Study Course on the Book Of Revelation - Part 2

Ch. 1. 1-8 Introduction and 1.9-3.22, The First 'Week'

1) Before we move into the text, it might be well to consider briefly the sort of imagery, or metaphorical language which is such a striking characteristic of Revelation.
Right at the beginning, before John records his letters to the Seven churches, we get a “description” of the Son of Man. But what do we make of eyes like a flame of fire and feet like polished bronze? What can we do with a city that has gates that are pearls (21.21), or horses that have human-like faces, but women’s hair, and scorpions where one might expect a tail (9.7f)? Is the author asking us to visualize these creatures?

2) A consideration of the way Hebrew writers regularly describe things and people is of immense help here. In a book called Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, T. Bowman makes some helpful points. He notes that few ‘realistic’ descriptions (in our photographic sense) are found in the O. T. Rather, the writers give us “impressions of the thing perceived” (p.74). The descriptions of buildings are much more concerned with their use than with how they would look in an architectural drawing. In the case of people, he notes how few complete descriptions we have (note this also of the gospel writers in the case of Jesus); what references we do have, are there because the detail is very important to get across the character of the person (e.g. I Sam. 9.2; 16..12).

One of the most descriptive books in the O.T. is the Song of Solomon, originally a secular love poem that was made into an allegory of Yahweh’s love. The “portrait” of the beloved is anything but a photograph, or even a fairly impressionistic painting.
In 4.4 her neck is like a tower. Look at 4.1 ff. and 7.2f. This is not a picture of her outward appearance but of her character. She is seen as inaccessible, pure, but surrendering the “stronghold” (of her virginity) to the lover. She also has promise of child-bearing (of great importance in Hebrew culture); see 7.2 and 4.2. When we apply this insight to Revelation, we may be helped to understand some of the extravagant language. The visions are, in a sense, mis-named, because we are not asked to see them with our eyes but with our minds. They are “conceptualizations”, a word I do not like all that much but which is more accurate than ‘visions’

3) Chapter 1, vv1-8

The first three verses are a formal preface; cf. Jer. 1.1-3 The source of the ‘revelation’ is God, but mediated through Jesus and a further “angel”, and so, though there is a definite air of the Prophets, there are also immediately apocalyptic elements (angel; “time is near”)

vv 4-6 are parallel to the beginning of the letters we find in the NT., and show that the author is firmly in the Christian tradition. (cf. Rev. 1. 5b & 6 with Gal. 1.3-5). The theology, too, is firmly main-line N.T. with its emphasis on the resurrection of Jesus and the priestly nature of the church (cf. I Cor. 15; I Pe.2.9).

vv 7-8 however, move to the main theme of the book, but even here John is not producing new radical teaching. The idea of Christ coming “on the clouds” is found in Mt. 24.30; 26.64; Mk.13.26 & 14.62. The words go back, ultimately, to Dan. 7.13, and there is a great deal of discussion among scholars about the original use of them in the gospel narratives. Were they actually used by Jesus, or did the earliest Christians introduce them to explain their faith in the final victory of Christ? In any case, by the time John the Seer wrote, they were firmly embedded in the Christian tradition.

John’s imaginative grasp of the O.T. is indicated by his use of Zech. 12.10 in v. 7. It is a profound thought. The victory has been won, God’s reign is inaugurated, but “the tribes of the earth” do not acknowledge it. They continue every-day life, “eating, drinking, buying, selling”; (Lk.17.26ff). In the interim, the Saints alone, (i.e. Christians) know that the only valid rule is God’s rule. In the end, insists John, all will be forced to acknowledge that fact. This exclusivism is fairly typical of The Book of Revelation, in line with much in first century Judaic Apocalypses, except that there, the saved were pious keeper of the Torah. It is not, however, the predominant view of the N.T. (e.g. the Synoptic traditions of Jesus’ table fellowship; Paul’s “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek).

v.8 The emphatic voice of God ends the introduction. The statement is the shortest possible statement of the process of creation, history and the end.

4) Chapter 1 vv 9 - 20

The First section (week) begins with the appearance of the Risen and Ascended Christ. (Tech. name for this is Christophany).

The Lord’s Day; Christians now keep the first day of the week, not the seventh (Sabbath). An indication of the late date of this book. Church and synagogue are now quite separated. “Son of Man” Jesus’ title for himself; very frequent in Mk. See Dan. 7.13; 10.5,16).
We are introduced to the Seven churches to whom letters are to go.
For the seven lamp stands look up Ex. 27.20-21; they are ‘menorahs’.

For the sword as a metaphor for the Word of God, see Isa.49.2, and in the N.T., Heb. 4.12 and Eph. 6.17.
His face shines because he is the risen one, but it shone also at the Transfiguration (Mk ch. 9);. the whole passage is a kind of mediation on the person and work of Christ, ending with a magnificent statement of the central belief of Christianity. There is a tension in the N.T. between, on the one hand, the Man of Nazareth transfigured, and on the other, the Glorious God "personalized"


5) The Seven Letters (chs 2 & 3)

Each one consists of (i) a description of Christ taken from the opening vision; (ii) a commendation and or (iii) a warning; (iv) a promise to those who “overcome” (the power of evil).
Although the book opens with a typical Letter introduction, these seven messages do not; they are more like “the edicts and decrees issued by....Roman Emperors” (Note in HarperCollins Study Bible p. 2311). The same source comments that the messages are full of moral exhortation, which is not a usual feature of apocalyptic.
The seven churches were all within a hundred miles of Ephesus, the chief city of the Roman Province of Asia Minor (roughly modern Turkey).

First Message: to Ephesus

The church founded by St. Paul is commended for its faithfulness, but its first love seems to have cooled. The presence of conflicting views and divisions in the church have been with us for too long. There are several references to sects which are otherwise unknown to us (e.g. vv.6 and 14) Commentators in the 3rd-4th centuries made guesses which have no more validity than the ones we can make. The unfortunate convert called Nicolaus in Acts 6.5 is accused with no evidence of being the founder of the sect in v. 6.
The first message parallels the opening section and has Christ in glory, a kind of Sunday.

Second Message: to Smyrna

The city was a center of the Emperor cult and that may explain the references to coming suffering. They are financially poor, but spiritually rich.
An interesting link between this second message and the second Week is to be seen. Here coming martyrdom is predicted, but those who persevere will gain the “crown of Life”.
Compare chs 6-8 where the whole theme is judgment and the ‘sealing’ of those who have “come out of the great ordeal” (7.14)

Third Message: to Pergamum

Another important center for Emperor worship and this may explain the reference to ‘Satan’s throne’. Yet another unorthodox group is named. Several late sources refer to the “error of Balaam” (see Num. 22-24; 31.16; II Pe. 2.15-15 & Jude 11). Probably idolatry and fertility cult practices were involved.
The reference to a specific martyr (Antipas) may connect this third message with the third Week where we find the witnesses killed for their preaching in the wicked city; here it is not Rome, but Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified (11.3; 7-8).

Fourth Message: to Thyatira

Jezebel was regarded by the O.T. writers as a disaster, perverting the true religion of Yahweh and leading the king astray. (I K 18-19 & II K 9) The very ancient religion of the Middle East (Canaan, Asia Minor, Greece) was agricultural/fertility. The King & Queen were regarded as divine. Sexual rituals were a normal part of the fertility cults.
A parallel with the fourth Week is that there the opposite of Jezebel appears - the mother of the Messiah. Later in the chapter (14.8) the “great whore” Babylon is cast down. Note also there are those in Thyatira who are said not to have known” the deep things of Satan”, (which are revealed in chs 13 & 14) and deep satanic mysteries are hinted at in the fateful number of the beast.


Fifth Message: to Sardis

A harsh judgment, and again the main problem seems to be the pervasive influence of the old religion (cf. “soiled their clothes”, a fairly common metaphor for sexual impurity). For the “book of life”, see 13.8; 17.8; 20.12; 21.27; Dan. 12.1; Lk. 10.20; Phil. 4.3).
The fifth Week is taken up with a series of apocalyptic judgments - the seven last plagues, and one might suppose there is no parallel to be found in the fifth message, but in fact, it is one of the more striking ones. In the midst of the din of apocalyptic battle, the author puts in parenthesis a word of Jesus, “See I am coming like a thief” (16.15) which is also quoted here (3.3) cf. also Mt 24.42-44; I Thess. 5.2.

Sixth Message: to Philadelphia

This message concentrates on an Advent theme; it anticipates the final end, the Sabbath day’s rest when God’s plan shall be completed. It looks forward to the final bliss of the New Jerusalem (Rev chs 19-210 The sixth day is, of course, Friday, the day of Christ’s death, and victory, the day when the veil of the Temple was torn open for all to enter. We hear promises of joining in that victory in the message and in the sixth Week.
“My new name” may be an allusion to Isa 62.2 &65.15).

