Guest Rant by Michael Wells

Today, John Woodhouse said that acceptance of the bible as the only word of God IS Christianity. Not evangelical, not christian, but Christianity.

Hows about that Jesus fella huh?

Wilberforce

It has now been 200 years since the British stopped trading African slave around the Globe. 200 years since Wilberforce, one of the founders of my new employers, was victorious in the British Parliament. The Anglican church out at Wilberforce is celebrating, but I wonder how we modern evangelicals would react in similiar circumstance today. I heard several times during uni in conversation at from the pulpit that peolpe don't have a problem with slavery and so if they were placed in similiar circumstances, wouldn't attempt to end slavery..."because the bible doesn't say to".

Of course, the problem has seemed only to have become worse in these past 200 years. According to CMS UK, there is now some 27 million people ensalved. 27 million people in slavery! And as a christian in a western succesor state to the British Empire, I don't know how to approach this problem, because the story I've grown up with is that slavery stopped in the 19th Century. How can I bring the Lordship of Jesus and the achievment of his resurrection to bear on this question?

Let me mull over this for a few days. But you may like to cheek out this publication from CMS-UK.

10 points for telling me where the statue is and who lies next to Wilberforce.

Theological loving

Some of you may remember this little incident from last month. I received a fair bit of feed back, both on and off the blog. I've done some thinking, read a bit, thought and talked about it, felt like crying, laughed with my friend at Moore when he repeated the story of being told he goes to an emerging church by a college lecturer, and even reached an epiphany on a train trip with Alison (which I'm starting to forget).

What I've been thinking through is that: a. Jesus Christ is Lord, and everything that statement means is true; b. my basis for identity is in Christ; c. as is everyone else who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes God raised him from the dead (Romans 10); d. the basis for our relationships within the church (and indeed to the world) is grace - welcome one another just as Christ welcomed you. Given all this one should: i. make sure you tongue is always seasoned with salt (Matt. 5, Col. 4); ii beware of reducing people in "us" and "them"; iii avoid using labels. They can scar people for life, and are a cheap tactic for winning arguments; and iv be wise and make sure you know what the current labels are. It is useful to know what the present "doggiest" theology is when you deny it, or on the odd occasion, affirm it.

Anyway, here is a small quote from Gunton I found yesterday (when speaking on the method of historical and systematic theology):

"Our doctrinal past is best understood if its representatives are taken seriously as living voices with whom we enter into theological conversation. We shall sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with what they say, and that is what it means to take them seriously. In his Church Dogmatics Karl Barth is able to treat even opponents of the Christian faith as theological partners in conversation. Accordingly it can be argued that historical theology should be a theological discipline not because we have decided in advance what to find, but because we approach our predecessors as theologians who have something to teach us."

Colin Gunton, "Historical and systematic theology", The Cambridge Companion to Christian Theology, pp. 6-7. Words in red originally italic.

PS. I start a new job this coming Monday, working for CMS NSW in mission education.

10 points for the picture. Hint: Think Benelux.

Alvin Plantinga on the God Delusion

Alvin Plantinga, writing in Books and Culture, has this to say:

Now despite the fact that this book is mainly philosophy, Dawkins is not a philosopher (he's a biologist). Even taking this into account, however, much of the philosophy he purveys is at best jejune. You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class. This, combined with the arrogant, smarter-than-thou tone of the book, can be annoying. I shall put irritation aside, however and do my best to take Dawkins' main argument seriously.