This was amazingly deep, and wonderful. All this was very much in the spirit of Phil. 2:13 and, I soon discovered, with many other scriptures. I found a similar promise of a new covenant in Ezekiel. I found similar emphasis on the proactivity of God in the face of human reluctance or rebellion in Isaiah and other prophets. And all seemed to relate to the coming Messiah. In the New Testament I found other similar expositions of the idea that the covenant depends on God alone, and we can depend on him, and that the essence of this is not just being 'marked for heaven', but to be made mature by the inner working of the Holy Spirit. e.g. "God is at work in you." "Changing you from glory to glory" The 'indwelling' of the Holy Spirit tied in very nicely with this new idea that God makes individuals different in the very roots and kernel of their nature - yet without damaging their freedom.
The 'baptism' of the Holy Spirit gained a much richer perspective - not merely a one-shot experience, not even a sequence of such experiences, but something far more meaningful and effective.
Several times since that first application of Phil. 2:13 I have had recourse to it. These have been times when I knew that my will was pointing in the opposite direction to that in which it should be pointing. For instance, sometimes I didn't want to give way to my wife but knew that I should, yet could not. So I reminded God of his promise in Phil. 2:13, and asked him to work in me to change my will. He has done so. I try not to over-use that verse, because I do not want to degrade it, but still find it is true.
That this is so is wonderful, a tribute to God's grace, because I have, once and more times, said 'No' to him.
Want to Share My Faith
Over a period of months, I became not only sure of my faith but even proud of it in a good way. I began to believe deep-down (rather than in my head) that Christ is the real answer for humanity, and I began to want to share my faith. Previously sharing my faith was the last thing I had wanted to do, probably because I was not sure of it in myself. But because I knew God loves me, and I had begun to love God in response, I began to be more sure, and to believe, deep-down, that this relationship with God was real, for-now and really worth something - and for others too.I didn't know how to share my faith - though my experience had shown me many ways not not to! So I joined Campus Crusade for Christ, to learn how. They had a book entitled The Four Spiritual Laws, which gave a simply summary of belief-steps to accepting Christ. I did have a few issues with them at the time, and as an academic felt they were a bit simplified, but I agreed with their basis ideas. So I took active part in the training, and practised sharing my faith with this method. Later on I found a different systematic approach, EE, which was useful in different situations, and now have yet a third approach of my own, GG.
Paradoxically, as I also found later, learning some simple steps by rote gave me freedom.
Not only did CCC train in sharing faith, but it also gave a useful perspective on the Holy Spirit and on Christ being on the 'throne' or control-seat of my life. This emphasised confession of sins, in a way similar to Roy Hession in his Calvary Road, to "keep short accounts with God".
One might say that it was Peter Gillquist's teaching in Love is Now that set me on the course to join Campus Crusade for Christ. This is ironic because Gillquist, who used to be in CCC, reacted against its teaching on the need for confession and Love is Now is an expression of that reaction. However, it was Gillquist's teaching that led to me wanting to share my faith. How naive was I that I joined the very organisation that Gillquist fled from! Yet is not the Living God is above and beyond all our little squabbles? Is his truth not embracing many of these apparently conflicting positions?
Saying 'No' to God?
Back in the early 1970s I once said 'No' to God, and ever since then have had times when wonder whether God has relegated me to a second-best spiritual journey. Many seem to have similar worries, so I recount it here; it comes here because only recently (23 April 2000) have I come into some understanding of it.I was at a Christian Union meeting sometime around 1972, led by some guy whose name I cannot remember, but I do remember he was a leader in the charismatic movement at the time. As I knelt on the floor, he prayed with me, laying hands on me. I felt something rise up in me, some ecstasy, that I knew was related to speaking in tongues. Without thinking, I said "No, Lord", and the feeling subsided.
The sad thing was that I did not mean 'No'. I wanted whatever God had for me, though perhaps was a bit cautious about the extravagances of some at that time who were discovering God's gifts and immediacy. It was not really me who said 'No', but something inside me.
For thirty years, I did not had much in the way of the miraculous in my life, and have lacked such ecstasy. But, worse, I sometimes feel I said 'No', and have been plagued by fears from time to time that I have become like Esau, who "could not repent, though he sought it with tears." I have indeed asked God's forgiveness, and have repented as far as I am able to, determined that if ever God gives me such a chance again, I would not mess it up this time. Yet the doubt remains: have I, like Esau, lost my inheritance, with no possibility of regaining it again?
But those fears only arise in times of depression. Most of the time I have a different perspective. I see that God is at work in my life, that he does make things 'go' for me, make things work together just right, as I do his will, and that he does use me to help others. So it cannot be that God has totally washed his hands of me. So, the question remains: how does God see the situation now?
Just a couple of days ago [that was probably in 2001] I was speaking with my brother, Nick Basden, and he told me of a similar experience he had been through. He told me that we make choices, and our heavenly Father desires to bless, whatever choice we make. I had made a choice at that time (even though it was not the one I meant to make, I made it). Our Father seeks to bless the choices we make. Not only so, he does not bless in spite of our choices, but he blesses according to our choices. He blesses in line with the choices themselves.
That made sense to me. I have not gained much of the miraculous or ecstatic in my life. But I have gained a lot along the lines of being able to understand and see things clearly, to analyse and yet maintain intuitive thinking too, and to make what I see available to others. So, it seems that the Father has blessed according to the choice I made then. It is as though God is someone who does not take umbridge at what his children choose, but works with them rather than rigidly in spite of them. Isn't he wonderful!
Now (17 March 2012) I seem to be free of that fear that God has left me to second-best. Partly because in recent years, he does seem to have been using me to bless others. See later.
To summarize, then, I see that if we, who have believed God, say 'No' to God, then there are the following ways in which God could react:
- The worst extreme: Condemn us to an eternity without him. He only does that if we very deliberately and repeatedly and stubbornly and rebelliously say No against him. And it is possible that nobody who has ever said 'Yes' to God could ever find themselves in this situation.
- Keep us 'on the shelf', even though we retain our eternal life. That is, we have consigned ourselves to the dustbin of spiritual worth. This course does at least accord with God's mercy.
- Set us on an 'alternative' spiritual journey, a second-best. So that, though we still enjoy God, and are still used by him, it will never be as good as if we had not said 'No'. This has some joy, but, for the sensitive, is littered with regrets and 'if only's. This course does at least accord with God's grace.
- Restore us to the original journey, largely ignoring the fact that we said 'No'. Perhaps we have to go through some pain before we get back on course. This accords with God's compassion and forgiveness.
- Bless us according to the choice we have made, and develop that choice, so that we walk a blessed and rich spiritual journey with God that is in line with that choice. This is in accord with God's agape love. He is not proud, and seeks to bless as well as forgive.
Up until a few days ago (that part written 1999) I thought the only good options were (3) and (4) above. Most of the time I thought I was on (4) but in times of depression I thought I was on (3). But I now think I am on (5). The Scripture tells us that God respects and upholds human choices and functioning. Worthy is he!
(Now, of course, that is only true in the context of humility toward God rather than pride or self-dependent rebellion. Maybe I was not actually saying 'No' to God, but only to one small gift he was trying to give me at the time.)
Sons and Ambassadors of God
In recent years (1990s) this idea of God at work in us - in me, even - has become even more rich. One service in our church in the late 1980s one of the members showed us that there are two Greek words meaning 'child of God': teknon, which refers to having been born of the parent and as being 'of' him/her, and huios, which refers to being like the parent in mature nature. When a son had come of age and the father felt he was sufficiently mature that he could be trusted to make the same quality of decisions as he himself would, the father would take his son to the public place and declare "This is my son (huios)". (Remember the voice from heaven on Jesus?)To be a 'child (teknon) of God' merely means having been 'born again' which happens at conversion. To be a 'son (huios) of God' means having a nature like God's, and to have our heart and will so much aligned with God's heart and will that when we make decisions and judgements on our own we will tend to make decisions and judgements that God would have made in our place.
That is what 'spiritual maturity' means. That is what God is aiming at: not a horde of 'children' of God - though he does delight in children - but mature 'sons' who are like him.
Now, that makes sense of our being ambassadors for Christ, and, back to Genesis, God's stewards. God wants us not just to enjoy him like babies, not just to work for him like servants, not just to fight for him like soldiers, not just to cheer him when he does miracles, but to be like him - to grow to the full stature of the measure of Christ.
How sad that many of God's people today are so unlike him, especially in their attitude to his creation; but the reason for that remark comes later.
Being honest with God
(This section is not well written; please be patient.)Something else I learned during those years was being honest with God. Or, rather to be open with God. God knows all about us - including the bad points - and he still gave himself for us, and has forgiveness available for when we come short. So it's rather stupid of us to try and cover up what we are before him.
Yet, in many subtle ways, that is exactly what we do. I would try to be my best for God, afraid all the time that I was less than best, yet unable to face that fact. The Bible says "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength." Even the last of those were difficult: if you do something 'with all your strength' you exert all effort currently available to achieve it, and that suggested that I should never relax for one moment, never enjoy myself, but 'burn myself out for God' as some of the great saints of the past had. But I didn't. And if I could bring myself to do that last of those, what chance had I of the first three? I simply fell so far short of this, not just a little short, but grossly short. Yet I was scared of facing up to that.
I suppose I had what seems a very common picture. Let us suppose that there is a scale of good to evil, stretching from -100 for pure Satanic evil to +100, pure Godlike goodness. Then humanity is somewhere around 0, on average, with the demon-possessed somewhere around -50 to -80 and the good unconverted person somewhere around +20-30. As I heard said many times, God's passmark was not 50, but +100%, so no human could ever achieve this on his own; hence the necessity for Christ's suffering and death for us; he was the only one who ever reached +100. When you are 'born again', and assuming that you take it seriously, then you jump to somewhere around +60-+80. As you become more 'sanctified', you start upwards of that, gradually getting nearer and nearer to 100. Good, decent, mature, spiritual, prayerful Christians who are 'winning souls', have reached somewhere in the nineties. With such people, the Holy Spirit had done most of the work of sanctification and there were only a few odds and ends to sort out. I suppose I placed myself somewhere in the +60-+80 range, hopefully towards the top end because I had never been a particularly 'bad' lad, and thus had only a few minor things to be sorted out in me.
This kind of thinking mitigates against honesty - with myself or with God. If I was 'almost' OK, then my love for God was almost OK too, and I just turned my attention away from challenges like the above.
However, I did feel that I was not as I should be. What I did was to cover it up to myself, others and God, and try to work up within me what I feared I lacked. Or I would do what was religiously expected of me. Or even - perhaps more subtly - I would engage in symbolisms for that which I felt I ought to experience.
I remember one friend gave me something to think about. The C.U. was putting on a mission 'My God is Real', and I told this friend whom I respected that I did not feel the reality of this. He told me that he himself did not feel it right to put effort into the mission. I was struck by his humble honesty.
But then Philippians 2:13 happened, as described above. Starting to really know that God loved me as I am, warts and all - because he died for me, taking my 'warts', my sin, my lack, upon himself - I started to believe that I could be more honest with God. I remember one event, around 1971, in my daily prayer. For years I had tried to include in my prayer not only worship and thanks and petition, but also confession, and would 'confess' various sins. But this day I looked over the day and was not aware of there being anything particularly wrong with me. So, instead of making up some suitable confessions, I said to God, "I don't seem to have anything to confess today" (or similar words). Of course, I was in fact deeply infected with 'sin', as I still am, but the point was: I was at last being honest with God. I was moving away from the tendency to do what was religiously expected of me, which in this case was confession.
