A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (6)

Not long before he left LICC to take up a post at A Rocha, Nigel Hopper (Lecturer in Contemporary Culture and Communications Manager at LICC) asked me some questions about the Bible’s impact on culture and the implications for Christians and churches today. A trimmed version of our ‘electronic’ interview will appear in September 2011’s edition of EG, LICC’s quarterly magazine, but I will also post the transcript of the whole conversation over a series of entries here.

Earlier entries:

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (1)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (2)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (3)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (4)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (5)

Nigel: Finally, I started by asking you about the place of the Bible in contemporary British culture, let me finish by asking you for your view on the place of the Bible in the contemporary British church?

Antony: Survey after survey in recent years – carried out with people in churches, leaders and non-leaders, as well as non-church people – has confirmed what will probably not come as a huge surprise to many of us, that there is an increasing lack of biblical literacy in the church as well as in society more generally. The surveys reveal that the vast majority of people in churches feel positive about the Bible, and consider it to be revelation from God, but fewer and fewer, it seems – even leaders – are reading it for themselves. And when they manage to do so, they’re not always sure what to do with it. And then, on top of that, are the challenges from secularists we’ve already spoken about.

That’s why I’m delighted that LICC is part of ‘Biblefresh’ – a movement of churches, agencies, colleges and festivals seeking to encourage and inspire Christians and churches to a greater confidence in, and appetite for, the Word of God.

Biblefresh has been focusing on four areas this year – encouraging individuals and churches to take practical steps in reading the Bible, being trained in handling the Bible, supporting translation work, and experiencing the Bible in new and creative ways.

It would be great, I think, if we could all move forward a little bit this year. For some of us that might mean reading the Bible on our own more regularly than we have been. For others it might mean using some Bible reading notes when we read to take us further in our understanding, or going to a Bible study, or meeting someone once a week in a coffee shop to discuss a Bible passage. For church leaders and preachers it might mean being even more self-conscious about handling the Bible carefully or thinking through its significance for our people in their everyday contexts. For others it might be a commitment to give to the work of Bible translation so that others can read God’s word in their own language. Think how amazing it could be if we all took just one step forward!

We started with how the Bible has shaped British culture, but of course Christians formed by the Bible are themselves culture shapers. But we will best engage with culture and society today as people who are first shaped by the Bible, through hearing and then living according to the voice of God in the pages of Scripture.

Kategoria

I subscribed to Kategoria over a period of a few years, and really enjoyed its mix of articles on ‘public’-type issues from a Christian perspective. So I’m really glad to see that the Gospel Coalition website are hosting a page devoted to it, where all 31 issues of its run can be downloaded.

Here is their blurb:

‘Kategoria was a quarterly journal published by the Matthias Centre for the Study of Modern Beliefs, a non-profit body established to research and critique the modern intellectual estate from a Christian perspective. For 31 issues, Kategoria provided a probing critique of the secular world and offered a reminder that Christianity holds the answers that so many are searching for. Although the journal has finished, Kategoria lives on in these resources of every issue of this acclaimed journal in Adobe PDF format. With articles covering science, ethics, law, philosophy, history and more, these resources are an indispensable tool for research and critical thinking.’

Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (6)

Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 538pp., ISBN 9780310243731.

Earlier entries:

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (1)

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (2)

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (3)

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (4)

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (5)

Clinton Arnold summaries what he sees as the key reasons for Pauline authorship of Ephesians (46-50):

(1) The pseudepigraphical hypothesis cannot adequately account for the autobiographical material in the letter.

(2) There is early attestation of Paul as the author of Ephesians.

(3) The theological emphases are appropriate to a life-setting in first-century Ephesus and western Asia Minor.

(4) The alleged ‘differences’ between the theology of Ephesians and the theology of Paul are better explained as distinct emphases within his thought rather than as contradictions that the historical Paul could not have expressed.

(5) Paul was capable of writing with a range of styles and exhibiting his own literary flair.

