Centre for Public Christianity (November 2023)

Among other items, the Centre for Public Christianity has posted a ‘Life and Faith’ interview (here) with Denis Alexander on a new book which ‘tells the stories of people whose encounters with New Atheism set them on the path to Christianity’, an older episode (here) on C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, and an interview (here) with clinical psychologist Leisa Aitken on the psychology of hope.

The Big Picture Magazine on Difficult Hope

The Big Picture is a new-ish magazine from the Kirby Laing Centre, which is already on its fourth issue.

This one is devoted to the topic of ‘Difficult Hope’, as Istine Rodseth Swart signals in the Editorial:

‘Pain and suffering get our attention. The problem of pain and suffering is high on the list of reasons why many reject God and if we are honest with ourselves, why being a Christian is not for the fainthearted. As believers we are not exempt from affliction, travail and catastrophe, but we have an additional challenge: How do we respond appropriately, biblically?’

More information is available here, and the issue can be downloaded as a double spread pdf here and a single scroll pdf here.

Online versions of the previous issues of the magazine are available from here.

On Dying, Death, and What Comes Before

The below is an excerpt from an email written for the congregation where I am one of the pastors.

It was Woody Allen who quipped: ‘I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’ He echoes the sentiment of many who say they would prefer to die in their sleep, quickly and quietly, with no warning or suffering, and without being a burden to their nearest and dearest. We’d prefer to skip the ‘dying’ part that comes before death.

And yet, for centuries, Christians prayed for the kind of death that most of us would now prefer to avoid. They wanted to ‘die well’ – to have time to get their spiritual lives in order, to make sure loved ones were provided for, to prepare themselves for what lay ahead.

John Wyatt explores this in his moving book, Dying Well (IVP, 2018), reflecting on what it means to die faithfully in the light of the hope the gospel brings. In the 14th century, when the Black Death was sweeping across Europe, killing more than 25% of the population, documents on the ‘Art of Dying’ started to circulate. Essentially, they were self-help manuals encouraging the dying person to prepare for the journey ahead. John Wyatt holds that we have much to learn from the practical wisdom that helped Christian believers of the medieval period face the ending of their lives on earth.

If you’ve read this far, you may feel this is all terribly morbid for a sunny Wednesday afternoon! Except that death really is the one eventuality that none of us can avoid.

While death has largely disappeared from the fabric of our consciousness as a society, we are now having daily reminders of its reality in every news bulletin. Sadly, with the passing of friends and colleagues, some of us have already been bereaved during this period; many more of us know people who have.

Critics of Christianity sometimes claim that belief in an afterlife devalues life in the here and now, and discourages action that would help people live longer and happier. The argument is that those who are fixated on the ‘life to come’ don’t really care about life now.

Just to be clear, the reality is the exact opposite. Many studies show not only that religious people tend to live healthier and more fuflilled lives than non-religious people, but that belief in an afterlife provides a sharper focus about what’s truly important in this life.

For many Christians through the ages, the certainty of death freed them from the mistaken idea that wealth or power would protect them from it, freeing them to live full lives in loving God and serving others. As C.S. Lewis said: ‘If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next.’

Indeed, according to the apostle Paul, confidence in what comes after death provides a motivation for how we live now. At the end of his long chapter on our future life, he writes: ‘Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain’ (1 Corinthians 15:58).

By the grace of God, we are able not only to die well but to live well. May it be so.

On Waiting

The below is an excerpt from an email written for the congregation where I am one of the pastors.

How good are you at waiting?

Are you the kind of person who drums your fingers on the steering wheel as you sit in your car at yet another red light? If only the car in front had been going a little bit faster, you both could have made it through the junction. Instead, you have to add another 45 seconds to your journey time.

Or do you calculate which queue at the supermarket checkouts is going to move fastest, based not only on how many items people have in their baskets and trolleys, but on your perception of how quickly they’re going to pack and pay, and whether or not the cashier is likely to engage anyone in conversation longer than brief pleasantries? Oh, just me then?

Waiting.

