Bible Study: The Trinity

My Bible study on the subject can be found here.

At the heart of the Christian faith is a metaphor. The Greek word for "fish" (In Latin text, IXTHUS) has been used down the ages as an acrostic for the Greek version of "Jesus Christ, God, Son, Saviour.". The word "Son" here alludes to Jesus, the Son of God. Of course that can't be literally true any more than the claim that God is Father is literally true: In fact it would be blasphemous to suggest that God has begotten a Son in the literal sense; the incarnation must have been a very a different process to human procreation.   "Jesus is the Son of God" is a metaphorical expression about the relationship between Jesus the "Son" and God the "Father" and how far one can take this metaphor is subject to theological debate; much theology is less about claims to propositional truth than it is a debate about how far metaphors can be unpacked for their connotative content.

The metaphorical nature of much "propositional" theology is easy to overlook and when being used metaphorically for their connotative value theological statements may inadvertently be treated literally as if they are notational propositions. All metaphors have their limits but if metaphorical expression is the only means one has of expressing the otherwise inexpressible, taking the metaphor too far or too literally is always a danger. Therefore, it may be best to use a cluster of metaphors, realizing that no-one metaphor completely captures the otherwise incomprehensible. Theologians might like to ponder on the fact that theirs is not an exact science whose terms are precise enough to strain out a gnat. Theology provides guidelines rather than tram lines.

There have been many attempts to bring the concept of the Trinity into sharper focus by using crisp notational terms, but these attempts have so often come to grief in their explanation of how the human and divine come together in the Trinity that there is now a theological health warning hanging over the whole subject: See the heresy hunting Reachout Trust's list of "heresies" as an example. There may be some merit in what has otherwise been declared to be heretical provided it is treated metaphorically (although perhaps a bad metaphor). However, all too often the purveyors of these metaphors treat them literally and use them as doctrinal shibboleths in order to set themselves up as the one and only true understanding of the Godhead; that's when it becomes hard core heresy.

The Biblically sanctioned metaphor of Father and Son is undoubtedly the safest metaphor, a metaphor which focuses on the exclusively special relationship of "Father" and "Son" in the Godhead. But in the light of the adoption spoken of in Romans 8:14-19 (another use of metaphor) Christians can also claim to have a secondary Father/offspring relationship with the Divine. Perhaps using this metaphor, we can infer that as with young children we often have wrong ideas about the exact nature of our parent and yet that doesn't necessarily make void the adoptive relationship that that parent fosters with love. There is probably more leeway for the foibles of human idiocy and bigotry about the nature of the Godhead than doctrinal heresy hunters allow for; after all, the latter have to work with metaphors too.

The Four to Six Mix and the Feminisation of Church Culture

Some years ago on this blog I did a series of posts that resulted of some head counting I did at my church; my aim was to get an idea of the ratio of males to females. This little exercise was carried out on and off for about three years. I was surprised at the approximate constancy of the ratio over the period. The ratio turned out to be about 40% males to 60% females, hence I termed it the "four to six mix". The project was linked to an another theme and that I referred to as the feminisation (in the stereotypical sense of the word) of the Western church in its spiritual attitudes and culture; in particular the move to a more emotional, intuitive and  passion based church along with a drift toward an almost gnostic interpretation of the faith. (This is not true, however, of the kind of evangelicalism which strongly identifies with the reformation and majors in doctrine and "Truth" - such churches tend to eschew the emotional and experience based excesses of churches influenced by "Charismatic" culture. They also tend to be more "masculinised" in their ethos)

Anyway, the sequence of posts between June 2007 and January 2011 on this subject can be accessed using this link:

http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/search/label/FourToSixMix

Now here's what I want to come to. Recently the 4:6 mix has surfaced again in two independent connections: The first connection is the "iknow" church management software my own church uses. The iknow software generates this  monthly report:

The 4:6 statistic here is, I assume, taken from membership numbers rather than the rota population expressed by the bar chart. This 4:6 ratio has been static for at least a year if I recall correctly. 

