It Ain't Me Babe

With risk of sounding like a broken record, there's something I feel the church desperately needs to embody. I've written about 50% of my blogs on here about the big picture of the gospel. But I find it so frustrating and I think that now
more than ever it is important to realise this.

Jesus speaks to his people right at the beginning of his ministry and tells them: "you're the light of the world! A city can't be hidden if it's on top of a hill....you must shine your light in front of people! Then they will see the wonderful things you do, and they'll give glory to your father in heaven."

Throughout history this has been the case with the most famous growth in the church- they offer something bright, something distinctive. The church today however, is seen as behind the times, struggling to keep up with post modern, relative culture. I sincerely believe we have a message which is the light of the world.

My knowledge of politics and economics is pretty bad. But it's pretty clear to me that capitalism is in a bit of a mess.
The crash of western economy, mass unemployment, the awful riots that have emerged up and down the UK. Something isn't working.

Capitalist culture is all about me. It's all about the consumer; what I can get. I want an out of season vegetable grown in north africa; I've got tesco. I earn my money, I work hard, I'm entitled to spend it on what I want. I can get pretty much anything I want and get it now. We are very independent but not very self sufficient. If every supermarket shut tomorrow- the UK would be in crisis. We have no community; I cannot pop down the road to my mate bob who grows carrots and my uncle gregg who can get me some milk from his cows. We depend largely on the global market.

And to some extent the church has followed suit. Whilst we might have reformed away from dependence on priests and rituals, we've pretty much replaced them with preachers who know their theology. I wonder what would happen if every church leader dropped down dead tomorrow. What would our churches look like? Who would do the preach? Who would lead the meeting? We've made church into part of our consumer culture. The number of times we say things like "that's not the kind of worship I enjoy" or the number of churches that are filled with pew fillers who come in, hear the talk and then go their merry way. We are consumers of Christianity, not participants.

To me this is sad. It's not the way I think the church was intended and it reflects a deeper truth we need to hear: You are not the light of the world, I am not the light of the world.

The gospel doesn't revolve around my salvation and my relationship at all. It revolves around Gods plan for humanity of which I'm a part, of which you're a part.

Tom Wright claims: " 'you mean I don't have to do anything ? God loves me and accepts me as I am, just because Jesus died for me' ought to give once to a deeper realisation down exactly the same line 'you mean it isn't about ME after all? I'm not the centre of the universe? It's all about God and his purposes?' "

Thats it- he totally hits the nail
on the head I think. It's not about me- it never has been. The church needs to learn this lesson- because if it does, I really think it has the potential to be light in an awfully dark world. Society doesn't need something 'relevant' right now, it needs something different. We are longing for it, society is longing for it- the truth that actually, it's not about me at all.

The world teaches the very opposite- it's all about me. Why do you think it's called the iPhone? Marketing is tailored around making the individual happy, fulfilling the individual needs. But we know it's a lie. Its not about me, it's about us. We are part of something much bigger.

The church needs to find a way to embody this- to become true communities, that stray away from consumerism and to focus on the big picture. We need to start figuring out how.

I've Got Soul But I'm Not a Soldier

Does our philosophy of mind effect the way we view Christianity? Ask that question to about 99% of Christians and I think you'll get a negative response. But I'm convinced that it really does matter what we think about mind, body, soul, spirits. Our ontology (the study of what things exist) impacts our theology, or at least it should.

What do you think a 'soul' is? When Jesus says: “be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body”? or “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and lose his own soul?”, what is he speaking of. Ask the majority of people to define soul and I reckon the response would largely refer to an immaterial substance which inhabits our physical body, a 'thing' or an 'entity' which dwells in the human being. Whether or not they believe in such a substance is irrelevant.

This definition of the ontology of human existence is usually called 'Dualism'. Descartes famously argues for the existence of our ego 'I think, I exist' and that this was the only thing we could not doubt the existence of. He condenses the fundamental of human existence to a spirit, a mysterious, invisible, non physical thing which inhabits a broken, imperfect, physical body. Descartes makes a sharp divide between physical and non-physical, between mind and matter. Minds are the souls of human beings, they think, they believe, they have thoughts and memories and dreams, they exist in a non-physical sense. Souls inhabit physical, temporal, divisible matter. The problem with Substance Dualism as an interpretation of the word 'soul' in scripture, is that I don't think it is entirely coherent.

To do this subject real justice, I would need to spend years and years researching, studying and I could probably write pretty lengthy book on the subject. Maybe one day. But I just want to challenge you that the notion of soul & body that we often speak of is not very coherent and not actually all that biblical.

It's pretty obvious to me that I am a physical thing. Spear me through the brain, and chances are you will change my personality, my memories, my temperament. Whilst there might be still so much we don't know about neuroscience, it seems pretty obvious that I am being who is wholly physical. When I'm my physical body is tired, it effects my mood. When I ingest alcohol it seemingly makes changes in my 'soul'. The brain and the 'soul' might not be completely reducible into the same thing, but it seems pretty obvious that they're pretty intimately connected.

And this seems to fit with the Bible's dichotomy of man. It says in Genesis that God formed Adam from “the dust of the ground”. It says later when God kicks them out from the garden: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Human beings are made out of dust. I'm not convinced that this perfect creation that God made in his image was only the spiritual inhabitant of an imperfect body. He made man physical. He made man with physical hands, legs and brains. He didn't make man and then place him in a vessel.