Seventh Message: to Laodicea

There is no full “Week” at the end of Revelation, but the end of the book points forward to eternal life with God, and this message gives the title of Jesus as the “Amen”. Moreover, it has clear allusions to the Eucharist where Jesus comes to join his faithful people, and it calls the faithful to become part of the final rule of heaven (“sit with me on my throne”). It is worth comparing vv 20-22 with 22.12-17.


As we look at the conditions of the church revealed in the seven messages, what parallels can we see with the contemporary Church? Do they speak of opportunities? What do the titles of Jesus suggest for Christians today?

A Study Course on the Book of Revelation - Part 1

1) Introduction:

(a) The Book of Revelation is, and from the beginning has been, regarded as one of the strangest pieces of writing in the NT. As we shall see, it had a very chequered early history before it became established as an acceptable part of the canonical (i.e. “official) collection of Christian texts. Moreover it is a book that has tended to be popular in the less “established” parts of the church. Revivalist movements, Adventist movements and a whole host of groups varying from enthusiastic to lunatic have made this one book a center-piece of their preaching. The briefest skim reading of this text will suggest why this has been the case. It is clearly written in highly metaphorical language and abounds with a kaleidoscopic array of images Unhappily, experience suggests that many people are not attuned to metaphor and symbolism, which suggests why the book has always been the happy hunting ground of the literal minded.

(b) The oddness of this book, however, may be more apparent than real, and this becomes clear when it is put in its literary and historical contexts. Indeed, a study of this book, I think, provides abundant validation of such an approach to the biblical texts: without the context, the book, and individual texts from it, can be used for almost any dogmatic purpose one’s program calls for.

2) Apocalyptic Writing

(a) The Book of Revelation may seem odd in the New Testament; however, it is but one example of a very large body of Hebrew/Christian literature that is described as apocalyptic. The term needs some explanation. It is made up of two Greek words, apo (from) and kalupto (to cover or put a veil over). So the two together indicate the removal of a veil. The name is given to a whole series of writings beginning around 200 B.C. and continuing into the second century A.D. whose central theme is the coming of the end of history and the final triumph of Yahweh (Jewish) or God, the Almighty Father (Christian). Not surprisingly, one big difference is that in the Christian version, Jesus and the Holy Spirit have a prominent part. It might be worth noting another word that is frequently used in connection with these writings, and which has a central place in the theology of the 20th century; it is eschatology, coming from the Greek word for “the end”. This, too, is used in texts that deal with the ultimate climax of human history, but it is important to note that there is a great deal of eschatological writing (e.g. in the Prophetic books of the O.T.) that is not apocalyptic. There is, though, no apocalyptic writing that is not eschatological.

(b) The apocalyptic writings seem to have arisen in Judaism after the disappearance of active Prophets who were, above all, preachers. True, their words came down to the Jews of the Second Temple in written form, but the original message was a spoken message. The apocalyptic message, on the other hand, was written from the first, and it seems to have been written in times of great distress and persecution as an aid to faith and to encourage Jews not to deny that faith in the face of persecution. To do this, the writers emphasized several accepted positions of Judaism. Yahweh is stronger than any of the great imperial powers, like Babylon, Persia or Rome; these empires have power (God-given), but for a limited time only, and they misuse that power at their own peril. Secondly, the trials of the present age point to a time, soon to come, when Yahweh will assert his power to judge the wicked and reward the just. This belief appears as early as the Prophet Amos who speaks of the coming “Day of Yahweh”, and foresees it as a time judgment on Israel.

The Book of Daniel is the only example of a complete Apocalypse in the O.T., though there are sections of other books which suggest a move to the style; they are all post exilic, and among the final bits of the OT to be produced; moreover, they by no means exhibit the full blown and extravagant content and style of the apocalypses which are counted pseudepigraphal or "other". (See, Isa. chs 24-27 ("the Apocalypse of Isaiah", almost certainly a late addition to the work; Ezk. chs 38-39; Joel ch 2 and Zech. chs 9-12). Clearly, however, the genre was popular in the two centuries before Christ and had considerable influence on the development of the New Testament, if not directly on the teaching of Jesus himself. The level of this influence on the teaching of Jesus is a matter of a continuing debate: at one extreme, Jesus is a hell-fire preacher of imminent doom, at the other, he is a kind of new and better Socrates counseling patience and peace.

3) Salient features of Apocalyptic

(a) The style is easy to identify. A book often is set in an historical period many centuries earlier than the one in which the author lives. Thus the author of the biblical book Daniel, written some time around 160 BCE, sets the book in the time of the Babylonian empire. A preview of history is given which looks like amazingly accurate prophecy, understandably, being written after the events! The point of this historical concern is to lead up to a culminating point of history, the Day of Yahweh, the End, in Greek the eschaton, which is soon to happen. In the denouement of history, the writers see the Jewish people vindicated against their oppressors and offer proliferating pictures of the punishment of enemies and the joys of the vindicated people of God.

(b) One of the striking features of apocalyptic, and one that most distinguishes it from the theological emphases of the Rabbinic OT Canon, is a pervading sense of dualism. Good and evil are emphasized and set in strict opposition; things are either light or they are dark, angelic or demonic. In the end most of these writings do not embrace an absolute dualism for Yahweh is to emerge in the last great battle, Armageddon, as the victor. Other features abound. The writers use extravagant images: the scenarios are as varied as the imaginations of the writers, but some common symbols emerged.

Legions of angels, led by Michael, fight with Satan and his evil demons. Animal and bird symbols derived from myth and astrology acquire more or less fixed referents; the beasts of Daniel and other Apocalypses go back to the basic creation myths of the middle east. Already within the OT the "chaos monster" idea had emerged (cf. Isa. 51.9; 40.21-26; 45.18; Ps 89.10) and in the hands of the Apocalyptists it burgeoned. The cosmic powers of chaos and evil are seen incarnated in the evil empires that have oppressed Israel. (Eerie echoes of this notion are frequently heard nowadays because of the osmotic effect of fundamentalist Christianity on conservative politicians).

(c) Another striking characteristic of the style is a near-obsession with numbers. Numbers had always been important for the Hebrews. The most obvious one is seven, the final day of creation and a day of rest: the word Sabbath is derived from the Hebrew verb ‘to cease’, shabbat. Within the OT the scheme of creation is structured with a symbolism of a seven-day week, a schema that is found in other mid-eastern texts. The number five is also clearly important in some writings and the idea of a “half week” is found in Daniel ch. 9. One commentator thinks that this device is crucial for the pattern of the Book of Revelation. In apocalyptic writing the number seven is used in many configurations: we have a “week of weeks”, a “half week of years” and the feast of Pentecost to be held when a week of weeks has passed after Passover. The idea of six "eras" of history followed by an eternal Sabbath becomes a commonplace (in the NT cf. Heb. 4.9), but the numbers three and twelve also figure prominently.

(d) Finally, the lively development of the idea of a Messiah should be noted. The earlier OT idea of a new king (messiach = 'anointed one') descended from David is enlarged with Prophetic and Priestly figures.

4) Background information for the Book of Revelation

(a) In ch 1.4 & 9 and 22.8 the author’s name is given as John. In uncritical circles this is often been taken to be the Apostle to whom the 4th gospel is attributed. As early as the mid third century, however, this identification was questioned, and modern analysis of the style and content of the two books points strongly against such an identification. Complicating the issue is the fact that most modern scholars doubt that the 4th gospel can be the work of someone who was one of the original Twelve Disciples. It may be that the writer was a disciple of the Apostle John and that is how the tradition arose.

(b) Almost as difficult is dating the time when the book was written. Most of the earliest traditions suggest somewhere around 85-90, but a passage like 17.10-11 suggests the Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD, 6th Emperor after Augustus). It is, of course, possible that the author used pieces of various dates, or, indeed, himself wrote over a period of several decades. In any case, the general background of 75-95 A.D. does seem to make sense of ‘floating’ references in the book. In the last century, a great deal has been learned about the Roman Empire of this period. We know that by the 60s of the first century, the “Emperor Cult” was in place and taken seriously by many. Thus, a loyal citizen would be expected to join in ceremonies that implied the divinity of the Emperor, and this, naturally, Christians absolutely could not do. It seems that by the time the book was being written persecution had began, though it was sporadic and local. Passages like 6.9-11, & 7.9-17 show the author recognizes that Christians may be called to give their lives for the faith and that the conflict between God and the Devil, Good and Evil, is going to center on the claims of the State to demand worship of it. Those who regard the Book of Revelation as marginal, might mediate on the history of the 20th century in this regard.