I now turn to the June edition of Premier Christianity magazine where we find an article entitled  Your Church Needs More Men. This article includes the statistical schematic below:

Yes, that's right, up pops the 4:6 mix again, this time presumably based on extensive church surveys. The fact that my small sample reflects this survey is,  as I have put it before, statistical "magic" which would have made Arthur Koestler proud (See "The Roots of Coincidence" Pages  26-27 and see also my book Disorder and Randomness)

One of the concerns (and this has long been a concern of mine too) of the Christianity article is the obvious implication of the statistical imbalance: Namely, that unless young church women are prepared to stay single many will not find a male partner within the confines of the Church and will have to find husbands outside the church. In fact given that a large percentage of the more senior church population have successfully paired off it follows that the gender imbalance among young people will be even more skewed than 4:6. 

Looking through my "4:6 Mix" posts I notice that Christianity magazine has published articles on the gender imbalance and the related feminisation of the church on at least six occasions: There was a spate of articles and book reviews in 2007 & 2008: Viz: July & September 2007,  February, and March 2008 and two articles in May 2008.

In my previous posts I toyed with idea that a factor strongly related to the 4:6 mix was the "feminisation" of church; that is, a cultural skew entailing a move away from stereotypically male traits and this is evidenced in the feminisation of worship. For example, quoting from my post of Feb 22nd 2008 where I quote a church leader called Carl Beech....

As for the state of worship in church with its male alienating ‘Swoon for Jesus love ins’ Beech seems to understand this as well: “Our terminology is that Jesus is our lover – press yourselves into his arms and let him embrace you”. Beech goes onto to say: “I’m very grateful for the charismatic movement, but I think we need to recast the terminology. Some of the songs which emerged in the 90s were very cathartic.” It was a lot worse than that Carl: the mid nineties was the heyday of the Toronto Blessing when, if you didn't want to be accused of resisting the Spirit, you emulated those 'in the Spirit' and got down on all fours and barked!

This is not to say that a "feminine" style of worship is wrong in itself: Also there is no necessary inference to be drawn which stereotypes genetic "males" and genetic "females" into particular roles. Some males may prefer the feminised worship and some females may prefer more masculine styles. The statistical clustering of genetic males and females around what are conventionally thought of as feminine and masculine traits is going to be a cloudy affair subject to many exceptions. The problem, however, arises when there is an imbalance of culture  that alienates a section of the congregation.

To be frank the premium placed on a soppy "swoon for Jesus" gnosticism in some Christian quarters alienates me as it does other males. There have been some gallant moves in an attempt to create events that cater for a more male orientated "laddish" culture (such as the 4M movement). This is good and gets full marks as a nice try but what little I've seen of these events suggest to me that the epiphanies of "Jesus gnosis" are still regarded as the acme of Christian experience. While this situation persists the statistics will remain the same. 

It is probably not as simple as a trend toward a uniform feminisation; rather it may actually be a  polarisation between hyper-feminisation and hyper-masculinisation with the latter evidenced by a dominating male leadership which on occasion can be a mix of patriarchary, authoritarianism, and bullying, all of which chimes well with fundamentalism and is a complementary fit with a feminised, obedient and compliant church membership.  My current guess is that such is the reaction of church communities to cultural stress and marginalisation in a changing world. 

STOP PRESS:

Talking about bullying leaders: The abrasive and domineering Mark Driscoll is back according to a Premier Christianity web article entitled Mark Driscoll is back but he hasn't learned his lessons.   See here. But I wonder if it's not just Driscoll who has to do some learning but also a fundagelical culture which is inclined to give such characters a free ride on its back. 

https://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-mark-driscoll-affair.html

https://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mark-driscoll-affair-part-ii.html

Views of Norwich From a Roof Top

A year or two ago I took some photographs of Norwich from the roof of Norwich Central Baptist Church. These photos can be seen in  this PDF.  Below I have reproduced the introduction:

***

The pictures in this album show Norwich City landscape from the vantage point of the roof of Norwich Central Baptist Church. Over the years new build has made this area increasingly residential reversing the 20^th century English trend to escape the inner city. But as per most churches today, NCBC has a widely spread congregation with a catchment radius that perhaps extends up to ten miles and overlaps with the catchment areas of other church congregations. Modern changes, not least waning church attendance and modern transport, have meant that today’s churches seldom serve their local “community”.  This has lead contemporary church attenders to select a church less on the basis of vicinity than on the basis of the church culture and where they feel they can settle down and connect.