(6) The hypothesis that the author of Ephesians used Colossians as a literary source is not persuasive.

(7) The evidence from Judaism and early church history casts doubt over the acceptability of pseuedepigraphical letter writing in Christian circles.

Nick Spencer on the Political Bible (Parts 1-4)

Nick Spencer, Research Director at Theos, the Public Theology Think Tank, is half-way through an interesting eight-part series on ‘the political Bible’ in The Guardian. The short articles helpfully summarise aspects of his recent publication, Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011).

Part 1: A foundation for British attitudes

Part 2: Justice – When is a king not a king?

Part 3: How Britain came to accept democracy

Part 4: Toleration

A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (5)

Not long before he left LICC to take up a post at A Rocha, Nigel Hopper (Lecturer in Contemporary Culture and Communications Manager at LICC) asked me some questions about the Bible’s impact on culture and the implications for Christians and churches today. A trimmed version of our ‘electronic’ interview will appear in September 2011’s edition of EG, LICC’s quarterly magazine, but I will also post the transcript of the whole conversation over a series of entries here.

Earlier entries:

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (1)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (2)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (3)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (4)

Nigel: Picking up on some of the themes you mention there, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, recently said this when asked about the place of the Bible in our society:

‘When writers use phrases and images from the King James Bible, it’s a way of saying: “This story, this poem, is part of a sort of conversation that is going on; it’s part of the family history and you ought to be able to recognise what it’s talking about.” But it isn’t just about the treasures of musical and memorable language, or even a common culture. The stories told in the Bible mattered because they were seen and read as speaking honestly about human experiences, and about something more. They were – and are – about hope: the hope our failures are understood and forgiven, the hope there is a power beyond ourselves that can give us new beginnings, the hope there is a reality around us so overwhelming, exciting and unmanageable that we could never find words good enough for it, not even the words of the old Bible.’

Do you think he succeeds here in striking the right balance between recognising the Bible’s cultural impact as a classic of literature whilst also acknowledging it to be so much more than that?

Antony: Yes... I’d want to affirm all that’s said about family history and the significance of human experience and about hope and forgiveness. But I’m also glad to hear the key words ‘and about something more’...

As I said at the start of this conversation, the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible means that even mainstream atheists seem to have been falling over themselves to praise it. As Christians we might be intrigued by that, but I don’t think we should be flattered by it. What’s being commented on is the Bible as a cultural icon, if you like, which has been significant for its impact on art and literature and language and politics. But, of course, the Bible is more than a cultural artifact.

Even talking about the Bible as a ‘classic’ can be misleading. A classic is a text which expresses a truth which is so fundamental that it can be read and understood in totally different contexts by different readers. So, when some describe the Bible as a ‘classic’ what they mean is the Bible – like other great classic works of art or literature – has a lasting power which somehow draws us in and discloses compelling truths about our lives as human beings.

On this understanding, as we were saying when we reflecting on retellings of the story of Jesus, Christianity becomes a particular expression of a universal truth – like the significance of love or liberty or justice. We don’t need to deny the significance of those things, but they are truths that could have been got from other great classic works – like Shakespeare and Milton – not just the Bible.

And that’s why I think the Archbishop’s ‘something more’ is significant. Because most Christians want to say that the Scriptures are not simply a great work of literature, one classic among many, nor even a primary classic. They provide a way of seeing which is even more trustworthy and profound than even the greatest classics – because the Scriptures are God’s word through which God speaks, which tell the story of the salvation he brings to humanity centred on his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And as such they’re essential for the identity of the Christian community – for how we think about ourselves and for how we live in the world.

Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (5)

Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 538pp., ISBN 9780310243731.

Earlier entries:

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (1)

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (2)

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (3)

• Clinton E. Arnold on Ephesians (4)

Clinton Arnold’s Introduction to Ephesians includes a helpful section on purpose (41-46).

