Theos Report on the Magna Carta

The latest report from Theos has just been published:

Thomas Andrew, The Church and the Charter: Christianity and the Forgotten Roots of the Magna Carta (London: Theos, 2015).

Here’s the summary blurb:

‘The popular story of the Magna Carta – of rebel barons forcing the hand of the tyrannical King John – is well known. But what is often lost in the tale of Bad King John is the crucial role played by Christianity in the formation and preservation of “The Great Charter of the Liberties of England”. Despite their importance to the history of the Magna Carta, neither the practical contribution of the church, nor the principled contribution of Christian theology, have received much attention beyond relatively small academic circles.

‘The Church and the Charter puts these forgotten Christian contributions right back at the heart of the Magna Carta’s story. In exploring the difficult historical relationship between the religious and secular authorities in England, it assesses how and why the church helped place certain limits on the powers of the English monarch. In practical terms, it demonstrates the role played by the ‘new Becket’, Archbishop Stephen Langton, who was so crucial to both the emergence and the survival of the 1215 Magna Carta.

‘More significantly, however, it explores the ideological relationship between Christian theology and the most celebrated of the ideas that came to be enshrined in the Magna Carta – ideas about the importance of due process, the legitimation of arbitration in the affairs of the king, and the extension of rights language to all free men. It argues that these were notions rooted, not in secular thought, but in a medieval theology that had been profoundly affected by the development of canon law.

‘In the year in which we mark its 800th anniversary, The Church and the Charter shows that the Magna Carta is a document shaped by the history of religious thought, just as much as it is an expression of ‘secular’ demands. And it deserves to be remembered and celebrated as such – as a seminal document in the development of political thought that owes a great debt to both the political clout of the English church, and to the ideological reflections of Christian theology.’

A pdf of the full report is available here.

Shaped by the Story (3): Under New Management?

[I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. It’s the third in a series of 5 or 6 (maybe 7) looking at passages in Scripture which summarise the biblical story. In part, the series has been designed to help publicise the book, Whole Life, Whole Bible: 50 Readings on Living in the Light of Scripture, written with LICC colleagues.]

Then Samuel said to the people... ‘Now then, stand here, because I am going to confront you with evidence before the LORD as to all the righteous acts performed by the LORD for you and your ancestors... If you fear the LORD and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the LORD your God – good! But if you do not obey the LORD, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your ancestors.’ 1 Samuel 12:6-7 & 14-15

Like Moses and Joshua before him, Samuel calls the people to covenant faithfulness at the dawn of a new era in their history – the transition to Saul’s kingship. Again, like Moses and Joshua, his instruction is informed by the biblical story to this point. How will the monarchy relate to what has gone before?

Samuel begins by ensuring his own integrity is not under dispute, and the people happily agree that he had neither cheated or oppressed them. But he goes on to show that the Lord, likewise, has been faithful to them in his ‘righteous acts’.

His historical sketch begins with God’s liberation of the people from Egypt, through Moses and Aaron. It takes in the period of the judges, as Samuel makes it clear that the Lord repeatedly raised up leaders to deliver them when they rebelled against God and fell into enemy hands. In the context of the people wanting a king ‘such as all the other nations have’ (1 Samuel 8:5), the clear upshot of Samuel’s telling of their story is that God himself, as the supreme overlord, has consistently provided leaders to rescue his people in times of need. The ongoing problem, it appears, is not the system of leadership per se so much as their constant turning away from God.

Even now, notwithstanding their request for a ruler, God remains committed to Israel. But the king will not guarantee their future success. That will be down to their ongoing trust in, and obedience to, God whose covenant still stands – for the king as well as the people. Kingship will be allowed, but both leader and people are to serve the one who is Lord of all.

As it turns out, later generations would come to know that kings do not and cannot save. And the biblical story anticipates the need for a ruler who would reign forever, who would bring about a salvation that Israel’s king could never achieve. Now, as then, as 1 Samuel 12:22 makes clear, the basis for our confidence and delight in serving God is his saving grace towards us: ‘For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own.’

Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (14/50) – King for a Day?

‘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 fourteenth of the fifty emails.

