HaShem

I remember vividly how the name of Jesus Christ made me feel when I wasn't a believer. It made me cringe. Not when it was used as casual cursing, you understand, but when someone who actually believed in Him used the name. Something inside me twitched. It's one of the reasons that the phrase 'cringe-free evangelism' makes me smile, because as a pre-evangelee, any mention of that name was embarrassing.

Now I am a believer, and I have two very different reactions to it. The first is excitement, joy, and a real inner calm. It makes me happy to hear believers use that name.

The other is apathy. If I'm not careful, I can be really glib with the name. Jesus justs slips by like 'Bob next door'. It's familiarity of course. Intimacy with Christ is a beautiful thing, but it's important not to get chummy. Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ is my friend, but He's also THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
If I focus too much on being a friend to God, I get lazy. Because, after all, He's my friend, he'll understand if I haven't called for a couple of days...
One of the ways I find helps me out of a rut like that is not to use the familiar term 'Jesus'. I call Him Lord Jesus Christ, or The Messiah, or Christ, or The Lord... It's not that there is anything wrong with calling Him 'Jesus', of course, and I don't think there's anything more spiritual about using titles. It's just a good reminder to me that as well as being my friend, He is God Almighty.
In fact, it makes it even more amazing that He is my friend.

Linguistic Absurdities #3

Seen on a pre-made pasty:

For best results, remove all packaging.

I suppose if you're not fussy you could chew away on the cellophane wrapper too...

Cliques for Jesus

Although no longer part of the popular Evanjellybean scene, I still keep tabs on it. Partly, I must confess, from that bizaare urge to at least peek at the car wreck as you drive by, but also because I genuinely think it's important to know how many of my friends are in danger of being led asray in now...

To this end, we sometimes surf the christian tv channels and read pop-christian publications. In doing so the other night, my husband happened upon a thought which struck me as salient.
One of the absolute obssessions of the Evanjellybeans is 'the next generation'. They usually employ terrifying stats to show that the church will be dead in 13 years time, and frantic phrases telling us 'if we don't connect with the next generation, it's all over!!'
Don't get me wrong here, I am as eager advocate for a covenantal, multigenerational vision as the next mother, so I'm not bashing the heart that wants to see children saved.
I will admit, however, that I don't think it's any more vital to the church that my friends teen children be saved than it is that my near-pensioner father be saved.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the salvation of the young is far more instrumental in the kingdom than the salvation of the old if you went into most evanjellybean churches or conference events. Wouldn't it be going against the grain if you had entire legions of people dedicated to visiting all the homes of the elderly in the area, perhaps handing out handknitted cardigans with 'Grannies for Jesus!' in red on the back? On second thoughts, maybe I should be relieved that this isn't occuring..
Grannies aren't hip enough for this kind of focused attention, and after all, they're not 'The Future of the Churchtm'

Another cute little bit of 'relevance' is something known as 'Niche Church'. This is one of those cell-church-models that is quite popular at the moment, but with a quirky twist. It appears that what you do is get groups of people who are exactly the same and stick them in a small group together. So you have DINKYs together, you have teenagers together, you have the old people together. I read this and at first I thought it was a joke. I can't really think of anything less scriptural than separating people off into cliques.
Can you imagine Peter, on Pentecost? 'OK, can some of you younger disciples go over there and do some skateboard ministry with those teens by the fountain - they are the future of the church you know. Without them well, we'll be finished in around 15 years... and we need someone for the 25-35 range, no kids..great... Mary M, could you go and organize those ex-demonized people... right then..everybody got their branded t-shirts? We have ourselves a CHURCH!'

Um, sorry about that...

The problem with the emergent church ... is that they tend to identify humility with uncertainty and dogmatism with pride. Consequently, they embrace story, not because it is the best vehicle for restoring robust certainty to the Church, but rather as a means of getting Christians to knock it off with that off-putting certainty business.
Blog and Mablog

Oh how I wish I had Douglas Wilsons flair for spearing right into the heart of an issue. In the above quote, he points out exactly what makes me growl at the computer screen and throw books across the room. I do wonder if the emergent church is almost perfectly suited to the English temperament in many ways - we have this 'constant apologizing for ourselves' thing going on. And goodness me, we gave the world Anglicanism, and you can't get much more uncertain than the dear old C of E.