I remember being impressed, reading his published thesis on ‘power and magic’ in Ephesians, that he didn’t try to squeeze the whole of Ephesians into that mould; he allowed that other things were going on, that Paul was doing other things in Ephesians too. That also comes out in this section in his commentary on the purpose of Ephesians.

Ephesians, he notes, ‘is the least situational’ (41) of Paul’s letters, which has led some to be cautious about specifying a particular problem or set of problems the letter is seeking to tackle. Even so, according to Arnold, ‘if we read the text of Ephesians more closely in the light of its setting in Ephesus and western Asia Minor, we might profitably ask what kind of contingency factors or general cultural pressures do we find that may have potentially motivated Paul to write this letter’ (43), and he notes that four ‘prominent themes’ emerge:

(1) The threat of the spiritual powers should now be seen in light of the superior power of God and the power he imparts to his people. (43)

(2) The powerful cultural pressure of the animosity of Gentiles toward Jews can and must be overcome in the church on the basis of Jesus’ work of uniting both into one new community. (44)

(3) All the new Gentile believers needed encouragement and help in continuing the process of ceasing their immoral practices and appropriating a lifestyle consistent with the holiness of the God to whom they now belonged. (44)

(4) Believers need to be well-established in an understanding of their new identity in Christ and what this means for their spiritual struggle, their relationship to fellow believers, and their ability to live the virtue and moral imperatives of the Christian life. (45)

In sum, then, Arnold offers the following statement of purpose:

‘Paul wrote this letter to a large network of churches in Ephesus and the surrounding cities to affirm them in their new identity in Christ as a means of strengthening them in their ongoing struggle with the powers of darkness, to promote a greater unity between Jews and Gentiles within and among the churches of the area, and to stimulate an ever-increasing transformation of their lifestyles into a greater conformity to the purity and holiness that God has called them to display’ (45).

A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (4)

Not long before he left LICC to take up a post at A Rocha, Nigel Hopper (Lecturer in Contemporary Culture and Communications Manager at LICC) asked me some questions about the Bible’s impact on culture and the implications for Christians and churches today. A trimmed version of our ‘electronic’ interview will appear in September 2011’s edition of EG, LICC’s quarterly magazine, but I will also post the transcript of the whole conversation over a series of entries here.

Earlier entries:

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (1)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (2)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (3)

Nigel: You mention ‘story’ in your response there, but the Bible is, of course, a collection of books and, according to Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘speaks with many different voices’. This being so, he says: ‘Even if you were the most devout fundamentalist, you wouldn’t make a coherent picture out of the Bible. Fundamentalists pick and choose. It’s much more useful to see it as a witness to ancient conversations about things that still matter to people.’ Do you have any sympathy with this view of Scripture?

Antony: Well, I’d certainly want to agree with MacCulloch that the Bible is ‘a collection of books’, and even that it ‘speaks with many different voices’. But I’d want to talk further about the entailment that we’re unable, because of those factors, to make ‘a coherent picture out of the Bible’.

So yes, of course it’s a collection of books, a library; and of course it’s made up of different literary types. But, the vast majority of Christian believers have always wanted to say that the Bible has a coherence and a unity to it, which means we can and must read the ‘parts’ in the light of the ‘whole’.

I suppose it partly depends on what sort of unity we’re expecting. It’s not a uniformity, where everything says exactly the same thing. And the unity of the Bible is not the sort of tight, logical unity we might expect from a philosophical system or a system of morals. As I’ve already indicated in responses to earlier questions, it’s much more helpful, I think, to see the Bible as unfolding the story of what God has said and done in Christ and through the Spirit – and begin to see its coherence in that.

And in fact, this story underpins everything else – all the ‘different voices’ that MacCulloch talks about. So, the law material in Exodus and Leviticus really only makes sense in the larger account of God delivering his people from slavery and establishing a covenant with them. The Psalms can’t be separated from the covenant God makes with king David which – from the perspective of the whole Bible – comes to its ultimate fulfilment in Jesus, David’s descendant. The wisdom material in Proverbs and elsewhere looks back to the God of creation and looks forward to Christ who is described in the New Testament as the wisdom of God. The prophetic books everywhere assume God as creator, deliverer of his people, upholder of the covenant promises, judge of the nations, and provider of hope for future restoration. Even the epistles in the New Testament presuppose the larger story of God working through Israel and Christ to bring about his purposes for the world.