(c) The story of how this book was accepted in the church is interesting and suggests that we are not alone in finding it strange and difficult to interpret. Probably within 75 years of its writing, the historical references were lost and were given symbolic meanings. (Or more accurately, since the references to actual historical events were already hidden in symbols, the reference point of the symbols was changed from a more or less present and immediate future into a far future - at the millennium or whenever). It was not until the 4th century that the Book of Revelation was fully accepted in the Eastern church. For example, Cyril of Jerusalem (260-340) excluded it from the official list of that Diocese and forbade its use in church. By the time it was fully accepted, it was also accepted that it had to be read as a kind of allegorical prophecy of the course of world history. It is this kind of approach that finds in the “number of the beast” (13.18) one’s current public enemy (Kaiser, Pope, Hitler, - - - -?)

5) The Major Themes of Revelation

The book springs out of a profoundly Christian understanding of God and Redemption. It is a God-centered (Theo centric) book, but God is not the ‘unitary’ God, Yahweh, of the Old Testament. Here we meet a “proto-Trinitarian God, (or, perhaps a Binitarian one), surrounded by the worshipping hosts of spirits and redeemed humanity. It may well be that some of the imagery comes from the Liturgy of the church in Ephesus where the Elders might stand round the Altar at which the death of the Lamb of God is recalled, and to which the Son, as “a Lamb that was slain” comes to share the meal with his brothers and sisters.

Note, in particular, the following emphases:

(a) The glory of God, the LORD & the worship of the saints. Ch 4; 5.13 7.15; chs 19, 21 & 22

(b) The Person of the Christ; the Son of Man (1.8ff); Lamb (5.6,12; 6.1 and about 20 other references; the Risen One (1.18; 12.5; 14.14ff etc.) One with the Father, having the prerogatives of God (22.1, 3; 2.23; 5.13; 11.15 etc.)

(c) The Church, subject to trials and temptations, attacked by the forces of evil (chs 2, 3, & 13)., but victorious through the Blood of the Lamb (12. 11, etc.)

(d) The Spirit (1.10, ch. 2 passim; 14.13; Read in 19.10 “the spirit of prophecy witnesses to Jesus”.

(e) Evil in the created order engaged in a battle to the death with God and His Christ. (12.4; chs 13 & 18)
(f) Advent of God’s final victory. 1.7; 20.6; 20.11-15.

6) Is there A Pattern to the Book of Revelation?

The book has seemed to some commentators to be almost a random collection of Apocalyptic sayings. “Archbishop Benson relates that in answer to the question, ‘What is the form the book presents to you?’, the reply of an intelligent and devout reader was, ‘It is chaos’”. (Commentary by B.H. Swete p. xli). Even so, as one reads, there does seem to be some sort of scheme and some development. The one I have found most interesting was suggested by Austin M. Farrer in a book called A Rebirth of Images; his later Commentary on the book significantly amended details of the fist effort, but left in place the overall approach.

Farrer's Scheme

i) He begins by pointing out that one of the characteristics of apocalyptic writing is to see history as a series of "ages". Several such books see the whole of history as a great "week", following the pattern of the creation story in Genesis. This begins with creation on day one, and concludes with the Sabbath rest. Within the early Christian tradition (coming from Judaism), the idea of a "week of weeks" is found as the interval between Passover and Pentecost. A particularly significant precedent is a non-canonical book called Jubilees. Its basic scheme is a survey of the history of the world "divided into 'jubilee' periods of seven times seven (see Lev. 25. 8-12)" (Interpreters Dict. Bib. vol. II p. 1003).

ii) John the Seer has adapted this old convention to express a Christian understanding of the drama of redemption and the certainty of the final victory of God. The book, says Farrer, divides into six main sections, each with seven interior sections, the whole thing based on the week of creation in Genesis. The first day is both the day of creation and the day of re-creation, Easter. The sixth day is the day of the death of Christ. What we have is an exposition of a "week of divine action" dealing with the last things, based on the Genesis account. There are only six sections because the seventh is, indeed, the Sabbath Rest, the completion of God's plan; that is how the book ends, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth", and "he showed me the river of the water of life" (chs 21 & 22).

iii) There are endless conjunctions of parallels, but one striking one is to compare the first day of Creation (Gen.) with the beginning of section 1 of Revelation, (the letters to the seven Churches), and the sixth day of creation (Gen.) with the beginning of section 6 of Revelation (19.11). One both "days" we have manifestations of Christ (Christophanies); the Risen Christ among the burning lights of the churches, and the Triumphant Christ returning on the White horse for the Second Advent. In Genesis, we read of the creation of human beings, the first Adam (though, of course, the adamic concept comes from the earlier creation account that follows in ch. 2, one with significantly different emphases). Still, one has to consider whether the juxtaposition of the first Adam with the Second is just accidental.

Here is the Shema Farrer suggest in his first book; later on we will look at his modification in, The Revelation of St. John the Divine – A Commentary.

Introduction 1.1-8 Week/Day 1 1.9 - 3.22

Week/Day 2 4.1 - 8.6

Week/Day 3 8.7 - 11.19

Week/Day 4 12.1 - 15.8

Week/Day 5 16.1 - 19.10

Week/Day 6 19.11 - 21.8

Eve of Day 7 21.9 - 22.

Epilogue 22.6 - end

7) Initial Discussion prompt

Read the Book of Daniel chapter 2 (note 2.5, and recall that Joseph was fetched out of prison to interpret Pharaoh's dream, - Ex. 41.14 & 25ff.). Daniel is portrayed as even greater than Joseph; not only can he interpret the dream, he can recall it for the King (Dan. 25 28ff), a rather typical apocalyptic ploy to present a larger than life hero. Note how the writer uses the symbolism. What does the Statue represent? What is the significance of the materials used? The four kingdoms are Babylon, Media, Persia, Greek (Alexander). What is the fourth? Note Ex. 20.25.

[These notes are intended for a study group that will begin to meet in about a month's time, but I thought they might be of wider interest].

The Use of Praying

Neville Ward, an English Methodist Minister, published The Use of Praying in 1967; my copy is of the Thirteenth impression, dated 1985, and it must be about then that I first read the book. Over the years, I have from time to time dipped into it again, but only recently, acting as a Facilitator of a group at All Saints’ Episcopal church in Rehoboth, Delaware, have I re-read it, probably more thoroughly than on my first reading years ago. This exercise confirmed my earlier view that this is one of the most sensible books on prayer written in the 20th century. I have been informed that the book was re-issued in 1998 and is available at Amazon.com.

[After one use of [sic], in order to avoid a wearying repetition, I will note here that Ward is, as almost everyone was so short a time ago as the 1960s, quite blind to the gender issue. God is always H/he, people are always man or mankind and interactions are between “God and man”. I sometimes come across a sermon or lecture I produced before 1970 and find, to my total embarrassment, the identical phenomenon. I have no doubt that Ward would phrase things differently today.]

Down-to-earth

High on my list of approval is its refreshingly unpious approach, a striking down-to-earth quality. Here are a few examples:
“If prayer is regarded simply, without qualification, as a request to God to do certain things he would not do if we did not ask him and will do simply because we ask him, we are wasting our time” (p.85). Ward notes that such a view of prayer is extremely common, and my observations of the contemporary American religious scene suggest that it is even more prevalent here today than when Ward wrote. A few minutes tuned in to a Televangelist will provide ample instances, as, indeed, do clips on News programs: someone standing in front of an intact house surrounded by flattened neighbors’ dwellings intones: “It was only our prayers that saved us”.

Then, on bible reading: “Much of the bible is second-rate literature, which we would not dream of reading if it were, for example, part of the literature of classical Greece or Rome”. (p. 110). Students reading classics at University may be required “to read such second-rate authors as Menander, Plautus and Ennius” and students of theology, archeology or Semitic languages need to read vast tracts of the Old Testament which will hardly help the average Christian to pray. He goes on, “The book of Genesis, the Joseph and David sagas, the Psalms, the book of Job, and some of the visions of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are enough for the average believer who is reading the Old Testament in the attempt to increase his (sic) knowledge of God and to advance in the life of love”. (p. 111).

Here is a final example, which not only exemplifies this refreshingly frank dealing with a practice that is all too often coated with saccharine (or its contemporary equivalent), but which also suggests that Ward is setting the practice of prayer in a much larger context of theology. He writes: “The answer to prayer that matters most is the general result which prayer is expected and intended to achieve, the purpose for which prayer is used; and this is the expression and deepening of our faith in God, our desire for the coming of his rule in our perplexing world, and our love for him, and his created world of infinitely interesting persons and things. If prayer does not do this for us, after a reasonable trial, it is a waste of time and should be abandoned for more fruitful activities. Life is just too short to waste time praying if praying does not help one to love life and enjoy it more”. (p.99). I think this is more than a breath of fresh air; it is a rush of fresh air that might be enough to drown out the cries of anguish from pious Anglo-Catholics and Conservative Evangelicals alike; (though, on second thoughts, are there any A-Cs left?).

