Mission Catalyst 2 (2023) on Reconciliation

The current issue of Mission Catalyst, published by BMS World Mission, is now available. This issue is devoted to ‘The Road to Reconciliation: Global Theologies of Healing’.

Here’s the blurb:

‘As the UK church across the denominations prepares for rifts, rips and worse over the issue of human sexuality, this issue looks to the Global church for theologies of healing, a subject brought yet more sharply into focus by the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Matty Fearon, René August, Martin Accad, Camille Hernandez, Katy Hayward and regular columnist Natalia-Nana Lester-Bush share their stories to help illuminate our pathways.’

Mission Catalyst is available as a free subscription, or this issue can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Theology and Ministry 8 (2022)

The latest issue of Theology and Ministry, an open-access journal from Cranmer Hall, St John’s College, Durham – and containing the below articles – is available from here.

Samuel Tranter and Nicholas J. Moore

Editorial

Sebastian Rab

Christ and Church as Temple in John 14.2–3: And Implications for Eschatology and Funeral Ministry

Temple is a key biblical-theological theme, especially in the Fourth Gospel. A case is made that the farewell discourse employs this theme at its outset to introduce its key priorities. If the ‘Father’s house’ is the body of Jesus and its ‘many dwelling-places’ are the disciples, then John 14.2–3 uses the theme of temple to speak to the relational nature of both being a disciple of Jesus and the reconciliation of all things to God in Christ. This has implications for our eschatology, which are related particularly to funerals, where this scriptural reading is enduringly popular.

Paul J. Wilson

Rethinking Refujesus: Biblical Perspectives on a Popular Icon

The claim that ‘Jesus was a refugee’ or that Christians follow a ‘migrant messiah’ has become a shibboleth among those who advocate a more benevolent response to migrants. This manner of identifying Jesus has gained traction in the past decade, even being promoted by politicians and pop stars. In response, ‘Refujesus’ has been criticized by those who view migration as a threat. Proponents on all sides of this debate refer to the ‘escape to Egypt’ (Matt. 2.13–23), but are often more concerned with reading contemporary questions about migration into the text, rather than the text itself. This paper will argue that while describing Jesus as a refugee does have exegetical merit, the New Testament has more to offer ethical responses to migration by offering a fundamental shift in perspective though a migration-informed exegesis.

Anthony Bash

Remorse, Emotions, and Moral Transformation

Despite popular thought, repentance and remorse are not synonyms. Repentance is both affect and action, whereas remorse is always only ever affect, though remorse can lead to repentance. Surprisingly, there is no word that obviously means ‘remorse’ in the Bible, though people were evidently remorseful, especially towards God for sin. Remorse is different from regret, though it includes elements of regret in its meaning. In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul lays the linguistic and theological foundation for what later became known as ‘remorse’. Remorse is an affective disposition, and we consider how the New Testament approaches the way dispositions can be transformed from being sinful to godly.

Robert Russell

From Enmity to Reconciliation: Reflections on the Theology of Vernon White and Forgiveness Research of Marina Cantacuzino

The journey leading from enmity to reconciliation is beset with complex challenges for parishioners en route and for pastors offering guidance. Concepts and principles are selected from the theology of Vernon White, the forgiveness research of Marina Cantacuzino, and theologies of other authors, which may prove helpful. Two major issues are considered here: 1) reconciling with each other, involving offering and receiving forgiveness, and 2) reconciling with God. These are examined theologically and practically to include differences and connections between forgiveness and reconciliation, theodicy (particularly instrumentalism), freewill, strategies for counseling, and common parishioner concerns with possible pastoral responses to them.

Oliver Blease

This is My Body: A Qualitative Study into Sociological and Theological Experiences in Local Parish Eucharistic Worship

The theology and praxis of the Eucharist is often discussed by academics and theologians, yet most people engaged in the act of celebrating the sacrament rarely have a published or widely heard ‘voice’ with which to share their experience of these Holy Mysteries. This article investigates the direct experience of communicant members of the Church of England across a wide range of theological traditions. Idiographic qualitative data yielded from semi-structured interviews is analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). These results are reflected upon using the Theological Action Research model to generate relevant and practical outcomes from the data. Three key themes emerge from the participants’ experiences: the significance of the gathered community; a pre-existing and dynamic reflective praxis amongst communicants; and a diverse but prevalent focus on ‘mission’ particularly relating to the unique nature of the rite.