So, even in books where the biblical story is not being explicitly told, there is what some have called a ‘narrative substructure’ – which helps us make sense of where we are in the unfolding plot and how to understand the significance of the different voices throughout Scripture.

So MacCulloch is right, I think, when he says that we ‘pick and choose’ to some extent. Just to start reading the Bible in a particular place is to make a choice about where to start. But, so far as is possible, we set our ‘picking’ and ‘choosing’ in the light of the story of the Bible as a whole. And Christian readers of Scripture, I would want to say, should in principle be ready to have our ‘picking’ and ‘choosing’ open to further light and correction as we read more of the Bible and become more attuned to its great themes which move through from beginning to end.

I’ve heard it said recently that our understanding of God and Christ and humanity and salvation that we get from the Bible is more like a sweater than a salad cart. We don’t walk up to the Bible buffet and load up on the teachings we like but skip the ones we don’t like. Instead, it’s much more like the intertwined strands of yarn in a cable-knit sweater. When we tug on one, the others tend to come loose too.

That’s partly why I’m not a fan of the idea that the Bible is ‘a witness to ancient conversations about things that still matter to people’, as MacCulloch says. It is that, to some extent, but it can’t be reduced to that. The Bible is not like Wikipedia – with several contributors, regularly updated, an incomplete project which now requires our input. Of course, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t require our engagement: you only have to read the extended reflection about God’s word in Psalm 119 to see that the appropriate responses are submission and obedience, confidence and delight – and all in the context of relationship with God through his word.

Christian History Magazine on Hell

Christian History Institute, publisher of Christian History magazine, provides a 32-page magazine on ‘The History of Hell: A Brief Survey and Resource Guide’, from Justin Martyr to thumbnail sketches of more-recent treatments, yes, including Rob Bell.

It’s available as an 8.6 MB pdf here.

Chris Sinkinson on Is God a Monster?

Chris Sinkinson, ‘Unapologetic Christianity: Is God a Monster?’ (2011).

Chris Sinkinson has a brief but helpful piece here, first published in the June 2011 of Evangelicals Now.

He’s thinking about some of the ‘difficult’ issues raised about polygamy, genocide, slavery, etc., in our reading of some Old Testament texts, and outlines four points to take note of:

1. Creation ideal – that we live in the ‘middle’ of the story, where the disruption of sin has brought evil and suffering.

2. Ancient Near Eastern context – God’s revelation of himself within a specific historical context with all its particular cultural practices.

3. Biblical honesty – with Scripture being honest about human failings, and with narratives being descriptive not necessarily prescriptive.

4. Bible’s sweep – the importance of looking at ‘difficult’ Old Testament passages in the light of Scripture as a whole.

He briefly applies some of these points to holy war in the book of Joshua, but doesn’t pull back from saying that such judgments on nations may offer a glimpse of future judgment by a holy God.

A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (3)

Not long before he left LICC to take up a post at A Rocha, Nigel Hopper (Lecturer in Contemporary Culture and Communications Manager at LICC) asked me some questions about the Bible’s impact on culture and the implications for Christians and churches today. A trimmed version of our ‘electronic’ interview will appear in September 2011’s edition of EG, LICC’s quarterly magazine, but I will also post the transcript of the whole conversation over a series of entries here.

Earlier entries:

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (1)

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (2)

Nigel: Although not a sensational volume, A.C. Grayling has recently published his The Good Book – an unashamedly secular Bible, if you like, that attempts to be a compendium of wisdom for living without reference to God. What do you see as the main flaws in such an attempt to cherry-pick ‘workable wisdom’ from the Bible (and other ancient texts) whilst keeping God out of the story?

