FOR THE RECORD

I thought I’d better preserve the italicised text below for the record. It is a comment I put on the very Reverend James East’s blog here. It concerns the concept of connotational languages, a subject which is critical to understanding the natural language mode of speaking. This language mode includes the metaphorical but the idea is more general than just that. Needless to say it is very relevant to the subject of interpreting the language of the  Bible: 

 ***

A wide range of confounding paradoxes relating to our comprehension of the Godhead can be eliminated if we understand the difference between notational and connotational language. Notational languages, such as we use in mathematics or logic, attempt to talk about objects in detached and unambiguous “true or false” terms. For example, we might use notational language to say “It is day time” or “It is night time”. But in notational language statements like “It is both day time and night time” are liable to be contradictory. Connotational language, on the other hand, refers not exclusively to the object it describes but binds together the circumstances of the first person with the object. For example, someone might say “It is both day time and night time”, a statement which makes sense if we realize (for example) that in the particular context the statement was made the first person was telling us that he has depression (say). Connotational language carries information about both the objective and the subjective.

A statement that has connotational content leads us into a vista of reintepretation that depends on the open ended world of the language user and this prevents us from trying to wrap our minds around nonsense. For example, if the Bible said “Jonah swallowed the whale” you can bet your bottom dollar that there are some blockheads out there who would read this as a notational statement and attempt to believe it with a teeth gritting faith. They might justify this hogwash with the fideist argument that baloney somehow makes sense in the infinite mind of God but not in finite human minds.  However, “Jonah swallowed the whale” would make complete sense in a connotational context where, say, it is being used as a metaphor for people who attempt to swallow colossal absurdities. The hopelessly incoherent should not be identified with what we don’t know or don’t understand (or perhaps never will understand)

It is all but impossible to rid natural language of its connotational content except perhaps in the disciplined (but artificial) world of mathematics and logic. It is surely an irony that fideists, who are so strong about their inner connection with the divine, have never really thought their way past the third person language of the enlightenment with its objective, logical, and detached notational statements. To fideists statements like “Jonah swallowed the whale” are to be interpreted notationally and the resulting claptrap used as a test for the muscles of faith.  A corollary is that reason and revelation become polarities in opposition.

Instead of faith being measured by a willingness to imbibe bilge I think we might take a hint from Emerson about the rational basis of faith: “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen”.

Link::http://www.viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/dallas-willard-catches-up-on-gnosticism.html

HERALDRY AT NCBC PART 3: ESTABLISHMENT GRAFFITI

The three lancet windows at NCBC's north end.

This is the rather overdue part 3 of my series on the stained glass windows at the back of NCBC’s nave. The previous parts can be seen here and here. In this part I want to look at the coats of arms displayed in these windows.  On this subject I have had invaluable help from historian Nick Groves.  

I have already published a short post on the Norwich coat of arms which appears near the top of the middle window. (I may revisit the meaning of this motif in a later post). In this post, however. I want to look at the three coats of arms associated with past grandees of the church.  

About a third of the way up the central window our eye meets this heraldry:

The Colmans

My first hint of what this heraldry represented was a chance find whilst browsing the NCBC historical library: Here I came across a book on The Act of Uniformity of 1642. On the inside front cover of this book I found this:

 Did the book where this arms can be found once belong to a one of the Colemans?

Underneath this piece of heraldary we can read the name J. J. Coleman. As Nick Groves has confirmed this is none other than the coat of arms of the Colman family, the owners of the well–known mustard business. This family had connections with NCBC going back to the eighteenth century at least. The Latin inscription on the coat of arms reads:

Sat cito si sat bene

The individual words have the following connotations:

“Sat” ~ satisfactory

“Cito” ~ quickly

“si” ~ if

“bene” ~good

According to this web site the translation is:

It is quick enough if it is done well enough.

The sentiment here is one of satisfaction over speed, perhaps not exactly identical with the ethos of latter day industrialists!

Nick was also able to help me with the heraldry appearing in the left hand window:

The Wilkins

According to Nick:

A bit a poking around reveals that the arms belong to the Wilkin family (whelks - wilks!!! I'd thought it might be Mark Wilkes, but could not see why, as he had nothing to do with the place). Jewson's book The Baptists in Norfolk p 66, reveals, as I am sure you know, that Simon Wilkin (1790-1862) was Kinghorn's ward, and edited the first complete edition of Thomas Browne's works. He was (p 92) one of the trustees who commenced the Chancery suit to prevent open communion.

We have here an interesting reference to the Strict Baptist law suit of the mid nineteenth century, a suit that failed to achieve its purpose of legally enforcing closed communion on NCBC. That law suit was perhaps the rearguard action of the old marginalized non-conformity: From the nineteenth century onwards the only way was up as far as NCBC was concerned (in terms of its societal status); NCBC was becoming mainstream. To my mind it is ironic that Strict Baptist Simon Wilkin should be editor of Thomas Browne's works: Browne stood for a liberal establishment.

Finally we have the coat of arms that appears in the right hand window:

The Jewsons

Compariing this with a feature on NCBC’s Charles Jewson wall memorial (see below) we see that the above is the coat of arms of the Jewsons: (Another fact pointed out to me by Nick!)

Detail on Charles Boardman Jewson's wall memorial

***

Now, it is a curious fact that the foregoing was a revelation to me. I had spotted the Coleman’s coat of arms in the book on the Act of Uniformity and I had also noticed that the Jewson's wall memorials had very similar heraldry to that found in the right hand window. These were big clues, but in spite of this it never occurred to me that prominent families in the church had some sort of “ownership” of these motifs and that the church would make a point of displaying them in their windows – I needed Nick Groves to tell me this. Yes, I was familiar with the mediaeval practice of heraldry being assigned to high status families. But there was an inhibition that prevented me from extending this idea to the non-conformity of NCBC’s recent past. And yet the signs were about me: The sanctuary’s architecture and layout was evidence that by the 1950s the church was very much identifying itself as an establishment church. Displaying the family heraldry of those in their midst with a high social rank was a next logical step, especially in a time when public rank was able to elicit more respect than it does today. The church of the early fifties had so identified itself with the civic establishment that they felt no inhibition about celebrating the lives of the grandees amongst them who had become important pillars of society. 