Over the years I have been able to be more honest, with myself and about myself, with others and about others, and with God and about God. The solid foundation that enabled this is (a) the universal sinfulness of us all (b) that God knows it all before even we do, and knows perfectly, and (c) the great mercy of God, and therefore (d) I can be bold before God - though never proud. (On this latter, I can now understand how natural it was for Abraham and Moses to argue with God.)
A well known Scripture relevant to this is I John 1:9:
"If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
For years I, like many others, had interpreted this in its supposed reverse way, as though it were saying, "If we fail to confess our sins then he will refuse to forgive us." And I got myself into an 'obsession with confession' as Gillquist phrased it. But, first, it does not say the negative thing; it says only that if we do confess then God will forgive. Second, Gillquist pointed out that 'confess' is best understood not in terms of a religious action, but rather as 'agreeing with God concerning'. That is, "If we agree with God concerning our sin, then he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin ...".
Do you see what that is saying and implying!?
- It implies that God already knows all our sin, and is waiting for us to become honest about it.
- It says that when we do, far from hurting and condemning us and telling us to do better and pull socks up, he will forgive us.
- Not only that, but he is faithful to forgive us - he won't do so one time and omit to do so another.
- Even further, and rather interesting: it is 'just' that we be forgiven when we 'agree with God concerning our sin'; that implies that he does not forgive us as a special favour, but rather that it is written almost into the fabric of creation and history itself that forgiveness is the rightful outcome of agreeing with God concerning sin (of course, this makes sense because Christ was "slain from the foundation of the world").
- Yet more: he will not just forgive us; he will also "cleanse us", and this is not a temporary washing of the surface, leaving the dirt inside, but a cleansing "from all unrighteousness", which speaks of something substantial. (I had yet to learn the full, rich meaning of 'righteous', but even so, this was really good news.) That is, as we agree with God concerning our sin, he will work in us to make us new and different people inside. This does, of course, link closely with Philippians 2:13, and what I have just been describing is part of the process I went through as I realised that all the message of the Bible was integrated with this one precious verse.
Even now, as I write this (1999), my being shouts 'Hallelujah!" Today the results of all this are still with me, as they affect my relationship with God, others and myself. It helps me ask questions, and not worry if people think I'm hopeless, and therefore I find I provide a service of asking the questions that others were too afraid to ask. One particular result that others notice is that I can act 'non politically' in political circles, and bring out the truth of a situation while others are defending their corners - because I am (often) no longer scared to admit flaws in my own views nor truths in the opposing views. Things seem to go well around me. This, I think, is what Paul meant by "the aroma of Christ"; it is soundly rooted in him.
"What is hidden will be shouted from the housetops"
said Jesus. And, I guess, that the most embarrassing time for my secrets to be 'shouted from the housetops' will be the Judgement Day, when all humans will hear everthing about everyone. So I try to have few secrets now. And to admit openly my faults and flaws. That forces courage into me, as I decide not run away from a situation but to face up to the truth of it.
Marriage
Early 1973 I had the feeling as though God was saying to me, "Now you have learned to live with two people in your life [God and myself], now's the time to learn to live with three." That is, marriage. A friend with whom I shared that thought said, ".. and four, five, six, and so on", meaning children.I had always been a bit frightened of the opposite sex. I went to a high school that had only boys that was distant from my home, and I had very little social life that would involve girls, so had very little experience of these creatures when I went to university. So I didn't know quite how to relate to them - another species almost. Either I was scared of them, or developed crushes. All through university life I found this rather difficult, as I had neither the poise to make a real friendship with any of the girls, nor the confidence to make a special relationship. Not to worry: work was interesting, and my faith-commitment was important and absorbing.
During my research, however, I started to develop more confidence. This was in no mean part due to my 'baptism' in the Holy Spirit, my learning that God does really love me as I am and the change in my heart.
The first girl I was interested in during this new phase was named Viv. Sometimes I was OK with her, but I kept my distance out of a slight fear, and sometimes was rather fumbly when in her presence. I didn't know whether it was a 'crush' or anything else, and it was a real advance in honesty when one day, in my prayer, I admitted to my heavenly Father "I love Viv." Then I had no more crush, and could develop a friendship with her - nothing much more at first as I did not know what to do. But - and I cannot remember the details now (30 years later) - as I got to know and befriend her, I lost my 'interest' in her. That was an amazing lesson for me: it told me that if I could be honest with God about my lovelife and approach a lass that I was interested in, getting to know her, then if she was not right for me, my interest would wane.
A couple of years later - without a girlfriend of any kind - I became interested in two girls. Difficult that. Prayed about them, but remained interested in both, swinging back and forth between them, as it were. One I went climbing with in Skye, with a group. I was determined not to take an interest in her, but found I could not help it. So I started develop the friendship with her, though at a distance since she was up in London for a year continuing her training. We corresponded. But I had no idea what to do, and was always on tenterhooks as to what she thought of me, desparately wishing she would feel for me as I did for her, but scared to find out that she might not do so. I once invited her to a concert, again as part of a group, and anyone knowledgeable in the craft of befriending one of the opposite sex would have made arrangements to see her home, perhaps after a meal, etc. But not me; I had no idea what to do, did not want to appear too pushy, and so just let her disappear into the night from the concert! I have no idea what she thought about this.
I should make two things clear, to those today who would expect a bloke to have sex with any lass he took out for an evening. First, we were both Christians, and that meant sex was reserved for marriage, in God's plan. I still believe that is the right thing; and not just for 'moral' reasons; as I have written elsewhere, there are good reasons for believing that marriage helps society and is more than 'just another option'. Second, in those days, the culture was still partly influenced by Christian attitudes to sexuality (both the good and the bad attitudes), and so it was not unusual for people to remain virgins till they married.
That was the summer of 1972. Term started back at Southampton and, with it, my 6 month extension to my PhD. I corresponded with J. (her initial; I don't know whether she would wish to be identified). But back at Southampton another girl, Ruth, attracted my attention. She had been converted to a personal relationship with Christ a year before, and had received the gift of tongues. She was small, vivacious, lively - and she grinned. We were both attending the training sessions on evangelism at Campus Crusade, which ended with fun singing, fellowship and cake at Lawrence's house. I often enjoyed Ruth's company.
It was during the autumn and winter of 1972 that I swung between J and Ruth. If I saw J or got a letter from her, my interest would swing to her. If I saw Ruth, my interest would swing to her. I started seeking advice from 'wiser' Christians about what to do, especially some friends within Campus Crusade. These people were positive about how our faith related to secular things, taking 'real life' seriously as something from God to be enjoyed and related to him. Including lovelife. I was encouraged to make actual steps towards one or the other, prayerfully, to see if God would open the door with one.
I had also started getting up at 6.30 am for an hour or more of prayer, usually walking slowly along a riverbank and streets near where I lived. This was botable since some years before, when I had been challenged to get up early for prayer (by Martin Luther's example of getting up at 4 am, saying "I've so much to do today that I'll spend the first three hours in prayer") and had tried it, it had not worked. This time it worked. I kept it up for months, even though I am not an early riser. I suspect that God was sorting out something in me, or giving me time to sort things out.
Around March 1973 I asked Ruth round for coffee at my digs. We enjoyed an evening together, and - if I can remember the details - either that evening or another soon afterwards I asked her if she'd like to 'go out' with me. Yes. Just like that. (Actually, Ruth says she had started noticing that whenever I was absent from e.g. Campus Crusade: something seemed missing for her. And, just before that I went away for a weekend to see my brother Martin in Salford, and Ruth said she missed me, even though another person she was also vaguely interested in was still there; that made the choice for her.) I still didn't know the 'eitquette' of a relationship, and after that evening, I just let her go back to her digs on her own, saying something like "Come round any time you like." How dumb of me!
Nevertheless, Ruth and I started 'going out' as, what would in today's jargon in the U.K. be called an 'item'. For example, we found we were both into bird watching, and so cycled round to Hythe. On the ferry back, I remember putting my arm round her. Thrilling, to me. On one of these outings, in the middle of the bamboo bushes at Chilworth Manor I asked Ruth to marry me, and she said Yes. That was May 1973. We were married on 22nd September 1973.
Not bad going for someone who had never had a girlfriend in his life - from starting to 'go out' to marriage in about 6 months. But around the time of starting, I read the prophecy which reads:
"I will restore," says the Lord, "the years which the locusts have eaten."
and I felt inside that it applied even to me and my lovelife. We were both virgins when we married, and kept sex within our marriage. Marriage has had its ups and downs, but the last ten years especially have seen us coming together more and more. But the story of our marriage itself is for another time.
Doldrums
After three years of intense spiritual excitement, which ended in my marrying Ruth, at the same time as I finished my research, I entered a period of doldrums, spiritually. Why this happened, I don't know, but it lasted the rest of the 1970s.First, as I started married life I had no real job, except a contract job cleaning tools and sweeping floors at the Technical College Woodwork Department. That lasted from October to after Christmas. I started to become miserable, wondering if I had missed God's plan for my life. Should I have gone and done something else with my PhD? Was I too precipitate in getting married? I had felt God's guidance, but maybe I had misinterpreted it? God no longer seemed to speak to me, and my early morning prayer times had stopped (Ruth suggested I might start them again, but they no longer seemed appropriate). Though I quite enjoyed learning to work with wood and tools, I worried that I was so far away from God's will that he was no longer bothering even to warn me. Deep inside, I was miserable - and that compounded the normal problems every newly married couple has of adjusting to living together.
At Christmas there was a two week break. No wages. No money. What were we to do? Suddenly, a cheque arrived from the Inland Revenue for almost exactly two weeks' wages. This was a repayment of tax from my summer job (in London before we married) during which time I had been on the high 'emergency' tax code. I know the timing is just a coincidence, but I believe God is in charge of coincidences. It told me something: that God, my heavenly Father, had known during the summer that I would be needing this two weeks money at Christmas, and had arranged for me to get into a situation where it would occur. That meant he was providing for me in my situation at December 1973, which meant that I was not outside his will after all. I couldn't feel him, but he was nevertheless looking after us.
I cheered up somewhat after that. With newfound confidence I started applying for computer jobs. In March 1974 or thereabouts, I started work at Warner Lambert at Eastleigh. I stayed there nine months, learning COBOL and some of the joys and frustrations of working in an 'ordinary' business, then took a job with the Aldermoor Health Centre as a Research Assistant to write a computer suite that would process medical records for a General Practice. The purpose of this was to gather data to research quality of medical care in general practice - for example, if someone doesn't get cured, that does not mean poor quality of care by itself. I learned the reality of 'dirty data' and that data always had to be interpreted.
I quite enjoyed that work. But, spiritually, I was going nowhere much. Ruth and I had joined the local church, Central Baptist, and I found this much less fulfilling than University Christian Union and Campus Crusade life. I tried to lead Bible studies, but was not really successful. We tried to be involved with church life, and work on missions and visiting. We enjoyed and valued the preaching and pastorship of Kenneth Furlong, who had been greatly affected by Roy Hession's Calvary Road, and several of us attended Roy's summer camps. We became editors of the church magazine. We gained some great friends, some of whom we still see. And I daresay we helped and encouraged others.
