Ho ho ho.

Christmas time. I'm not exactly sure why it's seen as a more peaceful time of the year than any other. It's not been that way in this house. I found myself sleep-walking today, and that generally happens when I'm stressed beyond sensibility.
I'd love to be able to escape into an online world of stimulating debate, but I retain all the responsibilities I had before the month of December and the Christmas festivities/tribulations.
That being the case, blogging will have to take a backseat for a few weeks. I will be back, but in the meantime, your prayers for my family would be greatly appreciated.

Thought crime investigated in Lancashire

Do I need to editorialize? After the Lynette Burrows case in the past week, it would appear to be only a matter of time before the police decide that one of these expressions of free speech actually is a hate crime.
The very fact that police are 'questioning' people over these things is evidence of a desire to intimidate. It's one thing to express an opinion, it's quite another to attempt to criminalize those who disagree.

Calling those things which are not...

You know, I don't really have a problem with the questions the emerging church is asking.
McClaren seems a nice enough man, and I may well have written a blog quite similar to his writings at one point in my life. Eclectic spirituality was pretty much how I grew up. I have a good friend who is a neo-pagan (she's married to a Jedi), and I've always found her perspective very interesting. She freely uses symbols from various places, including Christianity, seeing in Jesus another version of a dying and rising god myth that she is familiar with.
I think she's wrong, and yes, in case you're wondering, I have said so. But one thing she doesn't do, and for this, I respect her more than I do McClaren. She doesn't try to have her cake and eat it.
She's a pagan. And she's happy with that. She might borrow from others, but she doesn't call herself a Reformed Baptist. I don't even really have a problem with those who call themselves Christo-pagans and try and mix Christianity and paganism openly. I think it's quite absurd, but again, they aren't calling themselves what they are manifestly not. Yes, they are forging 'new paths', but they aren't insisting that they genuinely are Methodists in the tradition of Wesley, too. They're also part of a body of religion that is almost defined by an all-encompassing worldview. Paganism.
The emerging thing is different. Firstly, they aren't pagans, so they don't have the excuse of pantheism. But what is most significantly troubling to me is the desire to still want to be called Evangelicals.
I think I have more respect for straight-down-the-line liberals. I'm not crazy about them being called christians, but at least when Spong comes out and says he's not entirely sure we should be thinking about God in terms of a supernatural being, he's not simultaneously insisting he's a 5-point calvinist too.
When McClaren does his consumerist pick 'n' mix spirituality, it just strikes me as duplicity. And it doesn't really reach anyone either, because all he's done is disrespect everybody's belief system simultaneously. It's like whipping a quran out of your back pocket in a pub to try and show how in touch and open-minded you are. Which makes me wonder who exactly the emerging church can possibly be trying to reach in the first place.
It appears more like christians who want to cherry-pick 'spiritual things' and dress it up as being 'missional' so they can still be called evangelical.

Stone Cold James White takes on The Bishop.

Wow.

He said it was a big name, and I thought there was a good chance I wouldn't have a clue who it was. Some extremely well-known-in-academic-circles expositor of a rare form of greek that everyone else would go 'wow, what a coup' and I would lament my ignorance about.

But the Great High Pooper Spong himself? How did Mr White manage to contain himself for two days? If I didn't have to give my biometric data to the government to get there, I would so be going to Florida for that.

Also of note at the moment, Frank Turk is employing his special brand of laser-guided sledgehammering on an atheist 'love-site not hate-site'.

Monergism have helpfully collated all of Doug Wilsons ongoing review of Brian McClaren's Generous Orthodoxy, so do take advantage, though I have a feeling pastor Wilson might put them all in a book himself before too long.

I've also recently discovered a blog where the debate has the potential to be really interesting and fruitful. He asks some intriguing questions, and welcomes responses, so do check him out. Do I disagree with him? Almost entirely, but that's part of the fun. What would life be if you couldn't say 'Yeah, but....'?

Finally, I shall be offline for a few days now. Not a lot going on this year, really, but still time to focus on things in the 'real' world. I wish all my readers a thoughtful Christmas celebration, and a new year that brings fresh determination to trust His grace and walk in His ways.

Merry Christmas.