The Eucharist

This down-to-earth quality is striking, but it should not suggest that Ward is not serious about prayer and the Christian life: he repeatedly stresses the centrality of Thanksgiving for both, and not surprisingly considers that the Eucharist underpins the whole enterprise of living a Christian calling. “[I]t is in the Eucharist that one sees most clearly what prayer really is in the Christian tradition… Private prayer is a secondary thing. That is not to say that it is not important but simply that it is derivative”. (p.13f). And later on he writes, “It is far more important that young Christians should be taught that Christianity is a religion dominated by thankfulness than that ‘he died to make us good’”. (p. 24). Each chapter has practical, helpful and sometimes pungent things to say about many other aspects of prayer. The two chapters on “Resenting” and “Fearing” are, I think, particularly good.

Wider Theology

Beyond all these excellent qualities of this remarkable book which flooded back as I re-read it and discussed it with the Study Group, something else emerged: more and more I felt that this work, although centered on the subject of prayer, is, in effect, a wide-ranging theological excursus, the central theme of which is the nature of God and the manner of divine activity in the created order. This is not a theme that is in any way systematically worked out and, indeed, is hardly explicit, but it provides a substantial infrastructure to the work as a whole.

David Jenkins on Divine Providence

As a starting point, I take a small book by David Jenkins produced while he was Bishop of Durham. It has the somewhat quirky title of God, Miracle and the Church of England. I say “produced” because the book is put together from several sermons, an address to Synod and parts of two Lecture series; as a result, it is somewhat uneven, but it courageously faces pressing issues and its central theme is clear enough: a consideration of divine providence. How does God interact with the created order?

God and the Chalcedonian Definition

Jenkins has fun with a ‘thought experiment’ about the death of the emperor Theodosius, which had significant repercussions at the Council of Chalcedon: his successor, the Empress Pulcheria, first of all deposed Bishop Chrysaphius, the political intriguer who had been protecting Eutyches; she then married a Thracian army officer, Marcian, who was a firm supporter of Pope Leo. Thus Theodosius’ fatal fall from his horse, “ensured” that the Greek tradition based on the Nicene settlement of “speaking of the ‘one nature’ (=one Person) of Jesus Christ” was trumped by the Western tradition. This had been defined first by Tertullian in the terms that “Jesus Christ is one Person, and that in him are two natures of Godhead and manhood” (R.V Sellers, The Council of Chalcedon, P.96f., quoted in Jenkins, P.45). So, presto! Theodosius falls of is horse and the Definition of Chalcedon emerges. As David Jenkins points out, this has been, and still is, frequently used as ‘proof’ that the Definition is a kind of hot line from God; by this rather circuitous route, God has given us final and definitive information about the Incarnation; so, let no one question.

Meddle with the Molecules

The question, then, for the thought experiment is, “Did God push the Emperor Theodosius off his horse on 28 July 450?” (p. 61). Not surprisingly, Jenkins returns a resounding “no”, but points out, as I just noted, that many discussions about current happenings in the church often seem to imply an affirmative answer. In summing up this section David Jenkins writes, “Unless we can be clear that between the scientific and historical causalities of the universe and of the world on the one hand and the actions and transactions of God with persons on the other there is a space, then the problem of evil is absolutely overwhelming. I personally would sympathize with those who find evil overwhelming in any case. But as a Christian who believes that there is a real and basic sense in which God interacts with the world as he is in Jesus, I do not believe this. Nonetheless I am increasingly clear that God is not an arbitrary meddler nor an occasional fixer.” (p.63). Then with what must be an allusion to a form of process theology, the section concludes: God is “a God of open personal transactions who insists and persists in a self-giving way of risk, and self- denying way of invitation that has not yet established anything like a total persuasive sway over or in a universe which – to borrow Austin Farrer’s phrase – God has made so that it has to make itself.” (p. 64) (I have a strong feeling that Farrer wrote, “can create itself”, but perhaps the difference is only of interest to philosophers).

Back to Ward

All this may seem an over-long introduction to, even a digression from, the issue of prayer, but I do not think so. Ward, as I have pointed out, is quite clear that prayer cannot be thought of as sending a message to “out there” to get God to effect something “back here”. It is quite natural, perhaps inevitable, that on the way to get the results of an X-ray, one finds oneself praying that it be a clear picture. Are we hoping that God will have crept into the Lab with some white-out to cover up a suspicious shadow, or that even before the picture was taken God had intervened to remove a growth or kill off some bacteria? One has to agree with both Ward and Jenkins that such thinking about God and God’s dealings with the created order are distressingly common, and may well lie behind a great deal of the acrimony surrounding practical courses of action within the church since the way in which we envisage the divine action is crucial.

Divine Action in the World

In The Use of Praying, this factor is, I feel, never far away. Ward writes: “God has nothing whatever to give anyone but himself, some share in what he is taking such a long time doing with man, the strain of the infinity of questions his action in the world raises, and a much-attested deposit of love, joy and peace in the mind.” (p. 100). If this is not ‘process theology’, it is a very good imitation of it, and in some degree it echoes (though written two decades earlier) Jenkins’ insistence that we must differentiate God’s inter-acting with people from the divine activity in created order of electrons, atoms and molecules, in which God does not “meddle”.

Implicit view of God

What picture of God emerges as Ward writes? As I have noted, he does not deal with this in any systematic way, but there are many asides almost that suggest the outlines of a portrait (with the proviso, of course, that it is not even possible to talk about God , let alone paint a portrait of her).
Ward quotes approvingly, “All our word must be ‘given a bath’ (Luther)… they must go through the cross. For it is at the cross of Jesus that his disciples and with them the Church must first learn how sovereignty, the kingdom, the love, the righteousness of God are actualized.” (H. Gollwitzer, Ward, p. 27). In this context, it is clear that we are to think of revelation as something going on, a process, not a divine package once and for all delivered. Ward never quite explicitly says we can never know God directly; we can in some sense ‘know’ Jesus and that is sufficient. This echoes his final chapter, The Night of Faith, is a pellucidly clear exposition of the mysticism of St. John of the Cross: “there is nothing in God on which our senses can operate”. One of the reasons for St. John’s choice of the metaphor of the dark night is “that our ignorance of God is stupendous”, yet, “Jesus Christ, we believe, (note, believe, not know) has humanized God for us, so that it is much easier for people who have ‘seen’ Jesus to love God… but there is a mystery about Jesus too. No one seems to understand him in any final and complete way.” (p. 149)

Christology

It is clear, too, that Ward suggests a Christology that takes Jesus’ humanity very seriously and is far removed from the typical 19th century view that, for example, insisted that the critics must be wrong about the Davidic authorship of the Psalms since, according to Mark, Jesus says David composed Ps. 110. He points to the typical Messianic longings of first century Judaism for a time “when all doubt and uncertainty is over and it is as clear as the day that we were right all along and the others were wrong. This longing was part of the outlook Jesus inherited as a Jew. It is of course an unsatisfactory way of thinking; one suspects here that it is already disintegrating for [Jesus], that he wants to put it all very differently. New thoughts are already taking shape in his mind.” (p. 39).

Hints of Process Theology

I will close with two examples that suggest at least a substratum of process theology. In the excellent chapter on Suffering Ward relies heavily on the idea that God is deeply involved in human suffering and at one point suggests that God ‘nervously’ and ‘hopefully’ asks us to do his will, (does that imply, suffer with God?) (p. 82). A nervous God seems light years away from and omnipotent, omniscient and impassible God of many dogmatic formulations.

Finally a long quotation from the book that needs no comment:

"The prayer that is mere request, without self-offering, is not prayer ‘in his name’ and is not worth the time it takes to say. This throws some light on the delays of providence. There must be many problems (the unity of the Church, the peace of the world) whose solutions must wait because God intends the answers to our prayers for these matters to come through persons willing to be bearers of the answer. [cf. Farrer’s ‘created a universe that can create itself’]. To bring the world before God in prayer is to stand where you can hear most clearly the most tragic voice in the universe, God’s despair of man, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’” (p. 84).

