Tradition Enquiry for Theological Studies, Part One: Method and Curriculum

‘Tradition Enquiry’ in theological studies locates the research a scholar is conducting within and with respect to theological traditions.  It helps researchers consider the state of an exegetical, theological, ethical, missiological, pastoral, etc. issue in a particular tradition of enquiry and in relation to other traditions. 

Too often, theological researchers address a contemporary issue with only a cursory engagement with Scripture—even ignoring Biblical studies (exegesis, Biblical theology)—and ignore the Church’s engagement with the issue for hundreds or thousands of years.  The result is that they turn to the social sciences, contextual theology, practical theology, or public theology without even a glance at theological traditions of the Church.

The proper theological training for tradition enquiry requires a person to be trained in Biblical exegesis, Biblical theology and ethics, historical theology and ethics, Church history, and the contemporary Church.  Tradition Enquiry will undertake such studies with an eye toward the development of various Christian traditions, including where such traditions stand today.  The researcher must understand purely academic studies on the relevant issue and not only study materials in his or her own tradition.  The point of tradition enquiry is to study the issue with an awareness of where a tradition’s point of view matters.  Some guidance towards this end is provided here.

A tradition can be described diachronically (through time, historically) and synchronically (at a particular time).  It can be defined narratively or systematically.  It can be described internally or with reference to other (external) traditions with which it overlaps and differs.

Following Alasdair MacIntyre, a tradition enquiry will:[1]

1.     Entail a prior commitment to a particular perspective

2.     Appreciate a narrative view of history

3.     Have and work from a particular understanding of authority with respect to a certain community, a certain collection of texts, and a certain tradition of interpretation

4.     Appreciate the role of trusted teachers to form others in the tradition

5.     Employ dialectic reasoning, working from faith to understanding or from convictions towards first principles

Tradition enquiry should, however, also explore other traditions in the same way, not just one’s own tradition.  The goal should be to see what implications and ramifications a given tradition’s presuppositions have.  This is not relativism.  If enquiry leads to views that are irreconcilable with the tradition one has held, then the researcher ought to be converted to a new tradition.  The difference this approach offers from Enlightenment enquiry is that it works from convictions rather than imagines that convictions can be made irrelevant and a pure reasoning can proceed.[2]

Method

I would suggest the following steps for tradition enquiry.

1. Identify your traditions.  The first step in tradition enquiry would be to identify the traditions of which one is a part.  For example, someone might be a Reformed Baptist who is Evangelical.  This person shares a tradition with Presbyterians in being Reformed and also, more broadly, Evangelical.  As an Evangelical, this person also shares things in common with others who are orthodox theologically and ethically in the Orthodox Church and in Roman Catholicism.

2. Understand your traditions generally.  In this, one needs to be well-enough educated about the traditions to be conversant with the history and views held.  This may involve reading denominational history and theology in a more academic way while also being aware of current news of the traditions.  Our example person, therefore, might study Reformed Church history and systematic theology while also being aware of how being Baptist and Reformed distinguishes himself from other Evangelicals, such as Wesleyans and Pentecostals.  He will be able to explain how being a Baptist is different from other Reformed denominations, such as Presbyterians.

3. Understand the topic being researched historically, with particular attention to one’s own traditions.

4. Understand the topic Biblically, including how Scripture has been interpreted regarding the issue under investigation.

5. Enquire into the issue both in terms of how one’s tradition has come to its convictions over against or in agreement with others and in terms of whether the research raises challenges to the traditional interpretation.

Such a description of tradition enquiry clarifies which books, journals, and resources will be needed for the study and what questions need to be answered.  It also explains how research needs to bring together the fields of study that have been separated in academia.  The orthodox, Evangelical researcher approaching his or her subject through tradition enquiry will engage with Biblical scholarship (both exegesis and Biblical theology/ethics), historical theology/ethics, and different ecclesial traditions.  Tradition enquiry will not skip over the Church’s history and replace it with a raw, contextual interpretation, and it will not minimize Biblical studies and replace this with a simplistic reference to some Biblical passages in translation.  Finally, the enquiry into one’s tradition will be analytical (understanding why convictions are held), critical (assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the tradition’s convictions), and relevant (fully engaged with the contemporary Church and relevant context).