Antony: Yes. This has been an interesting development too...

It’s a little bit tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, but the book consciously mimics the design of Bibles with short chapters divided into verses. And it’s organised in fourteen sections, beginning with Genesis and taking in Wisdom, Parables, Lamentations, Songs, Histories, Proverbs, and Epistles along the way. But Grayling takes ‘secular’ texts from western and eastern traditions and weaves together their ideas and insights about how ‘the good life’ should be lived – without reference to any divine being.

What we get, then, is lots of material on the virtue of friendship, wisdom for life, the value of liberty, and so on. And, of course, all of that Christians can affirm – especially as we believe in the ‘common grace’ of a God who sends rain and makes the sun shine on all. All truth is God’s truth.

But, I’d want to say that so far as Christians are concerned, best sense is made of those things – like virtue and wisdom and liberty and hope – in the light of the bigger story the Bible tells. Indeed, it’s telling, I think, that while the longest sections in Grayling’s Good Book are Histories and Acts (drawing mostly on stories from ancient Greece and Rome), his Bible lacks a connecting narrative from beginning to end – which is what you might expect if there is no God.

And that dimension, I think, is a crucial distinctive of the Bible. For Christians, the Bible tells not a story about a god, but tells the story of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who will make good on his promise to Abraham to bless all nations, and brings that promise to fulfilment in Jesus – back to the concerns of the previous question.

Mark Noll on the Foundation of the Evangelical Mind

Interview with David Neff, ‘Mark Noll on the Foundation of the Evangelical Mind’, Christianity Today (26 August 2011).

Having already posted on Mark Noll’s latest book, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), I thought I’d link to this conversation between him and David Neff around some of the subject-matter of the book.

McKendree R. Langley on Abraham Kuyper

McKendree R. Langley, The Practice of Political Spirituality: Episodes from the Public Career of Abraham Kuyper, 1879-1918 (Jordan Station: Paideia, 1984), xxi + 178pp., ISBN 0888150709.

Over at ‘An Accidental Blog’, Steve Bishop is on a roll with all things Kuyper-related.

In a recent post, he links to this book by McKendree R. Langley (available here as a 6.6 MB pdf) on the ‘political spirituality’ of Abraham Kuyper.

Mark Meynell on the Bible

Mark Meynell kindly makes available the leaders’ notes from a series of studies carried out by the Fellowship Groups at All Souls Church, Langham Place in London as part of their ongoing Biblefresh celebrations.

The studies, derived loosely from Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book: The Art of Spiritual Reading (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006), take five different passages ‘which illustrate how God’s people respond to God’s revelation’, looking ‘at how the Bible itself describes its impact on the believer’s life’.

Deuteronomy 8 (and Matthew 4:1-12)

Israel in the Desert

The Bible as Revelation – Feasting on the Word of Life

Psalm 119:33-48

Israel in worship

The Bible in Devotions – Delighting in the Word of Promise

Luke 24:13-35

The Risen Jesus

The Bible in Understanding – Believing in the Word of the Prophets

Acts 8:26-40

The Spreading Church

The Bible in Evangelism – Communicating the Word of Hope

Nehemiah 8

Israel home after Exile

The Bible in Ministry – Explaining the Word of Truth

The document can be viewed and downloaded here from Scribd.

A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (2)

Not long before he left LICC to take up a post at A Rocha, Nigel Hopper (Lecturer in Contemporary Culture and Communications Manager at LICC) asked me some questions about the Bible’s impact on culture and the implications for Christians and churches today. A trimmed version of our ‘electronic’ interview will appear in September 2011’s edition of EG, LICC’s quarterly magazine, but I will also post the transcript of the whole conversation over a series of entries here.