The church grew, and Ken took a sabbatical during which he visited and studied church growth. Towards the end of the 1970s, Vic Jackopson joined Ken Furlong. Vic was to be partly for the church, and partly funded by Evangelism Explosion.
At that time, many of us received training in Evangelism Explosion (EE) evangelism (which was an interesting comparison with that of Campus Crusade, and one that I use in discussing a new 'green' packaging of the gospel). I learned quite a lot in those years of the 1970s. But I never felt I was growing in my relationship with God. All that had levelled off, and become static. Life was not really fulfilling in the way it had been. Maybe I should not have expected it to be so. After all, I was one for the open moors and the north, and felt trapped in the brick-and-concrete town of Southampton.
Ruth and I first lived with a member of the church, a Mabel Tutte, in Archers Road, then moved to rent rooms in Portswood Road, then bought a house in Morris Road, in which we remained until 1981. Alastair was born 1st January 1979. (It was Vic who encouraged us to start thinking about having a family.)
My work at Aldermoor Health Centre came to an end, and I thought I would move into psychology (someone had told me there was a great need for Christians in psychology). How to do this, starting from computing? Answer: via the stepping stone of Artificial Intelligence. I wrote to Donald Michie at Edinburgh (I would love to have returned to my home city, disliking Southampton since I first set foot there in 1996) asking if he had a post. It turned out he did, but not at Edinburgh. He was undertaking a joint project with the ICI Production Systems Group at Runcorn, a place I had never heard of, and I was offered the ICI job. I started that job in October 1980, and Ruth and toddler Alastair came up to the house I had bought in Frodsham in February 1981.
From that time, things started to become interesting again, and in the mid 1980s I returned to academic life.
Coming to Face to Face with My Own Deep Sinfulness
Under the ministry of Ken Furlong, as I was introduced to the Calvary Road theology and approach, which had emerged from the East African Revival, I became more sharply aware of my own sinfulness. I was forgiven but had to realise that sin pervaded my whole being at all levels. No longer was it that I was a 'goody' and others were 'baddies', but rather than I was just as sinful as others. The difference was that I had found the 'remedy', in forgiveness and in allowing the Holy Spirit to change my will.One place where my sin became very apparent was in our marriage. Sometimes Ruth and I had rows, and I was too sensitive to criticism. I won't here go into that side of our lives much, but I came to realise that the most important 'cause' of rows was not faults in Ruth, nor even my own sensitivity, by my own sin. (THis sensitivity, I later discovered, was linked to my Asperger Syndrome, which, until 2003, I did not know I had.) Ruth's faults and my own sensitivity were indeed a contributory 'cause' but it was sin of the heart attitude that turned a mild pain into a row.
For example, I might feel belittled by something that Ruth said or her tone of voice, and, instead of laughing it off, I chose in that instance to feel hurt, threatened and sorry for myself. So I would 'spit' back, and then Ruth would feel threatened. The choosing was deep, almost below consciousness, but I was just aware of making that choice. Jesus tells us to forgive, yet I chose in that instant to not do so. I should have loved Ruth "as Christ loved the church, giving himself for her, to make her holy" but instead I chose self-love, even if only 'for this moment'. A damaging row would erupt, which would harden the scars in both our souls. Or, if not a row, a period of hurt and the feeling for revenge. Because I had chosen in that moment.
Sometimes it would not be obvious at the time, but usually, when I turned to the Lord, I would come to see that the 'cause' was my sinful choice earlier on. I remember, years later, sitting on Warrington Bank Quay station waiting for the train home, praying about how Ruth and I had earlier got into a friction that left me in resentment for the whole day. First I was praying to be able to forgive her. But then, after some time, I realised I was the one who needed forgiveness from her. I has chosen to react with a 'dagger' in my words earlier.
The East African approach gave me theological understanding of this. Its approach was "The ground is level at the foot of the Cross." Everyone is a sinner before Jesus. Nobody is better than another. All need to repent and come to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing. This was not just for when we 'become a Christian' or get 'born again', but every day and every minute of each day. In the East African revival, this removed racial divisions - between the European and African Christians - so that a genuine equality broke out.
(This equality was from the heart, not just because of policies, laws and rules, which European governments were later to introduce, in order to try to stamp our racism. It was one piece of evidence that made me understand the need for spiritual revival to solve problems like climate change, not just regulations and policies. It was one piece of evidence of, as I later learned, the irreducible difference between the juridical and the ethical aspects of life. Law cannot make us good; juridical, legal actions or policies cannot bring about goodness.)
So I came to realise that, even when 'the other' (such as Ruth) was 'obviously' at fault, then I was at least equally at fault, and even more so. It is just that my fault, my sin, is deeper. Resisting the 'demands' of 'the other' is a frequent sin of the heart. Did Jesus refer to this when he told us that hating our brother in our hearts is as bad as murder? It is a major cause of misery through all societies. James is dead right when he writes that the tongue is a world of evil and likens it to the tiny rudder of a large ship. That tiny, almost imperceptible, 'choice' in the moment to resist the other, to get back in small revenge, to stick a little 'dagger' into their soul by unkind word or the tone of voice, demands repentance not self-justification, not even hoping that time will cover it. Only the blood of Jesus can cover it.
It was this kind of sin that was revealed as important during the East African Revival, and repenting of this, rather than trying to justify ourselves, is what is important. It was probably this that was a cause of the doldrums. Though learning this (during the 1980s) involved doldrums, I am very glad to have come to understand it. It has helped me ever since. It gave me both reason and motivation to apologise to people (both those close to me whom I hurt and also e.g. once a janitor at my workplace). (It also helped me later in understanding what Dooyeweerd called the ethical aspect; see later.)
Towards a New View
Then things occurred - gradually - which have led me into a new view of things which, though in accord with all that is above, has opened up a new dimension in my life, my relationship with God, and my relationship with the world, leading to more courage and a multi-dimensional hope. I cannot put a name to it yet, except 'new view'. Try to see what it is from the following narratives.First, I recount my entry into green politics and activism, which forced onto me experiences with which I had to try to get to grips with as a disciple of Jesus Christ. So when I encountered a book called 'The Transforming Vision', I was ready for what it said: it gave me a new way of understanding things. With this, I gained a new understanding of the relationship between God and his creation, a new understanding of the relationship between 'sacred and secular' (everyday life, my academic work, information technology, my political activity and my faith), an entry into philosophy, a new way to interpret Scripture, a new way of praying, and a what I have called 'A New View in Theology'. And, during part of this time, I had a spell in church leadership. This development is still going on.
Green activism
I have always valued and loved the natural world, and after I had asked God to change my will back in 1970, I found myself active in the University Environmental Protection Group. I now see that this was the start of an interest in Green things, as opposed to a mere love for nature, developed after what I take to be my baptism in the Holy Spirit, and now see the development as part of God showing me that he does not separate sacred from secular, spiritual from physical, because all his creation is Good.About 1980, just before we moved from Southampton to Cheshire, I joined a Friends of the Earth march about some issue that I cannot remember, and someone told me of a new political party, the Ecology Party. To me politics had always missed the important things in life: caring the nature, the spiritual element, etc., and so I had had little interest in it (except for a bit of Scottish Nationalism and a desire to remain out of the Common Market). I had always, maybe from my father, had a deep scepticism about putting money as the measure of all things; money cannot buy happiness and love. But here was a party that seemed to take seriously God's creation and the spiritual element, and moreover, sought to integrate them with economics etc. I reckoned that I could best evaluate it from the inside than outside, so I joined - and found it was better than I'd hoped in a number for ways. But I did not do much in the Ecology Party (which later renamed itself to be the Green Party) except attend conferences. I treated my involvement almost as a pastime: God would be happy with it as long as it did not interfere with or detract from more 'important' things like church activity or family life.
Green Politics
But, around 1984 I read Paul Marshall's book Thine is the Kingdom (1984, publ. Marshalls), which argued that it is actually God's specific will that we engage in politics. God's mandate to humankind, in Genesis 1:26-28, is a mandate to political activity, Marshall argued: 'having dominion' 9the Hebrew wordradah) means political management.
But he went further, seeking to devise the shape of politics from the Bible; he did not like the situation that prevailed at the time, in which politically active Christians simply 'christened' their own political persuasions, left or right. Marshall was convinced that the Bible could actually inform us of the content of politics, not just how to carry it out.
He based that content on the Hebrew word tsedeq, which he defined as
"maintaining right relationships among all things in the created order".
In his book he showed in some detail how this can be worked out in the areas of economics and defence, to obtain real policy. He argued that Biblical policy is found, not by seeking specific phrases in Scripture but be discerning the tsedeq principles, and applying them in the cultural situation in which we find ourselves - and that God is pleased when we struggle to do do. Finally, what sealed the book's importance in my mind, was that he dealt head-on with a number of thorny questions such as "If all this world of politics etc. is to be burned up and destroyed when Christ comes again, why should we bother?" (His answer to this one was that the mandate of Genesis 1 has never been rescinded, and we should obey even when human logic cannot understand.)
(For those who want a discussion of tsedeq, see tsedeq.html.
Green Political Activity
As it happened, the type of politics that he outlined fitted very well with Green politics (except for the area of defence), and upheld the importance of God's natural creation. I began to feel that I should (not just could) get involved in Green politics, and stand for parliament. I decided that I should first stand for local councils, and work up to a parliamentary campaign, as it were. So around 1985 to 1989 I joined Frodsham Parish Council, stood as candidate for Vale Royal District Council, and for Cheshire County Council. In the latter I came 2nd out of 5! I also grew a small local branch of the Green Party, developing a group of helpers.I desperately wanted to avoid being distracted away from God's will, which seemed to me a danger of political involvement, so I asked a number of local Christians agreed to pray for me. I started issuing prayer letters. Then I started to think about the national election, and became scared because it would cost money that I did not have. I prayed about this - and immediately one of my Aunts told me she would donate £300 towards my campaign. That confirmed for me that I was in the centre of God's will, and from that time onwards, right through the election, I had a peace and joy about being in God's will. The result was a relatively good Green vote, though of course I did not get elected. I had wished merely to get a good, sensible Green message across.
I have stood once or twice more for office since that time, but my political involvement has been in a different direction: influencing local land-use and transport plans. I was impressed with the work of the Stroud Green Party, who had written a well argued critique of Gloucestershire's structure plan. I sought to do a similar thing for my district, Vale Royal. Instead of merely commenting on individual policy proposals, I wrote it in two parts: part A expounded Green principles that were relevant to Vale Royal, such as environmentally sensitive integration, sustainable communities, and global responsibility, and part B made comments on individual policies that referred back to the principles. Many planners liked this approach, and to date I have been involved in a number of such activities. I find it is a way in which God's tsedeq can be worked out in the local politics.
On the basis of this I now see a Biblical notion of politics as a combination of radah and tsedeq, the former giving the mandate and the latter giving the content and principles. Much Christian attitude to politics, however, is informed by Augustine's view that politics is of no eternal value, being merely a mechanism to curb evil. I have argued that radah-tsedeq politics is better than Augustine's view in a recent Briefing Paper, Towards a Biblical View on Politics, of the Whitefield Institute (Frewin Court, Oxford, OX1 3HZ, UK).