Tradition enquiry will absorb certain interests and approaches of contextual, practical, and public theology.  At the same time, it will redirect these fields by addressing their concerns from the standpoint of a tradition.  It will also correct failures in such approaches to theology.  Contextual theology typically ignores theological traditions and undermines the authority of Scripture in favour of being amenable to a particular context (such as Asian Theology, African Theology, South American Theology/Liberation Theology, Post-colonial theology).  Practical theology may be more amenable to tradition enquiry, yet it prioritises a practice and its contemporary execution over the distinctives of different traditions.  It typically favours study from the social sciences over more in-depth Biblical, theological, and historical enquiry.  Public theology intentionally translates theological enquiry into non-traditional language and approaches theology through generic values rather than from authoritative texts, communities, and interpretations.

In seminary training, Biblical courses would be more theological and historical, theology course would be more Biblical and historical, and historical courses would be more Biblical and theological.  In all the courses, the contemporary practices and convictions of various traditions would be critically studied, and personal faith and ministerial practice would be discussed and applied.  Moreover, the classroom curriculum would be integrated with the worship and practices of the faith community, and this would be done with an intentionality in regard to the tradition.

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[1] Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame, 1990), pp. 59ff.

 [2] See further Rollin G. Grams, Rival Versions of Theological Enquiry (Prague: International Baptist Theological Seminary, 2005).

The Joy That Flows Beneath Life's Troubles

 One of my favourite hymns is, ‘Rejoice! The Lord is King!’ by Charles Wesley.  It is a powerful hymn, rejoicing that Christ Jesus reigns from heaven, that His kingdom cannot fail, that He is victor over all His foes and over all our sins, and that He has victory over death.  The hymn celebrates Jesus’ reign as Lord and what that means.  It celebrates Jesus’ victory over what is wrong in our lives—our sins—and in our world.  The hymn is triumphant, and our response to Jesus’ triumph is to rejoice.  It commands us to rejoice, and we are eager to do so: we sing, ‘Jesus, the Saviour reigns, The God of truth and love.’  The hymn rightly puts Christ Jesus at the centre of it all: we rejoice not because of our emotions, our situations, our own happiness for any reason; we rejoice because of Him. 

The theme of joy rings throughout the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.  John the Baptist leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb when he came into the presence of Jesus in Mary’s womb (Luke 1.44).  Mary says, ‘My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,... for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name’ (Luke 1.47, 49).  The angel tells the shepherds good news of great joy that Jesus the Savior, Messiah, and Lord was born (Luke 2.10-11).  Joseph and Mary rejoice at the birth of their firstborn child.  The magi ‘rejoiced exceedingly with great joy’, Matthew tells us, when they found Jesus the newborn king (Matthew 2.10).

In our lives, we can be joyful about many things, such as that some plan worked out as we had hoped, that we solved a problem, that we found someone to marry.  We can be joyful in our situation in life: our job, where we live, our families and friends.  Yet the joy we now celebrate as believers in Jesus Christ goes much deeper.  It is the joy of salvation.  It is a joy we might have even if our plan did not work out, even if we failed to solve a problem, even if we are faced with hardship, even if our jobs are not all that wonderful, even if our families and friends disappoint us.  Like underground streams in the desert, the theme of joy runs deeper in our lives than all such circumstances.[1]

The word ‘joy’ and words related appear 374 times in the English Standard Version translation of the Bible.[2]  Rejoicing runs through the entire Bible.  The theme of joy and rejoicing is already part of the worship of Israel in the Old Testament.  For instance, Psalm 35.9 says, ‘Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD, exulting in his salvation.’  Psalm 64.10 says, ‘Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD and take refuge in him!’  The reason for joy is that our joy is in God; we rejoice in the Lord God, who is forever the same, our Rock and our Salvation.  Psalm 30 has those lovely words, ‘Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning’ (v. 5b).  The last two verses of Ps. 30 are:

 

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
    you have loosed my sackcloth
    and clothed me with gladness,
¹² that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!’

 

Note that to rejoice is to testify to others of the God who turns our mourning into dancing.  In testifying of God’s goodness we witness to others. 