It doesn’t come easy to some of us. But that’s the situation we find ourselves in at the moment. We weren’t sure how long we were going to have to be doing this, but it now looks like it could be even longer than we were expecting.

Waiting.

I’ve been struck how Jesus said on two occasions, ‘My time has not yet come’ (John 2:4 and 7:8). Jesus himself was in a time of waiting, yet continued to carry out the work the Father had given him to do. In the church calendar, this period between Easter and Pentecost is a time of waiting... waiting for what God will do next.

There’s something about waiting which characterises the Christian life.

All of us are waiting in hope for what God has yet to do for us and for this planet – when Jesus comes again, when the dead will be raised, when we’ll be given new bodies, when there’ll be a new heaven and a new earth. Whatever else we might be waiting for meanwhile, we’re all waiting for that.

We wait for this kind of future not in a passive waiting-room sense but in an active living out of an alternative vision of what really matters here and now. Christian hope is not about sitting back and waiting for something better to come along, but a confidence which allows us endure and be patient and resilient in the face of setbacks. If we’re going to have to wait at the moment, let’s wait like that.

On the Coronavirus Conspiracies

The below is an excerpt from an email written for the congregation where I am one of the pastors.

By now, you’ve probably heard some of the conspiracy theories around the ‘real cause’ of Covid-19. Perhaps you’ve read an article or been sent a link to a video by a well-meaning friend.

In some cases, it has to do with a plot on the part of China to develop biological weapons. Or it has to do with the rollout of the 5G data network (which has led to acts of vandalism and arson against mobile phone masts). Or Bill Gates is said to be using the virus as part of a plot to control the world’s population through immunisation. For Christians, permutations of these theories often get combined with a large dose of the book of Revelation!

You might think differently, but – even apart from the fact that there is no credible evidence for any of these links – I tend to sit light to such theories.

In times such as these, there’s an innate human tendency to want to find explanations for what’s happening or to attach blame in some way. There is something about a sense of powerlessness which generates the need for some overarching explanation.

So far as we can tell, this has happened throughout history. Writing in The Guardian, Tim Adams notes that ‘at the time of the great plague in London, the spread of miracle cures and scapegoating prophecy was almost harder to contain than the infection itself’. Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, set in London in 1665, records the popularity of superstitions during that deadly time: ‘The apprehension of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times... They were more addicted to prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams and old wives tales than ever they were before or since.’ Examples could be multiplied many times over.

Sadly, conspiracy theories like this often tap into suspicion of ‘foreigners’. Again, there are many historical examples. In the spread of syphilis across Europe in the 1390s, it was known as ‘the French sickness’ in Germany, ‘the German sickness’ in Poland, ‘the Polish sickness’ in Russia, ‘the disease of the Christians’ in Turkey, ‘the disease of the Turks’ in Persia, and so on. As Richard Evans points out, ‘since pandemics by definition spread across the globe, everywhere they arrive they come from somewhere else’.

Conspiracy theories perpetuate the sense of powerlessness and isolation people feel, feeding the idea that ‘evil forces’ are at work, offering little sense of hope.

It’s understandable that this period should raise questions that many people – Christians included – have not grappled with before. But Christians are able to reflect on the issues in a different way. Our faith in Jesus and the salvation he brings provides true hope, not because it ignores reality, but because it points to a deeper reality. We of all people know that God has addressed the sin and suffering of the world head on. We of all people know that Jesus’ death and resurrection are the climax of God’s plan to restore the whole of creation back to himself.

We can be people of truth, wisdom, and hope at this time, not because we have everything stitched up, but because we know the one who does – and his love is stronger than death itself.

On Finding a Purpose

The below is an extract from an email sent to my church.

Beyond the ever-changing daily headlines, questions of hope and meaning are never too far away.

Several of my friends have linked on Facebook to a thoughtful article in this week’s The Spectator magazine, by the journalist Douglas Murray, who asks, ‘In this strange new world, where do we find purpose?’

Murray himself concludes that ‘we are most likely to find meaning in the places where meaning has been found before. That what has seen our forebears through, and nourished them, will see us through and nourish us in turn’.