Accident and Emergentcy

The difficulty with having a conversation with those of an emergent persuasion is that they very often sound so much like atheists.
Now, when I talk to atheists and agnostics, I know where I stand. They are unbelievers and therefore gentle entreaty and persuasion is employed. There sometimes comes a point when no further dialogue is possible or fruitful, but there's rarely rancour on part (unless I've behaved badly, which happens) because I genuinely pity them and what should I expect from unregenerate minds?
But the emerging church is different. The emergent church claims to have this regenerate mind of Christ.
So it's really disconcerting to have them rehearsing the same attacks against the faith that evangelicals have been rebutting for donkeys years. I think this is why some of my fellow believers get angry in their dealings with ec people - they are honestly shocked to hear brethren repeating arguments that have mostly been taken wholesale from those who hate God.
It's hard to know how to deal with that. I've seen instances of an astonishing lack of charity on both sides of the equation. A poor befuddled traditional believer sees post-modern believers taking pot-shots at the Word of God, and the traditional believer responds with rebuke, which in one sense, is appropriate. The 'pomo' responds harshly, saying the rebuke proves how un-christian traditional believer are, and so it escalates.
But the traditional believer can very often make similar unhelpful assumptions, coming at debate believing the emergent believer is deliberately being duplicitous, which is rarely the case.

It's all a very confused state of affairs. From what I have seen, both in real-life experience, and through online interaction, I think the problem is essentially monumental miscommunication. And no, I don't mean a lack of wanting to join the 'emergent conversation'. It goes back a little further than that.

I think the problem is the last generation of traditional evangelicals. I think we got lazy.
Just as the principle of holy living became distilled into a list of what was and wasn't acceptable, stifling discernment, once the first flush of textual criticism had been ably dealt with by commited bible-believers, these things just became a check-list that you just signed up to when you became a believer.
Discernment became something like a sixth sense to test whether there were any demons about. Christians forgot how to think.
And so a new generation, who don't know what consistent scriptural backing lies behind important doctrines - like the Trinity, inspiration of the scriptures and justification, are unhappy with a patronizing 'because I said so' approach, and rightly so.
But the vocabulary neccessary to answer the legitimate questions isn't readily available. Not because it isn't available at all, it is. William Wilberforce stood against slavery, and did so from the perspective of Christian belief. He didn't have to challenge the inerrancy of scripture to do it, either.
I'll freely admit that I cannot articulate his argument, because I've never been in a position to have to defend it, but I aim to change that. I've had to do the same with the position of women in scripture, and I'm a reasonable apologist for a complementarian worldview now, as well as being able to present the gospel whenever I get the opportunity. I didn't learn any of that when I became a believer.
This is precisely the problem - church has become a club or an aid agency, rather than a training ground for soldiers.
So what happens? Some wolf comes along with arguments about the trustworthiness of scripture that no-one at church can answer and the believer finds themselves adrift. They try to interact with the liberal arguments from a losing vantage point - they give away the premise because they can't defend the Word of God. That kind of interaction has a simple name - it's called capitulation. And once that is done, it's only a matter of time before the believer is swamped in humanism.
This isn't something to rebuke the baffled believer about - it's an understandable end-game.
The traditional church must bear responsibility for the emerging church. The emerging church makes many accusations about the narrowness of traditional viewpoints, but I think the baby flies out of the window with the bath-water in most of the emergent writings I've read. The problem is simply that the traditional church dropped the ball. In a world where everything is subject to change and whirling around, mired in subjectivity, the solution is not to start whirling around as well, the solution is to stand firm, hold fast and be ready to give an answer for the faith.

CCM - Comedy Christian Music

Hymnody is a deep well of spiritual blessing, replete with beautiful poetry, beguiling music and truths that stir the soul.

It's also an area ripe for humour. Best set them into genre.

#1 Parody Hymns.

I've no doubt there's asinine nonsense written by atheists in this category, but this is my blog, not the BBC, so the atheists don't a get a look-in.
My personal favourite in this category is the version of 'Amazing Grace' that has been reworked with conspicuously Arminian/Pelagian type theology. I'm sure you may know many more. My husband wrote a parody of a Delirious? song recently written for the Narnia film. The original is called Stronger.

Cuddly Soft toy Aslan I'm living just for you
Cuddly Soft toy Aslan I know we'll make it through
Though I know you're just pretend
Please will you be my new best friend

And I will say love you
Because in my imagination I made you
I am getting wronger every day

Cuddly Soft toy Aslan, let's push on through the rain
To a land of make believe, where there is no pain
Where no challenge will ever come again
Just as long as I don't have to engage my brain.

