Category Archives: People

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. …

Ryle, father and son

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Many of my readers will have heard of ‘Bishop Ryle’.  They will know something of the English clergyman who served churches in East Anglia for many years, before being appointed the first Bishop of Liverpool.  J.C. Ryle was considered something of a ‘conservative’ even in his own day (he lived from 1816-1900).  He defended expounded and defended evangelical churchmanship – the vigorous Protestantism of the Reformers and the Puritans – in the face of Anglo-catholicism and ‘modernism’.…

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

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New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham appeared recently on Premier Radio’s ‘Unbelievable’ show.  He discussed his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses with fellow New Testament scholar James Crossley.

Here are a few notes on some of the arguments presented by Bauckham:-

His book sets out new arguments in favour of the ‘traditional’ view of the authorship and historicity of the four Gospels, and, in particular, that they present reliable eyewitness testimony of the life and ministry of Jesus.…

The Gospel according to Tom Wright

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One of the more controversial aspects of the teaching of Bishop Tom Wright is his understanding of the Christian gospel, and of the task of proclaiming that gospel.

He notes that much ‘evangelism’ has consisted of

‘taking the traditional framework of heaven-and-hell expectation and persuading people that it’s time they considered the ‘heaven’ option and grabbed it which they had the chance.  What’s stopping them getting there is sin; the solution is provided in Jesus Christ; all they have to do is to accept it!’

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Michael Harper, 1931-2010

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Michael Harper, a key figure in the charismatic renewal in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, died on January 6th.

He was a curate at All Souls Langham Place (London), serving alongside John Stott.  He left in 1964 to form the Fountain Trust, which was dedicated to spreading the charismatic message of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by speaking in tongues.  I believe that he was quite closely associated in those early days of the charismatic movement with the late David Watson, and that the two of them made an impression on the noted preacher and evangelical leader Martyn Lloyd-Jones.…

Heaven revisited

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Bishop Tom Wright is a firm and frequent critic (in Surprised by hope and other writings) of the idea that ‘salvation’ equates to ‘going to heaven when you die’.

What, then should we understand to be the meaning of ‘heaven’ in Scripture?  Several answers may be given to this question:-

1.  ‘Heaven’ can mean ‘sky’, or what we would understand as the rest of the cosmos apart from the earth, Gen 1:1.

2.  ‘Heaven’ can mean the abode of God and of those closely associated with God. …

‘Your labour in the Lord is not in vain’

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In 1 Corinthians  15:58 Paul writes,

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Tom Wright (Surprised by Hope, SPCK) places considerable emphasis on this verse, coming as it does after Paul’s great affirmation of physical resurrection.  Although I do not think that Wright offers a novel interpretation of this verse, I do think that he draws out its implications more clearly and helpfully than most:-

For Paul, the bodily resurrection does not leave us saying “so that’s all right; we shall go, at the last, to join Jesus in a non-bodily, Platonic heaven”…Belief in the bodily resurrection includes the belief that what is done in the present in the body, by the power of the Spirit, will be reaffirmed in the eventual future, in ways at which we can presently only guess.

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How to end a sermon

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I’m probably not the only preacher who sometimes finds it difficult to know how to end a sermon.

Bryan Chapell has some helpful hints.  Here’s a summary.

1.  Poems and quotations have limited value

The modern hearer tends not to appreciate high literature.  And, in any case, why give the final word to someone else?

‘Unless the poem says precisely what you intend, says it better than you could, and touches a deeper chord than you can reach, frame your own final words.’…

Rethinking ‘salvation’

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Most of us (writes Tom Wright in Surprised by hope, 206-213) take ‘salvation’ to mean ‘going to heaven when you die’; implying that this present body and this present world will be left behind and the ‘soul’ will fly off to some disembodied existence.

But this view scarcely counts as ‘rescue from death’.  Rather, it colludes with death by denying that God’s good creation really is good, and that he intends ‘to reaffirm that goodness in a wonderful act of new creation at the last’.…