Category Archives: Theology

Here’s something you might not hear at your Reformed church this Sunday: YOU don’t get to decide who the Christians are.

Rob Bell is a preacher, pastor, author and leading thinker on theological issues. Earlier this year, he wrote a book called “Love Wins” which caused a huge controversy (buy it at Amazon or Amazon.co.uk). One of the upsetting things was the number of detractors who were prepared to “critique” his book without even reading it. Insane, but true. I was sent one which was even printed in the best selling Christian magazine in South Africa where the reviewer freely admitted he hadn’t read the book.

Apparently, people who attend Rob’s church in Grand Rapids were put upon by all and sundry and had a torrid time trying to defend their pastor. On 27 March 2011, Rob started the service with a statement which he labelled “The Agony of Explanation” in their official podcast. I think it is a remarkable few minutes.

He states his beliefs. And there is nothing in any of his books which would contradict this very traditional set of beliefs. He then talks a bit about what he was trying to convey in the book. If you’re not going to read the book, you might as well listen to what he says the message is. He also talks a lot about the attitude one should have. An attitude like Jesus’, I believe.

Anyway, for many reasons, it’s worth listening to Rob in his own words, as he interacts with one of the leadership team of the church:

[audio:https://www.futurechurchnow.com/uploads/Rob_Bell_on_the_Agony_of_Explanation.mp3]

You can find the full podcasts from the church in their free iTunes channel: Mars Hill Bible Church

General, Theology

What is an ‘easy Gospel’? Rob Bell, Love Wins, Galatians and Good News

2011/05/04 Graeme 6 Comments

Here’s something you might think you heard at church, but probably not in the way it should be said: Love Wins!

Maybe you haven’t noticed yet, but there is a storm of controversy and debate about Rob Bell’s latest book, Love Wins (buy it Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). It’s about heaven, hell and the Gospel. I’ve read it and will write more about it in a few weeks when I have some spare time. It deserves a good response and review – I think he makes some superb points. But more of that later.

Bell’s book has garnered huge response from evangelicals who feel that Bell is subverting the Gospel. One of their common criticisms is that he is preaching an easy Gospel. Most go on to add that this is “obviously” because he wants to draw a crowd (they normally then reference his large and growing congregation) and become famous. Whatever else might be said about what Bell is doing, I think this criticism does not wash. The Gospel that many emerging church Christians are pursuing is not an “easy” Gospel, designed to make life less difficult. In fact, Bell’s view of Scripture makes Christian living even harder.

Basically he says (and this is a VERY simple summary): Everyone who gets in heaven gets there because God credits to them what Jesus accomplished on the Cross (no problems there, I think). Everyone will be given a fair chance by God to fully understand what Jesus did and accept the gift of salvation (some problems start there, but generally most are still fine with this). Our opportunities to understand and accept Jesus’ salvation plan do not end at death – those who did not accept Jesus while alive will have opportunity to do so when they meet Him (maybe you see the problem some people have). Meeting God and Jesus face to face will be so overwhelming that “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord” – and even if they don’t do instantly and immediately, God has all eternity to convince them to do so (conservative evangelicals who might have been OK probably have a problem here). Hell, therefore, is not a separate place of eternal torment, but rather it is the state of living in denial of God’s sovereignty and salvation – in other words, not living as God intended us to live. By the way, heaven is not a place in the clouds, it exists here on this earth when God ends time and comes down to “make the kingdoms of this earth the Kingdom of His Christ” (most thinking evangelicals should actually be fine with this point, if their heads haven’t exploded yet).

That’s where most summaries of the book end. But that’s not where Bell stops. He then explains that the goal of life on earth now is to “make it on earth as it is in heaven”. We have eternal life (“life of the ages” to be strict about the translation of the Johanine phrase) right now, and are to live in such a way that we show evidence of God’s work among us. “The Kingdom is at hand, it is among us” – you should be able to reach out and touch it. Hell starts now if we don’t do so. Our lives become hell when we live them in opposition to the Designer’s plan.

Continue reading What is an ‘easy Gospel’? Rob Bell, Love Wins, Galatians and Good News →

General, Global issues, Social Justice, Theology

Should we celebrate Osama bin Laden’s death?