Somehow I just couldn’t take all this onboard: I found it difficult to put myself in times when the church was less at odds with society. Moreover, evangelicalism's affectation for self-abasement grates with motifs that are likely to register in the evangelical mind as the glorification of individuals. Coming up through the neo-evangelical tradition I had become very used to a non-conformist culture that regarded itself as on the fringe of society and no longer a civic force to be reckoned with. Indeed, in some quarters it regarded that society with a measure of disdain and suspicion. An almost New Testament relation between church and society had reasserted itself. It therefore is no surprise I had such difficulty in conceiving that a non-conformist church should celebrate its links with civic society by displaying the heraldry of members who had achieved a high status in that society. It all goes to show how disconnected, perhaps even alienated, evangelicalism has become from civic life. Instead of celebrating their social standing evangelicals, particularly fundagelicals, are more inclined to glorify their holy remnant status as they gallantly hold on to their traditions in the face of the pressures of modern life. 

Church culture slips and slides to a different equilibrium as its relationship to a changing social environment shifts. But what doesn’t change is the inability of many marginalized and alienated evangelicals to see themselves in the context of the wider historical landscape and in consequence they underrate the work and ministry of those Christians who have gone before them or those who are not with them. Like Elijah in 1 Kings 19:10&18 paranoia and spiritual egocentricity blinkers their perspective.

The motifs in NCBC's north end nave window form a lively pattern of light, rich in colour. To many that's as far as it goes; their significance has long since been forgotten and they cause the merest disturbance in the repose of the church. And yet here we have big clues about Christain culture of the recent past and just how far and fast change can go. Like the graffiti artist's signitures those colorful patterns evidence the passing of those who were once in the here and now and who left their mark on church and civic society.

Note: 
The following link may prove a useful resource when considering some of the elements of heraldry: 

http://www.theheraldrysociety.com/articles/early_history_of_heraldry/origins_of_heraldry_by_davies.htm

SECTARIAN BONDAGE?

Addendum: 12/09/12:  There has been a sequel to the matter addressed below. This sequel can be read on my "Views News and Pews" blog here.  

I have recently posted on the subject of Christian splintering, a subject that has been an interest of mine for many years. Splintering is a phenomenon that is often accompanied by an intense sense of New Testament nostalgia, alienation from mainstream churches and a strong desire to clear the ground of all modern influences and return to a pure uncorrupted NT idyll. Well, lo and behold this particular class of splintering has just cropped up on Network Norwich and Norfolk in an article written by someone called Alan Howes who extolls the virtues of copying NT practices to the letter. 

It may be early days but I’m afraid to say that this is such an oft repeated pattern that I can only see it ending in the usual grief caused by a blend of legalism, gnosticism, authoritarianism and above all partisan sectarianism. Such people make claim to being free, but blind to their own irony, they lay down a clear cut set of rules (“based on scripture” of course!) about how things should be done. Even quite acceptable and innocuous practices are given a basis in a rule driven observance rather than in pragmatism. What these naive people fail to understand is that in order to implement their proprietary view of church they have two options: Either they demonstrate a degree of latitude toward the inevitable mutual disagreements about how church should be done or they engage in authoritarian enforcement; usually they opt for the latter and then call it “following the scripture” or “being guided by the Holy Spirit”. Like many splinters before them they fail make substantial inroads into the mainstream. They therefore become yet another minority "elite" church splinter who have backed themselves into a corner, a corner from which they have little option but to condemn others for not assenting to the same regime of rules.

Howes’s article is full of the usual clichéd concepts and denials of being a denomination: 

For if the Lord in His wisdom has given a prescription in his Word of how to church then why have we departed from it?

In returning to the heart of Scripture we see how God wants His Church to function.

We are not another denomination but rather a resource to help others see how the church should look and operate according to scripture.

 Are we as followers of the Lord willing to lay aside traditions…?

At Freedom Assemblies Norwich we firmly believe that God has given a blueprint for Churching together which is for all time and not just the 1st Century.

We could be seeing here yet another Christian sect in the very process of forming. Although I believe there is nothing wrong in and of itself in wanting to copy some fancied NT blueprint, it is the epistemic arrogance and fervor with which such is pursued that leads to division and argument; one man’s NT blueprint is another man’s corrupt practice and disagreements can be very sharp if contending parties all think they are “operating according to scripture” or according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Try contradicting Alan Howes and you will see what I mean.

[Note: The Witness Lee follower of whom I mentioned in this post will be greatly interested in this recent development, never being one to miss the opportunities provided by spiritual discontentment. He's probably already emailed Alan Howes and offered to meet up!]

One of my earlier written descriptions of Christian splintering goes back to 1997 when, after a visit to Jerusalem and the church of the Holy Sepulchre, I felt urged to put something to paper. The following as an extract from a longer essay:

The hill of Calvary, now one of the treasure caves Morton speaks of, displays a rather tasteless effigy of a dying God on a cross. Perhaps it is rather appropriate; crucifixion is undoubtedly amongst the most artless things humanity has indulged in. Morton says he wished he had not known this place except in his heart, but I don't think he meant it; judging from the context of his book, that was just his way of expressing his initial gut reaction. I had, in fact, my own visceral reaction. As I stood in the hot compressed queue waiting for my turn to enter the sepulchre itself, my first impression was that this place was phoney and I was tempted to ask what I was doing there. I found Calvary’s occupation of the same building as the tomb rather too convenient. It also seemed rather far fetched that a rich man's tomb should be within a stone's throw of a place of execution, cramped though Jerusalem is. But that was only my first impression. I have since heard that there is a historical case for all these sites being genuine. I can only put my first reaction down to my tendency to be deserted by traditional "religious feelings" in situations where one is supposed to most experience them. Perhaps that is a good thing because it means I keep a clear head. The other "put off" was probably the incredible level of religious embellishment I witnessed at the church of the Holy Sepulchre. That seems to be a general characteristic of humanity, particularly if it’s ready to believe anything; from seekers of space aliens to seekers of God, humans are not content to accept what they have been offered but insist on elaborating the basic facts with myriad add-ons until they make claim to a fantastic accumulation of detail. The kernel of truth is then lost under these elaborations. Like an archaeologist excavating an old city, you then have to dig through layer upon layer of fanciful human innovation, both good and bad, to sift out the truth at the bottom of it. My first reaction to this venerated site was, therefore, one of alienation. The religious mentality has something about it that renders it unselfconscious. Perhaps this is a consequence of devotion so intense that it becomes lost in itself. But whatever the cause, this context blindness means that the extreme devotion entails an inability to stand back and examine itself. This can be both strength and weakness; in this case weakness because in its obsession with devotional minutia it is unable to see the aggregate effect of its activity, and is thus unaware of the incoherent and implausible jumble its religion has become. One man's iconic elaborations are another man's excrement. And so there is a tendency for them to be repeatedly destroyed and remade as people wipe away the elaborations of their forerunners or peers and start all over again with the construction of fantastic new cultural forms, forms often thought to represent a return to genuine and original simplicity. Thus, the ground is successively cleared and replanted and the net effect is that there springs up a thick undergrowth of diverse groups. From ritualistic high churchmen to Christian cult members, from dowdy, stuffy, strict evangelicals to raving gnosto-charismatics, from cranky Christian conspiracy theorists to reclusive monastics, from wealthy sophisticated southern Baptists to "punk" and "biker" churches, from woolly theologians to rostrum thumping preachers, from stylish yuppie churches to yokels in corrugated iron halls; we have here a kaleidoscope of Christian subcultures, each with their own add-on mythologies. Tawdry and tinselly though they all may be, and yet to such I add my name. The miracle of Christianity is not so much in its unity, as clearly there is no unity amongst the foregoing, but rather we see the miracle in the fact that those who would otherwise have no truck with one another have all been funnelled through the same narrow gate of salvation, religious trappings and all; this is the miracle of the Gospel. And now, as I waited in the hot queue of the sepulchre, I was being funneled through another narrow gate with a crowd of people with whom I would not otherwise have much in common. Behind me was a young but rather plain looking nun to whom this visit, perhaps, was a pilgrimage of her order. In front of me a man from my tour, an Italian catholic, who crossed himself as he entered the cramped interior of the tomb. Into the dark cave we all went and out again using the same entrance. I did nothing and felt nothing as I entered and as usual only afterwards on reflection did I see this simple act as the perfect metaphor. I find it remarkable that such a large part of the whole of humanity has passed through such a small volume as the interior of the sepulchre, from peasants to the emperors; if the sepulchre was in Britain it would have long since been roped off to protect it from the wear and tear of visitors.

CENTRAL BAPTIST CHURCH, NORWICH

I few years ago I became aware that Norwich Central Baptist Church had a name-sake in America; well, near enough – it’s actually called Central Baptist Church, Norwich and the “Norwich” here is the Norwich just off the West Coast, not far north of New York. CBCN is placed in that part of America populated by early English settlers; it is thick with place names taken from English towns and cities: Canterbury, Colchester, Marlborough, Glastonbury, Coventry, Exeter, Andover, Manchester, Portsmouth, and of course Norwich. (I guess they must have run out of English place names as they moved west!) Although I have known about CBCN for a while, it’s only very recently that I’d thought I’d have a snoop at their web site. (I have to admit it; looking at other people’s stuff on the web still feels like entering someone’s private home) 

Externally the building CBCN use is a grander version of the traditional style that Dereham Road Baptist church left behind when they merged with St Mary’s Baptist church in 2003 to become the current “Norwich Central Baptist Church”. Like NCBC’s current building CBCN  mixes classical and medieval styles. The interior of CBCN’s building is pleasingly immaculate and well cared for – they appear to love their building; definitely a point in their favour as far as I’m concerned. 

Like NCBC, CBCN are traditional Baptists who embrace the local church concept and the separation of church and state. But therein is the paradox, the same paradox found at NCBC when it was St Mary’s Baptist church: Viz: Although emerging from a background of anti-establishment dissent the church gives outward signals of being well linked to the establishment. At CBCN established styles of architecture are supplemented with ministerial gowns suggesting a state sponsored separation of laity and clergy. In the case of our own St Mary’s Baptist church the establishment look grew over time as  the church became better connected with civic life; increasing numbers of its members signed up as pillars of society; MPs, Sheriffs, Lord Mayors, councilman, committee members, business grandees etc.

Looking at CBCN’s photo gallery I would have said that many Christians today would regard them as unfashionably traditional and formal in the way they do their church. For example, unlike NCBC they have made no attempt to get rid of their wooden pews even though it is likely they are a wealthy church who would have no trouble financing new seats. If anything they seem to be proud of their very churchy building, traditions and formality. There is an irony here: What we over on this side of the Atlantic regard as a fashionable "swinging" style of church has probably been, in most cases, imported from America. Today’s fashionable quasi-charismatic Christians are more likely to prefer flat worship warehouses to spires, pinnacles and naves, exuberant emotional worship to formal liturgy, patriarchal and impassioned preachers to men in establishment ermine, and the inner light of faith to reason. I may caricature a little here, but the tendencies are there and NCBC has been influenced by them*: I well remember how many worshippers from Dereham Road Baptist Church instinctually reacted against the idea of moving to St Mary’s Baptist Church. I have always suspected that this was a reaction to the establishment and traditional ambiance that pervaded the church building before it was refurbished; like all things that are just out of vogue St Mary's Baptist seemed intolerably unfashionable and a newer and fresher version of Christianity was being sought for in an era of post-civic, post establishment Christianity. This was part of a swing away from the institutionally ecclesiastical in favour of the esoteric and experiential side of Christianity.