Still, I remain hopeful. After all, Spurgeon wasn't exactly a wibbly reed. Who is the Spurgeon of our generation? Any suggestions?

Give them a cuppa and a piece of cake instead...

Recently, the judges in Strasbourg were keen to try out a few new hobby-horses. European law being unbearably tedious, they feel they must occasionally come up with something to break up the day. And so, they are seriously considering the question of whether or not prisoners should be able to vote.
Now, I imagine this is a question of some import in countries where political prisoners are the norm, and there is a complete lack of due process before people are imprisoned. However, despite the Home Secretary's recent enthusiasm for detention without trial, in this country, you're put in prison because you are a criminal.
If you're a criminal, you've broken the law. Most people have a right to go about their business free from the fear of crime - you have commited a crime that curtailed that right, therefore, I couldn't give a monkeys what you think your rights are. Voting is a privelege, not a right.
Now, this got me thinking about prison.
What is prison for? Most modern thinkers assert that prison should be about rehabilitation - the punishment part is simply that prisoners are locked up, unable to go out freely. The best way to deal with offenders is to have them out doing community work, prisons should be reserved for the most dangerous, and mostly for the purpose of keeping them away from hurting people..

I have a number of problems with this. Firstly, I'm all for people doing community-work. I am deeply saddened that community-work should be seen as a punishment. What message do we give, when we tell people to care for their communities, and then show them criminals are the ones doing it?
Now of course, the standard answer to this is that we aren't actually punishing the offender, we're rehabilitating them. So people should see the young tracksuit-wearing boy cleaning graffiti off the underpass tiles as engaging in an activity that makes him a well-rounded citizen.
Which is nonsense of course - cleaning graffiti is a punishment for those who are paid to do it, never mind those who are made to do it. But more - everyone knows this is a punishment - and the reason we know is because it's supposed to be.
Whatever do-gooders might fantasize about, the man on the street instinctively knows that crime deserves punishment.
So what is prison itself all about then? Is it merely a secure place to sleep, or maybe at it's strongest expression, a wall between homicidal nutters and society? I fail to see how simply 'not being able to get out of the house' is an adequate punishment for most of the crimes that merit prison in this land. If that's the case, then we truly are punishing the vulnerable elderly in our communities in a comparable manner. Only many of the shut-in elderly are unable to leave the house due to the breakdown of society hastened by those who refuse to make going to prison a bad experience.
If some wicked person kills my granny and makes off with her pension, that person deserves to be punished. Punishment is not a few years without having to worry about meals and heating bills, a black market drug supply and time off for good behaviour. An offender is not being punished for his own good primarily, an offender is not even being punished to protect others primarily - though that is the vital effect in a law-abiding society. A criminal is punished because he has broken the law. It's a very simple concept that has been distorted as we've focused on the psychology of the poor ickle villain. It's quite abstract, and it doesn't need to be bolstered with other reasons. You transgress a law, you pay the penalty - just because. If you speed and receive a speeding fine, you don't get to ask for that fine to be spent on a little bell that lets you know when you might be driving too fast next time.. That's not the point of the fine. It's a punishment, and it's purpose is simply to punish you, and perhaps act as a deterent to you commiting the same crime again. It's not supposed to help you, or be a positive, pleasant experience.