Green Christians
I was concerned that Christians should be green people, and change towards a more green lifestyle. I joined 'Christian Ecology Group', which then renamed itself 'Christian Ecology Link'. I tried to convince some of my fellow Christians. Some were very sympathetic - they seemed to be the more educated ones - while others either gave lip service, thought it was irrelevant, or actually agrued against being green (on the spurious grounds that green is new age; it's not; see below). I suppose Jesus was right when he said "A prophet is not without honour, except in his home town". And I suppose I was experiencing what Jesus himself experienced, that those who most prided themselves on their correct theology and devotion to God (the Pharisees) were those who were most implacably opposed to him (note that Jesus never once criticised the Pharisees' beliefs, only their refusal to widen their views).It is still the same today (2008), though now we know that climate change is happening, and that we have responsibility before God for the planet. The stuggle continues.
One difficulty, I realised, was that we did not have a compelling theological, Bible-based reason for Christians to change their thinking. We could add "Thou shalt not damage the environment" as a kind of Eleventh Commandment, but doing that would not wash, because God gave Moses only ten. We could argue that our 'neighbour' to whom we should "go and do likewise" includes the non-human creation, but only those who are already disposed to a green view find that convincing. We could argue that we ought to look after the world because it belongs to God and not us, but that seemed so weak compared with the imperative of 'The Great Commission', to 'make disciples'.
Most seemed to assume that 'make disciples' meant 'save souls'. A church leader once asked me "Would you rather save a soul or save a rainforest!?" He did not accept my answer "God loves both", and he did not like it when I challenged him about track record). After all, will not all the environment burn up when Jesus comes back again? (No! See below.)
Though we could cite verses of Scripture in support of the green imperative, it did not seem central in Scripture. Not only were people not convinced, but if indeed in is not central, then perhaps I should not be devoting my God-given time and life to it?
Actually, I have now discovered that the green imperative is actually central in Scripture, and what I call 'a new view in theology' explains this. But that was not to arrive for a decade. To arrive there a number of other things had to happen. The first was to understand that all three of the persons of the Trinity are linked to the green imperative, and the second was to tackle our response to the New Age.
Even the Holy Spirit is Green!
Somewhere around the end of the 1980s, one of our church leaders suggested I write to the Duke of Edinburgh, as he had seen him on TV speaking about the importance of caring for nature. I did, and was sent papers from a new Consultation that he had convened on The Christian Attitude to Nature, a meeting of the 'great and the good' at Windsor Castle. I wrote a critique of these papers, and was invited to participate in the second and third sessions. I did.I discovered that the reason the Duke of Edinburgh had convened these consultations was that when the WWF had brought five major religions together at Assissi to compare attitudes to Nature, the Christian one was very disappointing, being little different from a Jewish attitude of "God created and owns this world, so we have a responsibility to take care of it." This is, of course, what motivated me into political activity, but I had questions.
In comparison to Judaism, which has God the Creator and Law-Giver, it also has Jesus as God the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as God the Indweller and Empowerer. So, if Nature is important to God, then one would expect not only God the Father to be linked with it, but also Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I had recently discovered at least some link with Jesus, in Romans 8, Colossians 1 and Ephesians 1: Jesus' death and resurrection will redeem not only humankind but also the whole of creation. But where does the Holy Spirit come in?
I knelt down by my bed one night and prayed this question, "Where does the Holy Spirit fit in?" Immediately into my mind came Galatians 5:22,23:
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."
In an instant, far quicker than it takes to explain this, I saw two things: that these characteristics apply not only to inter-human and human-God relationships but also to our relationships with the natural world, and that just as the Holy Spirit is sole enabler of these characteristics in human beings in inter-human and human-God relationships so he is sole enabler of them in human-nature relationships. That is, this list of characteristics not only shows the attitude we should have towards Nature, but it is also the solution, the means of achievement. The difference between Christianity and Judaism lies not only in redemption, but also in God dwelling in us to make his will possible - in our caring for creation as well as in our inter-human relationships. This is the Christian Attitude to Nature.
I reported this to my group the next day, which reported it to the Duke, who very much liked it, and made it the climax of the book he wrote as a result of the Consultation. I also wrote in a pamphlet for the Industrial Christian Fellowship which found its way to Tony Campolo, who likewise made it the climax of his book How to Save the Earth Without Worshiping Nature. In a very short time, and without effort on my part, what to me was a new idea entered and germinated. I am sure it was of God, rather than one of my own ideas.
Response to the New Age
My involvement in the Green Party led me into close contact with all sorts of New Age ideas and adherents. Many of my Christian colleagues tended to lump Green and New Age together, and avoided and resisted both. This bothered me. Also, I had to work out just how my faith linked with Green ideas and New Age thinking, and what our response should be.To help me do this, in 1991 I compiled a document Response to the New Age, in which part 1 argued that Green is not New Age, but rather a recognition of the limitations of the Modern (materialistic, individualistic, rationalistic, nature-spoiling) world view, and part 2 sought to set out the various degrees and types of New Age activity, and what our response should be to each.
Matthew Fox had written Original Blessing: A Primer on Creation Spirituality in the mid-1980s, which gained enormous popularity, but was treated with great suspicion by evangelicals. I wanted to understand his views, so that I could respond, not just react. His reference to 'original blessing' was an obvious counter to the doctrine of 'original sin', a doctrine that I find not only true to life, but also helpful and surprisingly beautiful when taken with the doctrine of God's proactive redemption. So I wrote a long letter to him (which did not receive so much as a reply, sadly), which was a critique of his ideas, and a support of the doctrine of original sin. I believe that Fox misunderstands the Fall and Redemption, that he is responding to what is a distorted theology found especially in mediaeval Roman Catholicism, and that he reacts against, rather than corrects, this distortion and lands himself in other distortions. I made this long letter available as The Beauty of Original Sin (available from Christian Studies Unit, 65 Prior Park Road, Bath, BA2 4NL, UK). A short version can be found in the pages orig.blessing.html and orig.sin.html.
Conclusion re. Green Thinking
Thus, we can see that my incursion into Green thought and activity led to some theological thought and activity too. As I experienced these things just recounted, I was forced to think through how these things related to my faith and commitment to God. How could I understand these things? Was there a bigger picture? I began to see there may be a new way to understand things when I read a book with a curious title.Church leadership
In around 1986 the main leader of the church called a meeting, and said that he wanted people to consider what role they should have in the church; he identified three roles: elders, managers and deacons. I reckoned I would not be a good manager, nor a good deacon, but I did have a heart for the church as a whole, for strategic direction, for people to grow in Christ, and also, from my university experiences I had received much input that could be of benefit to others. So, rather cheekily if you believe that being an elder is the highest in status among those three, I wrote to the leaders, saying that I felt I could be an elder.
Preaching
Instead of laughing me out of court, they said that perhaps it was so, but I had to be tested first and trained in some ways. Over the next year or two I was asked to preach more. Actually, even before this I was asked to preach. In preaching I usually preferred to be given a passage of Scripture, or possibly a topic, and tackle that, prayerfully bringing in all the I had learned from the past. I valued what I had learned and reckoned it should not be kept just for myself. I tried to turn my preaching-hand to anything, always asking the Lord to guide me or give me what he wished me to say, but also always using my analytical ability to discern what was the jist of the passage.My strategy in preaching, under those constraints, came from some training I had received, especially from Campus Crusade, and also from my own common sense:
- I did not want to just 'tickle their ears' (II Timothy?) with things the people wanted to hear.
- I felt that I should do what I was best at and thus bring my gifting to the church - try to discern and understand. My preaching tended to be either teaching or stimulation. I left it to others to undertake other types.
- I always tried to relate what was said to the lives of ordinary people, always tried to find application.
- Before I joined the leadership, I asked myself: "Where would the leadership of the church get their teaching from?" and reckoned that, because I could, I should teach at a level that the leadership could benefit from. This means not always given the low-level stuff. (Spiritual 'meat' a la Hebrews? Maybe, but looking at the list of 'first things' in Hebrews, I prefer not to talk in terms of 'meat v. milk'.)
- When I became a leader I refused to push my own particular views, and it was only during the last year I was in leadership that I clearly stated why I thought Green thinking pleased God. Maybe I should have 'led' on this earlier and more boldly? I dunno.
As a university lecturer I was used to speaking to groups of listeners, and trying to get useful information across in the process. So most of my sermons would tend to be a light form of lecture. Suitable for some people not for others (surprisingly, the least seemingly academic people liked them best), so a church should have a mix of people giving sermons.
Into Leadership
Eventually, probably around 1987, I was asked to join the leadership team, as one of four elders.We met every Saturday morning for prayer. (How I hated that! My Saturdays were precious to me - but I gave priority to the meeting.) After a few years, at a church weekend, two of the leaders stepped down, with the third suggesting he would too - facing me with the possibility of being sole leader. I was non-plussed. In fact, he and I got together and prayed what to do. We thought we would ask three members to come onto the leadership team temporarily to help us decide the way ahead. To me (and I think Andrew Faraday, my co-elder) a church leader is someone who has a wide wise perspective:
"A leader is someone who has a heart for the whole life of the church, not just one area. Heart not mind. Whole not just one area."
We both felt that the number of leaders should be about five, an odd number to prevent stalemate and three is too few to get a cross section of views and also if one is away. We chose three, and continued meeting weekly. After a year, we went round the fellowship, talking with everyone we could, to see if there was anyone they thought should be a leader. The three gained most 'votes' by far, and so were formally recognised as leaders. One stood down after 18 months (having said he would) and was replaced, one after five years (having said she would) and was replaced but by a succession of people. At one time we tried bringing people onto the team for a month at a time to gain from their perspective.
'She'?!? Oh, yes, I believe in women in church leadership. But we had trouble for some years with a Trustee who was a fundamentalist and very dominant in personality. To avoid trouble (I fear) we did not make the other three leaders into 'elders'. (In fact, Andrew and I felt the office of 'elder' should lapse and there should be no difference. Later, it transpired, one of the leaders always felt a distinction, and I think carried a hurt around with him.)
Eventually, in 1998, I stepped aside from leadership, but stayed as member of the church. Seeing leadership as a role rather than status or power, and believing that others have potential for leadership roles that should be developed, I believe in a rolling leadership, so I stepped aside when circumstances suggested I should. (My co-elder, Andrew Faraday, had fallen ill and had stepped aside, and he and I to some extent had a very close relationship, probably one of only a few real friendships I have had in my life.)
We led a church composed of very able people, so I felt strongly that our function as leaders was to enable, encourage, equip and exercise the people. Coupled with that, we believed that the work of God was more outside the church than inside it. So I always wahted to avoid unnecessary demands the church made on people in terms of their time, so that they would do more in the world for the Lord. What I wanted to demand from them was commitment to their Lord and Saviour, not the church. A more complete outline of my notions of church and church leadership can be found in leadership.
But it seems I might have been wrong. The people we left behind in leadership were of a very different mould, theology, perspective and - here are the words of someone who is still hurt, and should not be - a number of us believe, have undermined some of the foundations God set up through us and the leaders before us (at least IMHO). But who am I to say? Maybe they are right. I am still working through the hurt, and trying to separate personal hurt and interest from those of God, so I would value your prayers, reader, if you pray.
One consolation is that I am now released for other, and maybe better, things. The spiritual journey goes on. May the Living God's wishes materialize, may his will be done, may people and his creation be blessed.
(That was written 1998, and more follows.)