2011/05/02 Graeme 1 Comment

I don’t think we should. I think this is a moment to show the world how different Christian faith is – and what a difference Christ makes in the world. By the way, I don’t think the world is a safer place tonight. At least in the near future it’s just got a little bit scarier – especially since I am planning four trips to the USA in the next six weeks.

Two articles published today in Christianity Today helped me to think through this issue a bit more thoroughly, and I recommend them to you.

Firstly, Gideon Strauss, CEO of the Center for Public Justice, argues that “Yes, Justice Has Been Done in the Killing of Osama bin Laden”, but our response as Christians must be marked by knowledge of our own depravity. Read his article here.

His points are Biblical and theological. Proverbs 24:17 says: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.” And Ezekiel 18:23: “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”

He understands that we have a desire for retribution, and acknowledges that God understands this (see Psalm 137). “But beyond this immediate response, understandable as it is, I believe it is necessary for Christians to pause, and to consider the death of Osama bin Laden within the deeper perspective of human sin and divine grace. In the end, no death should give us pleasure…. Our best next response, I believe, to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, after we have sought our own hearts for the wickedness that resides in all of us, and have thanked God for his amazing grace that has rescued us from our own evil, is to join President Obama on May 5, this year’s National Day of Prayer, ‘in giving thanks for the many blessings we enjoy’ and ‘in asking God for guidance, mercy, and protection for our nation.’ And perhaps we can add a prayer for our enemies, that God may win them to himself and in his own good time bring into the relations between this nation and those who now seek her destruction some foretaste of the just peace of his world to come.”

But an even more profound response was written by Michael Horton, Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, CA. He titled it: “The Death of Osama bin Laden: What Kind of Justice Has Been Done?” The news should again remind us of the difference between the City of Man and the City of God. You can read it here, or an extended extract below.

Continue reading Should we celebrate Osama bin Laden’s death? →

General, Theology, Youth

Dear God, who invented you?

2011/04/26 Graeme Leave a comment

Brian McLaren alerted me to a lovely little story in the British media over the weekend. A young girl sent a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury sent her a remarkable reply.

A six-year-old girl writes a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury answers

By Damian Thompson, The Telegraph, April 22nd, 2011

There’s a charming article in today’s Times by Alex Renton, a non-believer who sends his six-year-old daughter Lulu to a Scottish church primary school. Her teachers asked her to write the following letter: “To God, How did you get invented?” The Rentons were taken aback: “We had no idea that a state primary affiliated with a church would do quite so much God,” says her father. He could have told Lulu that, in his opinion, there was no God; or he could have pretended that he was a believer. He chose to do neither, instead emailing her letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (ditto) and the Scottish Catholics (a nice but theologically complex answer). For good measure, he also sent it to “the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace” – and this was the response:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.
But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan

I think this letter reveals a lot about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sort of theology – more, indeed, than many of his lectures or agonised Synod addresses. I’d be interested to know whether readers of this blog think he did a good job of answering Lulu’s question.

But what the letter also tells us is that the Archbishop took the trouble to write a really thoughtful message – unmistakably his work and not that of a secretary – to a little girl. “Well done, Rowan!” was the reaction of Alex Renton’s mother, and I agree.

Source: The Independent

Church, Future trends, General, Global issues, Theology

From Minority to Majority – a problem for Reformed Protestants

2011/02/27 Graeme Leave a comment

This post was originally written on 10 June 2009, on the previous version of my blog

I was recently sent an article from the Associated Baptist Press (ABP, USA), entitled: “Baptists urged to consider risks of ‘majoritarian faith’”, by David Wilkinson. It is a news article about a recent lecture by Baptist historian Doug Weaver, speaking at the Baptist History and Heritage Society annual meeting.

His main point was that Baptists (and by inference, other Reformed Protestants) were shaped and formed as persecuted, minority groups. Now, they are majority, mainstream groups, and are in danger (I’d say they have already) lost their distinctiveness and compromised their values. In particular, he is concerned that Baptists have abandoned their belief in religious liberty (and in liberty in general).

While Baptists proudly point to religious liberty and church-state separation as their distinctive contributions to American history, Weaver said, contemporary Baptist heirs to that tradition may find it difficult to relate to their 17th-century forebears, who were part of a persecuted minority of dissenters to official state-supported denominations.