Earlier entries:

• A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (1)

Nigel: It seems to me, looking around, that the Bible – and the gospels in particular – increasingly serve as a foil for contemporary re-tellings, or re-imaginings of its story (usually of a sensational nature), Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ being a recent example. Do you think this is helpful inasmuch as it puts the Bible in the limelight, and how can Christians ‘rescue’ the story of Scripture from contemporary interpretations?

Antony: Yes, it’s interesting to see how the figure of Jesus, however much he might be misunderstood, is deeply ingrained on our collective cultural consciousness. In The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (London: Canongate, 2010), Pullman uses the idea of Mary having twins, one named Jesus and one named Christ, as a literary device to explore what he sees as the difference between the ‘historical Jesus’ and the ‘churchly Christ’. In part this becomes a way of Pullman representing the leaders of the future church who make sure that the ‘truth’ recorded in the gospels is what they consider it should have been. But he’s clear that he’s writing a piece of fiction, even if he also seems to be wanting to make a point by doing so.

More recently and perhaps more controversially, we’ve had James Frey’s The Final Testament of the Holy Bible (London: John Murray, 2011). The promotional blurb asks what you would do ‘if you discovered the messiah was alive today, living in New York, sleeping with men, impregnating young women, euthanizing the dying, and healing the sick’. And the cover asks us to ‘be enraged’ as well as to ‘be enthralled’ – so Frey knows that his book will shock and upset people. And it’s received mixed reviews so far.

Interestingly, there are clips on YouTube of James Frey, and via his own website, where he talks about his goal being ‘to create a new mythology, one that is relevant in a world of nuclear weapons, fast physics, the internet, genetic testing and manipulation; a world in which we know homosexuality is not a decision and a world where women have the right to choose how they live’. So, he’s upfront about his social and political agendas; and, as some reviewers have said, the fundamental idea behind the book is that love conquers all and organised religion is the source of all evil.

Of course, that message of love found on the lips of Jesus himself in the gospels, but there is a danger of severing the message from the larger story of Jesus to which it belongs.

And that, fundamentally I think, is the big issue with re-tellings of the story of Jesus. What seems to happen is that the story of Jesus becomes about something else – an exploration of the human need for love, for instance, or a critique of ecclesiastical authority – and it’s this ‘something else’ that becomes all-important. And in the telling of that ‘something else’, the gospels get left behind and (somewhat ironically) Jesus gets left behind!

Even well-meaning Christian readers can sometimes be in danger of abstracting ethical truisms or theological ‘nuggets’ from the gospel accounts of Jesus, as if the accounts themselves are just a convenient vehicle for those things and can then be left behind once we’ve worked out what the gospels are really all about. Except, of course, that the gospels are about Jesus, and we can’t separate the abstracted truths (about justice or love, say) from the larger story of Jesus – indeed, the larger story of Israel which the gospels say Jesus has come to fulfil.

So, books like those by Pullman and Frey might be helpful in that they shed light on certain contemporary aspirations and fears, and hopefully they’ll drive Christians back to the gospels again to see what Jesus is really like – not what we’d like him to be like, but as he really is. But, as I’ve tried to suggest, who Jesus is emerges out of the story which shows and tells his proclamation of the kingdom, his words and works, his death and resurrection – and it’s through the gospel narratives that his identity is revealed.

Tom Wright on How the Church of England Can – and Will – Endure

Tom Wright, ‘Keep the Faith’, The Spectator (20 August 2011).

Tom Wright’s recent Spectator article – ostensibly on the Church of England – is now online.

Wright reminds us of William Temple’s line about the church being the only society in the world that exists for the benefit of its non-members. He claims that ‘this vision is alive and well, and that the Church of England, though not its only local expression, is in the middle of it’.

‘This is the real “Big Society”. It’s always been there; it hasn’t gone away. Check out the volunteers in the prison, in the hospice, in charity shops. It’s remarkable how many of them are practising Christians. They aren’t volunteering because the government has told them we can’t afford to pay for such work any more. They do it because of Jesus. Often they aren’t very articulate about this. They just find, in their bones, that they need and want to help, especially when things are really dire. But if you trace this awareness to its source, you’ll find, as often as not, that the lines lead back to a parish church or near equivalent, to the regular reading of the Bible, to the life of prayer and sacrament and fellowship. To the regular saying and singing of prayers and hymns that announce, however surprising or shocking it may be to our sceptical world, that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and active in a community near you.’