Footnote:
I know of two other books by Neville Ward, both excellent:
Friday Afternoon and Following the Plough
Both were originally published by the Epworth Press, 1976 & 1978

How to Believe Evident Nonsense

Biblical Inerrancy

Some time in the late 1960s I attended a meeting in Edinburgh. Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had appointed me to a Committee studying the possibilities of some kind of concordat between the C of E, English Presbyterians, The Scottish Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland: a somewhat daunting array from the point of view of possible ecumenical togetherness. We had had several earlier meetings in London, and I particularly recall Eric Mascall’s immovability on (surprise?) the issue of Episcopacy.
For the Edinburgh meeting, I traveled overnight to Edinburgh, joining the King’s Cross to Edinburgh night express at Newark. I shared a sleeping compartment with Dr. Jim Packer, and we had a pleasant dinner together interspersed with our recent teaching experiences and G.O. E. (the General Ordination Examination) horror stories, but ever since that evening, I have pondered over the phenomenon of highly intelligent people who hold to a rigid view of the inerrancy of scripture. James Barr, Dennis Nineham, John Barton and many others have written excellent books directly about or relevant to the issue of Fundamentalism, and Owen Chadwick’s Victorian Church tells much about the ferment of the mid 19th century, but still the question continues to nag rather like the rough edge of a tooth.
Recently, I have read two things that struck me as relevant to the issue, though they have hardly answered the question or removed my bemusement.

The Miasma Theory of Contagious Disease

The first is a fascinating book about one of the more terrible Cholera epidemics that struck London in the mid-nineteenth century: The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson (Riverhead Books, 2006). From the beginning of the century, cholera outbreaks had been endemic, but, says Johnson, “most…were located south of the Thames” (p. 22). That was abruptly to change in August 1854 in the area of Soho, bounded roughly by Regency Street, Great Marlborough Street and Wardour Street. By mid century the area of Soho where the epidemic hit “was the most densely populated of all 135 subdistricts (of Great London) with 432 people to the acre… The parish of St. Luke’s in Soho had thirty houses per acre. In Kensington, by contrast, the number per acre was two.” (Johnson, p. 19).
As back ground to the disastrous outbreak in 1854, Johnson points to the highly paradoxical part played by the invention of the W(ater)C(closet): invented and improved by 1830, water closets were, says Johnson, an immense breakthrough in the quality of life, “but they had a disastrous effect on the city’s sewage problem. Without a functioning sewer system to connect to, most WC’s simply flushed their contents into existing cesspools, greatly increasing their tendency to overflow”. (p. 12). Most experts now agree that this outbreak of cholera began with the sickening of a five-month old baby girl, the second child of Thomas and Sarah Lewis. What her name was and where she contracted the disease remain mysteries, but what followed certainly does not.

Dr. Snow and Commissioner Chadwick

The main actor in proposing the cause of cholera was Dr. John Snow, who had done very well as one of the earliest anesthetists. Soon after the arrival of cholera in the UK (1830) he became interested in the reports in medical journals, and, on analysis, came to the conclusion that the predominant “miasma” theory was hopelessly wrong: that theory held that the ‘agent(s)’ – no clear microbe theory yet – lingered in the air around unsanitary places, particularly slums. Johnson writes, “By the late 1840s the miasma theory had established…a prestigious following: the sanitation commissioner, Edwin Chadwick; the city’s main demographer, William Farr; along with many other public officials and members of Parliament”. (p. 69).
It is fascinating to follow Jobson as he moves day by day with John Snow the Doctor, William Farr, the Demographer and Henry Whitehead, the Curate of St. Luke’s Church, through the area, revealing the emerging solution, rather like a fascinating “whodunit”. Central to the story, however, was Commissioner Edwin Chadwick, whom Johnson describes as “the most influential miasmatist of the age”, with “plenty of illustrious company”. (p.121).

The Pump Water

There was ample, indeed, compelling evidence that it was not the smells of London (and they must have been frightful, causing blankets soaked in chloride of lime to be draped over the windows of the House of Commons) that were killing people. “All of John Snow’s detailed, rigorous analysis of the water companies and the transmission routes of the Horsleydown outbreak [of cholera in 1848 triggered by an infected seaman from the steamer Elbe] couldn’t compete with a single whiff of the air in Bermondsey”. (p.131). So even when the trail led inexorably to a main water outlet, the Pump on Broad Street that had been contaminated by fecal matter from the Lewis’s cesspool leaking into the water supply, the authorities resisted its closing down. Chadwick fought for the miasma theory to the end.

John Hick on the Incarnation & Pluralism

The second short paragraph I came upon is at the very end of John Hick’s The Metaphor of God Incarnate, (2nd Edition, 2005). Hick critically explores the possible ways in which sense can be made of the Chalcedonian Definition. He comes to the conclusion that the most the Definition can be said to achieve is simply to assert that Jesus was fully human and at the same time divine “without attempting to explain how this might be so”. (p. 60). All the attempts to explain the “how”, end up, Hick suggests either as unintelligible, or, by the Chalcedonian standard, heterodox. As the title of the book suggests this is because what is essentially metaphorical language has been read as though it were some sort of scientific formula. Central to Hick’s approach is the challenge to Christian exclusivism, the devaluing or even demonizing of all other religious traditions that is so characteristic of very conservative Christianity. In answering the question whether a new, radical approach to this particular dogma is possible, Hick points to the fact that much main-stream Christianity has come to terms with the scientific knowledge given to us since the beginning of the nineteenth century. He writes: “I anticipate that a process analogous to the slow and painful acceptance of evolution will take place in the acceptance that Christianity is one among a plurality of authentic human responses to the divine reality. There will be powerful resistance…leaving - as in the case of the controversies over science and the scriptures – a continuing and probably powerful fundamentalist wing”. (p.184).

What Price Evidence?

In closing, a fairly long passage from Hick’s book and a final thought:

Many people in this bewilderingly complex world [do] seek simple straightforward beliefs concerning… the long-term meaning of their lives. And fundamentalist forms of belief can provide this. Indeed they can appeal not only to the relatively uneducated but also to people who are highly educated in fields other than the study of religion. In this connection, the sociologist Peter Berger says that ‘there is some warrant for asserting that the propensity to believe evident nonsense increases rather than decreases with higher education’ (Berger, A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity, New York, 1992, 126)! Conceptions, however implausible, accepted without criticism within a supportive community can have immense power”. (p. 187).

In spite of the immense power of ideology that enables people to ignore mounting evidence (global warming, perhaps), in spite of the now fashionable trend to point to the epistemological and other problems with the accepted canons of scientific enquiry, and in spite of vast vested interests that militate against accepting new truths, Magna est veritas et praevalebit, the truth is great and shall prevail: perhaps, even, in the face of evident nonsense.

A Sermon for Easter Day

Note: I had no intention of posting this sermon, preached at the 9.00 a.m. service at All Saints’ Rehoboth yesterday, partly because so much blog material has already appeared around the Easter theme, and partly because I feel there is a great danger in presuming that people want to hear just anything I produce. I relented, however, because several parishoners presed me to publish it: so here it is.

The O.T. as part of Christian Bible

The Christian sacred writings from a very early date incorporated the Hebrew Scriptures. For the first generations of Christians, the writings of what we call the O.T. were their Bible: there was as yet no “N.T.”. By the time of the second century C.E., however, the presence of holy books of Judaism began to pose serious problems for the earliest Theologians, and, many would maintain, continue to do so. Yet, the decision to include the Jewish books was crucial, providing a context for the astonishing message of Judaism’s offshoot, the infant Christian movement.

The O.T. in the N.T.

So it is that our Christian Bible opens with a statement that God created the heavens and the earth, and goes on “the earth was formless and void, and darkness covered the face of the deep”. The Evangelists, steeped as they were, in the traditions of the OT, doubtless had this verse in mind when they produced the early accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus and wrote, “When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land” (Mk. 15.33). Similarly, when Luke begins his account of the Resurrection of Jesus with the words, “On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women…came to the tomb” (Lk.24.1),” the continuation of the Genesis story is close to the surface: “God said, “Let there be light”. And God saw that the light was good…And there was evening and there was morning, the first day”. (Gen 1.4).
This kind of allusion to the OT is very common, and, in this case, the reference back to Genesis is found in other NT passages. For example Paul writes in II Cor. 5.17, “If any one is in Christ he or she is a new creation; the old has passed away, the new has come”. And the Evangelists in their more figurative way are telling us that as God created “in the beginning”, so now, on that first Easter, God is bringing into being a New Creation. Luke surely is telling us that without God all is chaos and darkness, but when God acts, light shines out, and all is new. The darkness of Good Friday was over shone by the decisive act of God that we call the resurrection; that is, perhaps, why the accounts note the visit to the tomb as the sun was rising and mention the bright light of the messengers’ presence.

It seems to me that that is about all that needs to be said on Easter morning, but it won’t surprise those of you who are regulars at All SS if I go on briefly to enlarge this central point.