The pictures were taken about two years ago and actually capture a view that is no longer available as a consequence of the construction of flats adjacent to NCBC (The empty demolition site just prior to building can be seen in the photos).  These photographs, therefore, were taken just in time to provide evidence of a remarkable historical transition that has taken place over the centuries. They show how difficult it is to snap a general view of Norwich without including several old mediaeval churches in the frame. The density of these gothic edifices is evidence that in those days churches really were “local community” churches in the sense that they served a public that was within a stone’s throw.

I remember doing this guided tour for a group which included Americans and Australians. As they did the tour they were astonished that one only had to walk a few yards before yet another medieval church came into view. Modern conditions, however, have changed what “community” means and this presents challenges to people who are still inclined to think of community in purely geographical and parochial terms.

Bible Study: The Royal Law

Picture from: https://refreshingmanna.org/the-royal-law/

The Golden Rule of gregarious living is quoted on Wikipedia as:

The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one's self would wish to be treated. It is a maxim that is found in many religions and cultures.

The Biblical version of the Golden Rule, The Royal Law, is in fact more general: "Love your neighbour as yourself". This more general form doesn't impose any interpretation on just how love is to be expressed; after all, there are often big cultural & understanding differences between people and this can render just how love is to be actioned problematical. But given these differences  between people what common inter-human content can be conferred on the concept of "love"?  It might seem that what is love to one culture is, in fact, not love to another culture and vice versa. So unless there is some kind of intercultural universal which we can identify as "love" then any claim to the universality of the concept of "love" would seem to be hopelessly lost in subjective and intercultural translation.

But there is such a thing as a common humanity, independent of culture. For me the universal concept of love must be based on the commonality of conscious cognition; that is, a recognition that human cognition is accompanied by conscious feelings; e.g. joys, pleasures, pains sufferings etc. Our common humanity gives us the potential to carry out an empathetic projection which provides insight into the feelings of other people and hopefully a deep care for them; that is what universal love means.

This realisation of the common human link of conscious sentience doesn't, however, remove the fraught practical question of how love is best actioned in a world of epistemic challenges, unpredictability, cultural differences and very partial understandings of what actions best serve the long terms interests of our fellow human beings. The Royal Law doesn't directly address these practical challenges it; it is a guide line rather than a tram line. But the Royal Law is the ultimate high level command to all humanity: Love one another as I have loved you, but it is your responsibility to work out in practice exactly what that means in a social context. This is a huge challenge for beings who have issues with selfishness and epistemology. We therefore thank God that a divine plan of salvation was rolled out! Don't we need it!

As is so obviously evidenced by the numerous contrarian Christian sects and divisions, all loudly accusing one another of not following the clear commands of the Word of God to the letter ("clear" only to them, of course), the Bible is not unambiguous. The Bible does not provide a full suite of rules and regulations covering all eventualities; instead we get guide lines rather than tram lines: That, I suspect, is exactly the challenge it puts before humanity. Epistemically insecure Christian sects seek an unambiguous and narrow deterministic shape to belief and practice. This determinism does not exist in Scripture.

In any case we must never forget that the Spirit of the Law is not to be found in codes, programs and rules - these are just the outward (often transient) expressions of something which goes much deeper (See the book of Galatians). In fact there are dangers in prioritising the rule of the law over the Spirit of the Law.

My Bible study on the Royal Law can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15KXki3SHKD7dHPlEKLHZsVdrUNhwXTaM/view?usp=sharing

Roman-Saxon-Norman Norwich and St Julian.

Click to enlarge this view of Norwich as seen from the east. (North is right and south is left)

I recently spent an inspiring Saturday morning on a history walk in Norwich's King street area. The guide was Alan Gidney of Norwich Central Baptist Church. We also had with us a guide who was going to tell us about the world famous St Julian of Norwich, an anchorite whose cell is attached  to St Julian's church, a church within a stone's throw of  King street's Dragon hall; the latter being our assembly point.