Reviews

So Great a Salvation #3: The Cross and the Reconciled Enemy

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

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

Colossians 1:19-22

The New Testament writers use rich, evocative images to unfold the significance of Jesus’ death: a bloodstained battlefield, a slave market, a law court, a sacrificial altar... The word pictures engage our imaginations, even as they invite us to place ourselves in situations that might not be immediately familiar to us.

In several places, though, Paul writes about the cross in language most of us can readily identify with, often from firsthand experience – that of a broken relationship in need of mending.

In many such cases, the phonecall is made, the card is written, the flowers are given, apologies are offered and accepted, and the relationship moves on. In other cases, the hurt is all too painful, the hostility all too powerful. Issues of justice may also be involved, with reparation required. Forgiveness is possible, but won’t come cheap. The likelihood of reconciliation seems remote.

This heartbreaking reality is at stake in humanity’s relationship with God.

Here in Colossians and elsewhere in his letters, Paul is not embarrassed to describe us as God’s ‘enemies’, as ‘alienated’ from him, and to call out our behaviour as ‘evil’. All the more staggering, then, that reconciliation comes about at God’s own initiative, and does so through the Son. Central to the gospel is the announcement that ‘God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ’ (2 Corinthians 5:19).

In particular, the cross is at the heart of this breathtaking plan. What will God do through Jesus? He will reconcile ‘all things’, writes Paul, making it clear that God not only makes peace with individuals, but will one day bring the whole universe back in harmony with himself. But at what price does this peace come? Again, Paul is clear: ‘through his blood, shed on the cross.’ He pays the cost required.

It’s the cross which brings about the ‘but now...’ relationship we enjoy with God, where formerly alienated enemies are now ‘holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation’.

The cross of Jesus stands at the climax of the entire history of salvation. Everything is understood in the light it casts, a light extending forward to the day when all things will be fully restored. Meanwhile, that light illumines our daily lives as we seek to be shaped by its reconciling power, knowing that we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

The Bible in Transmission (Autumn 2018) on Reconciliation

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

I have taken the ‘tasters’ of articles below from Tony Graham’s editorial.

Tony Graham

Editorial

Sarah Hills

From Estrangement  to Communion: A Theology of Reconciliation

Two of our contributors, Sarah Hills and Gordon Kennedy, remind us that this ministry of reconciliation begins with the transforming grace of God, the wounded healer.

Glenn Jordan & Pádraig Ó Tuama 

Sharing stories: Narratives, Reconciliation and Public Theology in Ireland and Britain

Our second article comes out of the Corrymeela community in Northern Ireland. Established in 1965, Corrymeela’s mission is to ‘transform division through human encounter’. Here Glenn Jordan and Pádraig Ó Tuama discuss, with a focus on the book of Ruth, the importance of creating space to share stories and the power narratives have to confront and transform. As we approach the centenary of the partition of Ireland and face the uncertainty of the UK leaving the European Union, Glenn and Pádraig challenge us to examine ‘the stories that will affect our civic, bordered, political, religious and relational realities. These realities invite deep and complicated reflection on the past, and the ways in which the stories told (or not told) of the past can affect the practice of the present.’ What sort of society do we want to become?

Gordon Kennedy

Broken Relationships

Two of our contributors, Sarah Hills and Gordon Kennedy, remind us that this ministry of reconciliation begins with the transforming grace of God, the wounded healer. As Gordon states, ‘if we long to see reconciliation in our relationships with one another we must begin with our reconciliation to God our Father.’

Fleur Dorrell

Believing is Seeing: Reconciling Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus Paintings

Our need for God’s grace is highlighted in Fleur Dorrell’s reflections on Caravaggio’s two paintings of the Supper at Emmaus based on the story in Luke’s Gospel. Here Fleur explores ‘how Caravaggio uses symbol and revelation to reconcile art with reality and faith with salvation to open the disciples’ eyes to Christ’.

Elizabeth Oldfield

Loving your Digital Neighbour: New Media and Reconciliation in an Age of Incivility

As technology drives changes in society, significant interpersonal challenges emerge. As David Goodhart argues, social media has amplified our differences and the tone has changed. We are living in an age of increasing incivility. So how do we deal with difference and what practical steps can we take to help restore broken relationships? Drawing on her own experience of social media, Elizabeth Oldfield reflects on what it means to love your neighbour in a digital age.