Meeting Jesus

Is it possible that the burning faith of that little band arose from the precise placing of a head-scarf which Peter is reported to have noticed? Is even the center of the Easter faith the story of the tomb found empty by the women on that Sunday morning? It is striking that our very earliest witness to the resurrection faith is St. Paul who wrote his letters to Corinth around 52 C.E. What is central for Paul is the meetings of the risen Jesus: he never mentions the empty tomb tradition. Helmut Thielicke, a great German Theologian of the second half of the 20th century puts this well:
“They (the disciples) could never have believed that the dead Jesus had risen from the dead if they had not believed his Word...A miracle has never brought anyone to faith since it is always open to other interpretations. The empty tomb did not bring the disciples to faith. Something very different happened”. He continues: “In the Easter light of [that first day of the week] they suddenly saw that all the words and acts of Jesus pointed to the fact that death could not hold Him. It was of those words and acts that they now had to think.” The Silence of God, 83. (Eerdmans,1962).

The center of the Easter Faith is not a empty tomb but meeting with the living Jesus, and it was those experiences, recounted in Paul and the Gospels that brought about the living faith of the first disciples: as they experienced the presence of Jesus, they became convinced that God had acted to overcome death, giving a whole new kind of life to Jesus which he, in turn, was to share with those who came to believe, and continue to come to believe No amount of historical investigation, no philosophical ingenuities about the nature of the natural order and the possibilities of miracle can give us certainty. The only certainty we have is that we are part of that Community of faith which has staked its life on faith in God’s love for humanity; faith that God in Christ acts to save us; faith that death and evil do not have the final word in this universe. And the only certainty we can have is in sharing this faith.

So we come to the very center, the very nucleus of all the gospel accounts, disparate, and even contradictory as they may be. Moreover, we come, as it were, to the fuse that ignited the explosion that was to shake the Roman Empire. We come to the burning centre, not only of the written gospel manuscripts, but of the Apostolic preaching of the Good News, the Gospel, that, in Paul’s words “God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself” (II Cor. 5.18) .

Life from Death in the O.T.

We began by noting how the gospel passion narratives resonate with the creation story of Genesis. If we go further into the OT and consider the broad sweep of its story, we note over and again how the authors speak of light dispelling darkness, life emerging from death: the father of the founder of Israel, Sarah’s child, was born to “one as good as dead” says the writer; the very survival of the sons of Jacob/Israel was a result of Joseph’s position in Egypt; the remnant of Israel after the captivity in Babylon is an almost unbelievable restoration, but it is well attested by what we know of Cyrus the new Persian ruler and it is eloquently presented to us in the poetry of Deutero Isaiah. The list goes on and on, and prepares us for the greatest of God’s acts on that first Easter.

From Sabbath to Sunday

All the accounts note that it was “early on the first day of the week”. We tend not to notice that little detail, but it high lights a sea change in religion. What might we suppose someone steeped in the Hebrew scriptures and used to Rabbinic methods of exegesis would think if you asked him what is important about the first day of the week? I suspect there would be a very good chance that he would reply, “In the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth...God said, ‘Let there be light, and God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness….and there was evening and there was morning, the first day”. (Gen. 1.1-2) but, he would go, it is the seventh day that is paramount for us, for God rested on the Seventh Day, that is, the shabath. [Coming from Heb √, ‘to rest’]. This is the fulcrum of the week. So what you Christians call Saturday is the day of rest for all of Judaism.
But for the emerging Christian Community, the Sabbath was obsolete. For them it is the first day of the week, Sunday, that becomes the focus of the Christian week and, indeed Year, for everything is dated from Easter Sunday. So it is that on the first day of the week that we meet for Eucharist proclaiming again and again, that this is the day on which God has acted decisively in human affairs: “This is the Day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it”.

An Address for Good Friday, 2007

St Luke 23.39ff - Jesus Remember Me

This second word from the cross comes, as does the first, in Luke’s account of the passion of Jesus. It shares all the critical problems that attend the seven reported words from the cross such as the virtual impossibility of speech for someone undergoing the inhuman punishment of crucifixion, and then this passage has more. The offer of paradise today contradicts other passages in the NT and reflects a view of life after death that does not appear in Christianity until around the third generation of believers (who were almost entirely converts in the Hellenistic world).

The Anglican attitude to Historical Criticism

It is, I believe, one of the great glories of the Anglican tradition that it does not offer a diet of preaching and teaching that requires one to leave one’s intellect in the Church foyer and enables us to acknowledge these serious critical and historical issues. The great gain is that our Anglican tradition makes it possible for us to use the results of careful critical historical study to recognize that what we are given in the gospel narratives is frequently an insight into how the earliest followers of Jesus remembered him and understood what he had taught. The gospels are rather like a negative, which has had several exposures. (Remember how easy it was to do that with a trusty old Kodak?)
Just because it is historically quite improbable that Jesus delivered some of the sayings attributed to him, it does not mean that they do not have the status of scripture and are important for us. It does, of course require us to ask, “What exactly is the status of the Bible?” But that is a topic for another time.

A Word of Hope

Luke’s first word underlines the centrality of forgiveness; his final one, at the moment of death, expresses absolute trust in God; “I hand over my whole life to you”, he cries: this second saying in Luke’s account focuses on faith and hope. All three of the sayings from Luke contrast in some measure with Mark and Matthew. There is no hint of the despair that we hear in the cry, “Why have you forsaken me?”, which Luke replaces by “Into your hands I commend my spirit”.
It is important for us to remember that we are with a congregation many decades after the searing events of the day, looking back to those events through the vibrant faith in the Resurrection.

Reasons for Despair

They and we look at the terrible state of this world: at misused power, at innocent victims destroyed by that power; we are reminded of the evil done by violent people like the two real criminals being executed at the same time as Jesus; we are appalled by sectarian hatreds, racial divisions and deeply prejudiced views of differences in human sexuality. We look out on all this, often, by means of a flickering screen in our very living room and we may well be tempted to despair, to think either that there is no God and, indeed, never was one, or to feel that God has indeed forsaken us. Perhaps God has in the divine inner councils decided to abandon the wonderful experiment of life. As we look out on the apparently endless series of horrors that we hear of and are in some cases personally involved in, such despair does not seem all that inappropriate.

Luke’s Perspective

But then, we recall that we are standing with that congregation of the late first century C.E. for whom Luke wrote and hearing his version of what Jesus said and did. They and we recognize that awful as these events were, God’s power had not been destroyed: we realize this because we look back at the events of that Friday upheld by faith in what happened beginning on the following Sunday. We look back, that is, through the lens of the resurrection, and so can say with St Paul as he wrote to Corinth, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (I Cor. 1.25).

Hidden Hope

The account of the “penitent” robber is full of hints that there is another side to the horrors we see in the world around us. The man represents humans who have come to the end of the road; for whom addiction, perhaps, seems beyond beating or grief beyond bearing. Neville Ward says of these situations, “Reports that come from the depths suggest a hidden hopefulness.” (Friday Afternoon, p 35). Of course many times hope does not emerge to prevent a suicide or a slide into irreversible depression. But it does happen sometimes, pointing to a deep intuition of the fundamental goodness of creation; an intuition, against all appearances perhaps, that love is greater than hate, hope more life-giving than despair and light, ultimately, resisting extinction in darkness.
The thieves are at the end of life and hope. The first one is full of bitter scorn. In some unfathomable way, the second prisoner, at the very end of the road, on the brink of final loss, finds hope and faith, and his words will bear a closer look.

‘Remember’ in the Old Testament

First of all, he rebukes the other condemned man, recognizing that, imperfect as it is, the human justice system can in some measure differentiate between guilt and innocence. Secondly, the thief uses a biblically charged word: “remember me”. The New Testament writers, steeped as they are in the Jewish scriptures, recognize that ‘remember’ implies much more than merely bringing up a mental image of a past event. It is used often in an address to Yahweh asking God to remember the covenant. This means, “make effective in action now the promises you made to us, that we should be your people”. Luke in his report of this man’s address to Jesus, displays the belief of the post-Easter church that even in depths of pain and despair, God has not deserted us and that the deeply embedded spark of hope can spring to a flame as we turn, as the second prisoner did, to this helpless bearer of the divine love suffering with us.

Critical Quagmire

Finally, Jesus’ answer: the words “Today you will be with me in Paradise” are a critical quick sand, apparently contradicting the later creeds, and using a rare word whose meaning is far from precise. It is this lack of precision in the word paradise that can cut through the thicket (if I may change the metaphor). Although Paradise had come to be applied to the Garden of Eden at the beginning of history and to an idyllic existence beyond the end of history, in its three NT uses it means little more than “close to God”. It is quite typical of the NT to eschew altogether speculation about the state of existence after death. Paul’s basic position is that the dead are “in Christ with God”. The later mediaeval maps of heaven, purgatory and hell were centuries in the future of the NT writers; we may continue to appreciate the magnificent poetry of Dante and Milton, but we should not be bound by their imagery.