What follows are some familiar Wrightean themes, all wonderfully put, about Jesus being ‘in charge’ as ‘king of the world’, and about the church – like Jesus – being commissioned ‘to bring healing and hope, to rescue people trapped in their own folly and sin, to straighten out the distorted pictures of reality that every age manages to produce, and to enable people to live by, and in, God’s true reality’.

I try not to be too polemical on this blog, and I deplore the Tom Wright-bashing that goes in some quarters, and I know it’s a short piece and it’s in The Spectator, etc... but I wish he’d been able to say some more about all this ‘Big Society’-type activity on the part of the church flowing out of what lies at the heart of the gospel, the things of ‘first importance’ – Christ died, buried, and risen again, according to the Scriptures. I know the lordship of Christ is at the centre of the gospel – and Wright is up front here in asserting the lordship of Christ – but it is as the crucified and risen Lord that he is ‘in charge’.

A Conversation on the Bible and Culture (1)

Not long before he left LICC to take up a post at A Rocha, Nigel Hopper (Lecturer in Contemporary Culture and Communications Manager at LICC) asked me some questions about the Bible’s impact on culture and the implications for Christians and churches today. A trimmed version of our ‘electronic’ interview will appear in September 2011’s edition of EG, LICC’s quarterly magazine, but I will also post the transcript of the whole conversation over a series of entries here.

Nigel: 400 years after the publication of the King James Bible, how would you describe the place of the Bible in contemporary British culture?

Antony: Well, there’s no doubt that the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible has given the Bible an increased public exposure, which means the issue of the impact of the Bible on British culture has been raised again and again in recent months.

And from some unlikely places too. In the first week of May, Stylist magazine carried a piece on the Bible. So, in amongst profiles of Karren Brady and Gwyneth Paltrow, beauty tips, fashion pages, and perfume adverts, was a three-page article on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible! That article also included examples of ways the Bible has inspired contemporary culture, taking in examples from songs (like Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’), art, novels (like Yann Martel’s Life of Pi), music, and film.

So, we’ve had lots of reminders of the impact of the Bible on English literature and language. In fact, even well-known atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins have been saying that our language and culture would be somehow incomplete without the King James translation of the Bible.

But others have been pointing out that its impact is more extensive even than that.

Melvyn Bragg, for instance, has published a volume called Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011) in which he traces an emancipatory impulse in the Bible – showing how it has played a role in changing society. Of course, there’s already a revolutionary notion at work in the Bible being translated from Latin into English which moves Scripture from the elite to give access to all – the ploughboy as well as the priest. And then that impulse continues – in the movement to abolish slavery, for instance, and in the charitable work of the Victorian social reformer Octavia Hill. In others sorts of ways, Bragg argues that the King James Bible was a force for democracy.

Along similar lines, Nick Spencer, Research Director at Theos and formerly at LICC, also has a book out this year called Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011). And Nick too argues that the Bible has been influential on British political history – whether on the rights and duties of kings, democracy, and tolerance – again highlighting the point that, on balance, the Bible has had a positive impact on British political life.

One more example worth mentioning, although it casts the net wider than the Bible’s influence on Britain, is Vishal Mangalwadi’s The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011). This is particularly interesting because it’s written by an Indian scholar and author. Mangalwadi is a Christian but grew up immersed in Eastern religions, and so he brings a perspective to this topic which allows him to explore the differences between what he sees as the biblical perspective on life compared with alternative worldviews found in (for instance) Islam and Hinduism. Not unlike some of the others mentioned here, Mangalwadi makes the case that the Bible provides the foundation upon which Indian democracy as well as western civilization rests. Pretty much anything seen as of ‘value’ in western civilization – and Mangalwadi covers rationality, technology, heroism, revolution, languages, literature, university, science, morality, family, compassion, true wealth, and liberty – he credits to the influence of the Bible.