'The Transforming Vision'
A major step towards what I now believe was taken when I read Middelton and Walsh's [1984] book The Transforming Vision. This book has been useful to me in two ways. It is a very clear depiction of what world-views are, and I refer to it in my work for that reasons. The second way is of more interest here: it was an initial impetus to changing my view of things. It put things clearly so that I could understand that there was a completely different Biblical way to see things, and this has led me over the years to compiling what I now call a 'new view in theology'.This took many steps, of which the Green activity and church leadership above was useful preparation. The Transforming Vision showed me there is such a thing as world-views, and why they are important. It explained what I was perplexed about: why is it that God's people so often do the most damaging things, especially in the environmental arena? Why do so many (American?) Christians care so little about the damage they are doing? Why do so many of them assiduously resist the green imperative and even actively work against it? Is it just their selfishness? (No, because so many of them are such good and lovely and unselfish people.) The Transforming Vision showed me there is a level deeper than our actions and beliefs, that of world-views and presuppositions. The Transforming Vision gave me an explanation of what I already felt with my intuition, that while 'Christians' might believe and even do 'right' things, they can be wrong in the underlying orientation of their lives.
Almost, Christians today seem like the people Old Testament Israel, who go to worship Yahweh, and yet orientate their everyday lives around Baal. Christians today, while keeping their beliefs pure, and devoting Sunday to the worship of God, orientate their lives towards the idols of convenience, pleasure (of 'Christian' kinds, of course!), reputation, scientific and technological living, cars, electronic devices, and so on. We seem to put God in one compartment, and everyday life in another. As Middleton and Walsh say [p.115] "To this day Christians are still not free, in either their world-view or lifestyle, from the debilitating effects of this unbiblical dualism."
The Transforming Vision also showed me there was a new way to interpret the Bible that is true to the Bible itself, and why many of the deep assumptions we make about what to believe actually come from the cultural expectations with which we approach the Bible, rather than what the Bible itself says. One stands out in my memory [p.103-5]
"Even our reading of the Bible is influenced by our world view. ... So if our world view is unbiblical, it will inevitably distort our understanding of the biblical text. The text at hand is Matthew 24:36-41:No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill, one will be taken and the other left.
You might now be expecting a defense of a particular eschatological theory (amillennial, postmillennial or premillennial), but our question is more simple. The punch line of Jesus' teaching comes at the end. When the Son of Man returns, two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be working with a hand kill; one will be taken, one left. The question is, Who is taken and who is left? ...
Most Christians would probably answer, 'The Christian is taken and the non-Christian is left, of course." But look again at the text. Why should we believe the Christian is taken? Does the text justify such an interpretation?
Let's look closely at what Jesus is saying here. The Son of Man will come in a day like the days of Noah. People didn't believe Noah when he was building the ark. They just went along on their merry way, and they knew nothing until the flood came and took them all away. Who got taken away? The people who ignored Noah! So also when the Son of Man comes, some will be taken away. Who? The same kind of people as in Noah's day - the ones who ignore the gospel of salvation and persist in disobedience.
In other words, a close look at the text reveals that it isn't Christians who are taken away, but non-Christians. Rather than addressing the issue of the rapture of the saints, Jesus is here speaking of judgment on unbelievers. ..."
This interpretation of Scripture is surprising to us - and yet it is more in line with the text than our usual interpretation. So Middleton and Walsh ask why this is:
"If the text is actually saying the non-Christian is taken, why then have we so consistently misread Jesus' words here? ...Rather than seeing that the biblical vision of the future is a restoration of creation and of our creaturely life before the Lord, we seem to have substituted a dualistic eschatology which removes us from creation and places us in heaven. Our dualism leads us to a world-flight mentality. It has closed our eyes to the biblical vision of heaven coming to us. So we consistently misread passages such as Matthew 24:37-41.
Our world view affects how we see everything, even how we read the Bible. A world view that lacks the comprehensiveness of the biblical world view will necessarily cause us to misinterpret the Scriptures. It will always miss the full scope of their redemptive message."
The Transforming Vision also showed me why what I had also intuitively felt is true, namely that neither liberation nor liberal theology are the answer. Liberal theology is, to me, almost completely bankrupt. By contrast, The Transforming Vision showed me that taking the Bible at face value might give the answers.
Actually, The Transforming Vision does not give me all the answers, but it shows me in which direction to look for answers to my questions, some of which are recounted in what follows. Thank you, Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh.
Linking Sacred and Secular
My walk near Salisbury, where I felt guilty about enjoying myself has another aspect: I was spending time with something secular, namely nature. My move into politics was also something secular. My work in information technology and systems is also secular. But I want all these things to be of God. I gained the impression in the early days that God is not interested in 'secular' things and that to be truly dedicated to him means going into 'full time Christian work'. Should I give up my work, politics, walking, and the like, and devote myself to 'religious' things? Or can these fit meaningfully in with God's plan for my life? If so, how?Consider the Lord's prayer.
Our Father in heaven,
May your holy name be honoured
May your kingdom come
May your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven ...
Perhaps 'on earth as in heaven' refers not only to God's will being done, but also to his kingdom coming and his Name being honoured? In my work, in my political activity and in my walking, and in anything else, perhaps I can live in such a way that people come to think more highly of God, that they will let him have more of a say in their lives (his kingdom coming) and will come to delight to do his will. That is part of the answer I have found to how my secular life can be meaningful in God's eyes.
Another part is that I now see that we human beings are called to represent God to the rest of the creation, for its joy rather than our convenience or pleasure. This is part of what I have called a new view in theology. But in relation to the sacred-secular question, it helps me see that it is not just 'OK' to undertake secular things, but it is actually God's express will. In so doing, I am helping to manage the creation in such a way as to disclose in it its destination in God.
A third part is that, through my interest in Dooyeweerdian philosophy, I have come to see that the elevating of the sacred over the secular, instead of being Scriptural, might be a leftover from the Nature-Grace ground-motive of the mediaeval Roman Catholic church and Scholasticism. It was once suggested to me that the Jewish religion is the most materialistic there is. If the Hebrew ground-motive of creation, fall and redemption leads to that, then perhaps secularity is as valued by God as sacred, religious stuff? I detect a strong residual nature-grace split in the evangelical and charismatic churches today, especially the stuff coming out of USA. Though the religious aspect of life is important, so are all the other aspects. This includes politics, information technology, environmental sustainability, and the like. It also includes philosophy.
Those views came into clarity only since around 2000.
The proviso is, with these as with religious activity, that we "love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly with our God" (approx Micah 6:8). Anything can be held up as an excuse against God. But let me say something about my interest in philosophy.
Philosophy
Many Christians see philosophy as a secular substitute for theology, an attempt to try to understand things without God. (Did not Paul talk about 'vain philosophies'?) It doesn't help that arrogant anti-Christian thinkers like Bertrand Russell held philosophy to be like theology. I disagree with both the Christians and anti-Christians on this. Philosophy is not like theology, and has a different role in God's world:- Theology is concerned with the religious side of life.
- Philosophy is concerned with understanding how all aspects of life cohere.
- Different from both, our relationship with God is concerned with how the whole of life is lived with, and by reference to, him.
As I now see it (though it took some time to become clear) the problem with philosophy down through the ages is that philosophers of all kinds have presupposed that God need not be taken into account in philosophy, or if he is, then he is only one entity in a whole panoply of entities that we can think about. It is not philosophy as such that is at fault, but the presupposition that we have made. If we could find a philosophy that does not make this presupposition then perhaps that would be a valid philosophy.
The philosophy of the late Herman Dooyeweerd is one such philosophy. Dooyeweerd was a Dutch Christian (1894-1977) who, like me, was concerned to find (or rather develop) a philosophy that did not make this anti-Biblical presupposition. He not only did this, but he also showed that, in philosophical terms, the rest of philosophy - those of Plato and Aristotle, those of Augustine and Aquinas, those of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, those of Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and others - have failed to tackle crucial questions or be critical enough.
What is strange is that I did not start to explore Dooyeweerd's philosophy primarily because it was a Christian one, but because it actually helped me understand two secular fields: environmental sustainability and information systems. It is, par excellence, able to help us tackle interdisciplinary fields. The fact that it is a Christian philosophy is a bonus. But maybe it is no coincidence that it happens to be better at handling the diversity of what we find (see why: philosophical implications of there being a creator).
I now find Dooyeweerd's philosophy provides one way in which me understand the relationship between God and his creation and why it is that secular and sacred are both of value in God's eyes (specifically, the sacred may be seen as just one aspect of life, the pistic aspect) - though this affects all other aspects, which in turn affect this aspect. This intimate inter-effecting among the aspects, which Dooyeweerd called "coherence of meaning" and treated as of utmost philosophical importance, is precisely what one might expect from a loving Creator.
Discovering Dooyeweerd
How I discovered Dooyeweerd and his philosophy is interesting because, as I have just said, my interest in him is not that he shares my faith but that his philosophy works well.In the late 1980s or early 1990s, I was at Spring Harvest, a Christian jamboree at which there is a plethora of seminars. One of these was 'Christians in Politics' and I attended. At the end, the speaker asked if anyone knew of any good books on Christians in politics. Sticking up my hand, I recommended Thine is the Kingdom (see above), saying it was available from Marshalls Publishers. A voice at the back of the room interjected "No it's not. They've remaindered the book and I've got all the copies; come and see me."
The voice was that of Richard Russell, who had organised the Christian Studies Unit. Later, Richard invited me for coffee, over which he asked me "Do you know the background of Paul Marshall's book?" I didn't. "It's a Dutch philosopher, Herman Dooyeweerd," Richard told me, and proceeded to explain that Dooyeweerd had set out a suite of aspects, which are ways in which the world functions: quantitative, spatial, kinematic, physical, biotic, sensitive, analytical, formative (as I now call it), lingual, social, economic, aesthetic, juridical, ethical and faith. Each one has a norm: if we function well in that aspect, then things will go well; but dysfunction in any aspect undermines wellbeing.
Immediately - in a flash - I realised I could understand what was happening in the Green Movement. There were (and are) factions, which were fighting each other, each claiming to be 'right' and 'important'. I realised that each one was just elevating one of these aspects and that we could understand sustainability as a whole as good functioning in every aspect.
- Deep ecologists, who treat humanity as just another species, focus on the biotic aspect.
- Those concerned about technology focus on the formative aspect.
- Green economics focuses on the economic aspect.
- Communitarians, who emphasise small communities over against large organisations, focus on the social aspect.
- Those who believe that making up green policies is of utmost importance focus on the juridical aspect.
- Those who emphasise 'spirituality' focus on the faith aspect.
- And so on.
To properly look after God's creation takes more than just ecology; it takes good functioning in every aspect together. Dooyeweerd's philosophy offers a way to integrate the Green movement, and points the way towards genuine, practical, workable sustainability. Each aspect implies a need or interest in humanity (and the world) and a norm by which we should live. So nobody's needs or interests need be ignored.
Some years later, I explained this to a PhD student of Peter Brandon, Patrizia Lombardi, and she ran with it! She and Peter published a book on this: Brandon PS, Lombardi P (2005) Evaluating Sustainable Development in the Built Environment. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Science.
Discovering Dooyeweerd was remarkable, and I quickly began finding out more. One thing I found out was the Biblical basis for Dooyeweerd's philosophy, which is not fundamentalist nor liberal but is of a completely different kind. That Dooyeweerd shared my faith was a bonus, not a motivation for my interest in him. That is why, perhaps, I have used Dooyeweerd in my secular teaching and research.