Luke’s Message in the Word to the Robber

So Luke’s message for us in this word is that as we look out at this wretched world and as we suffer the pain, fears and awful losses it deals out to us, we can go on in hope with Christ who suffers alongside us; we can go on in hope that in spite of all appearances in the end, in Paul’s words, “God will be all and in all”.

The Function of Christian Doctrine

This piece was originally the second in the 2007 Lenten series presented at All SS Episcopal Church in Rehoboth, Delaware. I was partly responsible for planning the series entitled “The Foundations of Christianity”, and, so, when I began preparing this talk, I found myself in a serious dilemma. Had I really suggested that one of the topics should be Doctrine? Serious reflection forced me to admit that I had, indeed, suggested this topic, and I was forced to admit that it was an unthoughtful suggestion, if not, indeed, a very silly one.

Inauguration Date of Church

What is the problem? It is that the foundation of a building is invariably the first course of brick or stone that is put in; if, to recall the Dominical word, it is to be a firm foundation, put into a trench that goes down to a stratum of rock. All the other topics of this course fit (or can be made to fit) into that definition. As the gospel tradition itself suggests, the foundation is the work of Jesus followed closely by that of the first group of Disciples: prayer was clearly there from the start and activity in the world was, and is, essential. Some ingenuity is needed, perhaps, in spite of conservative evangelical insistence, to see the writings of the NT as foundational in quite the same sense since they were the product of the groups that grew (to change the metaphor) from the original work of Jesus and the Apostles. We might date the beginning of Christianity, not from the Crucifixion in, say, 30-32 C.E., but around 120 C.E. when the last bits of our NT were written, and that would make it clear that the N.T. collection of documents is fully foundational. (Interestingly, that would make today’s date, March 8, 1887). This option is, I suppose, not open to a fundamentalist, but on historical grounds it is a very reasonable position to take, noting for example, that it was many decades before the followers of Jesus attracted the nick-name Christianoi.

Doctrine as Scaffolding

Further reflection suggested that it might be better to treat doctrine under the metaphor of scaffolding, rather than foundation. Some interesting reflections flow from this particular metaphor. A building needs scaffolding to grow, but it remains independent of it. Only in extreme cases, the tower of Pisa comes to mind, does the support have to stay in place for a protracted period. As an aside, I wonder if this suggests the obsession with correct doctrine on the part of certain sections of the church results from the felt need to prop up something they sense is falling down? Another reflection: What materials are used as scaffolding? It depends, of course, in what part of the world you are and also very much on technological norms for the time. All the great mediaeval cathedrals were built using wooden frame-works, and in the East bamboo was (and often still is) the material of choice. Another aside: doctrine is heavily influenced by cultural conditions.

Doctrinal Norms & Creeds

We need now to look very briefly at some history. The basic meaning of the word doctrine is ‘teaching’ (L. docere), and since the 4th or 5th centuries the word has been used more or less in the sense of “communally authoritative teachings regarded as essential to the identity of the Christian community”. (Enc. Mod. Christian Thought, Ed. A.E. McGrath, p112). However, the concept of ‘Christian community’ in this definition needs some attention: at least since the major division of the East and West in the 11th century, the plural really ought to be used, and, after the Reformation, we are confronted with an array of communities, sharing some things, but differing from one another in many respects. Clearly the norms of doctrine for the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Quaker and Anglican branches of the church differ very significantly, not to mention the dozens of internal divisions in each community.
One important way in which the agreed norms of the community have been expressed is in the Creeds, the earliest of which are found in the N.T. itself. Perhaps the clearest, and most interesting example is found in Paul’s letter to Rome (10.9), “If you confess with your lips ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”. Paul, of course, is not alone, but he gives the earliest and clearest statement. In the Acts of the Apostles there are numerous references to baptism which imply the formula we find in Paul (8.15; 2.38; 22.16) and others in the rest of Paul’s letters (II Cor. 4.5; Phil. 2.11; etc.). In the light of the later creeds, this early confession is startlingly simple: that it is centered on the action of God is clear if we compare even a more developed baptismal creed, the Apostles’, with Paul’s brief formula. The Apostles creed says, “he rose form the dead”, whereas Paul, and, indeed the vast majority of N.T. references say, “God raised him”. This may seem a tiny, almost nit-picking issue, but it really is not, because it alerts us to the way in which formal doctrine was to develop, moving the NT emphasis from God’s saving activity to the saving function of Jesus. When Paul says, if you confess Jesus you will be saved there can be little doubt that he understands God to be doing the saving, through the agency of Jesus the Messiah.

The Apostles’ Creed

The first more developed creed seems to have been the one used for baptisms in Rome by the middle of the second century, called the Apostles’ Creed. It is a significant expansion of the NT formulae, but stands in striking contrast to the creeds of the 4th and 5th centuries like the one we call “Nicaea”. The Apostles’ Creed makes statements that are largely scriptural quotations and does not give the impression of attempting to give metaphysical explanations for them; for example, it mentions Jesus’ burial, but there is no suggestion of his visiting and preaching to the dead of previous ages. It is noticeable, too, that there is no sign of a phrase like, “begotten of the Father before all worlds” which we find in the 4th century creeds.

Variety of Belief

It seems that in the first century and a half of the church’s life among the local churches of the Mediterranean world, there was a considerable variety of emphasis in beliefs about Jesus and his work. That he was the son of God was universally confessed, but quite early on shades of meaning are apparent. At what one might call the soft end of the spectrum it could be taken, as in Judaism, as a designation of all righteous teachers, with the added insistence that Jesus had the closest relationship with God ever known. At the other end of the spectrum, the “hard” version was moving to positing a metaphysical relationship, the end product of which was to say that Jesus was God, the second Person of a Trinitarian God. This type of theology led to formulae about the two natures of Christ inhering in the unity of his person: technically called Christology. The creeds of the 4th and 5th centuries seem to have been produced to exclude the views of some theologians, men like Arius who advocated the softer option about Jesus’ divinity and Nestorius who held a softer view about the human/divine fusion in the person of Jesus. The two main documents that affirmed what came to be the “orthodox” view were the Creed of Constantinople of 381 (it appears as the Nicene Creed in our P.B.), and the Definition of the Council of Chalcedon, 451 C.E.

From Variety to Orthodoxy

It is not at all clear why it was that the church moved from the earlier, softer approach to doctrine. Possibly the word orthodox itself is suggestive of one reason. The two Greek words that lie behind orthodox are orthos, straight (coming ultimately to = correct), and doxa, opinion. This points to an increasing emphasis on holding correct views about God, Jesus, and salvation, and a move away from worshipping and acting in the new ways initiated by the living presence of Jesus in the early community. It has to be remembered, too, that immense cultural influences were at work as the church moved out into the Hellenistic world where religion and philosophy were closely intertwined. There was, in addition, the Imperial pressure after the conversion of Constantine to codify and remove anything that seemed to point to a fracture of the one, now universal church. As another aside: I think it is interesting to look at the contemporary drive within the federation of churches, springing ultimately from the reformed C. of E., to insist on homogeneity and to set up tests of right opinion. Whatever the reasons, by the 6th century, the church had established a doctrinal framework that became mandatory for all Christians.
This was significantly challenged in the Reformation. Questions arose about the authority of Pope or Scripture. Teaching about the sacraments was challenged. An enormous issue was how the atonement, that is, the saving work of Christ, should be understood. The doctrine of purgatory came in for some heavy bombardment, though hell remained fairly safe since the followers of Calvin required the ultimate punishment for the reprobate, and, even more unpleasantly, as part of God’s plan for those predestined for such an eternal fate.
The Reformers, however, were concerned not only with issues of belief; they also had plans to change many practical things such as the language of the Liturgy, the prohibition of marriage for the clergy, and above all the structure of the Ministry. It is interesting to note just how many things that were once regarded as essential in order to be counted as a good Christian, have changed.

Change in Doctrine and Practice

Today, only a minority of Christian bodies, (I am not speaking of individuals), insist on Pacifism: the Quakers and Mennonites spring to mind, and there may be others. Yet in the first century it was required of anyone seeking baptism. Soldiers were automatically excluded. For more than a millennium, usury, lending money for interest was totally forbidden to Christians, yet today it is the very foundation of our society, religious as well as secular. Incidentally, we have Calvin to thank for producing a rationale for the change. Perhaps one of the most glaring changes has been in the understanding of marriage. Until the 20th century, at least in Western Christianity, divorce was forbidden, though as early as Matthew’s version of the gospel, the absolute prohibition on the lips of Jesus found in Mark, whose book was used by Matthew, has been softened slightly to allow divorce in the case of adultery. One needs to recall, though, that that means a man may divorce his wife if she commits adultery: not the other way round.
Many more examples could be adduced, but it is clear that teaching and rules about patterns of behavior can and do change. Of course, the most traditional sections of the church, the Roman Catholic on the one hand and the conservative Evangelical churches, on the other, tend to hold out longer, though largely in the case of sexual behavior: they don’t have problems with war or capitalism, for example.
Does doctrine concerned with how one has to believe change too? The answer has to be yes and no. Before the 4th century there was acceptable variation, then for almost a millennium a standardized body of teachings, embodied in the major Creeds, the declarations of Councils and, above all, in Papal encyclicals remained unchallenged, though individual Theologians were relatively free to speculate.