While Murray has elsewhere admitted to having a respect and admiration for Christianity, he is also a self-professed non-believer. But his sentiment here has the ring of truth about it, and it strikes me that Christians of all people know where real ‘meaning’ is found.

In his first letter, Peter encouraged his first-century readers to ‘give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’ (1 Peter 3:15). It’s good to be able to tell others how we became a Christian, but Peter is expecting us to be able to say why. Why do we have hope? Not, in the first place, because we have a better philosophy or a better morality. The reason, ultimately, is Jesus. As Peter has said earlier in the letter, we have been born ‘into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade’ (1:3-4).

It is that hope which has nourished those who have gone before us, and it will continue to nourish us through this season.

A Definite Maybe?

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 5:1-5

Samuel Goldwyn, the movie producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was known for his malapropisms – amusing statements resulting from the use of incongruous or contradictory words. A story goes that when someone urged him to come to a decision about a project, Goldwyn replied: ‘True, I’ve been a long time making up my mind, but now I am giving you a definite answer. I won’t say yes and I won’t say no, but I am giving you a definite maybe.’

Whimsy aside, that’s perhaps the best that can be offered to us on a whole host of issues these days – a definite maybe.

In some cases, lack of certainty on our part can be bound up with personal insecurity or a self-worth that has been undermined in damaging ways. But these days, even assertive, self-confident people find it hard to be sure, or at least say they are. For that smacks of intolerance, doesn’t it? The entire drift of our culture makes it unacceptable to say ‘I am sure’, particularly when it comes to issues of faith.

Read again Paul’s words at the start of Romans 5.

Just what is it that flows from being justified? Not merely some vague, warm ‘spiritual’ experience, but peace with God, access to God. And how has this come about? Not through attainment to a higher level of consciousness or through anything we can bring to the table (as Paul has made clear in the previous chapters of Romans), but through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since God has declared us ‘right’ in the present, that verdict will stand on the last day. Even in the face of suffering, then, we have hope. Here, as elsewhere in the Bible, hope is not some vague wish-fulfilment. Hope involves looking forward to the future with confidence, because it’s a future that Christ himself has secured for us.

At the bottom line of it all, and the ultimate basis of Paul’s confidence, is God’s love – not merely shown to us, but ‘poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit’, a sign of his ongoing commitment to us. It’s a love, Paul will say later, from which nothing can separate us (Romans 8:37-39).

If any of this was down to us, we’d have room for doubt. As it is, our confidence lies elsewhere. Peace, hope, love. Not maybe, but definitely.

The End of the World is Nigh?

I wrote this week’s ‘Connecting with Culture’, a weekly email from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Would you rather be turned into a zombie, or watch everyone you love get turned into one? Would you rather share supplies with someone and risk running out, or hoard your supplies and be alone?

Those were just two of several ‘would you rather’ questions posed about the apocalypse in what BuzzFeed last week designated ‘DisasterWeek’. Also featured were polls on ‘design a luxury bunker and we’ll tell you if you would survive the apocalypse’ and ‘what actor should be your survival partner when the world ends?’

It’s not too difficult to detect behind the humour an anxiety that things feel worse now than they’ve ever been. Yes, we’re aware that history is littered with doomsday warnings, but there’s something about the speed at which current events are moving which heightens concern. Our fears are increasingly shaped and intensified by the threat of global disaster – climate change, nuclear threats, cyber attacks, terrorism, pandemics – all reinforced by nonstop media.

In popular culture, we see end-time angst most pointedly in films, TV programmes, and games which portray the apocalypse or life in its dystopian aftermath. Sometimes the end is brought about by our own stupidity, and sometimes it’s imposed by outside forces like monsters or zombies, asteroids or aliens. Such cultural products expose human anxieties and reveal our yearnings for a better, more secure hope. Indeed, while the threat of the end is inevitable, hope that the final destruction of humanity is avoidable – or in some sense survivable – runs through virtually all apocalyptic tales.

We are hope-shaped creatures, in need not just of a sense of hopefulness, but a hope-filled story, one which leads somewhere.