 

The joy that the Israelites had came because they knew that God was their Saviour.  This is the link between the faith of Israel in the Old Testament and the faith of Christians in the New Testament: our joy in God our Saviour.  While the word ‘joy’ is not mentioned, the theme of joy is present in Exodus 15, when God delivers Israel from the pursuing Egyptian armies on horseback.  Safe on the other side of the waters, the Israelites sing and the women dance because God has saved their lives.  They sing,

 

I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;
    the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
2   The LORD is my strength and my song,
    and he has become my salvation;
  this is my God, and I will praise him,
    my father’s God, and I will exalt him’ (Exodus 15.1-2).

 

Exulting in God, they sing,

 

‘Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?
    Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
    awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?’ (15.11).

God’s salvation was not just a salvation from enemies or sickness or some unpleasant circumstances.  It was also a salvation from sin and death. 

 

What was amazingly true for the Israelites escaping their attackers was true at a much more fundamental level when God brought us all salvation through Jesus Christ.  If the Israelites ended their song of rejoicing with the words, ‘The Lord will reign forever and ever’ (Exodus 15.18), all people of the earth can sing about God’s salvation through Jesus Christ the King.  In the words of Charles Wesley’s song, ‘Rejoice!  The Lord is King!’ and ‘Jesus the Saviour reigns’ and ‘His kingdom cannot fail’ and ‘Rejoice in glorious hope’—the first lines of each stanza.

 

The Christian faith is one of exceeding joy.  Indeed, we Christians are exhorted to rejoice and sing praises.  As Paul says, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice’ (Philippians 4.4).  When Paul lists the fruit that grows in our lives from being filled with the Spirit of God, he includes ‘joy’ in the list: ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control’ (Galatians 5.22-23).

 

All of us, it is true, know deep sadness, even depression.  Some of us live lives of pain or of regret or of grief or of guilt.  Or life might simply be hard and troublesome.  Did Jesus not say to His disciples in the upper room just before they were to be devastated by Jesus’ crucifixion, ‘In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world’? (John 16.33).  Those words, ‘take heart’, could be translated, ‘take courage’.  How can we take courage in the face of unbearable sorrow, in times of persecution, suffering, or when we experience pain, surgeries, and news that our loved one’s sickness has no cure, or when we face broken relationships, loss of love, loneliness, depression, and death itself?  Our courage is not in circumstances.  It is not in finding some escape for a little while.  The ground for our courage is in Jesus, who has overcome the world.  What does that mean, ‘I have overcome the world’?  Jesus is king because He has overcome all our enemies, including and especially the enemies of sin and death.  His death on the cross was for our sins; His resurrection from the dead was His conquering death for us all.  In Him we find abundant life.  He has overcome that world of tribulation that we all know so well.  He has turned our mourning into dancing.  As Paul says,

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

  “For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

No wonder Paul could exhort Christians to rejoice!  Such joy is based on the certainty of the salvation that Jesus has already won for us, no matter what we face.

We may experience betrayal, be unfriended on Facebook, teased and bullied at school by the cool kids.  We may experience brokenness, divorce, the shocking and sudden death of a child. We may have a lingering illness and a body full of pain. The joys of life might dissolve as such circumstances shrink our courage to nothing, and, in the smallness of a life unable to experience anything beyond sadness and depression, we may lose all faith, all hope, all joy.  Feeling unloved, we may enter into a space of darkest darkness.  For many of us, the circumstances of life take us down such a path, if only for a while; and for others of us, we even lose our way and there remain.

I am not going to say that such circumstances are overblown or not real.  I will not tell you that you should deny the pain you feel.  It is real.  What I can tell you is that there are streams in the desert.  Jesus said, ‘In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; [He has] overcome the world.’  What I can say to you is that Jesus is your Savior as He is mine.  Lean into Him, rest in Him.  He has already overcome the world with all its troubles.  In Him, find new hope, new life, and joy. 

We read toward the end of the book of Hebrews that God has said, “‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”’ (Hebrews 13.5-6).  You may be familiar with Robert Lowry’s hymn, ‘How Can I Keep From Singing?’  The first stanza and refrain say:

My life flows on in endless song;
Above earth’s lamentation,
I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.

Refrain:
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that Rock I’m clinging;
Since Christ is Lord of heav’n and earth,
How can I keep from singing?

If you are facing some terrible storm in your life, you may or may not find some circumstance on the horizon to give you hope for the day.  Your ship may sink, frankly.  Yet ‘while to that Rock I’m clinging...How can I keep from singing?’  What an image!—a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock.  And over the stormy waves and blowing winds we hear his voice—singing!