CBCN, in contrast, gives every appearance of being completely at ease with their identity and their unassuming spirituality. Signs that have reached my door suggest that in America there are still large swathes of very traditional looking church, of both fundamentalist and liberal persuasions, secure in their size and strength with no intention of following their brash and noisy fellow countryman who major in a charismatic in-yer-face spirituality.

By some standards CBCN may look unfashionable but they are go-ahead enough to have a female minister and I suspect they have a fairly modern interpretation of Christianity. Compare that with the worship warehouse movement which can sometimes be very patriarchal; I only need mention Terry Virgo in this country and Mark Driscoll in America - and there’s a lot, lot worse out there too: In the swing away from the ecclesiastical to the esoteric, the ecclesiastical may actually reassert itself in the new churches with the guise of a so-called "Restored Church" with its stress on the authority of leaders. Moreover, fundamentalist bigotry and backwardness are so often found in the worship warehouses; it is irony that it is amongst the traditionalist fellowships that Christian values of freedom of conscience and tolerance are being cherished and preserved for the future.

* I'm certainly not suggesting the influences are all bad

UPDATE Feb 2022

Central Baptist church closed at the end of May 2020 and the premises closed.  According to their website:

Central Baptist Church will be meeting with our brothers and sisters at First Congregational Church in Norwich town beginning June 7, 2020 as we work towards a unified church together.

Central Baptist Church | Norwich, CT (centralbaptistnorwich.com)

HOW THE CHURCH BUILDING USED TO LOOK

I have compiled an album of pictures showing  the Church building as it was just prior to the renovations made in 2005-2006. These renovations largely effected the interior of the building. This album can be viewed here on my facebook account.

THE PARLIAMENTARY CHURCH

NCBC came out of the the cut and thrust parliamentary way of doing things (Gal 2:14, Acts 15:37ff), a way that has always  been the bogey of Christian sectarians and cultists who have sought to purge their churches of dissent  and return to a fancied New Testament innocence.

I have recently finished reading a short book called “Who do you think you are?” written by Baptist Ted Doe. The book gives a brief history of Baptists in Norwich. I would recommend it for any non-specialists (that includes myself) who want a resume of non-conformist history in Norwich. Reading history, however, always goes with a caution. History is usually an inextricable mix of documentary data and interpretation. Therefore one must always read it critically, being aware that comprehensive searches of primary documentation is seldom possible. Generalizations made from limited documentary samples are always open to revision in the light of further data; in fact the search space for history is all but open ended.

Although Ted makes some minor interpolations about NCBC’s history that need comparison with some documentation supplied to me by Dr. Nick Groves, on the whole I personally found Ted’s history very helpful and I look forward to his expanded volume. Where I may take issue with Ted, however, has less to do with his history than what he thinks that history’s significance is for us today. Ted looks to be of the school of thought which seeks to clear the ecclesiastical ground and return to an innocent uncorrupted New Testament purity:

It is important to understand that the central doctrine of the Baptist church is its doctrine of the Church, not the baptism of believers by total immersion. Baptists were among the first Christians to rediscover the simplicity of the New Testament Church and their baptismal policy arose out of that rediscovery. But if the New Testament Church was rediscovered, how come it had been lost in the first place? (p4)

The New Testament writings contain some basic ideas and examples of how believers should organize themselves and relate to one another (p6)

Contrary to popular propaganda the Protestant, or Lutheran, Reformation did not bring God’s people back to a true new Testament experience. (p7) (In Ted’s opinion the true NT experience is found amongst the dissenters who wanted to separate church and state)

How is unity to be achieved? Many Christians, including Baptists, believe that the New Testament lays down the basic principles for church structure and conduct in all ages. Other Christian don’t believe this. P49

I’m a Baptist and yet I’m one of those other Christians who don’t believe this!

There is a huge irony in Ted’s writing. He himself is undoubtedly a true democratic and dissenter; he sees the decentralized Baptist model as the antidote to the authoritarian legacy of ramifying church structures linked to the power of the state. And yet in their zeal to shrug off the oppressive regimes of a doctrinaire church many dissenters have run blindly into another, sometimes even worst form of authoritarianism – the religious sect or cult.

The New Testament lacks any formal articled description of church structure or any legal injunction to copy it to the letter; rather it simply gives a somewhat fragmented narrative from which we get some hints about how those early believers might have organized themselves. But the dissenter and non-conformist is often in danger of failing to capture the subtle lesson here and instead manages to distil out the very thing he is rebelling against:

It was not until the sixteenth century that those Christians attempting to follow the simplicity of the New Testament were able to begin the task of establishing a lasting presence. Of course it didn’t happen all at once, and no-one grasped the whole picture in one go. There is no blueprint for the church in the New Testament: instead we are given a set of principles and a few snapshots of how they might be implemented. The men who rediscovered these things tended to stumble upon them piecemeal as they followed such light and understanding as they were given. Mistakes were made, some blind alleys were entered, and the whole process was accompanied by much suffering, intolerance and violence from the government and the established church. (p9-p10)

I certainly agree with the statement “there is no blueprint for church in the NT” and that should alert us to the absence of any NT church to “rediscover”. We must remember that the NT covers the period of the inception of Christianity; like a gas expanding into a virgin volume, the only way was up and the situation was far from equilibrium; and least of all do we find any injunctions saying “copy this”. This was a young church on the move, improvising and making it up as it went along; it had no legal script to follow. Apart from the moral quality of its officers the NT is not much interested in telling us about some sanctified "church structure" inscribed in stone. And yet in rejecting those state-church blueprints the dissenter is liable to succumb to the fiction of a “New Testament Church” and misinterpret the situation depicted in the NT as an equilibrium state that he should copy, thus restoring the error of an all time church blueprint to be obeyed at all cost.