For Christians, hope is not an optimistic belief in our capacity to meet every eventuality. Rather, hope derives its shape from trust in the God who has acted in Jesus Christ, who is working out his plan of redemption, and who will one day inaugurate a world free from ‘the old order of things’. Christians believe not in the end of the world, but in the beginning of a renewed world.

That hope frees us up to live expectantly and confidently, though realistically and wisely, in ways that seek to transform the here and now of our bit of the world, in line with what will be – not out of fear, but as a response to God’s gracious promise.

All’s Well That Ends Well?

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permission and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God...  I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them... In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys... Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab.

Nehemiah 13:6-7, 10, 15, 23

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell a joyous story overall. Yes, there have been struggles along the way; but the temple has been restored, the city walls have been rebuilt, the people have heard the word of God and committed themselves to keeping their covenant with him.

Chapters 11 and 12 of Nehemiah continue to unfold positively in describing the repopulation of Jerusalem (there’s no point having a city rebuilt if there’s no-one living in it), the identification of leaders (it’s one thing for the city to be repopulated, but the people need continuity and purity in leadership too), and the dedication of the walls.

And that would be a great place to end the book! Except... we have chapter 13 to go, and – to be honest – things fall apart, with an ending that’s decidedly downbeat.

Nehemiah had returned to the king who had originally sent him to Jerusalem. We don’t how long he was away, but when he came back, all the old problems had resurfaced. The temple and its staff were being neglected, the sabbath was being dishonoured, and mixed marriages were compromising families and confusing children. The people still needed restoration.

And so the book comes to an end – with a bit of a whimper, truth be told. Renewal had come about, but hadn’t lasted; promises had been made, but had been broken.

Perhaps more significantly, this is where the story of the Old Testament finishes. We’re left wondering when the promises will be fulfilled; we’re left looking forward to the time when there will be full and final restoration. So it is that the book of Nehemiah points beyond itself to a time when there really will be no sin, no sorrow, and no pain, with Jesus and his people dwelling in the new heavens and new earth, the hope of all those who belong to him.

For Christians, hope is not an optimistic belief in our capacity for self-reformation or our ability to change the world. It is God himself who will bring about the new creation. But our hope frees us to live expectantly and confidently, though realistically, in ways that seek to transform the places we inhabit in the here and now in line with what will be – not as an act of self-assertion, but as a response to God’s gracious promise.

The Whole of Life for Christ (6): Whole-Life Hope

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. It’s the penultimate in a series introducing themes explored more fully in the book, The Whole of Life for Christ: Enriching Everyday Discipleship, written with Mark Greene.

‘See, I will create

new heavens and a new earth.

The former things will not be remembered,

nor will they come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice for ever

in what I will create,

for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight

and its people a joy.

I will rejoice over Jerusalem

and take delight in my people;

the sound of weeping and of crying

will be heard in it no more.’

Isaiah 65:17-19

The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.

Romans 8:21-24

In words that John will later pick up in Revelation 21, God – through Isaiah – lays out the goal of his redemptive work – nothing less than a new creation. Not an immaterial heaven, but heaven and earth combined in breathtaking renewal. A restored world washed clean of dirt and pollution, where weeping and crying will no longer be heard, where ugliness and scarcity will be overcome by beauty and abundance. Just pause to imagine such a world.

It’s not like that now (in case you hadn’t noticed...). Romans 8 is one of many places where Paul expresses the tension between how things are now and how they will be one day. And that tension between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ is part and parcel of everyday discipleship.

The new age has broken into the present age, so that we enjoy ‘the firstfruits of the Spirit’ while awaiting the full harvest. The current experience of birth pains will give way to eventual relief. Paul depicts salvation as being set free from bondage, applying the imagery not just to women and men, but to the entire created order – yet one more reminder of the sweeping scope of God’s work in Christ, where such liberation is not simply ‘internal’ or ‘spiritual’, but the ‘redemption of our bodies’, and of creation itself.