The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by human beings, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.
2 Samuel 7:11b-16

Israel’s struggle to take the land and the destructive spiral of the period of the judges paves the way for the monarchy. Thus begins the shift from a tribal society to a central government, where the focus of attention moves from the nation to the king.

With kingship comes the ambivalence of the political order and human rule we know so well – its necessity alongside its tendency to corruption. Writers of the records do not hide the negative details of Israel’s kingship, David included. But with kingship comes a further reminder of God’s gracious willingness to get his fingers dirty with politics, society, and culture; his determination to work through human foibles and failures; his ultimate oversight as the covenant relationship with his people is played out and preserved in the history and politics of real life.

At this point in the story, David has been crowned king, defeated Israel’s enemies, and has moved the ark of the covenant to the newly-secured capital city, Jerusalem. Concerned that his own royal palace is more lavish than God’s dwelling, David is determined to build a temple for God. As it turns out, David is not allowed to build a ‘house’ (temple) for God, and told that God will build a ‘house’ (dynasty) for David, giving him the promise of a kingdom that will last forever, in which true kingship will be marked by faithfulness to God.

God’s covenant with David adds a new dimension to the biblical story – a royal representative of the people, God’s ‘son’ no less – with the promises of the covenant now focused on Mount Zion, the place where God will be seen to dwell with his people as their true king. The language is echoed in many psalms, where the king’s reign is celebrated as marked by wisdom and righteousness, providing a visible centre of God’s rule for the sake of the nations.

As we might expect, then, God’s commitment to David has implications beyond Israel, and stands in continuity with the promise to Abraham of blessing to all nations, itself tied to God’s purposes for creation. David and his sons will take centre stage in the story of God’s dealings with men and women, so that through his line – through his anointed ‘Son’ – the Lord may restore and bless the whole world.

For further reflection and action:

1. Resonances of 2 Samuel 7 are found in Psalms 2, 72, 89, 132; Isaiah 9:6-7; 11:1-5; Jeremiah 23:5-6; 33:14-26; Ezekiel 34:20-24. How do they fill out the details of what ideal ‘kingship’ should look like?

2. How does this passage illumine our understanding of Jesus, ‘great David’s greater Son’? Check out Luke 1:30-33; Acts 2:22-36; 13:32-36; Romans 1:2-4.

3. Why does Matthew make it clear in his genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17) that the story which moves from Abraham to David to Christ is our family story as Christians too? What difference, if any, might that make to your tasks this week?

4. If possible, share and discuss with someone else the pattern we have seen in the biblical story so far, where there is a move from the ‘particular’ to the ‘universal’. The Lord singles out one person (Abraham) for the blessing of the nations, and one nation (Israel) to be a light to the world, and now he singles out one king (David) and one place (Zion), for the sake of the extension of his rule to the ends of the world. In what ways is it possible to see Christians singled out in order to bless others? What examples of this have you seen in your own life?

Michael S. Moore on Ruth

Michael S. Moore, ‘To King or Not to King: A Canonical-Historical Approach to Ruth’, Bulletin for Biblical Research 11. 1 (2001), 27-41.

Here’s the abstract of an interesting essay on Ruth:

Contemporary approaches to Ruth tend to focus on the book’s internal structure and contents. Only rarely is sufficient attention given to the book’s external context, particularly its canonical-historical context. In Judges 17-21 all of the major characters balk in the face of challenge. Priests, landowners, husbands, wives, and warriors all abandon their responsibilities. In Ruth, however, the main characters valiantly shoulder their responsibilities, however burdensome. In Judges, men treat women insensitively, shamefully, even violently. In Ruth, women are treated like partners on a common mission. Why? Having been led by the book of Judges (particularly the self-contained anthology incorporating chaps. 17-21) to wonder whether the one-and-only source of Israel’s agony is kinglessness, Ruth is a canonical-historical surprise. Both Ruth 1-4 and Judges 17-21 come from the premonarchical period of the ‘judges’, yet each offers a radically different response to this fluid situation. To read Ruth against its canonical-historical context not only reconnects us with some of the book’s earliest interpreters, it also generates newer literary and sociological insights into the theological message of this beloved short story.