context is that evangelism, mission, spreading the gospel, is fundamentally God’s work. The focus must be on a sovereign, gracious God. The gospel is “good news” not because it tells sinners what to do in order to be saved: it is good news because it tells of what God has done in Christ to save sinners. Only in light of that fact is the call for a response meaningful. Not only that, but the command to make disciples is issued by the risen Christ who says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). The power for disciple-making comes from the Holy Spirit poured out by the ascended Lord at Pentecost, so that the apostles and their spiritual descendants “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:8) bear witness to the world. When there is a saving response to the message it is because God has opened the heart, as in the case of Lydia (Acts 16:14), and granted repentance that leads to life (Acts 11:18) and opened a door of faith (Acts 14:27).

This God-centred perspective must inform every aspect of the church’s evangelistic endeavours. Not only must the content of the message honour God; the means by which it is spread must also honour him. Nothing must be allowed to obscure or even eclipse the good news of the gospel, and any activity which has this effect must be rejected. There must also be the practical recognition that the God-ordained agency for the spread of the gospel is the church and that the goal is the planting of biblically-organised churches. This reflects the

31 Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What is the Mission of the Church? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 94. Theological Study Conference 2017 18

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practice of the apostles, sent out by the church (e.g. Acts 13:1-3) and leaving behind them congregations under the oversight of elders (e.g. Acts 14:23). Whilst there may be a role for the parachurch ministries in specialist areas of outreach, the duly constituted authority structures of the church must not be set aside. As R. B. Kuiper put it, “The organised church must insist on its being the God-appointed agency for evangelism.”32

Crucial to biblical evangelism is the church’s “being church”, being what God designed it to be. As the people of God seek to fulfil the two great commandments – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39) – they do so in communities that testify to the transforming power of the gospel they proclaim. As the Word is faithfully preached, as worship is offered according to the biblical pattern, with the observance of the sacraments and the practice of discipline, and as practical love is shown “to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10), the church is “the light of the world” and functions as a “city set on a hill” (Matthew 5:14). It exercises a holy attractiveness to those who are being drawn by the Spirit of God. The failure of the church to be what God has ordained it to be cannot be compensated for by any amount of evangelistic activity.

The church, however, does not fulfil its evangelistic calling simply by putting up a “Lost sheep welcome” sign and waiting for some to drop in. The Good Shepherd goes out looking for the lost sheep: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). There must be a going out to seek the lost so that they might become disciples. A biblical church will be outward-looking and outward-going.

In this going out we must maintain confidence in the proclamation of the gospel message in a day when many question the viability of such an approach in a postmodern pluralist culture. The gospel remains “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). Nothing has replaced it. How we gain a hearing for that word of life, however, offers endless possibilities and requires godly creativity. At the simplest level, few now come to church unless brought (or at least invited) by Christians who have built genuine friendships with them. Involvement in all kinds of activities in the community can offer gospel opportunities, whilst direct presentation of gospel truth may be done in many settings, such as cafés and bookshops.33 For those willing to cross the threshold of a church, evangelistic Bible studies are a fruitful possibility. Whilst activities such as English classes are not to be confused with evangelism, they can play an essential role in gaining a hearing for the gospel.

32 R. B. Kuiper, The Glorious Body of Christ (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1967), 237. The whole of chapter 7 “Ecclesiastical Evangelism” is helpful. 33 An interesting example is provided by David Robertson in Quench. Café Culture Evangelism (Dundee: Solas, 2013). Theological Study Conference 2017 19

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As the church seeks to spread the gospel, all the worldviews hostile to biblical truth that are shaping the minds of our generation must be engaged. Chief among them is the pluralistic outlook that is increasingly dominating our culture. Whilst “pluralism” precisely defined embraces several perspectives – empirical pluralism, cherished pluralism and philosophical /hermeneutical pluralism, according to Don Carson34 – in simple terms it indicates the outlook of many in our culture which holds that the diversity of worldviews that we encounter are all valid for those who hold them and that none is uniquely or absolutely true. This is often combined with a postmodern philosophy that denies the very possibility of providing a single understanding of all of reality – a worldview that rejects the possibility of worldviews.