And I will say love you
Because in my imagination I made you
I am getting wronger every day

Cuddly soft toy Aslan is my comfort in a storm
Cuddly soft toy Aslan with his battery roar
Cuddly soft toy Aslan, help me out
His battery has run out - he's not real at all!

Still I will say love you
Because in my imagination I made you
I am getting wronger every day

And now he's gone and I am left behind
Some wicked trick has been played on my mind
Because a partial truth is as bad as a lie
The whole truth sets you free - without it you will die.

And perhaps now you will break through
Take away old and then make new
I am getting humbler every day....
And perhaps now you will break through
Replace selfish me with Holy You
I am getting humbler every day....

There's also the myriad versions of 'While shepherds watched their flocks by night'. Shepherds washing their socks, anyone?

#2 Childrens misunderstandings.

This category is a gem. Children come out with the most endearing spoonerisms over song lyrics. My daughter once sang along at the top of her voice

'Lord, you are Roasted and Salted!'
In case you're wondering, the words were 'Lord you are highly exalted'

Growing up, my grandfather loved my new version of 'He who would valiant be', in which the last line ended with

'to be a pigeon!'

I believed for a long time that 'Angels in white raincoats, rolled the stone away'

#3 The deliberate change of a word or line.

Another of my grandfathers irreverencies was

'Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
make it wholemeal and not white'

But we're not restricted to old standards here. Contemporary worship songs have been around quite long enough to generate plenty of humour [and some are entirely laughable, but that's another post ;-)]

I've found myself accidently singing, in the glow of alpha-state worship,

'It's all about me, Jesus..'

Many a true word. Imagine my amusement when I discovered someone was actually able to use that line to good effect.

Much mirth was had by the wag who sang

'I will offer up my wife, in spirit and truth...'

#4 Who's singing?

But sometimes you don't have to change the lyrics at all. Sometimes, there is huge amusement factor in just changing how you sing them. My best friend insists that 'Draw me close to you' is a superlative experience when sung by Kermit the Frog.
My favourite one of these, however, is an old Vineyard song called 'Isn't He beautiful?'

here's the song:-

Isn't He beautiful?
Beautiful isn't He?
Prince of peace, Son of God
Isn't He?

Isn't He wonderful?
Wonderful isn't He?
Counselor, Almighty God
Isn't He, isn't He?
Isn't He, isn't He!


Now. Imagine that being sung by Yoda.

The grumpy god.

The more I learn about Grace, and the depths in the Word of God, the more I am convinced that it is true and hangs together with a clarity that is sometimes breath-taking.
Conversely, the more I learn about Islam, the more I am utterly convinced that it is a deeply deceptive and cunning lie. What has struck me keenly in the last few days is the nature of the deity Muslims worship. Not the headline grabbing business about Jihad. That's almost too obvious. It's more about the kind of God Allah is.

I think some of the architecture of the Islamic world is absolutely beautiful. It speaks of a rich creativity and flights of human imagination. If you were an alien from the planet Zog, and you crash landed in the midst of the clean domes and intricate patterns of the Arabic World, you would be forgiven for thinking that the religion which cradled these artistic feats encouraged creativity.

But it seems from all I've seen so far, Allah is a bit of a philistine when it comes to creativity. Visual artists who draw people get short shrift in the Quran, Music is, according to many sources, Haram or forbidden, and I've witnessed some stern disapproval of some clean jokes because they weren't true stories and were thus lies.

There's lots in the Quran about appreciating the artistry of Allah in creation - but artistry in humans is all but forbidden. As I've mused on this it strikes me as another profound difference between the true God and a false one.

Christians know we are made in the image of God, and thus, as He is supremely creative, His people can be too. What would life be but for those beautiful, poetic psalms? How if we couldn't sing to God in praise? What of the joy of sharing a joke with friends?
Muslims do not believe we are in His image - they believe we are utterly creaturely and mere slaves of Allah. He appears more and more to me to be a despot, more concerned with lock-step conformity than joy and light and goodness.

Perhaps it will change as I read on, but this is my strong impression now. More thoughts on Muhammed himself to come..

I doubt that...

