In preparation I have listened to about 5 or 6 sermons on 1 Corinthians 1. These have been from leading evangelical preachers in leading churches from across the world. I have benefited from all of them, and most are no doubt better sermons that the one I’ll be dishing up on Sunday.

And yet…One thing really bugged me. Without exception I think, in all the sermons I listened to, the main application of the passage was to people who weren’t there. And I don’t think that’s particularly helpful or healthy.

The typical application went something like this: “1 Corinthians 1 speaks of the power of the message of the cross. Some demand signs and wonders (like John Wimber and Joel Austin); others look for wisdom (like liberals and tractarians). But we (=evangelicals) preach Christ and him crucified.”

All the sermons I listened to gave the impression (no doubt unwittingly) that the abuses addressed in 1 Corinthians 1 were all ‘out there’. In here, the main application of the passage was “Steady as she goes. Just keep preaching, and avoid the abuses I mentioned earlier.”

Some reflections:

First, the issue in 1 Corinthians 1 is how we line up behind leaders and teachers (1 Cor 1:12). I would have thought that (given our emphasis on teaching) that this was more of a home truth for us evangelicals that almost anyone else, right?Because we love teaching, we love teachers. And because we love teachers, we are at least at risk of lining up behind them in the wrong way. Right? Surely therefore there is a better application to us that “keep it up! You’re doing super.”?

Secondly, even if the main abuses are out there, I don’t think it makes for healthy preaching habitually to apply the Bible to people who are absent at the time of the message. I grant that occassionally some preventative teaching is necessary, or movements come through that are publicly prominent and need to be addressed. But, as someone once told me, as a general rule in preaching ‘never criticise something that isn’t a live option for your hearers.’ It’s just not healthy; it feed arrogance and complacency.

Thirdly, if we want others to repent, surely the best first step is to show them how.

Here endeth the rant.

“…my affection for institutional Christianity as a whole is rarely  more than tepid; and there are numerous forms of Christian belief  and practice for which I would be hard pressed to muster a kind  word from the depths of my heart, and the rejection of which by the  atheist or skeptic strikes me as perfectly laudable.” p x.

The purpose of the book, then, is simple to re-tell the story of how  ”…Christendom was born out of the culture of late antiquity.” p x. By why tell this story? And what does it matter to atheists anyway? Hart answers:

“…it is to call attention to the peculiar and radical nature of the new faith…how enormous a transformation of thought, sensibility, culture, morality, and spiritual imagination Christianity finally constituted in the age of pagan Rome; the liberation it offered from fatalism, cosmic despair, and the terror of occult agencies; the immense dignity it conferred upon the human person; its subversion of the cruelest aspects of pagan society…and its elevation of charity above all other virtues.” p xi

Positively, Hart will argue that Christianity’s influence on western culture has been the only thing that in the fullest sense of the term could be called a revolution. It is a movement which (in Hart’s opinion) has been more “ennobling in its moral power than any other movement of spirit, will, imagination, aspiration, or accomplishment in the history of the west.” p xi.

The relevance of this to resurgent atheism? According to Hart, modern atheism is built (at least in part) of an alternative, modernist telling of that same story. In its modernist telling, this history is the story of the triumph of critical reason over faith, of freedom over oppression, and of the tolerance of the secular state: the triumph of the “age of reason” over the “age of faith”.

Put simply: the narrative of modern atheism is: (a) there was once a powerful and productive classical culture in the west, (b) Christianity retarded that culture’s progress by leading the west into stagnant superstition and institutional cruelty. (c) Since the Renaissance and (especially) the Enlightenment (or the Age of Reason), we have discovered science and improved our society to the extent that science and reason have advanced and religion (=Christianity) have retreated.

However, contrary to this narrative, Hart will argue so called “Age of Reason” was in fact the beginning of the demise of reason’s place in the culture. And that modernism is in fact notable for its inflexible and unthinking dogmatism. And that it gives birth to religious and secular fundamentalisms. And to superstition. And that it does not deserve any particular credit for the rise of modern science. And that the nation state’s “capacity for barbarism exceeds any of the evils for which Christendom might justly be indicted”. (xii).

So, that’s where he’s going. Stay tunes for the argument itself.

As the title suggests, this is Hart’s response to the recent crop of neo-atheist writings.  Hart, a Christian whose profound knowledge of the Western tradition includes a profound  respect for the tradition of unbelief within western thought, finds the current crop a  disappointment.