I soon realised that Dooyeweerd's philosophy could help me in my work, to understand something that had troubled me for years: What are the real benefits of computers and information technology, and how may we understand their complexity?
Understanding Information Technology with 'Christian' Philosophy
My main application of Dooyeweerd's philosophy was in my work, with Information Technology and Information Systems. I saw how Dooyeweerd's fifteen aspects offered a way to untangle the complexity of use of IT - for example, an IT system in a company might bring economic benefit to the company but social disbenefit to its employees, and Dooyeweerd's aspects help us avoid ignoring one in favour of the other, or giving priority to one over the other. IT might even have a 'religious' or faith aspect. That seemed intuitively a good way ahead ('wisdom'?) and I began discussing this with my work colleagues."At the conference I attended," one of them once told me in the mid 1990s, "I heard a paper on these aspects you are talking about." So I wrote to the author of the paper in a Swedish university (now Anita Mirijiamdotter), and her professor, Donald de Raadt, wrote back and soon afterwards I went to visit them for discussions, and met others, including Birgitta Bergvall-Kåreborn and, later, Darek Eriksson. Donald introduced me to Sytse Strijbos in the Free University of Amsterdam, who had just started a joint work aimed at investigating how Dooyeweerd's philosophy might engage with systems thinking, and they asked me to join them as a founder member of what later became known as the Center for Philosophy, Technology and Social Systems (CPTS).
Over the years years I worked with Donald, Anita, Sytse and Birgitta and Darek and others, and through them gained the important idea that 'Christian' thinking, at least in the form of Dooyeweerd's philosophy, could engage on equal footing with mainstream thinking - neither ignoring nor trying to dominate it, but, as I now put it, being able to listen, affirm, critique and enrich mainstream thinking. Sytse and Donald were particularly good at involving leading mainstream thinkers like Gerald Midgley and Carl Mitcham. The CPTS organised working conferences for over 20 years and resulted in many published papers. I am, deeply grateful to God for it.
What interested me was that it was non-Christians who valued Dooyeweerd's thought, more than Christians did. Anita and Gerald Midgley would not, as far as I know, consider themselves Christians. Yet they valued the incisiveness of Dooyeweerd's ideas and the kind of thinking they encouraged. This gave me confidence in the academic arena, to engage rather than either acquiesce or be antagonistic, of which more below.
A New View in Theology
(Main site: A New View in Theology.)Since before 2000 I have found a need to rethink my theology. If the creation (secular, environmental sustainability, etc.) is important to God in its own right, what is its relationship to us? Traditionally, we have interpreted the mandate in Genesis 1:26-28 as giving us both the privilege and the duty to make use of the rest of creation as a resource, using it for our pleasure and convenience so that we end up more grateful to God and enjoying and worshipping him more. But that seems wrong.
I discovered that the Hebrew word radah, mentioned earlier, though it does indeed mean 'have dominion over', in this context refers to a particular type of dominion. Are sheep there for the sake of the shepherds? Or are shepherds there for the sake of the sheep? Though shepherds 'have dominion' over sheep, they are there for the sake of the sheep, not for their own sake. This is made clear in Ezekiel 34, as explained on the radah page. We are shepherds of the rest of the creation.
This led me to a new view in theology, in which the importance of creation is central, not just peripheral to God's plan of creation and redemption in Christ. It is a new answer to the question, "Why did God create us, and why does he save us?" What was God's Cosmic Plan in doing this? Was it just to 'populate heaven'? Was it just to create a 'special people', with the rest going to the scrapheap? Was it just to create some replicas of Christ? None of these, or the various others usual answers I would get given, satisfied me. Was it just 'for his glory'? They leave so many questions not only unanswered but unanswerable, such as how God can be just if he is loving and vice versa, and the green questions above. What does 'glory' actually mean?
I tried a new answer to this question, and a simple version of it is: God created and saves in order that all in creation can mediate his character and love to each other, so that all will enjoy him and he (Trinity) will also enjoy it. Briefly, it works like this:
- We are shepherds of the rest of the creation, representing God to the rest of creation, for the purpose that it will experience something of God through our agency.
(Genesis 1:26-28) - We turned away from God and from this role. ('fall') Our mistreatment of the creation (using it for our own resource without caring for it) is as much a sin as, for examply, blasphemy. Because, in so doing, we misrepresent the Holy One.
(Ezekiel 34) - After millennia of preparation for it, God came in Christ Jesus to effect redemption. Not only are our sins forgiven, but ..
- The Holy Spirit of God lives in us, to grow his fruit in us, so that we will become like our heavenly Father.
Galatians 5:22-23 - Then we will treat the rest of creation aright. That is why creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his true sons
(Romans 8:19). - So we are now able to properly fulfil our creational mandate.
This is worked out in more detail in the website on New View in Theology. The above core is expanded as Five 'Rs'. Also see the page on Why Am I Saved?a.
In 2005, at a weekend with the John Ray Initiative, the idea that perhaps the burgeoning Christians in China might be interested in discussing this approach - because they will soon have an impact on the way China develops: whether destructive, greedy (idolatrous) industrialism and moneytarism and pride at being a Number 1 World Power, or dignified responsibility for God's Earth. What impact the Christians will have will depend on what theology develops among them as the emerge from an era of persecution. We in the West cannot impose any theology on them, but, because we have experience of such development and are culpable before God, we might have a responsibility, nay a duty even, to relay that to them lest they make the same mistake and become condemned in the same way. This means that perhaps we should suggest theological approaches that offer a different way of Biblical thinking. I am pursuing this.
"Would you rather save a soul or save a rainforest?"
The question the church leader put to me, mentioned earlier, "Would you rather save a soul or save a rainforest?" has haunted me ever since. If, as I replied to him, God loves both, how does this work out? And is it indeed true? This tension was always present when pursuing the 'new view'. [==== more to be written]
See the irony of this, below!
Dealing with jealousy, self-pity and rejection
For now, see my page on jealousy.Re-learning to pray
Prayer has, as you might expent, been a continual practice since my early days. But since the turn of the millennium I have perhaps re-learned what it means to pray; I set down some things here in case they are useful to others. Though the process that led to this began a couple of decades before - back in my university days, the book title 'Prayer Without Pretending' became a memorable slogan that guided my attitude to prayer, and I also learned that it is good to pray continually rather than just in 'quiet times' (wee chats with God; keep God in mind throughout whatever I'm doing) but that it is also good to have a 'quiet time' with God.But during the past few years I have had to unlearn some things and learn others.
I had to un-learn:
- Prayer is not something we 'ought' to do. Instead it is a privilege.
- Prayer is not something that is 'necessary' to obtain God's favour or his blessing on what we are doing. Jesus: "Your heavenly father knows what you need before you ask it."
- Prayer is not effective by virtue of its quantity. Jesus: "Do not be like the pagans, who think that the more you pray, the more God will hear you."
- Prayer is not our 'main duty' as people of God. Micah 6:8 is a better guide to our main duty.
- Don't pray for the sake of it.
- Don't use prayer in the company of others as a means of telling them what they should know or do.
- "... in Jesus' Name" is no longer a full-stop at the end of prayer.
I came to learn:
- Pray because I really want or mean something, not for the sake of it.
- What do I really want? What am I really thankful for? Be honest before my Heavenly Father, because praying what I feel I ought to ask or thank for is an insult to him and a waste of his 'time'.
- Uncover reality. Often I am praying X for Y for my sake not theirs; the reason I am thanking God for Z is because it makes for my convenience or boosts my pride. These are unworthy. Confess that before God; it is then forgiven and put aside, so I can be free of it. Then I can work out what I really want to ask or thank for. Or maybe I need to go a layer deeper. Having got to this point ..
- "But," I imagine God gently asking and challenging me, "why should I listen to you about this?" I usually find one or more of several possible reasons why I want what I am asking for:
- Because I want it. Not usually a valid reason before God and his Creation. So maybe it doesn't matter if he does not grant it. When I realise this, I usually would rather God did what was best than that I got what I ask for. Example: Jesus asking God to spare him the cup of suffering.
- I want X for Y because I think it would be a blessing for Y (and I have worked through that X is really for Y and not for myself). But maybe X is not in fact a blessing for Y. Only God knows what is a real blessing for Y and for others. On what grounds do I believe that X is a blessing for Y? I can state those grounds. Often the grounds are that God himself loves Y more than I do. Example: Jesus praying for his people in John 17. Example: Moses asking God not to destroy his people.
- Because God has revealed this to be his way. But on what grounds can I be sure that this is God's way for this particular situation? Maybe this situation is special and something else is God's way. Am I willing for whatever God's wisdom sees as best? State my reasons, and leave it to God.
- Because I think it would bring honour or pleasure to Christ. Likewise, on what grounds? Good to state them.
- Because I am concerned that God's holy Name is being dishonoured. Again, on what grounds? Or am I really angered in myself? (Be careful: "Man's anger does not work the rightness of God.") Example: Elijah being very zealous for the Name of the Lord of Hosts - and yet getting it wrong.
- Because I want God's holy Name to be honoured, his kingdom to encroach life or his will be be done. Again, on what grounds will what I ask for achieve any of these? Be clear. But remember that God allows other people their freedom and seldom influences them.
- Don't get me wrong: I don't hold one of those reasons to be 'higher' than others. I just have to come to the truth of the real reason I ask or thank God. And then
- Often, in response to such prayer, God has shown me that the situation was not as I thought it to be. I'm glad.
- Be realistic about prayer and about how easy it is to forget it. There is a bit of a place for praying 'for the sake of it', because it does at least ensure that I have a bit of time when I can focus on God.
- I use "... in Jesus' Name" only rarely. Imagine I went to the Queen and asked for something ".. in the Name of the Duke of Westminster". That something should never be a trivial thing. It should only be something that is worthy of the Duke and also something that I am confident he would be happy for me to ask for. I use Jesus Name like that.
I've found such praying seems more effective, and I've been able to get rid of the chaff. It has freed me from being exercised with whether God answers prayer, to what God is doing. Somehow the above allows me to bring together the idea that God will grant whatever we ask that is his will with the idea that I can initiate a request and God will actually react to that (Open theism?). It sort of makes sense of John 14-16, so that the statements about prayer that Jesus made are no longer recipes for getting God to hear me, but rather encouragements to undergird my relationship with God. I John 5:14 is no longer a tautology but an encouragement. These statements take on a new meaning.
With this view of prayer, I can engage with God as his active representative rather than his passive servant (waiting to be told what to do). It links nicely with my earlier discovery that God aligns our wills freely with his own. What I find myself passionate about (after first asking myself whether it is merely my selfishness or pride) I can take to be aligned with God's will too. So I can ask specifically and boldly and yet humbly for it. And I find it occurs, and rejoice, no longer because 'my prayer was answered', but because it furthers God's kingdom. That is my real joy, my hope, my vision today (2008) - that I work with God for the world he loves.
Blessing Others
Working with God for the world he loves is blessing 'the other'. I gained a perspective that God's plan was not just to populate heaven with souls, nor just to create an holy people, nor just to defeat evil, nor even just to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was also to bless the world he loves. Any blessing of the world, even the 'unsaved' world, is good in his eyes. (That is the opposite of what some think, who seem to suggest that good must be counterfeit, and hence the enemy's worst trick.) this has so far expressed itself in three ways.