It's my conviction that if you're English and serious about the reality implications of your faith, you are actually quite likely to jump in with the emerging vision of church. Over at EmergentNo, there's an interesting discussion brewing about doubt.
Who doesn't have doubts? I have a somewhat depressive personality, and I can often be tempted to doubt. I don't always resist that temptation well. One thing that I find quite difficult is reading through ec writings, because it really feeds into that melancholic, unsure part of me.
The other thing is, I'm English. English people are terribly sorry, we really can be quite apologetic. We don't mean to be, and we hate to be really firm on something, but when pushed, we have to say that we're sorry. English people will apologize if you bump into them.
I've actually heard myself say,

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to apologize"

Much is made of British Stiff Upper Lip, but that really comes from the whole Empire thing (for which we're sorry) and the World Wars (sorry about the bombing in those). More recently, the Anglican wibblyness has really come to the fore.

Now, given that the ec takes an approach that eschews certainty, the English temperament is ideally suited to it. It seems the absolute worst thing that you can do is to be certain. I say absolute, but I wouldn't want to exclude the possibility there might be worse things..

Doug Wilson nailed this down a few months ago by pointing out that the ec seems to equate uncertainty with humility, and certainty with pride. It ain't neccessarily so.
Actually, when I've been uncertain and plagued with doubt, it's usually been because things don't appear to be the way I pridefully think they should be.
When I yield my will to what is clearly revealed in Scripture, and hold firm to that, it's actually my least proud moment. Largely because, like my salvation itself, it doesn't come from anything intrinsic to me. That's a right thumper for the pride.
Uncertainty and vacillation are not virtues. Picture Peter on Pentecost. He preaches and the crowd cries "What must we do to be saved?!" Peter pauses, looks sincere and says,

"Well, who am I to say?"

There's a common twisting of the scripture about Jesus saying 'No-one comes to the Father but by me' which makes it say almost exactly the opposite of what it definitely means. (Now I know just how English I am, because I winced as I wrote 'definitely').
It's very important to be welcoming, loving and embracing. It's almost entirely pointless if you leave those you embrace with the impression that Jesus is a chilled out kind of guy who won't ask hard things of them.
I forget how many times I've heard preaching on Laodicea in Revelation. And I indeed hear it in ec circles as much as anywhere. It's generally used to encourage passionate commitment, which is all well and good.
But it speaks just as strongly against doubt and vacillation. It reminds me of the Karate Kid.
On one side of the road, safe. On the other side of the road, safe.
In the middle of the road, squish.

Doubt is a sin.
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. Rev 21:8

Like any other sin, it should not condemn us when we are in Christ. But we should treat it as we would any other sin we need to battle against.
Yes, acknowledge that we all struggle with this sin, as others. But like those other sins, it's not ok. Stand firm, and help your brothers and sister to do the same. Doubt can be overcome.
I'm sure of that. Sorry.

Legalism and License

I've noticed a little thing. On various blogs and forums, it's reasonably common to see people criticizing the emerging church. Some do it with bile and ignorance, some with panache, a la Doug Wilson, and some do it with honest, questioning humility. (I'm trying to be somewhere between the last two)
When this happens, there will generally be at least one person give them a good telling off, sometimes with a goodly dose of sarcasm, and it'll go something like this :-

"It's all very well criticizing the ec, but at least they're reaching the lost/feeding the poor/keeping the candlemakers in business. How many single mothers did you help this last year??"

It's comments like this that lead to accusations of works-righteousness. It appears to be suggesting that you can only critique errant doctrine if you fed 5000 refugees last week. Which is a very odd stance to take if you don't believe in works-righteousness.
It could become the most ridiculous exercise in proving who is the more compassionate party - "I touched more lepers than you did, nur nur nur nur nur"

The answer is, of course, not to answer with the details of what charitable acts you may or may not have done, but to stick to the emergent issue at hand - which is generally almost the opposite criticism of works-righteousness - an openness that seems to exclude discernment.

There's almost an antinomian way of thinking that embraces Grace whole-heartedly, but doesn't seem to take holiness nearly seriously enough. So you have people who display deep, whole-hearted compassion while putting holiness of life on the back-burner.
Now, in case my quiz results down below have given the wrong impression, I don't believe that Christians are capable of being perfect in this life. However, I do believe that we are each called to come up higher as we serve and are ambassadors for a Holy God.
Doesn't mean we should be hyper-critical of other believers - Does mean we should encourage each other to Holiness.
Too often I've seen valid criticism of bad language or compromise with worldiness curtly dismissed with this strange argument of 'I might be sinning here, but at least I'm doing these good things here, and who do you think God will accept more??'
Which is works-righteousness whichever way you slice it.