In all these ways, then, the Bible has shaped various dimensions of our culture – often without us really being aware of the extent to which it has done so!

Bobby Gruenewald on the Bible in a Technological Age

Q Ideas has a nice nine-minute video of Bobby Gruenewald here, taking its cue from the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, but moving into sharing some reflections on the impact of contemporary technology (e.g., being able to read the Bible on our smart phones) on our engagement with Scripture.

Here’s the Q Ideas summary:

‘This year marks the 400th birthday of the most widely distributed and most widely read translation of the Bible ever. Begun in 1604, the King James version was completed, approved and sent to the royal printer in 1611. Such a hallmark in history undoubtedly warrants attention. How has the Bible changed throughout history? How will it go forward in a technological age that’s moving beyond the printed word? Gruenewald, Innovation Leader for the YouVersion online Bible, explores the possible futures for our sacred text.’

Bob Thune and Will Walker on the Gospel-Centered Life

Bob Thune and Will Walker, The Gospel-Centered Life: A Nine-Lesson Study – Leader’s Guide (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2011).

First published by World Harvest Mission in 2009, the leader’s guide to this 9 lesson course designed for small group study is currently being offered as a free (read only) download here – with the offer lasting three days from today until 27 August 2011.

It has caught my eye before, but I’ve not yet been able to look at it any detail.

Here’s a paragraph from the Introduction:

‘The Gospel-Centered Life is intended to help Christians understand how the gospel shapes every aspect of life and conduct. Colossians 1:6 says that the gospel “is continually bearing fruit and increasing” in and among us, even after we first believe it. How does that happen? Why is a continual rediscovery and application of the gospel so important? How will our personal growth and missional life be stunted if we don’t grasp the gospel deeply? These are the questions that GCL seeks to answer.’

Southeastern Theological Review

I’ve just come across the Southeastern Theological Review, ‘the faculty journal of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C... dedicated to publishing articles of high quality by young and established scholars... not only by those living inside and outside of the United States, but also by those actively involved in denominational life that extends beyond the Southern Baptist Convention’.

The first two issues are devoted to reading the Old Testament theologically.

The essays in the first issue are available for free download; thereafter, however, a subscription is required.

STR 1, 1 (2010) contains the following essays:

Jamie Grant

Determining the Indeterminate: Issues in Interpreting the Psalms

Grant ‘explores questions and concerns relevant to the interpretation of the Psalms. This portion of Scripture has, of course, enjoyed a long and vibrant history of analysis and scholarly interest in addition to being held in high esteem in the life and liturgy of the church.’

David G. Firth

When Samuel Met Esther: Narrative Focalisation, Intertextuality, and Theology

Firth ‘presents us with an intriguing approach to interpreting the book of Esther. This somewhat enigmatic book has caused not a few to wonder at its inclusion in the canon of Scripture. Why should a book that does not mention God be incorporated into the Bible? Firth’s article provides answers.’

Brian Howell

God’s White Flag: Interpreting an Anthropomorphic Metaphor in Genesis 32

Howell’s essay ‘inquires about the use of anthropomorphic language in Genesis. Specifically, how are we to understand the comment that Jacob’s mysterious attacker “sees” that he has not prevailed over Abraham’s grandson? What are we to make of this figure discovering, as it were, that he had not prevailed against Jacob?’

Ryan P. O’Dowd

The Work of the Sabbath: Radicalization of Old Testament Law in Acts 1–4

O’Dowd ‘asks us to consider the OT background to the opening chapters of Acts. The relationship between Acts 1–4 and especially Acts 2 to parts of the OT has been studied before, but O’Dowd believes we are remiss if we do not consider Deuteronomy 14–16 as an essential part of the OT foundation for Luke’s narrative.’