But I notice something else. As this modern distaste for punishment has taken hold in society, something similar has happened in the church. Someone commits a crime, we should forgive them, help them recover, set them on a better path. This is very often presented as the gospel by wimpy 12-step Evanjellybean churches.
But it's not the gospel at all. One of the key concepts of the gospel is justice. Grace makes no sense at all, and is certainly not amazing, without the concept of justice. If sin is something that is 'a mistake', a 'bad choice', or 'not God's best', then it would appear that we could 'heal' it, we could use therapy to sort sinners out. Grace becomes the counsellor helping you to make better choices.
But sin is an offense against a holy God. It arises out of a heart inclined to wickedness. God is under no obligation to help rehabilitate us. In fact, as a perfectly holy and good God, He's under obligation to punish wickedness absolutely. And the point of the gospel is that He does punish sin, because He must. Grace comes sweeping in at this point when we see that He took that just punishment upon Himself, so that we could be forgiven.
But of course, in a society and a church that believes that punishment is just mean, and we should be meeting needs rather than holding to standards, this simple truth is often over looked. And yet again, this means that one of the very things that makes the gospel 'good news' is buried.

It ain't over 'til...

He says it's over..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4361414.stm

Although this country has been hostage to the secular, pro-death agenda for a good while now, I was in tears this morning, rejoicing that we're not quite as bad yet as we could be. Thank God for His restraining hand.

The More, The merrier...

Are you stopping now?

I mean, I'm actually a relative stranger, but I really feel it's quite appropriate to find out about your use of contraception, or perhaps how you or your husband intend to undergo surgery to end your prodigous fertility.

Your children are quite well behaved, neatly turned out, polite and caring towards each other. You are just really lucky, aren't you? Did you always want a large family? Were you a lonely child? Does your husband have some deep-seated problems?...

Yep, each of these well-worded and thoughtful questions have been posed to me at various times and by various people (the Health Visitor thought she had a bonafide abused mouse-wife on her hands)
For a starting point - Why would you have the bare-faced cheek to ask me about my sexual life? That is just plain rude. I mean, picture the scene, I walk up to you in the bus queue, and you have no children. I harbour a look of concern and say 'Oh, no kids, huh? You use a condom or are you just infertile?'

Secondly, my children are usually well-behaved, kind and polite because they have been trained that way. They weren't born asking the midwive if she'd like a cuppa. Actually, I'm quite happy to have a large family - if I ever get there. In a children-as-pets world, I understand the strangeness of having more than one little baby, trussed up in BabyGap, but trust me, 3 is not a lot. I have friends with 6, 7, 10, 12 and 17.
And my husband is a perfectly well-balanced, kind and generous man who supported me through every mintue of my difficult pregnancies and hard births.

The reason behind all this is that we just take the bible at face value (we're so unsophisticated) when it says children are blessings from God. I also take the bible at face value about grey hair, but that's another post...

Recently, the Duggars in America have had another little girl, bringing their Godly tribe to 16. The response on the blogosphere and in many other places has been reprehensible. Mistresninos has a marvellous point by point for those who feel the temptation to talk nonsense about large families. Do take the time: Christians and birth control

Bookshop Vigilantism

A few years ago now, my local Christian bookshop went off the rails big style. When I had first been investigating faith, this shop carried gospel leaflets aimed at Roman Catholics, now it offers a number of different coloured rosary beads.
At the beginning, it was fairly innocuous things, of course, and mostly the problems stem from having a shop full of pap, rather than substance.
One book, though, pushed buttons and created a stir, and rightly so. It was refreshing to see that after a diet of purpose-drivel, people still had enough discernment to know that a book on the Tarot was waaay out of line. Now, of course, Christian bookshops have always generally carried books warning about the dangers inherent in occultism in all its forms.

Only recently have they decided to embrace the Tarot as a spiritual tool. When this book appeared on the shelves, some busybody types took it upon themselves to complain to the proprietor about his stocking it. No action was taken.

There it sat, right underneath all the Spurgeon paperbacks. Maybe it was reverse psychology - trying to get people to read Spurgeon by putting him by the trendy cutting edge ideas...
I couldn't countenance it. The very presence of the book on the shelves was encouraging people to start discussing whether or not Tarot cards could be used to draw people into a gospel message etc. I mean, why not? Have your pastor start a Harry Potter reading club with the local youth clubs. Introduce seances at the evening service - as long as the ouija board spells out the name of Jesus it's ok, right?
If, when I had first been searching for meaning, I'd have walked in and seen that book, I'd have probably just carried on with what I was already doing, dabbling in the occult, as is the way of mainstream teens these days.