Or, to change the image, remember that below the desert sands run deep streams of living water.  Christ is our salvation, our hope.  Turn to Him.  Find Him among Christians of similar faith, in a community of hope.  Find in Him that deeper joy beyond life’s struggles.  For Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.  ‘Rejoice in the Lord always!  I will say it again, ‘Rejoice’.  

A thousand years ago, a Christian by the name of Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a hymn, the first stanza of which says,

Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts,
Thou fount of life, Thou light of men,
from the best bliss that earth imparts,
we turn unfilled to Thee again.[3]

Bernard’s father was a knight and friend of the Duke of Burgundy.  He knew ‘the best bliss that earth imparts’—or what it might impart back in the 12^th century.  Yet he knew better that the good life that earth might offer left him unfulfilled.  Only by turning to Christ our Lord, could Bernard sing of the deeper and unshaken joy that fills our hearts, ‘Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts, Thou fount of life’.

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[1] Cf. Isaiah 35.  God’s redemption breaks forth like streams in the desert.

[2] ‘Joy’ appears 171 times, ‘rejoice’ 154 times, and other forms another 49 times.

[3] ‘Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts!; Online: Jesu, Thou joy of loving hearts! | Hymnary.org (accessed 12 January, 2025).

Church and State Relations in Light of Three Proposals for the Purpose of Government

 

[Full Article on The Ridley Institute White Papers, link below]

Introduction

To answer the question, ‘What is the purpose of government?’ provides some answers to the question, ‘What is the purpose of the Church?’  Indeed, in the Old Testament, the people of God were the state, the palace and the temple were interrelated, and the government was a theocracy.  The prophetic notion of a kingdom of God emerged in criticism of the failures of both the palace and the temple, and its fulfillment in Jesus’ ministry produced the distinction of Church and state.

In this paper, I propose to explore three proposals for the purpose of government.  They produce different lines of thought about the state and therefore the Church’s relationship to it, but they are not irreconcilable proposals.  The paper is offered to inform readers of various suggestions within the three proposals, which are that government exists for

1.     The Protection of Privacy: The role of government is to protect the freedoms of people in society.

2.     Moral Formation: The role of government is to create a better society by making people live with good values.

3.     Punitive Purposes: The role of government is to remove people in society who support bad values.

Scripture provides different views on the purpose of government, and yet it has a certain trajectory for how to understand the purpose of government as we move from the Old to the New Testament.  To be sure, the Bible provides no warrant for a particular form of government.  Yet it does provide certain perspectives on government in light of God’s reign over His creation and the role of His people in salvation history.

Relevance of the Study

This study is relevant in our times.  The Western nations have moved away from a Christian basis for morals, justice, and society as a whole.  At the same time, European nations have seen a major influx of Islamic migrants that challenge long-standing views on the Church and State relationship.  Furthermore, the established state Churches in Europe and the United Kingdom (e.g., the Church of England) have, to a large extent, relinquished their definitive role in society by rejecting historic Christian teaching on faith and practice in many aspects.  Both society and government continuously reject and even persecute Christians.[1]  Non-Western nations are pressured by Western nations to adopt secular forms of government and teach their emerging, post-Christian values.  Many also have the challenge of the spread of Islam, sometimes by violence (e.g., Nigeria)....

Keep Reading (click)

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[1] Cf. https://www.christian.org.uk.

The Second Week of Advent: Preparing for the peace of God

[An Advent Homily]

The second Sunday in Advent carries the theme, ‘preparation for the peace of God’.  That peace comes with the birth of Christ our Saviour, and it is always and only through Christ that God’s peace comes.

Of course, we associate Christmas with an exciting and happy time—family, gifts, celebration, and services commemorating the birth of Jesus.  The image of Christmas is warmed with pictures of cosy fires in the fireplace, children playing on the floor with trainsets and dolls around a lighted and decorated conifer, and a gentle snow falling outside—even if you do not live in the northern states of America or England and are sitting in the summer heat in South Africa!—so powerful is the marketed version of Christmas.

The coming season of Christmas is intended to be joyful and peaceful, but it can also be stressful, hectic, and even hurtful.  Rushing around to complete Christmas shopping, the financial stress this entails, travelling somewhere in a car that needs service, hospitality to others without enough beds, meal preparations with every other relative allergic to something or other these days, and even making it to the services with hungry, sleepy children or grandchildren—all this can be and often is very stressful.  Many of us also seem to have someone in the family who is an agitated curmudgeon for all the wrong reasons, and yet Christmas expects us to bring him together with everyone else for a peaceful and joyful time. 