The Bible tells the story of God’s work of redemption, which is a gloriously comprehensive rescue – ‘far as the curse is found’, as the old carol puts it. To be sure, biblical passages use figures of speech in their descriptions of what the future looks like, but they all underline not the removal of creation but its renewal, not its ruination but its restoration.

In this time between the times, our discipleship – in keeping with what will be – is all-embracing, as we make known and live out God’s rule over the whole of life. Seeking to avoid both defeatism (claiming too little) and triumphalism (claiming too much), we can testify to the wide-ranging sweep of God’s renewing power in politics and parenting, in economics and education, in art and athletics – being realistic about current ‘bondage’, but all the while looking forward to the complete restoration of what was originally declared ‘good’.

Such is our confidence and expectation – our hope – a hope of the full disclosure of God’s gracious reign that shapes each of us in the here and now.

Talking Jesus

‘What do English adults know and believe about Jesus Christ? What do they really think of his followers? How often – if ever – do Christians talk about their faith in Jesus? How do both Christians and non-Christians feel about those conversations?’

A joint initiative by the Church of England, the Evangelical Alliance, and HOPE commissioned Barna Group and ComRes to conduct some research on those and similar questions, in order to investigate perceptions about Jesus, Christians and evangelism in England.

More information is available here, including a downloadable report here, and a short animated video here.

The Bible in Transmission (Winter 2013) on Rediscovering Hope

The latest issue of The Bible in Transmission, from Bible Society, is available online here, offering a collection of articles on ‘Rediscovering Hope’.

Anne Holt

Editorial

Markus Bockmuehl

Hope and Optimism in Straitened Times

Hope, in any philosophically or theologically serious sense, has largely disappeared as a topic of public discourse in Anglo-American societies. More alarmingly, even for the Christian churches the theological virtue of hope is today strikingly absent. Against this background, Markus Bockmuehl asks, what place remains for the message of Christian hope, as taught in Scripture?

Stephen Kuhrt

The Importance of Being Eschatological: Providing Clarity and Direction for the Local Church

Stephen Kuhrt argues that hope is something that should be setting the agenda and direction of the Church. A shift towards a more biblical eschatology will have significant practical implications in terms of the Church’s ministry and mission.

Ruth Valerio

Hope and the Environment

How should we think about hope in the context of the ecological crisis we are facing? Ruth Valerio explains how the biblical promises about the future of this planet can inspire us to live responsibly in the here and now. The Church must take a leading role if we are to live more lightly on this earth

Miriam Swaffield

Hope in the Next Generation

Evangelist Miriam Swaffield explains why she has hope for her contemporaries, the 18–30 year olds of the ‘millennial generation’.

Timothy Hutchings

Death, Hope and the Internet

An outline of some of the most important ways in which digital media are handling the way people die and mourn today. Christians need to think seriously about how they can bring their message of hope and love to this emerging network society.

Catherine Butcher

HOPE National Impact – Local Action

David Spriggs

Universities and Colleges

James Catford

News from Bible Society

Anvil 29, 1 (2013)

Anvil, the ‘Anglican evangelical journal of theology and mission’, is now available as an open access journal via De Gruyter, after a sign-up process.

The September 2013 edition includes papers from an environmental consultation on the issue of ‘Hope’, with contents and abstracts as follows.

Margot R. Hodson

Editorial: Discovering a Robust Hope for Life on a Fragile Planet

Martin J. Hodson

Losing Hope? The Environmental Crisis Today

Environmentalists and scientists who study the environment often give a pretty bleak picture of the future. Surveys of secular views on the environment suggest that the general public in the developed West are concerned about the state of the environment. After considering all of the environmental problems that are causing scientists to worry, this paper then concentrates on four: climate change; biodiversity loss; global water supply; and the increase in our human population. Finally we will see what scientists have to say about hope in a time of environmental crisis.