We have a few commands from Christ about loving one another, communion and baptizing, but after that we struggle to find a comprehensive set of rules and regulations giving unambiguous shape to Christian life and community, a shape that the religiously insecure heart so often craves. Today’s religious copyists look hard in order to recover “The New Testament Church”. But at the abstract level the New Testament is really about the same thing the church is about today; namely, a church on the move, a church in the process of adapting to the (changing) conditions in which it finds itself. We can never be unequivocal about a so called New Testament model because the first century church was adapting to the situation in which it found itself; if there is a lesson to be learnt here it is not one about a recovering a lost model for church. The general lesson is about adaptation and this may or may not lead to centralized or decentralized church models. There are no commands in the NT for a one size fits all version of church. Today’s restorationists and church recovery sects make the mistake of trying to copy the NT church where it was at rather than seeing that that church was more about where it was going.

Having had experience of some of the aficionados of the recovery and restorationist school of thought in action I can say that they contain in their ranks some of the most authoritarian, narrow minded and dysfunctional bigots I have every met. They simply reject one kind of problem and replace it with another kind of problem; in their attempt to transcend denominationalism they fall into a worse trap; sectarianism and even cultism.

I don’t think for one moment that Ted and his church (Witard Road Baptist Church) have fallen into this trap; it's just that Ted’s language of wistful NT nostalgia is no bulwark against the sectarian fanaticism that is endemic amongst evangelicals and fundamentalists. Ted well knows that there is no basis for hallowed and sanctified structural blueprints:

Apart from the simple rituals of baptism and breaking of bread….We search in vain for structures, rituals and laws that have been introduced throughout the world and cause much confusion division and violence for hundreds of years. (p6)

And yet somehow religious legalism subliminally makes an appearance and this all too easily can be used to suppress the work in progress that should be the church community. Of the sketchy details in the NT about the organization of the Christian community Ted says:

This might seem like a recipe for disaster and frequently that has been the case, but it is nonetheless, God’s way. … Meic Pearse makes a stimulating dedication “This …… is the way; walk ye in it” (p6)

On page 49 Ted heartaches about division. The irony is that much of this division has been motivated by the pipe dream of an imagined restored/recovered NT church utopia. "Dissenting" restorationists are, in my estimation, (ironically) the prime perpetrators of this division as they have zealously sought to purge their churches of dissenters who contradict the perceived "divine authority" of restorationist opinions about what constitutes the right way of doing church. It is the zeal with which such fictions are pursued that leads into to the trap of cultism. It might help if people cease to seek a contrived unity and come to terms with the fact that church will always be a parliament where there exists the tension of disagreement and the compromise of consensus; this is “the natural state of human affairs” (Walpole). The general rule is: Never think of yourself as being where it should be at but rather think about where you should be going. We must come to terms with the fact that an Open Gospel is likely to entail division and forget those petty church templates of “unity” that the sectarian wishes to impose on the church as does every cultist between here and Salt Lake city. Instead we must grasp that the deeper NT logic is not about structural stasis but about motion.

Finally I would like to quote from William Thompson's book Passages about Earth . In this quote Thompson is, in fact, referring to New Age gurus but it applies equally to some of the restorationist gurus who attempt to set up a mini-church state within a state:

We do not need a new civic religion of the world state run by Initiates of Kundalini Yoga; we need to protect spirituality from religion in a secular culture of law in which devotees are protected from the zealous excesses of one another. It is utterly naïve to think that in the near future men will have outgrown the playpen of the American Constitution and will lovingly trust one another. The gurus are tolerant and merely condescending now because they have no political power; but even without power they show full evidence of human frailty and vanity and tend to think that their own yoga is bigger and better than the other guru’s. And what is often only a case of mild condescension in the guru becomes in the disciples a fever of zealotry.

WHAT APPEARS TO BE NCBC’s 30 SECONDS OF FAME
The Telegraph, the Sun and The Metro have all published the same “gone viral” YouTube video of a dog balancing on a chain fence. (See below). According the Metro “The pooch performs his incredible act on a thin chain between two posts in what would appear to be a car park”.

But behind what appears to be a car park is what appears to be a brick wall and the brick wall is none other than what appears to be Norwich Central Baptist Church! Given the Yoda like stance of the dog’s owner the Metro speculates that he appears to be Jedi Knight, and so I’m waiting for this item to be picked and used as a spiritually edifying illustration in what appears to be a sermon, or in what appears to be the Sunday service joke of the day. That should give us paws for thought.

Dogmatic theology can beg the question, lack balance and be barking mad, but Woofta here shows us how to do it.

HERALDRY AT NCBC: PART2

(Click to enlarge)

In the second part of this series I want to look at the middle window of the triad of lancet openings at the north end of NCBC’s nave. The dominating motif of this window, although at first sight a little difficult to see, is the depiction of a grapevine whose main branch runs centrally for the full length of the window. Two other branches sprout from the base of the vine and wend their way round the perimeter. Adorning the vine branches are bunches of grapes, leaves and spiraling tendrils.

The vine is, of course, a Biblical metaphor for the church, and it has undoubtedly been used consciously by the creators of the window. The rambling untidy grape vine provides an excellent allegory for the sprawling population of the ekklesia, a religious movement who form a striving tangled chaotic body of variegated traditions, a community with very fuzzy boundaries.

John 15:1-6 sketches an extraordinarily compelling metaphor of Christ as the true vine and his ekklesia as the vine’s branches, organically linked to the life in Him. The vine is a beautiful if untidy example of flora, but beautiful though it may be the Vinedresser (God) is primarily looking for it to produce the fruit of the vine, namely, the bunches of grapes we can see in our stained glass window (see Matt 7:16-20,Luke 6:44, Luke 13:5-9, Gal 5:22)

Interestingly, the central branch hangs with unripe green grapes whereas the perimeter vines hang with ripe purple grapes. My interpretation of this contrast between ripe and unripe fruit is that it carriers a challenging almost self-deprecating message: The central vine represents the ekkelsia at NCBC who are being summoned to look to the ripening of their own fruit and not to that of unidentified surrounding churches whose fruit is shown, for comparison, to be already ripe.