On top of all this, Christmas is a very confused holiday on the Church calendar.  Our secular world either hates it with the greatest animosity as it does any Christian light intruding into its darkness, or it reforms it into a romantic Hallmark and shopping holiday.  We need to separate all this from a truly Christian holy-day.

Some years ago, I wrote an essay recommending that we join the Orthodox Christian world by moving the day that we celebrate Christmas from 25 December to the 6^th of January.[1]  These dates are the beginning and end of the Christmas season, so why focus on the 25^th when it has become a worldly holiday?  The 6^th of January could be a completely religious holiday, with a service and traditions we might rediscover or even invent to focus on Jesus, as we should.  I suggest it would become a day of peaceful celebration, as it should be.

Well, there is little chance that my suggestion will convert many.  Christmas is as Christmas has been.  But somehow we need to make Christmas what it is supposed to be in our Christian calendar, and this applies to Advent as well, the season preparing for Christmas.  We just celebrated the Second Sunday of Advent.  The purple Bethlehem Candle was lit, representing peace.  This week focusses on preparation for the coming of God’s peace.  What many are focussed on is Christmas shopping, working out who is travelling where and how we can host them, preparing a fancy meal, and the like.  Preparing for the coming of peace seems a long stretch, and remembering that Jesus is the Prince of Peace is a challenge.  Isaiah foretold His coming:

    For to us a child is born,
                        to us a son is given;
             and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
                        and his name shall be called
             Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
                        Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9.6).

Paul confirmed this, saying of Jesus, ‘He is our peace’ (Ephesians 2.14).  Every day of the year, we celebrate the present reality of the peace of Jesus Christ.  As Paul says,

The Lord is at hand; ⁶ do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4.5b-7).             

In our services, we have often passed the peace of Christ after confession and forgiveness of sins.  Having been forgiven, we have peace with God and peace with one another.  Having received peace from God and from each other, we boldly celebrate at the Lord’s Table, partaking the wine and eating the bread that remember Jesus’ body and blood given for us. 

My favourite part of a morning service is when people file forward to the front of the Church to receive the cup and eat the bread.  I see that moment in the service as a moment remembering the peace we have with God and with each other.  I am reminded that the Church is itself the body of Christ, we are all necessary, all together, all in need of God’s grace, all welcome to receive it, all in a state of ‘peace’.  The service is an enactment of the Gospel message itself.  What we do first is prepare ourselves for peace, just as this week of Advent is the week of preparation for peace.  Another word for peace is reconciliation: we are reconciled to God and to one another.  Armed with this peace, we step out into the world in mission to the world to proclaim God’s peace to the world.  As the angels said to the shepherds, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests’ (Luke 2.14).

As Christians, we really do not have to say when someone dies, ‘May she rest in peace.’  Someone who dies in Christ is with Christ (2 Corinthians 5.8; Philippians 1.23).  She knows God’s peace so much greater than we do now.  But we also know God’s peace now—it is not a wish.  Paul says,

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. ⁴ But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3.3-7).

In our own circles of family and relationships, we have some with whom we share God’s peace and have sweet fellowship together.  Yet there are also some who are thorns, and it is hard to think about anything peaceful with them around.  We can, as God’s people of peace, do two things in regard to them.  We can pray for them.  Jesus told us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5.44).  What should we pray?  That they might find God’s peace through Jesus Christ and, in so doing, come into a place of peace with others in Christ, including ourselves, our families, and our church.  We can also demonstrate to them aspects of the peace we have found in Christ: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Those are the fruit of the Spirit that Paul mentions, a fruit that is growing within us by God’s Spirit.  Can we give those thorns in our relationships a picture of God’s peace in our lives?

I close with an invitation to each one to prepare your hearts for peace with God, not just for Christmas but every day.  Receive Jesus into your life and live in peace.  To those already reconciled to God and who know the King of Peace, live in that peace and extend it to others.  Here, finally, is a lovely blessing with which to finish, sung by Kristyn Getty:

May the Peace of God - Kristyn Getty, Margaret Becker, Joanne Hogg

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[1] Rollin G. Grams, ‘The Church 5: Western Christians in a Post-Christian Culture—Merry Christmas!,’ Bible and Mission Blog (8 December, 2014); online: Bible and Mission: The Church 5: Western Christians in a Post-Christian Culture—Merry Christmas!.