John Weaver

Exploring Hope

This paper has emerged out of a consultation held in Oxford to consider the relevance of the Christian message of hope in the face of global environmental crisis. For many Christians, hope has moved from being a proximate hope that we might change our behaviour, to an eschatological hope, as behaviour and policy change are becoming frustratingly hard to secure. It is recognised that this crisis of hope not only applies to environmental issues but also issues of poverty. The author considers our role as hopeful disciples living between proximate and ultimate hope. He uses Ricoeur’s ‘knot of reality’ to explore the interconnection between suffering, faithfulness and the promises of God. The link between catastrophe, judgment, endurance, and hope are examined. A number of key Bible passages are considered in outline and Col. 1:15-20 and Rom. 8:18-23 are examined in more depth, along with some passages from Genesis and Isaiah. Church leaders who are aware of the environmental crisis, need to improve their communication to motivate Christians to take seriously the care for creation and for the poor. Drawing on the work of Walsh and Keesmaat, the author calls Christians to be countercultural. The Church can bring the signs of hope and these are found in community. This requires action that embodies Christian virtues. These point to a renewal of creation and show that we are caught up in a bigger story. Our ultimate hope is always in God and is brought into our present world through our faithful discipleship.

Richard Bauckham

Ecological Hope in Crisis?

This paper considers the topic of Christian hope in the context of today’s environmental crisis. Christian hope needs to be renewed as the world changes, and it needs to engage with the prevalent secular hopes. We are the first people to live at a time when we face the possibility of an entirely human-caused terminal catastrophe. During the Cold War we had the threat of a nuclear holocaust, and now an ecological disaster. The relationship between ultimate and proximate hopes is investigated. Ultimate hope is the final accomplishment of all God’s purposes for his creation. Proximate hopes are those we have for the temporal future. One difference between ultimate and proximate hope is that the former is unconditional and depends only on God’s transcendent act of re-creation. Proximate hopes depend partly on what humans do, and they can be disappointed. Ultimate hope can support proximate hopes, and enables us to work in the direction of God’s purpose. Faith, hope and love are mutually engaging, and needed for the flourishing of the others. We need to scale down our lifestyles, and limitless growth will not be possible. In this scenario hope will need to be both discerning and imaginative. We will also need endurance to keep going and not to give up in the very difficult situation we are facing this century.

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba

Hope and the Environment: A Perspective from the Majority World

This paper considers hope and environment from a majority world perspective. It begins by surveying moves within the Anglican Church to become more environmentally aware, and to integrate environmental concerns into theology and practice. This process began at the Lambeth Conference in 1968 and eventually led to the inclusion of an environmental strand within the Anglican Communion’s ‘Five Marks of Mission’. The fifth Mark is ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’ In the 2008 Lambeth Conference a whole section was devoted to the environment. There follow accounts of environmental work in the Province of Southern Africa. In Niassa Diocese, in northern Mozambique, the mission department has been using Umoja (from the Swahili word for having a common mind) in congregational and community development. It demonstrates holistic mission by deepening faith, building community, and helping with practical challenges. Now the bigger question facing Southern Africa and the majority world is climate change. In South Africa apartheid used to dominate everything and this led to unity in the Church, but after apartheid the country is not faced by one overarching problem, but many. The theology of Charles Mathewes is explored in an attempt to find an adequate Christian response and bring hope to this new context. This then leads on to action in both small practical ways, and in bringing about more fundamental change. Finally, we are reminded that we should not always speak about problems, but also to present a positive vision.

Andy Atkins

Communicating Hope in the Real World

This paper outlines a methodology for campaigning on environmental issues at a time when hope is in short supply. Brief consideration is given to the real world context. Current environmental concerns are set within the present economic downturn. Our science is generally much better, and many more players are interested in the environment. There has been a media revolution in the last 10 years, and there are now many more ways of communicating information. The equation ‘Proposal + People + Opportunity = Change’ is explored. The principles elucidated are applied to a case study of ‘The Bee Cause’, a Friends of the Earth campaign. The implications for Christian leaders are then investigated.

Bishop Geoff Davies

SAFCEI (Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute)

The Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI) grew out of a life-long conviction that the Christian church had failed in its responsibility to care for God’s world. Surely we who worship the God who ‘in the beginning created’ all that exists, should take a lead in its care?