The Reformation and After

Then came the Reformation and significant variation once more has become the norm.
Some foundational doctrines remained fairly universal: the existence of the One God; the Trinitarian nature of that God (though this is not so universal – witness Unitarians and the Deists of the 18th century (including, interestingly quite a number of the USA Founding Fathers); the central role in Christianity of Jesus and his designation as Messiah and Son of God (though here again, complete unanimity is absent). George Lindbeck in The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia, 1984) writes, “We may assume that some doctrines are permanent. For example, "God is love" (not actually formulated like that in the New Testament until the late Epistle of John). This could be said to be a sine qua non for claiming to be part of the catholic church. No Ecumenical Council has ever decreed it, but doctrines like this are "part of the indispensable grammar or logic of faith". (p. 85).
In general, the statements of the Apostles’ Creed have remained a kind of norm, expressing the dependence of the world on the creative power of God, assuming the activity of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, centrally, seeing Jesus as the focus of God’s saving activity for us. Belief in the Resurrection of Jesus remains central, but, and it is a sizeable “but”, how that is to be understood has been a matter of fierce debate for the last century and a half, and, at this point, it is necessary to look at some of the history of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Doctrine Today

Such a consideration is crucial for our understanding the status of Christian Doctrine today. The work of geologists, biologists and historians and those of other scientific disciplines more than ruffled the waters of the doctrinal pond as the nineteenth century progressed. The veracity of Genesis was the first casualty as it became certain that the world was not a mere six thousand years old. Christiann orthodoxy had by the beginning of the 19th century adjusted to astronomy, adjusted to the fact that the moon was not just a few hundred miles away; that the sun was hundreds of thousands of miles away. The adjustment had been relatively smooth because most of the early astronomers were committed Christians, and because the new astronomical knowledge could be seen as adding to the majesty of God and the perfection of the divine plan. Geology and biology were much more upsetting: the former because the study of rocks and fossils undermined the inerrancy of the Bible, the latter because the study of life and its origins seemed to remove divine providence from the equation and at a stroke to question the idea of purpose in the universe and in individual lives.

Summing Up

At the start of the 20th century, several positions on Doctrine, which are operative today were emerging.

(1) The hard liners (RC church, Conservative Evangelical, particularly among Baptists, but found in all major denominations) moved into a barricade mode; the “new learning” was seen as dangerous and it was essential to emphasize and stand on Christian Fundamentals. Of course, there were great differences between the Roman Catholic and Protestant positions, not the least being the active hostility to democratic ideas clearly expressed in the Papal establishment, but there was agreement that the tide must not be allowed to come in.

(2) The moderates, found mainly, but not exclusively in the C of E, the Methodists and Congregationalists, remained firm about the central doctrines of the creed but allowed that adjustments had to be made in the way we read the bible and understand the physical universe. Very often in this approach, a distinction is made between the spiritual truths of the Bible and Christian doctrine, and the historical and physical facts found there.

(3) As the 20th century progressed, these rather tentative alternatives to rigid dogma began to loosen up further. The powerful cultural influences that were involved in the early formation of dogmas (as we may now call them) were exposed, the earlier variety of doctrinal positions was revealed, and the result was that significant reinterpretation and reapplication of basic tenets were frequently debated.

(4) Perhaps, the most radical approach in the contemporary debate is to insist that much of the early language of the Christian religion is metaphorical, much like the parables. Thus the statement that Jesus is the Son of God should not be understood as giving us information about the inner workings of the Godhead (as though it were an engineer’s drawing), but as pointing to the fact that he had, and has, a uniquely close relationship with God, who in a metaphor (which we mostly forget is a metaphor) can be understood as the Father of Jesus, and of us all as brothers and sisters of the Messiah.
One of the most interesting attempts to make sense of doctrine in a world-view radically different from the one in which it developed is the work of George Lindbeck: doctrine is like syntax or grammar in a linguistic system. If you want to be understood, follow the rules; if you want to be considered a Christian follow the doctrines. But the rules will be different if you want to be a conservative RC rather than a liberal Anglican.
Lindbeck writes:
"Religious change or innovation must be understood, not as proceeding from new experiences, but as resulting from the interactions of a cultural-linguistic system with changing situations. Religious traditions are not transformed, abandoned, or replaced because of an upwelling of new or different ways of feeling about the self, the world, or God, but because a religious interpretive scheme (embodied, as it always is, in religious belief and practice) develops anomalies in its application in new contexts. . . . Prophetic figures apprehend, often with dramatic vividness, how inherited patterns of belief, practice and ritual need to be (and can be) reminted." (Lindbeck, 39, italics added).

Anglican Primates, listen up. Where are your Prophets?

(5) In closing the scaffolding metaphor may be pressed into service once more. It suggests that Doctrine and Dogma are necessary, but not necessarily immutable. Scaffolding gives shape, it supports, and can be taken down and put up again for repair or restoration, but it is not the building in which we “live and move and have our being”.
Unhappily, there seems to be quite a bit of evidence that some in the Anglican Communion are mistaking the scaffolding for the building.

Anglican positions on Divorce

At the beginning of the 20th century, divorce in most western countries was not easy. The R.C. church practiced (and still does) the dubious method of nullity, on which even its own canon law was not as clear as it might be. A common nullity verdict has often been based on the “Pauline Privilege” applied to a “mixed marriage”, but canonists are not unanimous that this is a valid procedure.
If divorce was not easy in secular circles, it was impossible for clerics, and for lay people, carried with it excommunication. Until quite recently any member of the clergy getting a divorce was inhibited for a significant period, and if he (there were only males then) remarried, he would be suspended from the ministry sine die.

Relaxed Attitudes in 20th Century

In most Protestant branches of the church, a much more permissive attitude to divorce, even among clergy, developed in the second half of the 20th century. This relaxation has also happened in the Episcopal Church.
The change has not been merely a slipping of standards, and yet another example of a “sliding away from classic Anglican theology and morals” (John Rodgers in The Living Church, Feb. 27, 2000, 8). On the contrary, it has been the application of classic Anglican principles. The change in policy (which departs radically from scriptural prescription) is the result of prayerful consideration of the realities of marriage breakdown. Such psychological, social, and personal realities, (like the realities of scientific revelation) have been taken seriously.

Roman Catholic and Orthodox Views

This position is not that of the R.C. church. The classic catholic position since the 13th century is that since marriage is a sacrament, “the marital bond between husband and wife is an, objective, ontological reality that cannot be dissolved”, (Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, 179b). That means that divorce is not only wrong; it is impossible. (Compare the analogous argument about the ordination of women - an ontological impossibility). Conservative Evangelicals who, in spite of deep distrust of Rome and a rejection of many of its theological positions, agree on some moral issues like abortion and homosexuality; they also share a generally fundamentalist approach to scripture, but interestingly, Evangelicals do not, by and large, share the R.C. view of marriage and divorce, (nor its stringent and continuing rejection of contraception).
An alternative view of marriage, which is common in Eastern Orthodox thought, is to regard it not as an ontological bond, but as a moral one, which depends for its stability on a high level of mutual trust. Thus, though ideally a marriage should not break down, the realities of human sin mean that if trust is irretrievably broken, the marriage is “morally dead”.

Change in Anglican Communion

The Episcopal Church has made the change in typically Anglican fashion, piecemeal, with local arrangements first and changes in the National Canons much later. This same process may be seen in the wider communion. The C of E Synod has considered a measure to allow the remarriage of divorced clergy under certain circumstances. The process is not tidy and it can be read as “sliding away” from some imagined neatly formulated position. But is not a sliding away from classical Anglicanism.

No Homosexuality: No Divorce?

Finally, the analogies between policies for divorced people and those for homosexual people need to be noted. There is as much (indeed, more, since there are specific Dominical words) explicit biblical warrant for forbidding divorce and remarriage as there is for excluding homosexuals. There is also quite as strong a tradition in the matter.
If the Anglican Communion cannot bring itself fully to incorporate homosexual persons into its life and structure, those branches of the Communion that have liberal divorce policies ought, perhaps, in all justice and consistency seriously to consider the status of divorced persons among them. If those autonomous churches in the Anglican Communion cannot include homosexual persons, would it not be just for them to inhibit all divorced clergy, discontinue the practice of marrying divorced persons in church, and seriously consider revoking their status as communicants?