Return to Eden

 [A short story.]

‘Eve!  Wow!  Wonderful to see you after so long!  My badness, look at you!  How the hell did you get back in here?’  The snake slithered up his favourite tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, so that he could be eye to eye with his protégé.

‘I’m surprised myself!’ replied Eve.  ‘It seems that the cherubim is really guarding the path to the Tree of Life.  Anyway, here I am, and it is good to see you again!’

‘Likewise,’ smiled the snake.  ‘How have you been?’

‘Oh, you know, I’m sure.  Having babies—lots of them.  All painful.  Sure, Adam tills the land by the sweat of his brow, but what is that to having your hips structurally rearranged and soft tissue torn?’

‘Ah, that.  Pain.  God wants you to believe that He is good, but then there is pain.  Why would a good God let you suffer pain?’

‘Yes.  Yes, that is why some these days do not believe in God at all.  Of course, I used to walk with Him in this garden, so there is no denying His existence.’

‘But you can doubt His goodness, can’t you?’

‘Only if I doubt His justice.  Adam and I really did reject His Word.  If we sinned, His punishment is just.’

‘Let’s say you sinned—just for argument’s sake.  But was His punishment equitable or excessive?  You, Adam, your children, generations afterwards.  Wars, diseases, earthquakes, death....  And what’s with creating mosquitos in the first place?’

‘Lots of questions.  We didn’t think we would have them after eating the fruit of this tree.  But what really happened is that, when we took on the role of God by making choices of good and evil for ourselves, we only had more and more questions without anyone to answer them.’

The snake twisted itself around a branch.  He was more comfortable that way.  Eve wasn’t so easy to mislead as before now that she thought for herself.  She had become more godlike, thinking and choosing for herself.  Yet she also realised that she wasn’t like God after all, even though the snake had promised her that the fruit would make her so.  She had come to see him again, though, he told himself, and did she not say that she was glad to see him?

‘Yet you have been coming up with answers, haven’t you?’ he said.  ‘Your own answers to your own questions.’

‘Yes, we’ve been playing the role of God for thousands of years.  It has been quite a..., quite a.....’

‘Thrill?’ offered the snake.

‘Mess,’ said Eve.  ‘Quite a mess.’

The snake frowned.  ‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ he said.  ‘Life doesn’t have to be about the right answers but about trying answers out to see if they fit.’

‘To see if they fit?’

‘Well, when my skin gets too tight, I shed it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Truth is not some ‘out there’ thing, unchangeable, absolute.  It is about what fits.  What fits you, what fits me, what fits someone else.’

‘Oh, I see.  Yes.  We’ve tried that.  God created the world, but we made some of our own gods.  God created us male and female, but we’ve disconnected gender from biology and come up with 72, or maybe 81, or....  What does it matter?  Why can’t a biological man be a woman if he—er, she—wants to be?  God instituted marriage between a man and a woman, but why?  If two people love each other, why not marry no matter what gender they are?  God said to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth—that takes me back to our conversation earlier.  Why have painful births at all?  Why spend your hard-earned money on little brats driving you crazy with ‘Mommy this’ and ‘Mommy that’?  Why not enjoy sex without children and abort them if by some mistake you become pregnant?  Why should marriage be about becoming ‘one flesh’, as though you have to stay with a man your whole, agonizing life?’

‘I see you have wriggled out of your skin once or twice, too,’ said the snake.  ‘Feeling more comfortable, then?’

‘That’s the thing,’ said Eve.  ‘I thought so.  We thought so.  But we’re not so sure anymore.’

The snake narrowed his eyes.  He moved into the shadows, tightening his scales and giving off a different colour.  Eve noticed.  ‘Why, you are more orange than red now!’ she exclaimed.

‘Colour is in the eye of the beholder, you know,’ said the snake.  ‘I grant you we might have some limitations and can’t be anything we want to be.  I can’t turn myself into a dog, for instance.  But I have a lot of freedom to take on different colours, positions, roles, and so on.  And with a mind thinking outside bodily limitations, we can be ever so many things if we want to be.  I never lie, mind you, I just give words new meanings, put a spin on things, suggest alternatives.’