But what could be done? Boycotts? Publicity? It was beyond me at the time, and besides a bit of handwringing, nobody really had much ire about it. So, one day, I did it.
I couldn't buy the copy to burn it - I didn't want to give them money, and they'd just get another one. I obviously couldn't steal it.
So I picked it up, and carefully posted it in the gap behind the bookcase. It's still there now. I check it on the rare occasions I find myself there, and it sits, gathering dust, undisturbed.
Of course, it was rather like throwing pebbles out of the way before the avalanche comes down. Now you walk in the store and are surrounded by Roman Catholic fripperies, Creflo Dollar booklets and reams of purpose-drivel. But it was my little contribution. They've never got that book back again, because, as far as they know, it's still in their inventory. *chuckles*

In the midst of it all..

There are days, as a believer, when you can feel really beaten back by the world. You pick up a newspaper, you turn on the news, you are unfortunate enough to catch daytime telly, and you wonder if you are the only person in the world who sees things the right way up.

All the more precious, then, when you come across something in the secular world that reminds you of the Lord's sovereign, gracious and, indeed, kind hand in everything.

Charlotte Wyatt, sentenced to death by people who get paid to care for the vulnerable, confounds them all. However many judges rule that she is not worth keeping alive, and that death is in her 'best interests', God is the one who has numbered her days. Her parents are Christians, by all accounts, and one hopes that this fact is a profound comfort to them.

How wonderful, too, that they have had the joy of her smiles.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4333354.stm

Linguistic absurdities #2

Found in a costume reference work:

Black and white fashion plates were used from their inception right up to their demise.

That's cleared that up then..

Charismatic Foibles #2

Charismatics are, generally speaking, defined by what they practice. I know of charismatics who hold to the doctrines of Grace as firmly as RC Sproul. And while much of distinctive charismatic belief is at least sellotaped to a scripture verse, their practice is why they have the term 'Charismatic'.
It's a little unfortunate, of course, because I've had conversations with Christian people where I've explained that I am not Charismatic, and they have assumed I don't believe that the Holy Spirit works among His people today. Which is of course, nonsense. But it's also a good illustration of how very mainstream charismatic thinking has become. I know of few simple Christians who would denounce tongues, for example, even if they themselves did not do it, for the simple reason that teachings that do so are strangely hard to get hold of in your average Christian bookstore. It just hasn't ever crossed most peoples mind that Tongues aren't just optional, they're non-existent, because the cessationist position is presented as the belief that God is no longer supernatural, and who can defend that?
Now, I firmly believe that God speaks today every bit as loudly as He ever did. He speaks by His Holy Spirit through scripture. The snag is that you actually have to read it to hear Him clearly.

In the first of these posts, I mentioned a phenomenon that occurs in straightfoward charismatic 'prophecy', but now I want to document something that could really only happen in an arena that has completely rejected or never understood the suffiency of scripture. I'm calling it the prophecy prefix.
The prophecy prefix is where the word 'prophetic' is appended to practically anything. I've mentioned prophetic dance on this blog before, but you also have prophetic song, prophetic poetry, even prophetic wrapping children in flags.
If that sounds ridiculous, then be relieved, you're not quite as silly yet as you could be in these circles.
At this point I should mention that I'm not referring to the use of the word 'prophetic' in regards to a human author saying something that is well before it's time, that subsequently turns out to be spot on and applicable many years later. JC Ryle, in this sense, was extremely prophetic, as was Spurgeon. Of course, actually this only means they dealt with the same nonsense in their lifetimes as we deal with today.