Such a pluralist perspective must be met by vigorous apologetic arguments, such as those formulated by Carson and others, which expose the internal contradictions of the case which its proponents offer, and it must also be met by a courageous proclamation of the gospel which has at its heart a unique Saviour and a unique salvation. Christ is the only one who can truly say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). As Carson puts it in one of the sections of chapter 12 of The Gagging of God (“On Heralding the Gospel in a Pluralistic Culture”): “We Must Herald, Again and Again, the Rudiments of the Historic Gospel”.35 Like the Apostle Paul we must be able to say, by God’s grace, “I am not ashamed of the gospel” (Romans 1:16) however out of step with our pluralistic culture the message and the method may be.

In seeking to “make disciples of all nations” we have a mandate to spread the gospel anywhere and everywhere on the face of the earth. As we do this in our generation we cannot avoid the challenge of our cities. That is not in any way to reduce the importance of mission in rural and small-town contexts, but it is to recognise the great spiritual needs of urban populations and also to acknowledge the apostolic pattern, recounted in Acts, of seeking to plant churches in cities, centres of witness from which the gospel could radiate out into the surrounding areas, including the countryside. Although much thought and writing on urban mission has been done in the United States, it does not always translate well into a British (or European) context. Significant work has, however, been done on this side of the Atlantic, dating back for example to Urban Harvest by Roy Joslin (1982),36 and a renewed focus on the needs of cities is evident in the work of, among others, Mez McConnell37 and Tim Chester.38 Whether or not we agree with all of the specific approaches formulated by these writers, the urban challenge to a missionary church is set to increase in coming years.

34 D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God. Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Leicester: Apollos, 1996), cpt 1. 35 D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God, 505. 36 Roy Joslin, Urban Harvest (Welwyn: Evangelical Press, 1982). 37 Mez McConnell and Mike McKinley, Church in Hard Places (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016). 38 Tim Chester, Unreached. Growing Churches in Working-Class and Deprived Areas (Nottingham: IVP, 2012). Theological Study Conference 2017 20

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(iii) Engaging with society

Christ’s mandate to his church is “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:18). It is not fulfilled by seeing men and women come to saving faith: converts must grow in discipleship. It is indeed such growth that provides the evidence of true conversion. To formulate a biblical perspective on this task we need to take a “wide-angle lens”39 view of the Saviour’s gospel proclamation.40

Jesus began his public ministry with the proclamation, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Jesus proclaimed the arrival in his person and work of the “kingdom of God” (hē basileia tou theou). As many New Testament scholars, such as Herman Ridderbos,41 have pointed out, the term basileia is most often used in the NT in a dynamic sense to describe the “reign” of God, the putting forth of his royal power. The spatial meaning of “realm” is certainly present, but it is secondary. The NT focus, however, is on the coming of the King with power to redeem and judge. Thus a text such as Mark 9:1 can speak of the kingdom coming with power. The Gospels make it clear that Christ is the Messianic King and as a consequence of his death and resurrection he can say, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). In Jesus the powers of the age to come have broken into the present age: already the Kingdom has come but not yet in its final glory.

If basileia is taken in this sense, it is clear that Christ’s kingdom is universal and embraces all things. Not all human beings, however, submit willingly to the reign and authority of King Jesus. It is only those who are changed by grace and who are brought to experience the redemption accomplished by Christ who willingly give allegiance to the King. In Richard Gaffin’s words, “The church and only the church is made up of the citizens of the kingdom, those who by repentance and faith submit to the redemptive lordship of Christ”.42 The citizens of the Kingdom are identical with the members of the church. Those outside Christ are rebels against their rightful Sovereign yet cannot escape his absolute authority, as Psalm 2 vividly asserts.