‘Oh, yes.  We are pretty good at that by now, too.  And we have also invented our own virtues.  I mean, by cancelling God and His claim that “truth is what I say it is”, we redefine everything.’

‘How so?’ said the snake, with a smile.  He was truly proud of Eve.

‘So, an easy one, ‘love’ does not relate to some objective truth so that it moves someone in a certain direction.  It let’s them move in whatever direction that they want to go and then loves them by affirming them in their choice.  Or take ‘mercy’.  We had to get rid of this altogether.  You can only have ‘mercy’ if you have standards that are unchangeable and then forgive someone if they break them.  We now have ‘tolerance’ and ‘inclusion’ instead.  We recently rejected the idea that ‘justice’ is equal for all and came up with ‘equity’ instead.’

‘Equity?’

‘It means...well, now it means, that, since some people are more privileged that others, you have to put your hand on the scales of justice to favour the victims of oppression and injustice.  Some people have to have less and others more if you are to have equal outcomes.  We even ‘cancel’ some people.  Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others, if you get my meaning.’

‘Yes, I read that book.  Marvelous stuff.’

‘For a while, we wanted to open up the playing field to everyone.  Equality, liberty, fraternity.  But then we realised that we needed to lop off heads—lots of them.’

‘Literally?’

‘Literally, figuratively—whatever.  You can’t give people freedom if they aren’t going to do what you want them to do.  Take free speech.  You let someone get up on stage, and then they say the wrong thing, something like, “We should do what God says!”  “There are only two genders!”  “Men should not participate in women’s sports!”  That simply won’t do.  You have to shut them up.’

‘Very good,’ said the snake.  ‘It is one thing to say, “Don’t follow God’s Laws but make up your own.”  But if someone makes up a law like, “Follow God’s Laws”, they ruin the game.  The only rule that counts is that there are no rules.’

‘Well, that’s why I’m back here,’ said Eve.  ‘I’m not sure it is so simple.’

‘Really?’ said the snake.  He knew the irony of the word ‘really’ and liked to use it whenever he could.  Eve missed the irony, though.

‘Yes.  You see, if everyone has their own truth or justice or whatever, they keep bumping uncomfortably into each other.  Independent systems of virtue really only work if you live all alone, but most of the virtues require someone else.  If I call an egg a snake and someone asks me for an egg and I give him a snake and he says it isn’t an egg....’

The snake winced.  He himself did not want to be thought of as an egg.

Eve continued, ‘If Adam wants to identify as a woman and walk into a woman’s locker room and take a shower with other women, and they tell him to get out because he’s a man, we find ourselves in a vicious circle of argument.  If he says, “If you don’t accept me as what I say I am, you are bullying me,” and they reply, “If you demand us to say you are a woman, you are bullying us to accept your own fantasy.”  They say to him, “Not only are you making your private truth an objective truth and telling us we cannot have our own truth let alone an objective truth, you are also in our space.  You say you want to be tolerated, but you are intolerant of us.  You say you want to be loved and accepted, but you do not love and accept us.  You set up your own standard on the ground that people can pick and choose their own standards, and then you insist that your standard is the only standard.”’

The snake really had no answer to this, so he said, ‘You said that you came back here for some reason.’

‘Yes,’ said Eve.  ‘I came back to look at creation again.  God made things the way they are and said that everything He made was good.  The things we have invented and called good are like the spider webs in space.’

‘Spider webs in space?’ asked the snake.

‘Oh, some time ago, some astronauts took some spiders up into space to see what sort of web they would construct outside gravity.  They made webs, as before, but the webs were not symmetrical.  And they did not work that well.’

‘And your point is?’ asked the snake.

‘Don’t you see?  Without a standard of some sort, like the law of gravity, things are skew and you know that they are skew.  They don’t work well, even if they work a little.  They are not better but substandard.  Yet you are not supposed to say so.  You congratulate the spider.  But this Garden of Eden is where the world is as it was meant to be, not as we have created it.’

The snake was not as proud of his protégé now as he had been earlier.  Things were taking an awkward turn.  She had used her own reasoning—good—but to reason her way back to Eden, to God’s standards—not good.  He had one other line of enquiry to try.