- First, I began to know God's blessing with me when I spoke and argued for a 'green' position. Many little 'miracles' of coincidence and or things going well, as I did so. I had always been cautious lest I perpetrate my own distorted ideas rather than God's will, yet I also knew that occasionally in history God introduces new ideas. As a result of these 'successes' I gradually I became more confident that perhaps my 'New View' is pleasing to the Father. Then in March 2011, Ruth Paul gave me this message,
"So be fearless Andrew. You have the blessing of an opportunity to speak out and express what God wants you to say. Isaiah 59:21 says that His Spirit is upon us and His words are in our mouth and they will not depart."
Since Ruth is someone who does receive 'words' from God, I decided to act on it, and for the past 12 months (to 17 March 2012) it seems to have worked. - Second, blessing Academia. Over the past couple of years, I have been involved in Shaping our Disciplines for Christ, a project by the Christian Academic Network to help Christ's people make a real contribution to academic disciplines and discourses, which would be recognised as such from within. One thing I did was to be open about my faith while teaching in a 'secular' university - but not in any evangelistic manner. This perhaps led to the third ...
- Third, bring people of other religions to Christ. Many of my Muslim and Hindu students liked what I said. Two of them were interested in Jesus. Leading them in reading the narrative accounts of Jesus, I explained that we can know Jesus personally not just in a distant, religious way, and that we can do so by a very simple prayer. At one point I felt it right, for each of them, to ask whether this is what they wanted. It was. They prayed to ask Jesus Christ to be their Saviour and Master. I did not ask them to become Christians, but to be something much more important: followers of Jesus Christ. I leave it up to them and the Holy Spirit, what they do about their religious label. I then had to consider my responsibility, and chose to emphasise the absolute demands of Jesus expressed in Luke 9:23,24. (More about this later, if God so wills.)
It seems that God has used me to save both 'souls' and 'rainforests'! As a result of these, I no longer fear that I am of no use to God, but enjoy working and living for and with him, for his world.
See also below on attitude of heart.
Contributing to Academic Thinking
As mentioned above, I had begun to see how the 'Christian' philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd could help me make sense of my field in information systems and technology, in a way that makes sense to mainstream thinkers, and is attractive to non-Christian thinkers. Indeed, I started teaching it in a secular university to understand 'Key Issues in Information Systems Development' (the title of a course at masters level that I taught for some years) and also human-computer interaction and multimedia. What attracted Muslim and Hindu students especially was that it allowed us to consider the religious or faith aspect alongside economic, social and technical aspects as of equal importance - because this resonates more with their worldviews, in which the religious is not separated from everyday life as it is in the West. I found that Dooyeweerd's philosophy helps to overcome the sacred-secular divide.Around 2000 Agape (was CCC) and UCCF set up the Christian Academic Network, whose first motto was, "Resurrection of the Evangelical Mind". I was asked to join the leadership team. After teething troubles, during which time God had to say to us "I wanted you to be a project but you have made it an institution", and our repentance of this, we have developed a vision for Christians to make a genuine input into academic thinking.
As part of this, I suggested some small steps to 'shaping our disciplines for Christ'. Being always suspicious of such simple steps, I was surprised how popular it began to be. My recent academic papers in the sociological and informatics fields have tended to be along these lines. I use the philosophy of Dooyeweerd to help me, but always conscious that I am here to do my Father's will - which is to bless the rest of Creation. This rest of Creation includes the edifice of human knowledge that has been constructed over the centuries by academic study.
Since the year 2000 I have been trying to work out what my role is as an academic with the spiritual journey I have had. This has had three parts to research (the generation of theories about how the world works):
- What is Christian / Biblical research? Is it to generate theories that have God as an object within them (as in Creationist theories), nor to force theories into the mould of certain theological beliefs (as the R.C. Church did with Galileo)? I don't like either of those. To me, Christian or Biblical research is to open up the full diversity, coherence and goodness of God's creation, in a way that can bless the world. (Most mainstream research tends to reduce its interest to one aspect of this diversity.) This view gives me a basis for seeing my academic work s part of my discipleship of Christ, being His representative with the Holy Spirit and as contributing to the Father's kingdom, rather than as separated from these. My university teaching likewise has been aimed at helping students to learn and discover this full diversity, coherence and goodness of God's creation. This means that Biblical research and teaching can be pushed forward by even those who are not Christians. I recently (2 September 2012) gave a talk at WYSOCS on 'Christian thinking in a secular university'. This view leads to the next two ...
- Attitude to mainstream thinking. Christians seem to have had two main responses to secular (humanist) thinking: antagonism or acquiescence, but I would rather see humanist thought as impaired insight. (and that of other religious systems). Antagonism e.g. to the theory of evolution. Acquiescence e.g. to management techniques or psychological theories applied in church life, without question. I disliked both, but did not know how to avoid them - until I realised that all thinkers are working within God's creation and so will tend to encounter its laws, that most thinkers who critique previous work do so on the basis of having discovered an aspect of God's creation that previous thinkers overlooked. So their reflection leads to some genuine insight. But their flawed presuppositions mean that they work out this insight in impaired ways, especially when pride or arrogance settle in.
- Aim in research. Antagonistic academic Christians seek to generate 'Christian' theories, out on a limb. Acquiescing Christians simply work on extant theories. What I like to do is to engage with mainstream thought, and Listen, Affirm, Critique and Enrich (LACE) it - for which Dooyeweerd's philosophy is very useful. In this regard the Christian Academic Network asked me to give a number of seminars on 'Shaping my discipline for Christ'.
That summarises what I have found myself doing in research and teaching for the last decade of my academic work, as I approach retirement.
God has given me some wonderful research students to supervise, coming from all over the world!
Learning to work with others, and Asperger's Syndrome
Warning: The following section is an out-pouring of negativity, which seems out of kilter with all that I have said above. I think I still have a lot to learn of holiness and attitude. However I must be honest. I hope to rewrite this section after I have had time to reflect on it.Being in academic life is not always easy. I have to work within an institution with others, often those who have no interest in that kind of vision. I used to love my work, but in the past couple of years this has all changed.
==== a bit removed from here.
How do I work with others? Not well. I often clash with my colleagues, especially with middle management, In committee meetings and examination boards I quite often blow up in anger. This hurts my colleagues. Does it dishonour Christ? I usually apologise (genuinely: it is sometimes hard to work out exactly what to apologise for) and my colleagues seem to accept that.
Sometimes some good comes out of it, such as the time we had an influx of students from India. Most of the teams had copied work for their assignment - but I realised they were not trying to cheat (in some Eastern cultures, copying is seen to honour the source). So I explained what was needed and asked them to do it again. For that, I was wrapped over the knuckles by those in charge, because I had upset their nice smooth system.
The funny thing was: just a few days before that happened I had prayed to the Father something like: "Father, should I be a nuisance for you, or should I keep my head down? If the former, please make me do it." It seems that my nuisance action was of God! I seem to have a sense of justice that makes it difficult for me to toe the line.
I used to love my work, but over the past two years I have come to hate it. Only the vision above keeps me going, and I do that for the Lord Jesus and His world (including students), not for the University. I used to be proud of my university, as one that had a unique mission: to understand the link between theory and practice (rather than merely develop theories or apply them), and that is what kept me there for 25 years. But in the past few years I have seen my university be destroyed (as I see it) by 'unwisdom' at the top and in the centre. I have made some attempts to warn the Vice Chancellor and others but these have been useless, partly because I did them in clumsy or inappropriate ways. I have often have an attitude that is dishonouring to the Lord Jesus Christ.
As I move towards retirement I feel depressed about my university - though not about my academic work as such, which is undergirded by the above vision.
Part of my problem is that I have mild Asperger's Syndrome. See my page on it. Because of this: I find it difficult to recognise non-verbal cues, I cannot understand what people expect of me, I tend to focus, I tend to take a lot into account, I see things differently, I tend to see and speak about 'elephants in the room', I raise awkward questions that others would prefer to remain silent about, but I often do not express myself well, and often say things in ways that others do not find helpful, perhaps because I cannot separate the key issues from the detail or peripheral ones, without a lot of extra thinking, and what others deem unimportant seems important to me, and I find it difficult to see the need to fit in with their arbitrary rules. I have a persecution complex, assuming that the others are all against me, whereas in fact some are probably not.
So, my working with others has not yet been successful. There are times when what I say has been just right and very useful, bringing new insight. This is mainly appreciated by those at the very top (e.g. Vice Chancellor) and the very bottom (e.g. students and fellow workers); the middle managers don't like it (I suppose because they feel they have a job to do, and I am outwith their parameters). This has happened not only in my university but also in my church, where some people in charge have found me difficult - though most of those people have been able to forgive or accept me, unlike some at university. Maybe God's people have something that others don't?? :-)
It has not yet been successful - which probably means that it never will be, because I am about to take partial retirement.
I fear that this dishonours Christ. Is it a blot on the landscape of my spiritual journey? Is it an area where, despite all the good stuff above, I have defeat in my life? Should I "seek victory"? Or am I just as God wants me to be. Remember: Sampson was not exactly a roaring success either.
Jesus For All People
In my teaching and research I have met people from many cultures, and enjoy it. I have had to work out what is my attitude to other religions and cultures. Some consider other religions as agents of Satan, but I find I cannot hold with that. Some consider other religions as just different ways to the same God, but I cannot hold with that either.Very briefly, I have come to the belief that Jesus Christ is the only way to God, and the Bible is unique as God's communication to humankind, but also that there is considerable insight in other religions, and that most major religions do not worship 'other gods' as in pagan religions, but are seeking after the One True God. What is unique about the Bible? Not just its theology, but its style: The Qur'an and the Bhagavad Gita seem to be theoretical treatises or rule books, whereas the Bible is an everyday account of how God has interacted with His world and with humans in particular.
Also, my concern for the 'mundane' side of life, and for environmental responsibility, and for academic activity, together with my espousal of Dooyeweerd's philosophy, have made what I say quite attractive to thinking people of all faiths. I see Jesus as not just for Christians but for all people, regardless of religion.
As a result, a couple of my students and another person have accepted Christ as Saviour and Master, and I have been mentoring them. I do not call them 'Christians', but rather 'followers of Jesus'. By 'follower' I do not mean following Jesus-and-something-else, but full, absolute following, as in Luke 9:24
"If anyone wants to save his life, he will lose it;
But if anyone loses his life for my sake and the gospel's
He will save it."
I leave it to the Holy Spirit of God to tell them what He wants from them. This is an ongoing project, and I am exploring new approaches: I try not to impart conventional 'Christian' interpretations, but what the Bible clearly says as 'big' things - I suppose influenced by the things I have learned, discussed above. I have a wonderful set of partners who support and pray for these two. That is what is taking much of my time at present, though I also spend time on environmental and academic matters. I am learning lots, (even at age 65!), especially how God Himself keeps people.
Learning How God Works
In particular, I am now learning more of how God works. (Should I not have learned this in my 20s?!) As I have mentored those who have accepted Christ, I have at times been greatly worried about them, and have tried to 'sort things out'. I try fasting, because, on a few occasions, I fear that 'the devil is winning'.I have been backed up by a group of around 30 people who pray for us, to whom I send regular prayer emails, some expressing my concern. Frequently I have received messages that amount to "Don't worry so much!" Are they merely writing to make me feel better? Are they merely spouting conventional ideas? Will the enemy gain a foothold if I 'don't worry'?
Then I realise I have been driven by fear, not trust. I realise that God is more concerned than I am, and He knows what to do. So, cautiously and step by little step, I have learned to hold back - and lo! I found that God has indeed sorted things out. And that the result is deeper than it would have been had I stepped in.