Disciples are therefore citizens living by grace in the Kingdom of King Jesus which is universal in extent. This unified view of the reign of Christ reflects more accurately the NT

39 Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What is the Mission of the Church?, 95-100. The use of this terminology does not imply that DeYoung and Gilbert would necessarily agree with the view worked out in this section. 40 In this section I draw at various points on my paper presented at the 2005 Affinity Theological Conference entitled “The Crown Rights of King Jesus Today”, published in Tales of Two Cities. Christianity and Politics, edited by Stephen Clark (Leicester: Intervarsity Press, 2005). 41 Herman Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, translated by H. de Jongste (Nutley: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co, 1962) Part II. 42 R. B. Gaffin, article “Kingdom of God” in New Dictionary of Theology, edited by S B Ferguson and D F Wright (Leicester/Downers Grove: Inter Varsity Press, 1988), p369. Theological Study Conference 2017 21

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material than more traditional Reformed views which think in terms of “Two Kingdoms”.43 Disciples willingly submit to the Lordship of Christ in every area of life, following the injunction of John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. That obedience must be worked out in every area of life since Christ is King of every area of life. Abraham Kuyper summed this up well:

Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “mine!”44

Disciples serve God by seeking to bring all aspects of life into conformity with the pattern given by King Jesus. Despite the language used by some proponents of this approach, this activity cannot be described as “bringing in the Kingdom” or “building the Kingdom”. God alone brings in his Kingdom, but his people are to seek the King’s glory in all of life and through them he advances the cause of his Kingdom, especially as his saving grace brings sinners willingly under his reign.

The citizens of Christ’s Kingdom therefore go into every part of society, according to God’s calling, to seek the glory of their King. They are to act as the salt and light spoken of in Matthew 5:13-16. No area of life is “secular” and outside the scope of disciples. Despite the pressures from various directions that are being brought to bear on Christians in our nation today, faith must not be privatised, and discipleship cannot be confined within the walls of our church buildings. It is perhaps not surprising to find hostility to Christianity in areas such as the media when Christian presence has often been withdrawn from them. Christian involvement in the media, the arts and the academy is urgently needed.

Some argue that the “cultural mandate” given to Adam in Eden – “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28) – is no longer in force because of the Fall but has now been fulfilled in Christ. As DeYoung and Gilbert put it, “we are not little Adams striving to accomplish Adam’s original work”.45 Whilst we must acknowledge the effects of the Fall on all human activity, those who belong to Christ are united with him in his death and resurrection and begin to reign with him as “seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). As we are able, therefore, we can continue to exercise godly dominion. That is not to embrace a naïve triumphalism regarding the possible effects of such efforts, but

43 A recent defence of the “Two Kingdoms” perspective is by David VanDrunen, Living in God’s Two Kingdoms. 44 Stated by Kuyper in his Inaugural Address at the Free University of Amsterdam. See Abraham Kuyper. A Centennial Reader, edited by James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids and Carlisle: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company and The Paternoster Press, 1998), 488. 45 Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, What is the Mission of the Church?, p213. Theological Study Conference 2017 22

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equally well we do not need to embrace the “strategic retreat” advocated by proponents of the “Benedict Option” such as Rod Dreher who maintains, “We are fighting a losing game”.46

We do not know what effects our labours will have and results are not our responsibility. The church is to maintain a testimony to God’s truth for all of life, including bearing witness to those in authority, and individual disciples are to pursue righteousness in all of life. It may be that the witness will be ignored and that our labours produce few visible results, but our call is to be faithful (1 Corinthians 4:2) and the King will be glorified. Jeremiah was warned in advance that his witness would be rejected, yet he fulfilled his calling and the Lord’s work was done. Disciples serving God in their generations must do likewise.

(iv) Enduring persecution

Biblical realism and a sober assessment of our circumstances suggest that Christ’s church in our society will face hard days. That should not surprise us. The normal situation of the church, taking the long view historically, is one of hardship and opposition. Jesus warned his disciples in the Upper Room, “In the world you will have tribulation”, whilst also sounding the note of victory, “But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The latter statement did not cancel the former.

Violent persecution of Christians is on the increase in many parts of the world: as yet that is not our situation. For us persecution comes in many lesser ways within families, in the workplace and in countless other settings. Often it is what Don Carson calls “sneering condescension”47 as our Christian views become more and more out of step with the prevailing culture. Some Christians are being called to pay a high price for faithfulness, socially, economically and in other ways. On occasion the law has been called upon to silence Christian testimony and to support the current understandings of “equality”.