No, I'm specifically looking at doing something slightly outlandish, as is the nature of modern prophecy, and calling it prophetic.
I used to dance, during the singing part of the worship service, and in women's prayer meetings. You can do it in a very floaty way, or you can be quite vociferous, and even use props (Flags or sticks). There's a whole ministry surrounding it, and if you're really good, and nobody points out the emperors got no clothes on (which, of course, nobody would) you can get quite a lot of mileage out of the whole enterprise. It dovetails quite neatly into 'spiritual warfare'. I'm convinced now that Satan is bound, and was defeated at the cross, but even if he wasn't, I've become baffled as to what I thought his reaction might be to me shaking my thang. Sadly, such ridiculous excesses are not confined to yours truly.
I vividly remember being at a great big evanjellybean event, at which an arch-evanjellybean 'prophet' wrapped 4 children up in the national flags of the UK as a 'prophetic' act.

Now, I fully understand that Old Testament prophets did some pretty out-there things. Ezekiel may well have suffered from some mean bedsores after lying on his side for all those days. But he was genuinely a prophet of the Lord. And if he had been a false prophet, he'd have been stoned to death.
This particular evanjellybean prophet may have been keen on manufacturing a wacky event to make a point, but I'm fairly sure he's not so excited about being stoned to death for making demonstrably false prophecies, which he's also done.

The really interesting thing is that this man has also publically said he doesn't believe the scriptures to be inerrant. That being the case, I can understand why there would arise a need, and in some cases a craving for these 'prophetic ministries' and acts.

God speaks so clearly when you crack open the bible and read even the bits that aren't highlighted in fluorescent yellow. Trouble is, you might hear some things that don't shelve neatly into your cupboard of existence. But if you don't trust scripture.. if you don't believe it can speak to every single situation in your life, then of course you're going to respond to the bells and whistles of the cutting edge 'prophetic' gubbins.

I observe it now and hear a cry from the heart of the people involved - 'Speak to us Lord! We want to hear you!'

The sad thing is, I hear God saying 'I've been speaking all the time, you're just not really listening'

Of course, I didn't really hear Him, you know.

Good Grief #2

One of the things I've noticed about grieving, is that you hold on to certain things as 'connections' to the person you have lost. My invisible strings to my mother were varied and random. Among other things, a terracotta lasagne dish, a porcelain pig, and a woman named Mo.
Mo was a cantakerous southerner in the midlands. She was fiercely private, extremely funny and well read, and troubled with ill health and a love for eccentric cats. She and my mother were very great friends, and lived about 4 doors away from each other. They would visit the cinema together to feed a shared passion for Kevin Costner, my mum would cook extra meals for Mo, and they generally kept an eye out for each other.
In many ways, it was a strange replacement for marriage for both of these divorced, lonely women.
Mo and I got on very well. She would always ask the tough questions of me, about anything - she never let me get away with anything. When I was giving my mother hell by systematically sinning my heart out, Mo never let me feel comfortable with it. She was my conscience when I had managed to dull the one inside me.
But Mo, like my mother, was no Christian.

After my mother died, Mo retreated into privacy. She moved house, and didn't contact anyone for a few years. Then, out of the blue, I got a phonecall. I was asked to visit her in hospital. She'd been suffering from stomach cancer for sometime. She had Crohns disease - a bowel disorder - for many years, and so hadn't noticed any of the symptoms. Now it was too late for anything. She had weeks to live.

I was terrified visiting her. I'd seen my mother die of cancer, and it was a terrible thing. I didn't know if I would be strong enough to be of any use. But I know better now, of course. It's just those moments when we are of most use to the Master.
Mo wanted to know. She clung to my arm, and desperately asked 'How do I face Him? How do I face this Holy God you talk of? How can He accept me?'

In her plea, I saw the redemption of my conscience. Here was a clear-cut, cast-iron opportunity to share the gospel, one that I hadn't engineered, and that didn't need fanfare. Even with the dissolute life I had lived, Mo knew that I had knowledge that could help her. Someone Irresistable was drawing her.
And so I did. I falteringly shared Grace - thankful that I had been given the vocabulary in my recent discovery of Calvinism. I didn't cossett her with assurances that it didn't really matter and that God loved her unconditionally, as I may have done in my Evanjellybean days.
In His mercy, I could share with her that her sense of her own guilt before Him was a gift from Him, and that the trust which she placed in Jesus Christ would also find it's source in Him. Before I left that day, I promised to bring her a bible. I've never been in a room before or since, that had one fearful atmosphere one minute, and a completely peaceful, tranquil presence the next.
The next day, I brought her the first bible I had ever owned, with bookmarks in the story of the prodigal son and the lost sheep, and coin. She dived into it straight away as I was leaving the room. That was the last time I ever saw her.
I still cry with joy, even as I'm writing now, to know that she is truly more alive than I am right now. Death came a few days later, in a hospice. She died outside, with my bible in her hands.