Alan linked King street with the Roman road running from the northgate of Caistor Roman town  (Venta Icenorum), a fortified settlement about four miles to the south of Norwich. On the 3D Norwich map at the top of this post (Courtesy of Google) Caistor is off to the left. It is not known, said Alan, whether King street is on the line of the actual Roman road or whether it followed the line of Ber street, a street which runs roughly parallel to King street and is a little further up the Wensum valley side. Ber street and King street are both marked on my map. But in any case neither road has a good alignment with the road running from the north gate of Caistor Roman town, so presumably the road from Caistor had a kink in it at some point. Hazarding a guess: The Roman road from Caistor may have run along the east side of the River Yare until it arrived at a cross-roads near Trowse, whereupon a north west connection from the cross roads ran either to Ber Street or King street.

King Street, looking south. The front of Dragon hall can be seen in the centre distance.

The uncertainty about whether Ber street or King street is the original Roman road is expressed  in the following passage taken from this web site.

Although there is no substantial evidence of a Roman town within Norwich city walls, Venta Icenorum - Caistor St Edmund, just south of Norwich - was the focus for Roman settlement, selected for its fertile soil and good communications.

The area of modern Norwich was crossed by two major Roman roads suggesting that it was important, but not as a settlement. Evidence suggests that Holmstrete Way ran east west (modern Bishopsgate/St Benedicts) and a further Roman road ran north south along King Street or and Ber Street and then up Oak Street.

So, Oak street is also thought to be on the line of the Roman road. On my map I have marked Oak Street and also Charing Cross. Charing Cross may have been the place where the road from Venta Icenorum crossed Holmstrete.  If my map is anything to go by then Ber street has, apparently, a much better alignment with Oak Street and Charring cross than does King street. (However, Roman roads sometimes incorporated kinks in order to avoid difficult terrain, so this is no proof that Ber street is our Roman). King Street, on the other hand, has a reasonable alignment with Fye bridge (marked) to the north. In Saxon times Fye bridge was actually a ford and it therefore seems not an unreasonable conjecture that King street was, in fact, a Saxon deviation from the Roman road which made for the ford; presumably the well engineered Roman bridge that crossed the Wensum had long since decayed and fording the river was the cheapest Saxon alternative.

King street gets its name from the Saxon village of "Conesford" or "King's ford". Conesford was a village lying immediately to the south of the ford and was clustered around the point where King street was crossed by Holmestrete  On the other side of the ford lay the fortified Saxon town of Norwik (From which we get "Norwich"). Magdalen Street (marked) ran down the centre of this town, a town with a ditch and bank rampart and probably topped by a wooden palisade; it was in effect the "New Caistor".  As a fortified town Norwik had burgh status and was therefore permitted by the Saxon king to mint coins.

After the Norman conquest the centre of gravity of Norwich moved south, up and out of the Wensum valley toward the Ber Street ridge on which the Norman castle was built overlooking and dominating the Saxon villages in the Wensum valley. It may be at this point in history that King Street became the bustling inland "Port of Norwich", second only to the inland "Port of London". Although Norwich completely lost its second city status after the industrial revolution, I have early memories of it as a port for (small) sea going cargo ships, although today it is just a quay for Broad's pleasure boats.

St Julian's church is a short walk along St Julian's alley, an alley which intersects with King Street just outside the famous Dragon Hall. Dragon Hall was constructed in 1427 by the wealthy merchant Robert Toppes who made his money buying and selling with continental Europe. The feudal system introduced by the Normans had run about 300 years when St Julian was born in 1342 (She died sometime after 1416). But in the latter half of the fourteenth century the feudal order was under the hammer as history was in the process of making a transition. In consequence St Julian's life covers some significant times and dates. Viz:

* The Black death 1349 (England)
* The Peasant's revolt 1381
* The mid 14th century rise of John Wycliffe's Lollard's many of who were burnt at Lollard's pit a short way upstream at from Dragon hall. They were in effect pre-reformation reformers and were considered a danger by Roman Catholic authorities.
* The Canterbury tales 1387 - 1400
* The rise of the middle classes: e.g. Robert Toppes 1400-1467 who built Dragon hall in 1427