I recently (2015) read the recent biography of James O. Fraser, whom God sent to the Lisu people on the China-Burma border. He had a deep burden for these people, but few came to Christ in a deep way, despite his intensive efforts and praying. It turned out that God had to make changes in James Fraser before He could make changes among the Lisu people. Fraser has to learn the 'prayer of faith' that prays once and then trusts God for the answer, and he had to learn to hold his work for God with an open hand, open to how God wanted to work. Then hundreds of Lisu came to Christ in a deep way, many not through Fraser himself (he delighted; contrast my jealousy!). Then thousands, until today the Chinese Government records Christianity as the main religion of the Lisu people.
I am learning a similar lesson. God works in God's own time and in God's own way, and He seeks for those who will join Him in this wonderful work. And I have become more filled with joy than before. With my 'New View' (see above), this joy is not just at people being justified through Christ (Dimension 1), nor that they are learning to live with God in their lives today (Dimension 2), but that these are directed outward towards a whole creation (Dimension 3 of salvation). It seems that God works in ways that 'feel natural', without the destructive stress, even though there is hard work.
One other example: Late in 2014 I remarked to the Father than I had not led anyone to Christ for a long time, and thought nothing of it. Someone contacted me via this website, having found this very page fascinating, and I began an email correspondence. That person was very open, in a way that I (Aspie and disciple) value, and I felt that God had arranged our 'meeting', and thought that 'one day' I might explain how they could know God personally through Jesus. That day came sooner than I had thought, when I tentatively wrote "I don't know whether you are ready for this yet, but it is possible to know Jesus personally, ... In addition to Jesus being *the* Saviour, he is be *my* Saviour and can be *your* Saviour." It turned out it was indeed the right time. I was not expecting all this; it 'just came about'.
Again, I am learning that God works in ways that 'feel natural', and for which 'the time is right', without the kind of stress that is destructive. And that is the work that bears fruit that lasts. I knew this decades ago, but I had not learned it.
Learning to not Adopt Roles
Linked to this, I have been learning not to adopt roles. I have been known occasionally to ask just the right challenging questions that help people. Aware of this, I have then sometimes felt it my role to ask challenging questions - and it hasn't worked very well! I have been known occasionally to have some intuitive wisdom. Aware of this, I have sometimes tried to say the wise thing, or assume that what I feel intuitively is the right thing for a situation - and it hasn't worked very well!It seems that whereas the Spirit of God might occasionally use me, and my background experience, beliefs, intuititions, and my aspergic tendency to ask direct questions that others would not ask, to help people, it is not a 'role' I can adopt. I should just let the Spirit of God use these when it is right.
This does not disappoint me. Instead, it thrills me. And it gives me freedom. You see, if it is my role to do X or Y, then I feel duty-bound to fulfil this role "in season and out of season". When I do this 'because I ought to', then it does not go well. It may be that God can use my having done it later, but I come away with the feeling it were better that I had not done it. To know that the fruitful, effective action is when I am not trying to adopt a role, frees me from these failed attempts.
As I have discovered over the past 40 yaers: freedom in Christ!
Six Decades of Church
Since my childhood, I have felt 'unlinked' to churches. Even so, I have attended church weekly from then right through to my seventies. When young I would attend two churches and one Bible Study class (see Growing in Faith above), despite, maybe because of, this feeling of independence from churches. "Despite", because I did not see church itself as a necessity but only God as the Necessity, yet wanted to attend both. "Because of", because perhaps it was this independence that meant I could go to both denominations even though at that time each saw the other as almost-traitorous to the Christian faith.As a result, I have always been somewhat 'ecumenical' in outlook (though I find the movement known since the 1960s as "Ecumenical" to place far too much emphasis on church organisations, and thus, to me, irrelevant).
To me, God the Father, the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all-important, so are God's world and God's word in Scripture. My life is not centred on church, worship nor eucharist, but on everyday walking "with God". No, I do not take the Nature-grace ground-motive, which says that the things of everyday life can only be important via church and religious activity; to me, everyday life links directly with God. Church seems to me socially and learningly important, but it is never of central necessity. What I value about church is not worship, but learning how to live with people of God. (Thanks to Steve McGibbon for implanting that idea in me: it answered what I have felt for decades.)
With Asperger Syndrome, I find it difficult to learn to live with people, and to like doing so. But I find it valuable and useful. I learn the truths of Scriptures that urge us to love each other, forgive each other as God in Christ has forgiven us, to "leave your gift at the altar and go first to mend things with your brother", and so on. (Marriage does this even more, but in different ways!)
I wonder whether the elevation of the importance of church is fuelled by the Sacred-secular divide, which has so long damaged Christian thought and action.
But what about that famous verse in Hebrews, "Do not forget to meet together"? Does not that require us to attend church regularly? Not really (and in any case I do attend regularly).
Over the past six decades I have pondered this. Today, I think I am beginning to understand better the role of church in our lives, which I am developing in the page, The Church - A New View. "The duty of the church," someone once wrote, "is to find out where God is working and go and join Him there." I like that.
Learning to Trust
===== tbw: how I learned to trust God for others, e.g. how not to fast.A New Attitude to Others
(This perhaps repeats some of Blessing Others but focuses on attitude of heart, but it links it more explicitly with my earlier discovery of God changing my will.)In the past, I always felt inferior and insecure. When someone else did well I might become envious (see my page on Jealousy) or at least threatened. I knew I 'ought' not to be like that, but still found myself like that, and all I could do was struggle against it, and keep confessing to the Lord and keep asking for cleansing from it (I John 1:9). Then, late in life (my late 60s or even early 70s), I began to change.
I now find myself rejoicing in the gifts of others rather than being jealous or threatened. I no longer do so because I 'ought' to, no longer struggle to do so, but I find myself doing so from the heart. Maybe it's just maturing age that brought it about, but as I look at my attitude, I detect a different cause.
The different cause is my changing theology, as expressed in A New View in Theology and Practice. As mentioned above, I have been trying to work out a theology that expresses God's concern for environmental matters and it has extended to other 'secular' concerns. In doing this, I have gradually realised a new dignity, as a representative of God, working and participating with God to bring blessing to the entire Creation. It goes along with recognising the three dimensions of Salvation.
No longer am I stuck with merely being 'saved' (Dimension 1), nor experiencing God here and now (Dimension 2), in which I always found that others were much more advanced than I. The Holy Spirit has opened to me the reality of being one of many "mature-sons" (Greek huios) of God for whom Creation is waiting expectantly - but only one among many. Those others, who excel above me, are also fellow workers.
Somehow I always knew that in my head, but now I find it in my heart. It is yet another manifestation of what I learned in 1970, that God is at work in me to change my will. Thank you, Heavenly Father. May it continue to the blessing of Your Creation.
Above, I mentioned how I devised LACE as a methodology for engaging with thinking that differs from my own. I wonder whether its Affirm stage might have emerged from this new attitude.
Learning to Listen
The danger of a servant attitude is that one is always trying to serve others, do things for others, i.e. solve the problems others have. Too often, when I have been hearing someone express their problems, I jump in and try to solve them with the knowledge that I have been granted over the decades of my life. Grrrr! Very often it is inappropriate, not least because what someone says when expressing a problem is very often not the real problem. And in any case, Jesus is the problem-solver, not I.I noticed some years ago that when Jesus was asked a question, very often the answer He gave was not a direct answer but something that comes in sideways. To "But who is my neighbour?" Jesus told a story, made a member of a despised race central and spoke about heart compassion rather than ethical rules, invited the questioner to respond and replied, not with "You are correct" but "Go and do likewise." Jesus knew the real problem the person had was not one of academic definition, but of attitude and need to act.
I am still learning not to jump in with my ideas and solutions. But at least I now realise what I am doing and try to be content to just listen more.
Epiphany1 Abrahamic Blessing
The first reading in the Radio 3 Epiphany service today (8 January 2023) was Genesis 12, on how God promised to Abram (later Abraham), not only to bless him but that "and through you all peoples will be blessed." The other readings were about blessing to all peoples, the gentiles, culminating in readings about the Magi seeking God's Saviour. Some time within the last decade, this passage gave me an epiphany in the usual sense, of a sudden important insight - though I never thought of that word until today.The insight is that we all are in the train of God's Abrahamic blessing. The way I see it is that, for millennia, people had been wanting to find out about God, speculating what God is like (for instance in the ancient religion of Hinduism). God wanted to communicate to humanity what God was really like so, when the time was right, He chose Abram (Abraham) as the one person through whom to work, down through the ages. That was 4000 years ago. Since that time, God has had a witness, a representative here on Earth, who is supposed to show what God is like and through whom God would work out long plans for the salvation of the entire Creation. That included 1500 years of having a Israel to represent God as a nation among nations, a culture among cultures, then the Messiah, Jesus, God in human form Who would enact and achieve full salvation, and now for 2000 years people (Christians) who represent God as people among people.
That is how I see the Abrahamic Blessing. A few years ago I read historian Tom Holland's book on the history of Christianity, the main message of which is that self-sacrificing love and compassion for the need emerged from Christianity, not from Greek or Roman cultures. It seems to me that, insofar at Tom Holland, who is not a believing Christian, is correct, introduction of this attitude and motivation into the world is part of that Abrahamic Blessing. Other parts are revelations of the nature of God, of what God finds important, such as some introduced by Christianity such as the importance of children and shepherding of the rest of Creation, and the entry of science, and some by Judaism, such as the oneness of God, the idea of Sabbath, and others (listed by Rabbi Nathan Lopez Cardozo). And, to cap it all, supremely, the salvation wrought by Christ. All this is part of Abrahamic Blessing.
For years I had felt uncomfortable about the emphasis in some Christian circles on warfare against 'the Enemy' (Satan and wrong doctrines). Now I knew why. God, as my brother Nick told me years ago, is a God Who desires to bless. And in this Promise to Abraham we find God's plan is to Bless. God did not say "Through you all nations will be defeated / made subservient / converted / made your slaves / etc." but "Blessed." Now I have a basis for recognising that spiritual warfare is only a minor, not a major, theme in Scripture. It still occurs of course, but is not the thing that should drive us.
And now I can see myself as blessing others in the Name of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Somehow, this resonates with my wanting to help shepherd the rest of Creation. Not my own blessing, but rather letting God bless others through me. So I no longer need push myself, envy the gifts of others, or whatever plagued me in the past.
Glorious!
THE STORY CONTINUES
The story continues. I began writing this more than a dozen years ago and, even in this last decade, between the ages of 50 and 60+, I have found that God does new things with those who let him. What'll happen in the next ten years, I don't know. But I know that the Living God is faithful, and that his plans and ways are best. I am delighted to be a follower of Jesus and a "worker together with God" within and for his beloved Creation, human and non-human. Amen, so may it always be.This page, "http://abxn.org/.html" is part of Andrew Basden's abxn.org pages - pages that open up discussion and exploration from a Christian ('xn') perspective. Written on the Amiga with Protext, in the style of classic HTML.
Comments, queries welcome. or send message to:
In case you cannot read that, it is the letters "xn" (for "Christian") at "kgsvr" followed by ".net" (standing for knowledge server on the net"). Thank you.
Copyright (c) Andrew Basden at all dates below. But you may use this material for almost any non-antagonistic purpose (including commercial) subject to certain easy conditions.