CHARIOTS OF FIRE

One of those ironic juxtapositions pregnant with subliminal meaning occurred in church tonight. A song written by Jeremy Camp called ‘Beautiful one’ was projected on the screen from ‘SongPro’. The second verse reads:

Powerful so powerful Your glory fills the skies.

Your mighty works displayed for all to see

The beauty of your majesty

Awakes my heart to see

How marvelous how wonderful you are

.

SongPro often projects its songs with a scenic backdrop. In this case the backdrop was a cloudy skyscape – rather appropriate one might think given the above verse, except for one glaring feature; the clouds were those linear formations generated by jet aircraft! Man’s most advanced application of the discovery of fire, the jet aircraft, Promethean in its vision, scores the sky from horizon to horizon, and the yet song declares: ‘Your glory fills the skies’! This breath taking paradox turned out to be a picture and anticipator signalling the need to proceed with caution with what followed; a sermon embodying the great 'genesis paradox' one so often finds in modern evangelicalism. For some Christians Exodus 20:11 (and the like) have a meaning that is as clear as a blue sky, and yet the Promethean project of science blazes its trail across those meanings. For some the paradox has become a chronic contradiction: How could a creator have created such a proactive world, a world so proactive that if it were not for self referencing problems it would seem to be logically self contained? One easy solution, of course, is to simply ignore those vapor trails and their meaning.

An aircraft emerges from the 'Big Bang'!

THE FEMINISED CHURCH

The February edition of 'Christianity' magazine carries the first part of a feature article billed on the front as "No man's land: How gender imbalance has feminised the church". Have they only just noticed this? Moreover, hasn't it occurred to them that it may be a coupled effect: that is, gender imbalance has caused feminisation AND feminisation has caused gender imbalance. I'll do a longer blog on the subject after the second part of the article is published in March.

GODHEAD AND BLOCKHEADS
In yesterday evening’s sermon an allusion was made to Augustine of Hippo’s “heresy”. Yes, it was heresy as Augustine fell into that well-worn trap which, starting with attempts to resolve the problem suffering and evil, leads to an attempt to disconnect from this world by an escape into the confused religious complex of dualism and gnosticism (specifically Manicheaism in this case). This often has ramifications for the views held on the nature of the Godhead. However, I write ‘heresy’ as “heresy” as I much prefer to be lenient about the foibles and blind allies that Christains often traverse – although, needless to say, leniency is seldom reciprocated by these highly religionised Christains who earnestly indentify satanic infiltration with contradiction of their opinions. They are all too ready to accuse fellow Christians of ‘letting in Satan’! (Yes we’ve had it at NCBC too!)

I was reminded of an article in Reachout’s 85th newsletter entitled “Heresies, Ancient and Modern”. The newsletter listed and described the following “heresies”: Aphthartodocetism Monophysitism, Apollinarainism, Alogi, Arianism, Docetism, Ebionite, Encratite, Eutychianism, Gnosticism (Proper), Marcionism, Monarchianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism, Monotanism, Nestorianism, Origen’s ‘heresy’, Pelagianism, and Sabellianism. Nearly all of these ‘heresies’ fall over on one or more issues connected with legalism, gnosticism, and most often, the nature of the Godhead. Reachout are good at collecting, compiling and tabulating the facts (at least I hope they are), but are not so adept at evaluating the real meaning of what is in their hands; they make no mention of the common themes running through these 'heresies'

Attempts to define the nature of the Godhead are notoriously difficult and I personally have no issue with those who theorize, even wrongly about the Godhead on the proviso that these attempts are tempered by tentativeness, perspective humility and a studied detachment. After all, theorizing attempts to join the dots, and like all theorizing, theologies may not succeed in joining all the dots and the true nature of the Godhead may be a misrepresented. However, that’s no problem if humility of perspective, tentativeness and a studied detachment are the frame of mind in which the theorizing proceeds.

Perspective humility? Tentativeness? Studied detachment? One may as well run after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as expect such values to be held in fundamentalist circles. These are the very things that redneck religionists eschew and interpret as the antithesis of faith, revelation and commitment. But the irony is that this is where the real heresy starts, for those who arrive at, say, a Gnostic view of God, are likely to do so as a side effect of the search for an exclusive club of the spiritual elite and will claim other Christains to be all but beyond the pale of grace. They will then proceed with threats of Divine displeasure or even damnation toward those who don’t follow their line or fail to join them.