The Biblical passages I have quoted contain stark and terrifying warnings about the consequences of not bearing fruit and subsequently being cut off. I myself have very general ideas about just what constitutes the fruit God is looking for (see Gal 5:22). I do not I accept that this fruit is confined to a particular sectarian realization of Christianity. But no matter how general that fruit may be the warnings in scripture about failure to bring forth this fruit is extremely disquieting. And yet imagine a world without the fruits mentioned in Gal 5:22 – that is without love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness – it would be hell. Without this fruit the consequences are indeed as grave as the Bible suggests.

The picture of the vine helps us to contemplate the profound truth of dependency: Everything about us is dependent upon a myriad conditionalities as supplied by providence – we cannot claim our lives to be logical truisms; we can only lay claim to life being a conditional truism. Should any of the relevant conditions be cut off, then our existence is called into question.

In what I take to be master stroke the creators of the window have sharply reminded us of our existential dependency. The base of the vine is shown as if it has been cut, forcefully reminding us that we cannot take our physical and moral life for granted; we are the subject of numerous providences anyone of which if removed from the equation of life would bring our physical and moral life to an end.

Our greatest fear is loss of the fruit of the harvest (see Matt 3:10, Luke 3:9). The Biblical passages may be disquieting, but if they where anything less than highly provocative they would lose their gravitas, a gravitas that is so badly needed to keep our minds focused on what is of eternal value.

In the next part I will be looking at the coats of arms and other paraphernalia that adorn the central vine.

HERALDRY AT NCBC: PART 1.

The Mystery of NCBC's Stained Glass

In this series I want to take a closer look at the stained glass heraldry in the window at the north end of NCBC’s “nave” (See picture above). These windows, I assume, were added when the church was built circa 1952.

As I have remarked before, the church congregation of 1952 thought of themselves as pillars of society (and at that time still were); this fact, I submit, is reflected in the stained glass motifs of the window above, as we shall see. Since 1952 Christian culture has undergone huge shifts, especially during the 1960s when Christian fundamentalism and a vigorous secular liberalism separated out in the centrifuge of rapid change. The 60 year gap since these motifs were installed is effectively a much longer time span than it would be in periods when change was sluggish.

It is no surprise, then, that as far as NCBC’s Joe and Josephine Pugh are concerned the meaning of these windows and above all the rationale that motivated them is all but lost in the mists of time; to most people they are just a pretty pattern of colours. In fact Christian fundamentalists who have shrunk their epistemic horizon and purged their world of all that they don’t want to understand, would very likely underrate the spirituality of the peoples that built the impressive edifice which now hosts NCBC.

What, then, did these windows mean in 1952? Perhaps there are documents somewhere revealing just what motivated the 1952 builders to install these windows and just how they thought about then. To be honest I’m too lazy I lack the time to go on a long paper chase with no guarantee of a successful find at the end of it. In any case the ambient weltanshauug and mores of a culture often don’t get recorded as at the time they seem too self evident and axiomatic to need it. Also, the people of the day may be unable to consciously articulate the reason for the appeal of certain motifs; for them they just feel right. Thus, the historian has to embark on the hazardous business of trying to read between the lines of history in order to reconstruct the deeper rationale that motivated the lives of distant ancestors.

So, as is my usual practice when the pressure is on to come up with answers, I will simply have to give it my best shot. I’m not going to spend and inordinate amount of time on the subject, but I will simply express where my understanding is at the moment. I will decode the meaning of the window as best I can with the help of some heraldry web sites and my knowledge of history such as it is. Some of my conclusions may be fanciful and with about as much chance of being right as the interpretations of pre-historians when they are faced with something as distant in time and culturally enigmatic as Silbury hill ... for me it so often feels like that. In fact I’m reminded of the cautionary tale of H. G. Wells’ Time Traveler who found himself in an alien world and with little to go on he attempted to make sense of what he saw:

As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought that in this simple explanation I had mastered the problem of the world – mastered the whole secret of these delicious people…. Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough –as most wrong theories are! (The Time Machine, Chapter: “The Sunset of Mankind”)

..so at least there is the bonus of being in the middle of what feels like a scientific romance with all the sense of adventure and mystery that goes with it.

A BAPTIST CATHEDRAL

A visit to Silver road Baptist church, Norwich, revealed a classic non-conformist pattern: After the repeal of the Test Act in 1828, non-conformists quickly became recognised and respected pillars of English society. They started building churches that made use of time honoured establishment church architectural details and they erected monumments celebrating the life of those in their midst who were well placed in society. This practice seems to have lasted up until the 1950s:  However, at Silver road it is the first time I  have seen the use of Romanesque rather than Gothic (or classical) details in a non-conformist building. Perhaps they were attempting to go one better and  create the ambiance of the cathedrals, many of which are old enough to preserve details as early as the 12th century. These baptists no longer saw themselves as remnant upstarts or new kids on the block, but part of the broad swathe that Christianity cuts through history. Today's marginalised evangelical churches would never dream of aping these prestigious styles.

Romanesque windows on a pseudo transept.

Left: A façade with the unmistakable air of a Romanesque cathedral and a hint of Gothic Chartres thrown in for good measure.

 Right: Celebrating civic links.

ACADEMICS: BEYOND OUR KEN

Something is Eating Ham

In this Network Norwich & Norfolk article James Knight continues to development his theme of there being a connection between New Wave Atheism and Christian Fundamentalism. Almost to order Beyond Our Ken Ham publishes this post on his blog. Ken’s post provides both evidence for James’ thesis and YEC antipathy toward academia, a matter that was the subject of my last NCBC blog post.

Anyway, here is my comment to James article:

Hi James,

Once again I think you are onto something here, re: the connection between gnu atheism and Fundamentalism.