Hart’s purpose in this book is not to rebut their arguments point by point, but rather  to address an important sub-structure of neo-atheism: the story we tell ourselves  about religion and the Enlightenment. The story goes something like this:

There was once a thriving classical culture in the west (Greco-Roman). Christianity  came along and retarded its progress for about 1000 years. Then, about 400 years  ago there was an Enlightenment when we got rid of religion, discovered science

and recovered rationalism, empiricism and progress. This is true, and good.

It is this story that Hart sets out to correct and challenge.

As I say, I’ll be blogging my way through Hart’s 17 chapters over the next few months. I’m happy to do it for my own edification but, of course, if you wanted to go down to your local bookstore, pick up a copy and read along with me, I’d love your company.

We look forward to this great blessing, but with a family of five boys to care for, there will be opportunities for several of  the more capable interns to step up into new positions to help share the load. The new roles will be:

Jennie – Senior pastor
Ed & Sally – Preaching pastors
Dave – Women’s pastor
Andrew – UCI pastor
Rory – Technology pastor
Jon – Ministry intern

In my new role I’ll be working on exploring the ministry potential of Twitter, and thinking about how to improve the main St Matthew’s website. You can have a look at my design ideas here.

It’s exciting to see what God is doing at Unichurch this year!

Blessings,

Rory

“In the next few weeks I want to talk to you about some exciting plans for future mission and ministry from this congregation. As you can see the venue is nearly full, and it’s exciting to think about what God would have us do next.

But this week I wanted to spend a couple of minutes addressing the issue of going to two churches—namely this church and another church.

What I say is by no means meant to be legalistic, and it may be that I don’t exactly describe your situation. That’s fine. If we can start a conversation, that will be a great outcome.

At St Matthew’s, one of our passions is to see the churches of Perth strengthened, and new churches planted. That’s a passion and a commitment on our part, and that’s the context for what I am about to say:

I know that some of us at Unichurch are involved in or between two different churches (ed: myself included–I go to Unichurch and to Unichurch International). Let me just say three things on that front:

1) For some of you, you come from a great, gospel loving, Christ proclaiming, people loving church, but for various reasons you’ve ended up here.

If that’s you, I’d love you to prayerfully consider whether it would be better for you to be back there contributing to that ministry.

Ask yourself these questions:

- Is being here limiting your capacity to contribute there?
- If there is no evening service there, could you start one? Just in your lounge room or a café or something.
- Could you be using a Sunday night for a Bible study?
- Or for going down to the local pub or whatever and meeting locals?

Perth needs more churches, and if you are from a gospel loving church, I’d love you to talk to God and talk to us about giving all you’ve got to that ministry.

2) There is a second category of people who come to this church in order to be strengthened for the ministry at your home church.

It might be that you come here to get the teaching or meet the people, in order to find encouragement and keep going with the Sunday School or the Youth Group at home, or you’re planning to start an evening congregation like this one at home, and so on.

Now, as a model that has some costs for us. But they are costs we are willing to bear. And gladly.

If that’s you, can I say:

- Make sure the leadership at your church know what you are doing and why.

- Let us know: both so we don’t follow you up unnecessarily, and so that we can see if there’s more we can do to help you with the ministry back home.

3) And finally, there are those of you who are choosing a church. Maybe you feel that the church you used to go to isn’t a gospel believing, people loving church. That it doesn’t teach God’s word or is misleading people or whatever.

Or you’ve just never settled somewhere—your constantly moving from church to church.

If that’s you in any way, then can I say: Jump on board! Make the decision, have the conversations you need to have, and come stand with us.

Being a Christian is fundamentally a community exercise. It’s not about being a lone ranger, but an active member of a community, a community the Bible calls the Body of Christ.

So, make and decision and jump on board. We’d love to give you what we’ve got to give, and we’d love to receive from you what God wants to give us through you.

In the next few weeks, I want to talk about some plans we have for creating new congregations and expanding the ministry of this congregation.

But for this week: Three questions for people from other churches:

o Do you need to go back?

o Do you need to talk to us about strengthening what you do back home?

o Do you need to take the plunge and get on board?

Catch me, or one of the staff or Hub leaders afterwards. We’d love to talk to you about any of these issues.”