Don Carson has highlighted perceptively the reality of a professed commitment to “tolerance”, perhaps the virtue most highly regarded in our culture. It often and easily becomes intolerance of views that do not conform to cultural “orthodoxy”. Carson suggests that if opposition to Christianity increases in Western countries, it will not come in a sudden outburst of overt hostility: “It is far more likely to come incrementally and in the name of preserving tolerance”.48 Contemporary examples are not difficult to find.

46 See “Rod Dreher explains the ‘Benedict Option’” at http://world.wng.org/2015/06/rod_dreher _explains_the_benedict_option (accessed 25 July 2016). Some of the diversity of this movement is described in “Benedict Option” posted at http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/benedict-option (accessed 25 July 2016). 47 D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Nottingham: Inter Varsity Press, 2012), 175. 48 D .A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance, p175. Theological Study Conference 2017 23

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Serving God in our generation thus requires that we endure with God-given patience the level of persecution we presently face and that we prepare ourselves and our people, especially the young, to endure greater hardship if that should be the Lord’s will.

3. People of hope

There is much in our contemporary situation that could tempt us to adopt a gloomy outlook. Things are difficult for Christian witness and in some respects there may be worse to come. On a bad day we may despair of the cause of the gospel. We should not. As the people of God we are consequently people of hope. We are, in fact, the only people in our society who have a solid basis for hope.

The part of John 16:33 that we most readily recall is “In the world you will have tribulation”. The disciples to whom those words were first spoken would know only too well what tribulation meant, and their first experience of it lay a matter of hours ahead of them. The Lord, however, did not leave them with a word of warning but with an assurance of his victory: “But take heart; I have overcome the world”. This text provides for us a perspective of biblical realism that issues in hope. By his life, death and resurrection Christ has conquered the forces opposed to God and his purpose, and will carry that purpose through to its glorious conclusion at his return.

In order to serve God in our generation we need to cultivate a soundly biblical eschatology. We need always to keep in mind the “already” and the “not yet” of the coming of the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus. In his person and work the Kingdom of God had truly come. Thus he could say, for example, “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). The powers of the age to come have broken in to the present evil age, men and women are experiencing the saving grace of God and a mighty work of transformation is under way; disciples have been brought to experience the reign of God and are joyfully serving the King. And the best is still to come.

The Kingdom has “not yet” come in its final glory, but it will come. Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25). At the appointed time he will return in glory to judge the world and complete the salvation of his people with their bodily resurrection (Philippians 3:21) and the ushering in of “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). The supreme object of Christian hope is expressed by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, “so we will always be with the Lord”.

Christians equally committed to biblical authority have differed in their understanding of eschatology, so humility in large measure is required. Nevertheless, it does not seem that the premillennial scheme, much less the dispensational one, fits the NT description of the unfolding of the Kingdom and the unified picture of the return of Christ and the final Theological Study Conference 2017 24

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judgment. The postmillennial scheme offers an optimism about the future spread of Christianity that appears to be at odds with the NT portrayal of wheat and weeds growing together until the end. It seems that the amillennial scheme best reflects what the NT teaches about the spread of the gospel, the persistence of evil and the glorious consummation that will take place at the Lord’s return.

This perspective on the future enables disciples to serve God faithfully in every way he provides, knowing that the results are in his hands and that, whether we appear to meet with success or failure, he “works out all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). From the divine perspective failure is impossible. Beyond the present age there is then the certainty of glory, when faithful servants will be commended and rewarded (Matthew 25:33-40) and the creation will be renewed as a fitting home for the redeemed.

We are therefore people of hope: hope grounded in the finished work of a great Saviour. Far from weakening our commitment to serving God, this hope in truth provides a tremendous stimulus to godly living and service. We serve in the knowledge that “in the Lord [our] labour is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58) and that the Lord’s triumph is sure. Therefore “everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3), and in this spirit we serve God in our generation.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What do you consider to be the weakest areas in contemporary Christian living?

2. How has rapid growth in the use of social media affected Christians and the church, both positively and negatively?

3. Does our approach to preaching need to change in the light of current scepticism regarding its necessity and effectiveness?

4. As we seek to make disciples of all nations, how may we become “all things to all men” in our contemporary context?

5. If opposition to gospel truth and to Christian moral principles continues to grow, how should we be preparing our people to face the challenges that will bring?

6. In what ways ought our ultimate Christian hope to impact our present living and serving? !