Unless you have already seen it, you might be interested in this link to Ken Ham’s Young Earth Creationist blog:

http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2011/06/01/i-agree-with-the-atheists/

Here Ken actually says he agrees, yes, *agrees*, with atheists and instead rails against “compromising” Christian academics who in the main believe in an old Earth. He goes on to say “What a sad day when the atheists understand Christianity better than so many Christians do”. What he means of course is that the atheists he is referring to understand his version of Christianity! They certainly would understand it better if many of them are ex-YECs. Simplifying a bit: One might claim that gnu-atheists are YECs with the signs reversed; at the very least there definitely is a connection between YEC fundamentalism and gnu atheism.

In the blog post Ken talks about Christian academics who “clearly compromise God’s word with man’s fallible beliefs about evolution, millions of years etc”. And yet he seems utterly unaware of man’s fallible interpretations of the Bible. Ken says “It is so obvious from Scripture that God created a literal Adam and Eve”. What he means here is that in spite of what they may say YECs give lip service to the question of interpretation and meaning. For Ken, meaning extraction is unproblematic and obvious and thus his words effectively become God’s Words. No surprise, then, that at the end of the article Ken can accuse Christian academics of heinous sin: He accuses them of attacking Jesus Christ and telling them they “need to fall on their knees before a Holy God and repent of their attack on the Word”. If one’s Biblical hermeneutic leads one to closely identify one’s own words with God’s words it is no surprise that one is then going to believe in the Divine authority of one’s own opinions. Consequently, Ken starts speaking as if he is God’s judge on Earth with the authority to impugn the consciences of Christian academics.

On the whole it all goes to show just how much Ken and his followers have isolated themselves from mainstream Christianity and in particular Christian academics.

I’ve been thinking about just what characteristic sufficiently defines the "fundamentalist" mind set. I'm coming to the opinion it is something like this: The common trait of fundamentalists is that they all closely identify their words with God's words (Of which my previous comment on Ken Ham gives an example). A fundamentalist, then, is someone who believes in the Divine authority of his own opinions.

ESTABLISHMENT SCIENCE vs. YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISM AT NCBC

When I first clapped eyes on this stained glass heraldry at NCBC I never guessed that it may be providing a big clue about fundamentalist resurgence since the 60s

On Sunday (22nd May) we had two excellent presentations on the creation and science question, one from an establishment academic and the other from a career scientist. The views they expressed were sympathetic to the established science account of origins. However, they expressed these views with a very Biblical fear and trembling and with an exemplary blend of commitment and understanding.

The event was largely a response to the talk we had in March from a Young Earth Creationist. Toward the end of his talk this speaker was very clear about the spiritual virtues of YEC and the demerits of not agreeing with it. The recommended book “Deluded by Darwinism” said it all. How is it that we have arrived at a juncture where the Christian fundamentalist is so polarized against establishment science that he or she sees it as a symptom of gross spiritual failure not only on the part of secular society but also of Christians who hold the established view?

If this post I wrote in December 09 is anything to go by then it seems that there was a time in our church when the YEC view wasn’t even on the horizon. In the linked post I reported on a church magazine article dated Christmas 1939 and written by the then Minister of the church the Rev. Gilbert Laws. The article is a reflection on man’s position in the cosmos. The most notable thing about it is that it displays no consciousness whatever of a dichotomy between established science and the fundamentalist account of origins. In fact Laws writes as if YEC doesn’t even exist; he takes for granted the science of the day and gives no cognizance of any issue between scientific cosmogony and Genesis. Laws’ assumed brief was to cope with the latest science by making Christian sense of it but without contradicting it.

Gilbert Laws was the minister of a church whose prestige and influence had increased steadily from the start of the industrial revolution. In fact since the repeal of the Test Act of 1828 Laws could look back on a church whose members included MPs, Sheriffs, and successful business grandees. By the early 1950s the Baptist church on Duke Street was still a respected pillar of society. Today visible manifestation of this history of civic involvement is evidenced by the stained glass heraldry in the north window of the church, heraldry celebrating civic connections. Moreover, after the bombing of 1943 the 1952 rebuild brought together a nonconformist classicism with established church gothic styles. It replaced an 1811 Regency styled “classical temple”, a style harking back to the days of a-vant-garde nonconformity. All this says a lot about how the church thought of itself in the years immediately following the war. They were patricians in a society in which they believed. In one sense they were that society

What then has happened between then and now? The quick answer to that question is: “The Nineteen Sixties”. The sixties downturn in church attendance and the move away from traditional patrician values was accompanied by a resurgence of a recrudescent fundamentalism. That fundamentalism was often accompanied by a literal interpretation of Genesis, a view well expressed by the fathers of contemporary YEC John Whitcomb and Henry Morris in their 1961 publication “The Genesis Flood”.

The slip and slide of the church as it shifted from an establishment position to the margins of society made it more attractive to unintellectual dissenters than it did to pillars of society. In particular scientific cosmogony, as is evident even from Gilbert Laws' sermon, left mankind with a rather puzzling picture of reality; science’s analytical elementalism looked more profane than it did sacred. The average Joe Pugh who was fervent about his Christian faith, unintellectual and profoundly ignorant of science, could make little sense of scientific results. His church now had less stake in society but he was too conservative to become a radical political defector and agitator, and so he became a protestor against the academic establishment. Joe Pugh’s cosmological tastes had the touch and feel of Kincaidian kitsch rather than the dispassionate universe depicted by JM Turner. Joe Pugh looked for a vision of the universe that had a sentimental ambiance and the cozy warmth of the living room. In contrast J M Turner’s presents a disinterested world of fuzzy ill defined boundaries, and potentially threatening to boot. Unlike Gilbert Laws Joe Pugh wasn’t going to cope with establishment science; rather he was going to rebel against it. In its place Pugh wanted something that domesticated and sanctified an apparently impersonal and profane looking cosmos. YEC was the perfect deal for him. YEC was used as a badge of identification that sent out messages that were the very opposite of the heraldry we see at NCBC.