It's this odd mix of legalism and license that appears to characterize much of it. That, along with quoting people like Teresa of Avila and Mother Theresa approvingly and without qualification, is why I have deep reservations about much of this movement.

Comments, as always, very welcome.

*Newsflash* I'm a Calvinist

Well, how about that then? I'm 89% Reformed Evangelical.. who knew?
Of course, I'm also 46% emergent. That's one crazy mix. I can sleep at night though. At least I'm only 7% liberal. ;-)

Reformed Evangelical 89% Fundamentalist 86% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Neo orthodox 64% Emergent/Postmodern 46% Roman Catholic 29% Charismatic/Pentecostal 25% Classical Liberal 25% Modern Liberal 7% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

HT:Doxoblogy

Death is coming

It seems astonishing that the Boxing day Tsunami was nearly a year ago. One massive wall of water that consumed everything in its wave. Over Christmas, there will be a few telly programs looking at the aftermath, asking those same questions that people asked at the time.
Some people rail against the notion of Loving God.
Some people assume some culpability on the part of those killed or devastated.
Some, who hold to a belief in a loving God, can only assume that God didn't mean for this to happen.
Some blame the devil.

Until He returns, such questions will always be given airtime.

My personal feeling is sadness that it is not uppermost in the minds of people like it was. The healthy understanding of the precariousness of life is a precious thing. Without it, we amble along, filling our lives with gadgets and fluff. We got to sleep on arguments, we get slack with devoted time with God, we chicken out of telling people about the Lord.
The sovereign act of God that was the tsunami was, I believe, one of those times when we see that even though He is good, He isn't safe. We all die. Be it in an accident, a tsunami or a cosy bed, it is all an act of God. He numbers our days. Not one person who perished last St Stephens Day died before their time.
And The Lord may call upon you any minute now to give account of yourself. The times when you are most aware of your finite nature are times of great grace. Live with eternity at the forefront of your mind.

And on that note - do not forget the reality of the suffering that is still in evidence. Don't let your compassion just be for the short period the newsmedia wants to send cameras there. Your reaction to it may well be one of those things the Lord will ask you about...

I was emergent. I still have the tattoo.

I haven't always been a traditional conservative type. Though I'm mad-keen on Isaac Watts and the Authorised Version now, t'wasn't always the case. Some of my readers know that, having been acquainted with me when I was young and slightly more foolish than now.

I did genuinely used to be a marginally enthusiastic charismatic who liked Terry Virgo (well, ok, I still like him..) and thought that St Matt of Redman was the giddy height of Lead worshipping (you have to get those words round the right way, 'kay?). I was even at the concert in Wembley Stadium to hear Delirious? and watch Gerald Coates wrapping some bemused children in flags. I was a part of the dance ministry, I wore skinny rib t-shirts with trendy slogans across the chest, and I have a tattoo on my arm of the Icthus fish.

Though I didn't know it at the time, and it wasn't called it at the time either, I even created an 'emergent' style service for the church.
I don't know if you're familiar with 'Bolds Fold' a series of pen and ink cartoons taking the royal mickey out of charismatic evangelicals in a good natured sort of way.
One of these very funny cartoons has three or so people all standing in a bowl of water, holding candles.
One asks 'What are we doing again?'
The other answers 'I don't know, but it's cutting edge'

Well, here was the issue at church. We had the morning service - children running around, an uncomfortable mix of hippy-hoppy-happy-clappy kids songs and the usual Redman/Delirious?/Kendrick-if-we've-got-older-members-in-the-congregation-today. The sermon/motivational talk and some perfunctory 'ministry' at the end while the children came back in from Sunday school groups.
Then we had the evening youth service - young people being very intense, an uncomfortably loud mix of Redman/Delirious?/David Ruis if we're running-early-and-need-more-songs. The youth pastor telling poo-jokes and a video of the youth-group trespassing on the local multi-storey carpark at night.

For those of us of a more 'contemplative' nature, it could be a bit difficult to find a place in the middle. Attracted as I was, and still am, to the multi-sensory approach of Roman Catholicism and Celtic Christianity, and yearning, as I was, and still am, for a sense of connection and depth, I helped put together an alternative service.

Gone were the rows of chairs, in came a circular arrangement.