Not the End of the World

I contributed today’s ‘Connecting with Culture’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. The day of posting being 21 December 2012, I felt compelled to reflect on the hullabaloo surrounding the coming to the end of the Maya Long Count calendar.

In the words of an old quip, if you’re unsure what to make of the rumblings about ancient Maya prophecies coming to pass today, 21 December 2012, don’t worry – it’s not the end of the world.

During its classical period (AD 250-900), Maya civilisation saw remarkable achievements in architecture, writing, maths, and astronomy, including the creation of a complex system of calendars. One such, the Long Count calendar, which roots the Maya people back in creation itself, reaches the end of a 1,872,000-day-long cycle on 21 December 2012. But the calendar doesn’t end at this point. Instead, like the mileometer on a car that’s gone round the clock, the count rolls over to zero the next day.

Some have spoken of the day being a ‘hinge point’ for the emergence of a new, more enlightened age, when we ‘reconnect with our cosmic heart’. Others have predicted doomsday scenarios involving UFOs, black holes, sun flares, the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field, and giant tsunamis. Russia and China have reported panic buying of candles and matches, and the US has seen an increase in sales of survival shelters.

Everyday fears are increasingly shaped and intensified by the threat of global disaster – climate change, nuclear attacks, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, pandemics – all reinforced by the media. In popular culture, we see it most pointedly in films which portray the apocalypse or life in its dystopian aftermath. Such movies, like Roland Emmerich’s 2012 (inspired by the assumed ending of the Maya calendar), expose human anxieties and reveal the yearnings for a better, more secure hope. Indeed, while the threat of the end is inevitable, hope that the final destruction of humanity is avoidable runs through virtually all apocalyptic films.

For Christians, hope is not an optimistic belief in our capacity to meet every eventuality. Rather, hope derives its shape from trust in the God who has acted in Jesus Christ, who is working out his plan of redemption, and who will one day inaugurate a world free from ‘the old order of things’. Christians believe not in the end of the world, but in the beginning of a renewed world.

That hope frees us up to live expectantly and confidently, though realistically, in ways that seek to transform the here and now in line with what will be – not as an act of self-assertion, but as a response to God’s gracious promise.

Links

2012 – Official Movie Site.

Mayan doomsday prophecy ‘a big misunderstanding’, BBC (20 December 2012).

Adam Gabbatt, ‘Nasa explains why the end of the world is not coming on December 21’, The Guardian (13 December 2012).

NASA, Beyond 2012: Why the World Won’t End (13 November 2012).

Ethics in Brief Volume 17 (2011)

The two issues from Volume 17 of Ethics in Brief, published by The Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, are now available online:

Robert White & Jonathan Moo, ‘Environmental Apocalypse and Christian Hope’, Ethics in Brief 17, 1 (2011)

In an age when many have begun to consider widespread environmental collapse inevitable, the certain hope held out in the Christian gospel rules out both complacency and despair. Scripture’s vision of a future for all of creation that is secure in Christ and given by God’s grace challenges Christians to a radical environmental ethos that is marked by wisdom, self-sacrifice, perseverance, love and joy.

Colin Bell, ‘The Church’s Response to the Coming “Crisis of Sustainability”’, Ethics in Brief 17, 2 (2011)

The level and types of human activity on planet Earth need large-scale and immediate change. In this article secular debates are considered in the light of various theological principles – our mandate from God at creation, hope, Sabbath, simplicity and community – to show that the church has a relevant voice. Proposals are then made for constructive actions the church can and should take.

Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (49/50) – A World Remade

‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the forty-ninth of the fifty emails, this one written by Margaret Killingray.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.’
Revelation 21:1-3

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating: for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight.
Isaiah 65:17-18

A new creation, redeemed, renewed – not just heaven, ‘above the bright blue sky’, but heaven and earth combined, fused, the two dimensions of reality brought together in a final triumphant rebirth, a new creation that began with the resurrection. The very physicality of Jesus’ resurrection points us to the physicality of the new creation – because we believe in his resurrection, we also believe that we too will know ‘the resurrection of the body’ in the new heaven and the new earth. An earth purged of all evil, put right, glorified as Jesus was glorified at the transfiguration, washed clean of dirt and pollution, where God ‘will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more’ (Revelation 21:4). ‘No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime’ (Isaiah 65:20).