“We are used to being a part of the majority. We are the Bible Belt, maybe even the buckle of that belt. We are Baptists, the largest body of Protestants in the United States,” Weaver, a religion professor at Baylor University, said. “We have climbed the ladder of success numerically, socially and intellectually. We have an air of respectability. We are the majority; hear us roar.”

In contrast, he noted, it was the persecuted minority groups – the Anabaptists, Baptists and Quakers – that “pushed the Christian world in the 16th and 17th centuries to face the music and hear cries for complete religious liberty.”

Continue reading From Minority to Majority – a problem for Reformed Protestants →

Church, General, Theology

Four “lanes” of the emerging church

2011/02/24 Graeme Leave a comment

This post was originally written on 7 March 2009, on the previous version of my blog

If you’ve done any reading on the emerging church, you’ll probably know the name Mark Driscoll. He has distanced himself from “Emergent”, the voice of emerging church in the USA. But he nevertheless still considers himself as “emerging”, although he prefers the label “Reformed Missional” or “Emerging Reformers”.

The video can be found at YouTube (click here). Or see below.

I think he is overly critical of the “fourth lane”, which he labels the “Emerging Liberals”. He is incorrect about Rob Bell, for example, who does NOT say that we can get rid of the virgin birth. It’s interesting. Driscoll says in this video below that “they are asking questions that no pastors should be asking”. Maybe that’s the big difference here. Reformed guys think that some issues should not be discussed, and that all Truth (with a capital T) has already been discovered (i.e. we are not wrong on any major issues right now in the history of the church). Anyone who is open to having conversations about this is labelled a liberal, and is seen as dangerous.

You decide.

But, here, at least is Driscoll’s video. I don’t buy into his analysis of the “emerging liberals”, but it probably fairly represents the concern most people have with the “emerging church”.

The video can be found at YouTube (click here).

On the previous blog, the following useful comments were added to the original post:

Continue reading Four “lanes” of the emerging church →

Church, Future trends, General, Global issues, Missional, Theology

Engaging with Islam – with an agenda of peace, reconciliation and truth seeking

2011/01/04 Graeme Leave a comment

Here’s something you probably won’t hear at church, but should: Jews and Muslims are not “the enemy”.

I wrote yesterday about the need to engage appropriately with skeptics of the Christian faith. It’s also important for Christians to engage with people of other faiths and religions. The most important route to lasting global peace right now is for the three major monotheistic religions to find ways to peacefully engage with each other.

It is amazing to me that the Christian right wing in the United States has so easily and quickly engaged – even integrated – with Judaism (and especially Zionistic Judaism). I don’t want to comment on that issue in this blog entry, but it does indicate that major religions are able to find ways to engage with each other when they share a common goal (like the protection of the State of Israel). What better goal for all religious leaders to have than world peace?

So, it was with interest that I read about Amr Khaled in the (very conservative) Spectator magazine Christmas edition. This is a Muslim cleric who seems to be gaining the kind of reputation in the Islamic world that Billy Graham or Bill Hybels have in the Protestant Christian world. Although there would be obviously be significant theological differences between us, I nevertheless support his efforts to bring about a calmer, more rational, more engaging Islam. That can only be a good thing, and should be supported by all Christian everywhere. Maybe this is a common space for all religious people (and those of no faith, too) to play.

But read the article for yourself (at The Spectator website, or an extract below) and make up your own mind.

Continue reading Engaging with Islam – with an agenda of peace, reconciliation and truth seeking →

FutureChurchNow by Graeme Codrington

Category Archives: Theology

Rob Bell on the agony of explanation – and what he believes

What is an ‘easy Gospel’? Rob Bell, Love Wins, Galatians and Good News

Dear God, who invented you?

A six-year-old girl writes a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury answers

From Minority to Majority – a problem for Reformed Protestants

Four “lanes” of the emerging church

Engaging with Islam – with an agenda of peace, reconciliation and truth seeking

Graeme Codrington's musings on a new kind of Christianity

Christianity as Country Club

A six-year-old girl writes a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury answers

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

Graeme Codrington's musings on a new kind of Christianity