It reminds me in many ways of the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel. Luke tells a story that will eventually record the confrontations of the gospel with power in Jerusalem (Luke 22-24) and Rome (Acts 28). But it doesn’t begin there. It begins (like 1 Samuel, The Godfather Part II and Mozart’s Serenade for Winds) in a small way. With small people. Simple families. Personal struggles. A ‘single note hanging there…” with the good, righteous poor waiting for the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25).

This will be our text at church this Sunday. Can’t wait.

“The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to the sunshine. That does occur in nature, but it is rare. When I was in seminary I used to go sometimes to watch the Baptists down at the river. It was something to see the preacher lifting the one who was being baptized up out of the water and the water pouring off the garments and the hair. It did look like a birth or a resurrection. For us the water just heightens the touch of the pastor’s hand on the sweet bones of the head, sort of like making an electrical connection. I’ve always loved to baptize people, though I have sometimes wished that there were more shimmer and splash involved in the way we go about it. Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water.”
From Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, p 72.

This Sunday we are looking at Romans 6, a passage that draws very deeply from the Christian imagery of baptism. And then in a couple of weeks we are expecting to baptize a member of our church who is a new Christian. Yay!

I really love baptism. I hope you do to. Elsewhere in Gilead, Rev Ames’s speculates that God probably made water primarily for blessing and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. Nice.

1) That all people actually end up sinning just like Adam did? We sin like Adam.

2) That all people sinned and are guilt because of what Adam did? We sinned in Adam.

The first, though true (Romans 3:23), seems to say less that what Paul is saying here.

The second, which is the traditional Augustinian view, makes better sense of the text, though raises problems like how someone can be held guilty for something someone else did.

Blocher, without rejecting the truth of 1) or 2) argues that what Romans 5:12-14 is saying is that,

3) Through Adam, God reckons our rebellion as sin (=breaking God’s law), even when we do not break a specific law of God known to us.

Perhaps the best way to get Blocher’s understanding across is to quote his paraphrase:

Just as through one man, Adam, sin entered the world, and the sin-death connection was established, and so death could be inflicted on all as the penalty of their sin…
For take the period from Adam to Moses: sin was in the world, yet sin is not imputed in the absence of law, when it is view independently; nevertheless it was imputed through the relationship of all to Adam, and so death reigned even over people who had not sinned, as Adam had done, by violating a precept directly given to them. Adam’s role as a racial head for condemnation makes him a type of Christ, the Head for justification.

Henri Blocher, Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle, 1997, 78.

“If Unichurch disappeared tomorrow, would anyone miss us?”

This was the very clarifying question I was throwing around with one of the brothers from Claremont Baptist Church last week. If our churches were to pull up stumps, would there be anyone in the local community (as opposed to church members) who would think: “It’s a shame they’re not here anymore.”

Tim Keller, of Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC, often talks about one of the aims of their church being that people would at least say: “I don’t believe what they believe, but, to be honest, I’m really glad they’re here.”

It’s a way of thinking about the church’s place in the society that has a long and noble biblical pedigree. In the OT we see it beginning with God’s call of Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3), the vocation of Israel (Exodus 19:4-6), the place of God’s people at the height of the monarchy (1 Kings 3-10) and, most importantly, the role of God’s people in Babylon in the Exile (Jeremiah 29:7). In all these cases, God’s people are set apart from the wider world in order to be a blessing to that world.

And in the NT too, in the wake of Jesus’ death and resurrection, his new people are to be salt of the earth and light to the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Of course, God’s people are also to expect hostility and persecution (2 Timothy 3:12), but this is not an either/or proposition. See 1 Peter 2:12: “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

So, back to the question. If Unichurch were to close up shop tomorrow, are there any non-members in the Western Suburbs who would be sad to see us go? Would the management of Clubba or the Cap S think “whatever happened to those guys? They were so helpful with X.” Would any international students say “I wish they were still around. They were very hospitable and helped me with Y.” Would the University think, “Oh dear, with them gone, no one will clean up _.” Would the College’s miss us? Would the local retirement village, or hospital, or High School miss the blessings we brought them in Christ’s name?

Now, I think in many cases the answer would actually be “yes.” I’m not implying we have no impact for good. But I am saying we should actively pursue this question, and allow it to shape our future. Not, of course, for the glory of Unichurch. (In the end, who cares about Unichurch?) But for the glory of the Father, and the redemption of people, lets go for it in the Western Suburbs (for a start) and see how we might be a blessing.

So, firstly, lets start asking God how we can be a blessing to our community. And, secondly, hit me with your ideas on how to do this.