Out went the strip-lighting, in came muted amibience.

Instead of walking in and being handed a notice sheet, you were given a small order-or-service and a natural item, like a pebble or a feather or a leaf, to contemplate.

There was contemplative worship music playing as you walked in, and you were encouraged not to speak before the service, but to sink into stillness.

There was some passages of scripture read, a poem, perhaps, a specific song to sit and listen to, a creative exercise perhaps involving naming certain sins on paper and then pinning those sins on a cross shaped icon of some sort.

I was quite keen on the creeds, so we used things of that nature too.

As an 'alternative to the other 'options' it was a fairly game endeavour. But the more I investigated, the more I felt uncomfortable. I purchased a course akin to Alpha, but more directly aimed at 'New Age' types, and the more I looked at it, and the things I was embracing at church, the more uncomfortable I became. I researched the bigger picture of some of the people quoted approvingly, and found my conscience pricked. And slowly, I began to withdraw from it. The alternative service, at least the version I was involved with, was short-lived.

I do understand, really I do, the dissatisfaction and weariness of those who are part of the emergent church. I am no longer dissatisfied to that degree, but I still understand it and can feel the pain of it at times. But it doesn't lead anywhere. It seems brave and authentic, but it just left me emptier than before. Now, I also know that the emergent vision is a whole lot bigger than just a style of worship. It's a social move as much as anything else - a desire to see the church making a real and radical difference in the world around us. I can understand that too. In fact, radical, servant-hearted love is still, as far as I am concerned, part and parcel of the Christian walk. It never went away. But serving alone is just sanctified Boy Scouts at best - and works salvation at worst. If our servant-heartedness doesn't arise from a copper-bottomed commitment to real grace - the bible kind, not the jellybean kind - then it's just really pretty self-righteousness.
And you can grab for all the multi-sensory kitsch to make yourself feel you have been spiritual as well as practical, but you're never going to feel fed and healthy unless you start eating the bread of life. When you eat candyfloss, no matter how much you cram down, you'll have a short-lived buzz and then have to work really hard to have the energy to do the things you feel called to. When you digest the bread of life, good works follow because they must and they're not the practical bit to the spiritual bit in church. It's all of a piece.

Spending Christmas with the Family

Quick thought about Church closings on Christmas day.

Quite separate from all the surrounding scenery about Christians, pagans, secularists and Christmas, one thing stood out to me.

One church gave the main reason for not opening as enabling church-goers to spend time with their families.

Is it just me that considers my church part of my family then?

Jesus as String

There's a childrens animation called Pingu. I'm not sure how familiar overseas readers are with it, but it's a stop motion clay animation of a cheeky penguin who lives in an igloo with his mum and Dad and little sister Pinga.
Like any other young penguin, he spends his time going to school with his friend Robbie the seal and playing in the icy caves around his home.
It's like March of the Penguins but with domesticity.

It's reasonably popular in our house, and it can be quite funny. Anyway, this morning, Pingu got lost in a cave. Happily, he was wearing a red woolen scarf which unravelled as he wandered, so that he could find his way back to the entrance. My children were relieved. The thought of Pingu wandering aimlessly forever was too much for me to bear, let alone them.

Later, in the kitchen, my four year-old wanted to run something by me.

"Mama, Pingu's string is like Jesus, really."

I stopped hanging t-shirts in the airer and asked why.

"Well, Pingu was lost, and the string helped him find the path out again."

I really have no idea where she comes up with this stuff.

Hey! Watchful dragons! Over here!!!

OK, I've got to. I've reached my limit and I can't take anymore.

I wasn't going to post about Narnia just yet. I didn't want to be part of the growing evanjellybean hype that I have watched with dismay. Lest you've missed my links section, I am a fan of Narnia. I like most of CS Lewis's work, though not without reservation. I have been ecstatically excited about the onscreen dramatization of my childhood favourite, and can have several hour discussions about various characters, story-lines and yes, even spiritual lessons and parallels.
But I've had to bite my lip in the past few weeks on more than one occasion, and I can't take it anymore.
So here it is.

STOP IT.

Stop taking this wonderful fantasy world that is so pregnant with meaning and training tour guides to push people round it in herds!
It may have escaped some peoples notice in the Christianity Today glossy hoopla, but The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is not an allegory. Aslan is NOT Jesus, the Witch is not Satan, and Tumnus the Faun is not John the Baptist. OK, no-one's been saying that last bit.