This also seems to fit with the notion of the resurrection. Jesus walked the earth a physical man. He died a physical death. He rose again physical; he ate fish with his followers. To eat I'm pretty sure you need a physical mouth and a physical stomach. Granted, there was something 'beyond physical' about Jesus' resurrection; he seemed to appear different but recognisable, he could pass through walls. He was different, but he was still physical.

Why do we think that our destiny is any different. The New Testement teaches that we will one day be resurrected. It talks about Jesus being the 'first fruit' of the resurrection to come. And we know that Jesus was resurrected physically. In fact the whole of 1 Corinthians 15 is a chapter which is all about why the resurrection is a physical, real thing. Paul says “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.” It is essential we focus our hope on the hope of resurrection. But the whole concept of resurrection is about coming back, returning, it's not about departing physicality, but about perfecting it. Jesus became more than physical because he became a perfected version of God's creation. And we too, have the same hope of resurrection. Resurrection as a physical reality, the chance to enter into true physicality.

So what then do we mean by soul? Tom Wright argues that what the New Testament writers would have understood as the 'soul' is the concept of selfhood. Our identity, our personality, our character. Does this imply anything non-physical? Does this imply a sharp divide between 'physical' and 'mental'. I don't think it does. Actually those aspects of my being seem to be deeply routed in the physical.

Human beings are deeply spiritual beings. We love, we feel, we pray, we encounter God. We do all of these things in a very physical way. Spirituality is so tightly part of the physical, that it seems impossible to make any sort of divide between spiritual and 'physical'. We are dust creatures, breathed into by the breath of a God. But I don't think God calls us to hate the physical and embrace the non-physical at all. In fact we need to learn to embrace our physicality as a part of spirituality; if we are tired, this effects our faith. If we encounter God at all, we surely encounter him as a part of our physical being.

You might think this makes no difference to anything. A lot of technical nonsense that has no bearing on faith. I would sincerely beg to differ. We preach a hope which is centred on physical resurrection, we live in a beautiful physically created universe which the creator God made. And ultimately we are dust creatures, the physical is not a shell that we will one day shed. But something glorious which will one day be perfected. I could write so much more on this. But I think that will do for now.

Limit to Your Love

I've suddenly realised of late that it's all about love. If it wasn't for love, I would have no faith, the words of the Bible wouldn't move me, the evidence for the existence of God wouldn't convince me. Love is so central to faith, that without it, I think faith is utterly inconceivable.

I've just graduated from three years of studying philosophy; it's been such an interesting, challenging three years. I've read so much, I've been exposed to so many different ways of thinking. I've learnt to think differently, to structure arguments well, to read the densest texts, to pick apart worldviews, ideas and concepts. I honestly think that philosophy is such a useful subject for any human being, the ability to think is vital to a life lived to the full. And philosophy is something that the Church needs to learn how to use; as theism becomes a less and less fashionable intellectual position, we need to be able to show that we believe because it is true, not just because.

But I realised something the other day, I was having a late night whisky with my housemate who also studies philosophy. And I asked him “Do you know anything now that you didn't know when you started? Are you any closer to the truth?”. And I realised, actually philosophy hasn't brought me closer to the truth. I might be able to argue why I'm a naive realist, or why I think scepticism is an incoherent position, but it has little bearing on reality. Don't get me wrong, I think those things are useful to think about, I think reason and argument is so useful to our society, but I'm not sure they bring me closer to truth.

It's hard to explain why I am committed to Jesus, why I have surrendered my life and my will to a deity that seems unknowable at times. It's hard to explain why I can believe in things which I think are genuinely contra to reason and logic, like the doctrine of the trinity or the incarnation. But I do. And I sleep intellectually sound at night. I'm not a deluded fool. I think, I debate, I argue. But I firmly believe there is more to life. I firmly believe that I am created by a loving God. The evidence supports my beliefs; the historical evidence for Jesus the Messiah and his resurrection, the arguments for theism, the change I have seen in the lives of my friends. They're all perfectly reasonable 'reasons' to believe. But it doesn't convince me beyond doubt.

“The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love” 1 John 4:8

I've realised recently that it's all about love. I can't explain love, I can't pin it down, I can't argue for it, I can't argue against it. But honestly, I can't deny it. In my mind, the biggest failure of reductionism and humanism is that it provides a thin vision of humanity. You can tell me that love is a sequence of chemical reactions and releasing of endorphins. But it just doesn't cut it for me. That's such a limit to my experience of love. I don't understand what love is, I don't understand why. If all that exists is this universe, matter, energy and decay, this is all meaningless. There is no love in that world view. But I cannot live without love. It is so undeniable to me. The spirituality of mankind is such a reality to me; the way a piece of music can move me to tears, the way a close friend can hurt me so deeply, the bond between me and my parents, the longing I have for justice. I can't deny that love is central to who I am.

Love moves me to faith. The bible says that God is love. If that's true, it makes so much sense that love is such a tangible reality, but such an irreducible concept. The bible says that everything else in this world will cease, religion will die out. It says that I can be the most moral person, the most intelligent, the most faithful person but if I lack love in my life, it's all pointless.

I know, more than anything else in this life, that love is real. It is inexplicable and it is undeniable. It is all about love. And because I know this, I know God. I know more than any argument could ever show me that there exists something more than what we see, something more than what is reasonably evident. I cannot stop believing until I stop loving.