It is a reasonable conjecture that all the dates I have listed after 1349 have their roots in the effects of the Black Death, the plague which resulted in a 40% reduction in the population and consequently left many feudal agricultural strips unfarmed. Peasant tenants moved into the fallow land and started to make a profit and eventually bought cheap land to farm; they became the land owners often referred to as yeoman farmers, eventually to become contiguous with the gentry. They were the beginnings of the up and coming middle classes who in due course became rich and influential. English social mobility had arrived. An example are the Paston family who even moved into Caister Castle on the coast north of Gt.Yarmouth (not to be confused with Caistor Roman Town). Ever since those times the rich middle classes have had a tendency to ape the English aristocracy if they could.

The power of the feudal aristocracy whose wealth lay in their unquestioned ownership of farm land (the source of medieval wealth) was weakened by the Black death. The Black death lead to a lack of peasants to till the land and this in turn made land a buyer's market. But the feudal aristocracy continued to rule as if nothing had happened. The peasantry and early middle classes weren't wearing it and revolted. But this revolt was premature; the aristocracy were still very powerful and it took at least another three centuries before, in stages, the middle classes successfully took their place in the corridors of power. In the meantime the middle classes put their heads down and got on with the business of making money, Robert Toppes being an example.

Another connected factor in the peasants revolt may have been a subtle change in social ethos after the Black death. Evidence of this might be apparent in the Canterbury tales where it is clear that Chaucer was pondering carefully the meaning of social class. After all, the Black death was no respecter of persons; it was proof that all humanity was equal under God, although it should have been noticed that this equality was implicit in scripture from day one. Just before his execution in 1649 Charles I declared his belief in the royal blood line's divine right to rule. Charles I's execution is therefore symbolic of the death of the concept of an  aristocracy with a God given right to sovereignty.

The entrance to Julian's cell.: A Norman arch. It therefore pre-dates St Julian by at least 200 years. Her original cell probably did not include this entrance. She may have been bricked in with openings left for communication, food, hygiene and other basic needs. 

Into this mix comes the mystic St Julian. Today King street comes over as a sleepy residential area but our guide told us that in St Julian's day it would been a busy inland port area with people coming and going. Our guide also hinted that St Julian may have chosen this area because she felt that it was where she was most needed. After all, ports don't have a reputation for being particularly moral. Moreover, if the Canterbury tales are anything to go by we can imagine that street level culture here was pretty raw! (as it always has been I suppose!) So St Julian had her work cut out! Unlike the Lollards, however, St Julian didn't see herself as challenging the Roman Catholic church; a church that was in actual fact in much need of reform and challenge. But St Julian's theology was not entirely in keeping with that church. One of her doctrinal novelties was her stress on the motherly feminine aspect of God and Christ, a role reserved in Catholic thought for the Virgin Mary. But St Julian didn't go out of her way to rock the boat and in those days she was still a relatively small fish and could be safely be ignored. As for the Lollard's, at first the secular authorities tolerated and even protected them, but when they became linked to the peasant's revolt they lost this protection and many were burnt at the stake. Like the peasant's revolt the Lollard movement was premature; times were not yet ripe for a big change.

Standing in St Julian's cell for me was reminiscent of my visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Old Jerusalem. In both locations little or nothing remains of their original aspect making it difficult to make an imaginative connection with the past. Moreover, in my particular case picking up holy vibes is simply not one of my strengths. This fairly plain, clean, smooth, minimalist white washed cell was not going introduce me to a meditative mindfulness; not that much else has a chance of doing that either! A commemorative board just outside the cell says "In this holy place we can almost hear St Julian saying...so & so." Well, I didn't hear her! None of this is to say, however, that many people don't meet with God in the midst of contemplative silence.


And now to modern times: The St Julian controversy

St Julian's teaching. Traditional reformists will hate it.  Needless to say after a quick search on the Web I found....!