All that is beautiful and good will survive the purging fire of judgment – leaving a place we will know and people we will recognise, just as the disciples recognised Jesus, not always straightaway, but always in a burst of delight.

As sleep that follows fever,
As gold instead of grey,
As freedom after bondage,
As sunrise to the day;
As home to the traveller
And all he longs to see,
So is my Lord,
My living Lord,
So is my Lord to me.

Timothy Dudley-Smith wrote these words as a love song to the Lord that we can sing today. But they could equally well describe how it will be, when we are there with him in his new, fresh creation at the end of time. This is the sure and certain hope that is motivating us to bring the love, justice and joy of his kingdom into our world today.

Margaret Killingray

For further reflection and action:

1. After a long hard winter in northern parts of the world, the signs of spring delight the heart – the songs of busy birds, the flowering of early bulbs, and the growing warmth of the sun. Rejoice in it all, and know that the Lord, who filled this damaged and troubled world with such beauty and joy in creation, will recreate a new world both reassuringly familiar and astonishingly different.

2. The Song of Songs is, for many people, a surprising book to find in the Bible – a lyrical song in praise of human love, very physical, very sexual, with its love analogies drawn from the natural world around them, wine and perfume, gold and silver, springtime and blossom, leaping gazelles. Here again the Bible is giving us pointers, in our experience of human love and longing, to the redeemed and perfect creation God has prepared for those who love him. Read it and praise him.

3. This world will be purged in the fires of judgment. The Bible speaks of this from Genesis to Revelation. The vision of a new heaven and a new earth should bring us to our knees before the cross, the terrible cost of full redemption.

Christian Reflection on Apocalyptic

The latest issue of Christian Reflection from The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University deals with ‘Apocalyptic Vision’, and includes the following essays:

Barry Harvey
The Church as a Company of Nomads
The early Christians, steeped in the apocalyptic imagination of post-exilic Judaism, saw themselves as a company of nomads in the present age. A Church that can celebrate this vision through worship and service is truly a people who have heard ‘what the Spirit is saying to the churches.’

Harry Alan Hahne
The Whole Creation Has Been Groaning
In apocalyptic language, the Apostle Paul describes the corruption of nature and expresses the cosmic scope of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ. If God plans to redeem the damaged material creation at the end of the age, God’s redeemed children should care for nature now. God’s plan for what we will be in the future in glory is the moral pattern for how we should live today.

Susan R. Garrett
Satan and the Powers
In apocalyptic writings we meet a cast of fallen characters – Satan, demons, and other nefarious beings – that indicate spiritual realities, earthly officeholders, or structures of power. How did we come to inhabit a world controlled by such powers? And where is God in the mix?

Scott M. Lewis
Is Apocalyptic Imagination Killing Us?
Much religious violence draws on apocalyptic theology for its inspiration. Dangerous misinterpretations of the apocalyptic paradigm of cosmic warfare are often linked with political, economic, and social agendas that are not explicitly religious in nature.

Thomas S. Kidd
Islam in Apocalyptic Perspective
The history of American apocalyptic thought offers much reason for discouragement. Christians have been too eager to gloss biblical prophecy with extra-biblical assertions and morbid scenarios of Islam’s demise.

Harold T. Bryson
An Authorized Look into the Life Beyond
What John sees – ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ – is not a replaced, but a redeemed heaven and earth. They teem with life precisely because the impediments to life with God and his people are overcome, and the obstacles to intimacy are removed. Intimacy with God does not exist in isolation; it involves community relationships with all those who love and serve God.

The entire issue (including other articles and book reviews) is available for download here, and a set of six study guides and lesson plans which ‘integrate Bible study, prayer, worship, and reflection to explore the centrality of apocalyptic imagination in the Christian life’ is available here.