For Christian fundamentalists YEC was exploited as a reactionary tribal marker that was an affront to established science. It was a form of theological punk; a safety pin and garbage bag “science” that told academia, loud an clear, that they were no longer being listened to. That the neo-fundmentalist’s identity was bound up with YEC meant that they were not going to be neither here nor there about their account of creation. They had far too much at stake for that. Rather, they were going to get uptight about it, especially with Christians who didn't assent to it. For to them it was “faith test” material. Like the heraldry we find at NCBC YEC was a statement about what these people stood for – therefore Christians weren’t supposed to prevaricate about it and a Christian couldn’t believe in an old Earth without being thought of as compromising. “Old Earth or Young Earth” was no theoretical nuance that could be discussed coolly; agreeing to differ has  never been an option with fundamentalists. 

Today Joe Pugh’s strong belief in literalism is self affirming – the harder he believes it the truer it seems to become – especially if he is surrounded by a heroic sacred and remnant community that are all doing the same. Anyone who doesn't affirm this belief will at best be looked at askance and at worst be considered apostate. And so we find ourselves in this polarized position today, a position where language like “Deluded by Darwinism” is de rigueur amongst YECs, thus upping the ante and feeding the process of polarization.

Polarisation passion feeds. Passion polarisation breeds. Polarisation is passion's cause, for crusade and holy wars.

The fundamentalist's kitsch view of the cosmos has only one blot on the horizon: Science.

SPIRITUAL SPIN FAILS TO DECEIVE

Fideists would have us going round in circles

James Moar, who attends NCBC, has sent me an email. In writing this email he is showing great intellectual integrity as he very succinctly and cogently sums up some deep challenges to Christian culture. He has given me permission to publish it here:

Hi Tim,

I'm having real issues with Christianity at the moment, mostly centred around how a world with God in it would be different from a world without God. Note that I'm not fussed about answered or unanswered prayer here, just about God's demonstrable action, something that is insisted on throughout the Bible. God does several things which are done (to quote a repeating line in Ezekiel) "so that they may know that I am YHWH". But where are these now? Incidentally, the notion that God has apparently done lots of things so that people may believe somewhat rubbishes the idea of epistemic distance. Why bring the Israelites out of Egypt to display his power if he's not prepared to display it in other ways?

There are many accounts of "answers to prayer" that have spectacular odds if they're coincidences, but consider how many prayers are made and suddenly the odds of any given one receiving some sort of answer by blind chance is much less. It's the same for general "miracles" that are highly improbable; given the amount of Christians worldwide, the odds of some of them experiencing coincidences go down a fair bit. We just ignore all the unanswered stuff (or the umiraculous stuff) because the "miraculous" draws our attention and allows us to make a story out of it.

To give a concrete example, Casanova considered himself to be watched over by some sort of divine provenance because he always seemed to get out of the scrapes he was in. But consider the amount of people who tried to live his sort of lifestyle, and the odds of one getting through it to the extent he did become much less surprising. In the same way, there was a philosopher who looked a painting of Zeus worshippers who prayed and survived a shipwreck. His response was "where is the painting of those who prayed and drowned?" We seem to blind ourselves to the true odds of something purely to give it an explanation other than chance.

So where is God in the middle of all this? My question is, as "miracles" seem arbitrary at times, so is there really anything driving them? Have we just plucked the successes from a huge experimental population and called it miraculous?

Also, people's response in "worship" at church seems somewhat artificial; people are a lot more "worshipful (handwaving, tongues etc) with songs and situations that they know. Also, those who pray out loud in services do it a lot. all this makes me think "learned behaviour" rather than the movement of the Spirit or a true connection with God. Which again leaves me wondering where God is during it all.

Any thoughts? I'm beginning to think that Christianity is just a package of group behaviours and narrative weaving based on a narrow selection of anecdotes.

Thanks,

James

I have had some contact with James, both by email and in person. I am not going to publish any outcome of our discussions until I feel that a hiatus has been arrived at. But let me just publish my provisional response to James before I got down to anything more serious:

You have laid out some serious challenges here. I hope nobody is going foist on you a "counselling" diagnosis by suggesting that you have some deep spiritual problem that needs "exorcising" and thus makes this a pretext for bypassing issues that are not just yours alone but should be questions others ought to be asking as well. I'm all for a self critical faith. Anyway, this is just to say that we can think through these things together, because you have made some very good points there. They must be taken seriously and not fobbed off as just "head knowledge affairs" that are inferior to "esoteric" spiritual knowledge of God.

What I had in mind as I wrote that first response was the fact that esoteric spiritual knowledge is often claimed to be the sacred way to rise above the sort of “profane” intellectual challenge James raises so compellingly. Having seen the way the “Jesus is in my heart” ethos is so often (ab)used to not only provide an excuse for a fideist bypass to difficult questions, but also as the thin end of a gnostic, elitist and authoritarian wedge, I deeply suspect the authenticity of much Christianity that is sells its self from a platform of a “head vs. heart” paradigm. This paradigm is often supplemented by a fundamentalist reading of the Bible, giving rise to a toxic blend of gnosto-legalism.

The created order does not have clumsy welded joins; the empirical and the analytical cannot be separated from the spiritual any more that it is possible to separate the Bible from its cosmic context: The Bible is itself an empirical object and it is so integrated with its context that Bible and cosmos form part of a seamless body of revelation. As my friend Jim Harries puts it “Meaning = Text + Context”.

ODE TO SECTARIANISM

For Classix Nouveaux fans here is what claims to be a rare low budget original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAiKC1FEc-A&feature=related

Another broken dream, they say all the time

Sorry if I can't be as you'd like to find

If we could only see

Things as they're meant to be

But we believe in dreams

Satisfaction - is it a dream

No distraction - is it a dream

No more fighting - is it a dream

No backbiting - is it a dream

Promises broken, it's an imperfect world

Harsh words are spoken though they weren't meant to hurt

If we could only see

Things as they're meant to be

But no, it's just a dream

See also here and here.