In reformation England St Julian's writings were rescued and hidden; she was after all a Roman Catholic Saint. But her writings eventually resurfaced and became popular in the West, perhaps on the back of a resurgent Romanticism. However, traditional "logos" based protestant believers who strongly identify with the reformation will find her writings at best wanting and at worst heretical. For example the following typifies a heavily reformist reaction to St Julian:

.....nowhere in Scripture are we taught “the Trinity is our Mother,” or that Jesus—the unique Son of God—is our “true Mother,” and we’re certainly not taught, “All shall be well.” The late Dr. Walter Martin, a very well-respected evangelical apologist, was correct when he said: The vast majority of mankind; will not make it [to salvation], because they simply will not repent. And if you don’t think these people are lost; then why in the world are you even bothering to call yourself a Christian. Study mysticism, as I have, and you’ll see a common thread of universalism within it.

In closing this subject, for now, Julian of Norwich falls right in lock-step with classic mysticism of all stripes with its panentheism (all in God), pelagianism (true self, which is sinless), “a spark of the divine” where, in contradistinction to Scripture, God already dwells within all of mankind and concluding with Julian’s belief in a universal salvation.
(See http://apprising.org/2010/05/09/setting-the-record-straight-on-julian-of-norwich/)

With their tendency toward an unimaginative and stark factualism fundamentalists are often found arguing over metaphors that they interpret literally. It is certainly true that some metaphors are better than others, but if you are a literalist what should be a discussion on merit and appropriateness becomes a black vs. white battle of truth vs. falsehood, a fight between good and evil, thus releasing huge passions, emotions and acrimony. As they diligently search the Bible for "theological algorithms" which provide exact rules giving unambiguous guidance about belief and practice, it is no surprise that a book which often uses language connotationally should cause fundamentalists to fall out with one another very acrimoniously over issues which should be treated as a question of nuances of meaning. An example of such a fall-out is the council of Chalceden (451), a council attempting to settle the contention between Nestorius and Cyril over the nature of the Trinity. It represents a timeless theological fracas caused by inflexible literalist thought. Prime suspect as to the root of the cognitive dissonance at Chalceden is the concept of "hypostasis" or "substance", terms which are clearly metaphors derived from the material world and applied literally and uncritically to the Godhead. It is no surprise that the black vs white fundamentalist mind will instinctively recoil from the sometimes woolly & sloppy language used by the Christian mystic.

One can repent, believe in the Lord Jesus and receive the gift of adoption from the Father and yet in my experience what chiefly characterises fundamentalist believers is that in practice they understand "repentance" in terms of affiliating oneself to their culture's specific rendition of Christianity; all other contrary Christian cultures are likely regarded as simply unrepentant. Close approximations to the Gospel can be found among Jehovah's Witnesses and yet one knows that they too are likely to consider anyone who does not connect with their holy remnant as unrepentant and therefore non-christian, no matter how emphatic one is about receiving the Gospel. For one quickly finds that in the eyes of fundamentalist Christians of all types (and this includes JWs), salvation is practically conditional upon the acceptance of their subculture as exclusive. Keeping fundamentalists at arm's length (A policy I actually advocate) is, to the fundamentalist mind, tantamount to a ticket to hell; see here, here and here. Expressions of the acceptance of the Gospel outside their culture are all but worthless to them. But having said that I can no more defend fundamentalist reformers than I can Christian mystics who err on the side of gnosticism and like their strict reformist siblings also regard those beyond their "enlightened" culture as of an inferior spirituality. 

The reformation brought an end to the Roman Catholic monopoly on Latin Christianity. Subsequently, in the West God no longer had all his apples in one basket where they could all go bad together. But human nature remained the same and those Protestants too enamoured of the divine authority of their opinions, following medieval  Roman Catholicism, believed there remained only one basket - their's!*



Addendum 15/04/2019
https://www.networknorwich.co.uk/Articles/546301/Network_Norwich_and_Norfolk/Resources/Events/_Julian_of_Norwich_celebrated_with_weekend.aspx

Footnote:

*As has become so apparent in my Creation researches evangelical Protestants are very tempted by a dualist world view, a view where God's creative power is instinctively distinguished over and against the profane "hypostasis" of matter; shades of gnosticism haunt many dark corners of Christian culture. And yet it is the sovereign transcendent God who has created the cosmic miracle of space & time and whose omnipresent  immanence sustains it and continues to create.