With CS Lewis rotating at high-speed, evanjellybeans are falling over themselves to invite non-christian friends to screenings, armed with laminated crib sheets with all the relevant preachy details. An article in Christianity Today actually has the cheek to say that Lewis wrote the story with the specific intention to explain, point by point, the gospel story. How CT got this information when Lewis himself expressly denied it, I cannot say.

Of course The LWW is a resonating story of the vicarious sacrifice of a divine being, and the resulting resurrection and victory. It has many spiritual connotations (many of which have application in a broader context than solely christian) but here's the key point.

These things are not meant to be pointed out by others.

In Of Other Worlds, Lewis explains that he didn't feel like he knew he should about the religion of his childhood. He writes that "One was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm".
And so, with various images coming to him over time, he reasoned "But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could"

Lewis was not aiming these stories at a post-christian world as an 'evangelistic tool', he was aiming them at children who would know well the old, old story, but perhaps were stifled by people explaining to them how they should feel about all of it.
What evanjellybeans are currently doing seems akin to jumping up and down and waving red flags at the watchful dragons to make sure they have their attention, which strikes me as monumentally stupid.
It's also rather arrogant to act as though you have the measure of meaning in the stories, too. I'm still finding little things that I hadn't seen before - and the joy of those things is that I discovered them myself.
It's also quite silly to be evaluating Narnia like it's a theological confession of faith, and picking it apart for possible heresies because the ransom is paid to the Witch, or Aslan not only doesn't say 'don't touch me' after his resurrection but has people ride on his back.
It's a children's story. It's full of rich wonder and poignant meaning. But it isn't polemic or didactic literature, so stop treating it as though it is.
By all means take every opportunity to speak to unbelievers about the things of God. Just please don't attempt a ham-fisted pre-packaged gospel presentation on the Stone Table. And if you want a clear gospel presentation I recommend Romans.

Idle worship #2

It's all very well to be able to point out problems. But it doesn't solve them. It would be easy, and is in the blogosphere, to gripe about all the things that irk you. But that comes perilously close to grumbling and complaining, which I'm fairly sure are things that God isn't happy about.
Far better to be able to see problems, and try and work out the answers, be it by consensus or straightfoward solution.

So - I've said that myself and my generation are generally a feckless bunch of quitter-victims. Ouch.

To put it simply, I don't think there's an easy answer to this. I happen to believe that National Service did do a useful job with young men in times gone by, but I don't think there's any way it could fit in where we are now. We used to be a society that was conspicuously built on a Christian ethos - principles of duty, sacrifice, service and a absolute understanding of right and wrong.
We're not built on that now. Duty is derided as formulaic and dry - even in many churches. Sacrifice and service are something other people are expected to do for us. And as for absolutes? Well, who are we to object if a German cannibal wants to eat his friend, if his friend consented?
This is where counter-cultural really has the edge over relevance, for me. I'm not talking about a christian 'sub-culture' - things that look like, talk like and act like the world, but also have youth-group meetings about how far they can go with their girlfriends. Worldliness-lite.
But an actual complete way of life that isn't a reaction to what happens around us, but acts within it's own frame of reference - that is infinitely more powerful than trying to see how close to the line we can go before we blur it.

Yeah, sure, you say. So?

Well, I actually think Christians can embrace ways of doing things so different from the world that they stand out like lights (and not disco-lights, more like warning beacons).
It goes like this. In UK communities today, you will not go far before you find a group of young people, gathered together for no particular reason. They sometimes engage in 'anti-social' behaviour, and even if they don't, you don't generally feel safe walking past them. There's no particular nefarious aim - they will tell you they are just bored and have nothing to do. Drink is often obtained, even though most will be under legal age. They might vandalize the bus-shelter or phone booth they hang about by.
The problem is they are in limbo. Caught in a modern social construct of 'teenager', they are grown-ups treated like children. Instead of the biblical cultures that treated the age of 12 as a rite of passage into manhood, we treat it as a passage into 6 or so years of sullen indolence. We ask nothing of our young people, and we sadly expect the worst.
We have young men who are capable and desperate to be engaged in something worthwhile. But we still treat them like children. They are responsible for nothing and so have respect for nothing.
There isn't a simple answer to this, of course, nothing that will press a button and wipe up all the mess nice and tidy.
But I firmly believe that Christians should lead the way with our sons and daughters. We need to raise responsible young men who grow with a vision of who they need to be, and what they need to do to do that. Young men who treat their sisters with respect. Young women who embrace a different vision than the one the world presents to them - contemptuous of men and housewives - and behave in ways that compel men to respect them.
Is this an easy task in the world we live in? Yes, of course it is.