Ian Christie

Reconciliation with the Earth? From Ecological Violence to Peacemaking with the Creation

In our penultimate article, we return to the subject of war – our war on nature. Ian Christie argues that in the face of a worsening ecological crisis we need to urgently rethink our ethics and values. The potential for ecological reconciliation is real and Christian communities can take a lead and be ‘exemplars of new ways of living and cooperating that demonstrate reconciliation’ with God’s creation.

R. David Muir

The Windrush Generation: History, Memory and Racial Reconciliation

Social divisions are not new, as David Muir outlines in his account of the Windrush generation, who experienced significant racism and discrimination. ‘The Church can, and should be, the place where all people feel welcome and accepted.’ However, more needs to be done to make our churches more inclusive and our society more cohesive.

Paul Williams

Afterword

9Marks Journal 12, 3 (2015) on Multi-Ethnic Churches

The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available here as a pdf, is devoted to the topic of ‘Multi-Ethnic Churches’.

In the Editor’s Note, Jonathan Leeman writes:

‘[C]hurches today too often mimic their host culture’s ethnic rivalries, whether in South Africa, India, or America. Or at least, too often they forget they possess a resource for overcoming racial or ethnic strife that the world does not have: the gospel.

‘Most evangelicals recognize that possessing the righteousness of Christ means “putting on” that righteousness in every-day decisions. Yet the same is true of the reconciliation we share with one another in the gospel (see Eph. 2:11-22). We are to “put on” that reconciliation. If we do not put on that righteousness, and if we do not put on that reconciliation, we call into question whether we have been declared righteous or “one new man.”’

More from the Centre for Public Christianity (July 2014)

The Centre for Public Christianity adds to its offerings already this month with an audio interview with Nick Spencer about the argument of his most-recent book, Atheists: The Origin of the Species, a video interview with Miroslav Volf on ‘how forgiveness can appear irrational yet actually make sense’, and a video interview with Francis Spufford, whose book Unapologetic ‘makes a stirring defence of Christian emotions, claiming that they make a compelling case for the way faith can function in the 21st century’.

Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (48/50) – The Reunification of All Things: United We Stand, United We End

‘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-eighth of the fifty emails.

With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment – to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ… His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross… Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace… until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Ephesians 1:8-10; 2:15-16; 4:3, 13

In the breathtaking opening of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul outlines the broad sweep of God’s plan of salvation set in place before the foundation of the world. Even as he catalogues the amazing blessings we enjoy in the here and now, he still looks forward to the moment when ‘the times reach their fulfillment’, when all things will be summed up – gathered together under one head – Christ, the one in whom God will restore harmony to the cosmos.

And as the letter goes on, it becomes clear that the ultimate unity of all things – to be fully displayed in Christ – has already had its beginning in the church.

Though dead in sin, enslaved by forces of evil, and deserving of wrath, we have been made alive with Christ – only because of God’s love and only through faith (2:1-10). But the death which brings together God and humanity also unites formerly alienated people, as Jews and Gentiles are made into ‘one new humanity’, reconciled through the cross – both given access to the Father, both citizens of the heavenly temple indwelt by the Spirit, both declaring that defeat of the ‘powers’ is now certain, both called on to display the wisdom of God (2:11-3:13).

So, far from being a passive spectator in this cosmic drama, the church is to live a life worthy of her calling, to display the unity of the Spirit, to grow together in Christ as a unified body, to reflect to the world God’s ultimate plan for the universe, testifying to a comprehensive, all-embracing salvation in lives turned around.

While the vision is cosmic and grand, the outworking is local and specific as we witness to the reconciliation of all things in our everyday existence in particular locations, from Basildon to Bangalore. In doing so, we demonstrate a whole new way of living – before God and with others, consistent with our new humanity – starting with where we find ourselves everyday, with the choices we make everyday, with the people we live with everyday, with our families and in our jobs – as very ‘ordinary’ people through whom God is present to the world.

For further reflection and action:

1. Paul makes it clear in Ephesians that the church has been included from the outset not as a ‘supplement’ to God’s plan but as an essential ingredient in his scheme for the universe. How often do we think of the church this way, and what difference might it make to our thinking and practice if we did so?

2. How do we become ‘ministers of reconciliation’, demonstrating the restoration the gospel brings to every area of life? Read Ephesians 4-6, and reflect on how God’s design for reconciled lives works out on the ground and in relationship with others.

3. Buy or borrow – and read – a copy of Eugene Peterson, Practise Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010), which looks at the theme of ‘growing up in Christ’ in Ephesians.