Category Archives: People

Justification – a peripheral doctrine?

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A couple of years ago Roger Forster, founder of Ichthus Christian Fellowship, discussed the atonement with atheist Marilyn Mason on Premier Radio’s ‘Unbelievable’ show.  I’m normally a big fan of ‘Unbelievable’, but this was not, I think, one of the more enlightening episodes.  Marilyn Mason’s stock response to any and every point made from the Christian perspective tended to be, simply, ‘That doesn’t make sense to me’, and so little progress could be made.

More disappointing still, however, was Roger Forster’s dismissal of justification as a central element in the atonement:-

I could run you off a list of some fifteen words which are used in the New Testament to try and explain what is going on at the cross, showing that there are at least fifteen – probably a lot more – models of actually what is taking place.

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Glorying in the Cross of Christ

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‘May I never,’ writes Paul in Galatians 6:14, ‘boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

Let us note, says J.C. Ryle, what the Apostle Paul did not boast or glory in.  He did not boast in his

  1. national privileges, cf. Php 3:5.  He was a Jew by birth, a member of the favoured people of God, a child of the covenant;
  2. works, cf. 2 Cor 11:23.  He worked tirelessly, travelling, preaching, and enduring many hardships;
  3. knowledge, 2 Cor 12:4. 
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The Cross inspires justice, as well as love

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John Stott spells out one important aspect of ‘living under the cross’:-

The cross is a revelation of God’s justice as well as of his love.  That is why the community of the cross should concern itself with social justice as well as with loving philanthropy.  It is never enough to have pity on the victims of injustice, if we do nothing to change the unjust situation itself.  Good Samaritans will always be needed to succour those who are assaulted and robbed; yet it would be even better to rid the Jerusalem-Jericho road of brigands.

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Is the self to be affirmed, or repudiated?

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Christians, no less than many of their critics, can get in an awful muddle about the question of whether we are supposed to have a positive or a negative view of human nature; whether we are to affirm or repudiate it.

John Stott clarifies by noting that what we are is partly the result of our creation by God in his image, and partly the result of the defacing of that image in the Fall.  Stott explains:-

Whatever we are by creation we must affirm: our rationality, our sense of moral obligation, our sexuality (whether masculinity or femininity), our family life, our gifts of aesthetic appreciation and artistic creativity, our stewardship of the fruitful earth, our hunger for love and experience of community, our awareness of the transcendent majesty of God, and our inbuilt urge to fall down and worship him. …

Celebrating the Cross

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Reflection on the death of Christ and its achievement, so far from being a sombre experience, actually leads to a type and degree of celebration that can be found nowhere else.

For the cross brings us into a new relationship with God.  This relationship is marked by boldness, love and joy.  And these do not belong merely in the interior experience of the individual believers, but are to distinguish our public worship.

As W.M. Clow points out:-

‘There is no forgiveness in this world, or in that which is to come, except through the cross of Christ. …

Out of the mouth of…Christopher Hitchens

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Noted atheist (anti-theist, really) Christopher Hitchens was once interviewed by Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell.

The following exchange was enlightening:-

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book [God Is Not Great] is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

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Assisted suicide? – no thanks

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Bishop Tom Wright opposes the idea of the government setting up an independent enquiry to look at assisted suicide.  Speaking recently in the House of Lords, he said that

‘Parliament is there not to bend to every media-manipulated public whim, but to take the larger and longer view.’

It is often the case that ethics debates taking on a special meaning when individual cases are considered.  Bishop Wright drew attention to

‘The old lady who last summer told me several times that she just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up, but who eventually made a full recovery and celebrated her 63rd wedding anniversary last month and greeted her sixth greatgrandchild last week. 

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Spiritual authority

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In his excellent collection of essays and papers on the Puritans, J.I. Packer offers the following succinct account of spiritual authority:-

‘Spiritual authority is hard to pin down in words, but we recognise it when we meet it. It is a product compounded of

      • conscientious faithfulness to the Bible;
      • vivid perception of God’s reality and greatness;
      • inflexible desire to honour and please him;
      • deep self-searching and radical self-denial;
      • adoring intimacy with Christ;
      • generous compassion manward; and
      • forthright simplicity, God-taught and God-wrought, adult in its knowingness while childlike in its directness.’
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To atheism – and back again

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The writer A.N. Wilson has recently been writing about his return to faith.  Associated in his earlier life in turns with the Church of England and with Roman Catholicism, he describes his ‘Damascus Road conversion’ to atheism, which took place in the 1980s.

I’m not sure what flavour of Christian faith Wilson has returned to, but I was struck with one statement in particular in his piece in New Statesman:-

When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love.

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A Unitarian ‘miracle’?

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Unitarians, as far as I can tell, don’t believe in miracles.  At least, they don’t believe in the kinds of miracles recorded in the Bible, including Christ’s Virgin Birth and resurrection.

However, while spending a bit of time exploring the beliefs and practices of Unitarians, I came across a rather extraordinary statement which, if true, would certainly have to be regarded as evidence for the miraculous.

I was reading the transcript of a sermon recently preached by Unitarian minister Rev Sarah Tinker. …