Just kidding.

No, it's really, really hard. It's a real, deep, ministry. But that's what sanctification is all about. I really believe that if Christians can stand counter-cultural in the way we raise our children - not giving in to this destructive construct of 'the teenager' with all the peer-led foolishness and idle waste of time - we will actually look different from the world and be in a position , by His grace, to sound a clear call to people to come out from the mire.

The Reformed Goatee

It's an interesting anointing. The Reformed beard/Goatee is sported by teachers and apologists alike, not uniformly, but with telling regularity. It allows men to say the word TULIP a lot without appearing feminine in the least.
James White and Phillip Johnson are sterling examples.

'Aha!', you cry,'That's just Reformed Baptists!'

I point you to RC Sproul.

No, not that one.

RC Sproul Jr.

I rest my case.

Idle worship #1

Hey, this is kind of fun - I'm almost exactly the same age as Tim Challies, give or take a few days. Yep, I thought he was older than 29, too. That's largely because, being 29 myself and something of an under-achiever, I always think that people who have achieved things must be older than me.

That's not to say I haven't done a lot of stuff and been a lot of people - no doubt more snippets of my varied testimony will slip out in the coming months - it's just I don't really feel I've got anything solid to show for all that. I can't design tip-top fab websites, and as much as I can hold a sentence together, I've never sat down and written that novel. I have a family - and they are my most precious earthly possession - but I don't really feel I've achieved them, they've been given to me.

I think this lack is largely due to the fact that I have no ingrained sense of discipline and duty. As I grew up, I wasn't so much indulged as allowed to be indolent. If I had a cold, I whinged the day off. If I had a homework deadline, I feigned illness and did the work badly on my day off. I relied at school on my bare-level intelligence and flair for english to get by. I'm just lazy, and I was allowed to be. Quitting comes pretty easy in our culture.

Now, this is not a dog-pile on my parents. They did the best with what they had, and a lot better than some. But I find even the difference between myself and my husband's generation quite startling. My husband is the tail end of the generation that understood duty and 'the protestant work-ethic', whereas I can only remember a few kids in my school year that were vastly different to the half-baked way I behaved.

And now it's expected.

You buck authority, you show how bored you are with everything, you pour out scorn like water. Being a victim is everybody's birthright.




A few days ago, the Dyspraxic Fundamentalist posted about National Service. I thought I disagreed at first - National Service seems like a jolly good antidote for the attitude I've just described.
But I've had a rethink. I actually applied to join the Navy when I was 18. I failed the first medical, but, as usual, I hadn't really been preparing or training or doing anything except imagine myself in uniform. If it had been a compulsory year or two of service, I don't see that my attitude would have changed at all. In fact, the anti-authority bit may well have been amplified.

The issue is deeper than what we can 'make' young people do. As with all things, I do believe that there is a biblical answer, but the application of it is not a top-down thing, it's a grass-roots thing. It involves a sea-change in the thinking of Christians, and that's a tall order...

Warnie awards.

It has to be said, I'm a complete amateur when it comes to blogging. I've written opinionated stuff for years, on and off-line, but when it comes to the blog-community, html and all the funky little gadgets blogs can have, I'm winging it.
But, in an attempt to spread some goodwill around at this time of year when the veil between worlds in thinner (I'm just kidding!!!), I thought I'd make a nomination for a Warnie http://www.adrian.warnock.info/2005/12/nominations-open-for-final-warnie.htm

Fawning appreciation for my favouritest blog in the whole wide world, Pyromaniac, is thankfully, quite unneccessary, given that he's already had one. But I am in a quandary about my other choices. I like Frank Turk's content, but I hate comic graphics, and besides, he's already been Challies King for a Week and had tea with a faun, I mean Mr Johnson..
Purgatorio is glorious, Blog and Mablog is wonderfully stretching, and I thoroughly enjoy Carla's art, wit, and humble critique of the emergent convolution.
But my final choice is Free St George's, a fine, detailed, well-researched read. I always learn something there, and it's always useful. So there you go - now, time for a group hug....