I am no longer wracked with guilt and condemnation over my mothers fate. I cannot change it, I did not choose it for her and I have learned my lesson - I will not be reticent with the gospel again. Already my father hears much from me about a Holy God and Grace.
I don't understand His ways, I don't know His reasons, and this year, for the first time, I know I don't need to.
Who do you need to be bold with today?

Good Grief #1

Death is rarely a good thing. Those times that it is are usually dependent on perspective.

In the last 5 years I have been to three funerals, and each one was very different. The first, some five and a half years ago, was my mothers. I was in my early twenties and it was the first funeral I had been to as an adult. Being a fully paid up Evanjellybean at the time, the funeral followed the trend for 'celebrations' rather than times of mourning. Everyone was encouraged to wear bright colours (I wore a rainbow hat) and bright modern CCM was played. Looking back, it was a very odd affair, and I think I was still too much in shock to be engaged with it in a meaningful way.
Much was said about being 'at peace', and all the things Mum would be enjoying in heaven. I was reassured with pastel images of angels coming and taking her to heaven in her last moments.

It was the start of a painful journey. I can't say I'm too interested in the psychological stages of grief, but what is clear to see is the passage of my thinking regarding life, the universe and everything.
My Mother was not, to the best of my knowledge, a believer. She was, humanly speaking, a good woman, very kind and popular. She was probably one of the better people I have ever known. Her 'celebration' was packed, and even a few years later, people would talk of 'THE Val Whittle'. She attended the C of E in a typically slapdash manner, took communion probably around once or twice a month at one stage and said she felt peace afterwards.
At the time, I was still of the school that prays for the conversion of family members and maybe occasionally invites them to church events, but doesn't really evangelize actively. That has subsequently haunted me.
The doctrines of Grace started muscling in on my life soon after her death. I resisted valiantly. Not least because they forced me to ask some painful questions about my mother. Election and Sovereignty forced me to the edge of unbelief and pulled me back again a number of times in the following years. Time and again I wrestled with the fact that, if my mother didn't trust in Christ, she was damned, and meant to be, too, from all eternity. I shook my fist at the Lord because His definition of goodness seemed to me to be so unfair.
As I came to grips with Total Depravity, I began to understand. It was at this point that I attended my second funeral.
This time it was my Grandfather. He was truly a wicked old man. Mean with money and affection, he told my father, on his 18th birthday, that he was adopted. Despite my father keeping a room in his home for him, he ended his days alone, apart from a neighbouring vulture couple, who made sure they were the beneficiaries of his sizeable bank account. None of my family wanted to attend the funeral, and I can understand why.
But something in me felt duty bound to do so, so I did. The vulture couple were there, of course. But not one other soul was, apart from the minister and the man who presses the crematorium buttons.
It was a desolate, frightening experience. Here was a man so wicked he had to bribe people to come to his funeral, even though he had a son, five grandchildren and a great grand-daughter.
It was very different funeral to my mothers. This time there was no conflict brewing about the eternal destination of my relative. And yet, I found myself asking - if I can be so comfortable about this man not being in the beatific vision, what is it that makes me feel that my mother should be there? Or even that I should be there, given my track record? One person is judged on merit against a perfect standard and falls. What does it matter if someone else is marginally better than they, or even much, much better. Against a perfect standard, they all fall.

It took another event to shed light on how this all hangs together, and bring me to one of those rare moments when death is a good thing. But this post is long enough already, so I'll conclude in part 2.