‘Eve,’ he said, lowering his voice.  ‘Do you really think it is about making symmetrical webs?  What if it is about your choosing and not about your choices, even if they do not work out so well?  That is, what if it is about power?  The fruit of this tree gives you the right to choose good and evil, not a knowledge of good and evil.  That is up to you.  I might have misspoken about shedding an old skin and finding a more comfortable one.  What if you choose an uncomfortable skin, or one too loose, for that matter?  What if the point is to choose rather than someone else—like God—choosing for you?  It really comes down to power.’

‘Being a god is being the one to choose?’ said Eve.

‘Yesssss,’ said the snake, letting his true character show momentarily.

‘And if I choose God’s good rather than my own—no difference?’ asked Eve.

The snake squirmed.  He was hoping she would not come to this question.  He eventually said, ‘Choosing, that’s the thing, and that means you have to choose all the time.’

Eve thought a minute.  ‘What if it is not about either choosing or choices in the first place?’

‘Eh?’

‘What if truth is something deeper?  What if truth is truth because it rests on something else?  It is unmalleable not because it is objective in itself but the product of something deeper, higher, and wider?’

‘I need you to explain this idea more.’

‘Well, if we say truth is subjective because there are many subjects—many people with their own truths—then shouldn’t we say that truth is objective if there is One Subject, God?  And if I don’t so much as choose truth as something objective but choose God and His truth, this means that truth is somehow caught up in my relationship with God.  And if truth depends on that relationship—not any relationship, but that particular relationship—it is objective in the sense of being unchanging, because God is unchanging.  And if I access God’s truth through my relationship with Him, then truth is not about reason accessing truth as much as it is about love—love of God, not any love, not anybody.  I access unchanging truth through love of God.  And there is one more thing—the beginning of it all, actually.  I access love of God not by choice so much as by God’s love for me.  My love of God is a response to His overwhelming love for me.’

The snake hissed.  It tried to speak, but it was a snake, after all.  It only hissed, and then it slithered down the tree and off into the long grass.

Eve looked over in the direction of the Tree of Life in the middle of the garden.  She looked around for the cherubim and the flaming sword but still could not see them.  She stepped away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and towards the path that would take her to the Tree of Life.  As she proceeded, she came upon a rock on which was written, ‘In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 4.10).  Turning a corner, she remembered that this is where the sword had been. Instead, right in the middle of the path, stood a large sign.  Approaching it, she saw written upon it, ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10).  The message was signed, ‘Love, Jesus.’  An exciting thought came to her, ‘Perhaps I can now get to the Tree of Life’. 

Eve also remembered where the Tree of Life stood in the middle of the garden.  It was located in a gorgeous meadow, beside a deep stream of clear, cool, flowing water.  As she crossed the meadow, she realized that the tree was different from so many years before.  It had been hewn into the shape of a cross.  On the cross were written the words,

‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3.16).

She sat below the cross a long while, washing her feet in the stream.  Then she got into the stream, weeping in repentance for her arrogance and sins.  She found it cleansing and life-giving.  She sensed God’s love and found a love well up in her own heart for Him.  In that love, she desired to live by His commandments and no longer her own choices of good and evil.  She was repulsed at the thought of the world of her own making and wanted to live in God’s good creation.  She loved God with all of her heart, soul, and might.  She desired to walk in His ways, to walk with Him in the cool of the evening.  Into her head came words as though the Son of God who died on the cross for her sins was saying, ‘Eve, I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ (John 14.6). 

She came up from the water onto the opposite bank, praying aloud, ‘Father God, May I know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge’ (Ephesians 3.19).  Not only did she know that her sins were forgiven, but she realised that she was also transformed by the renewing of her mind so that she once again knew the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12.2). 

She sensed someone else was present as she came upon dry ground.  It was Adam.  ‘It was a journey to take alone,’ he said to her, ‘and yet here we are now together.’  They spoke together for a while, with tears turning from sorrow to joy. 

And as they walked, a third person joined them.  He asked, ‘Why are you weeping?’  Eve replied, ‘Are you the gardener?’  He replied, ‘Eve!’  And in hearing her name spoken as it was by Him, she knew herself more truly than ever before, not only who she was but also who she was now in Him.  She knew Him, too.  She saw in Adam’s eyes that he did, too.  Then Jesus said, ‘Come, let us walk together in the cool of the day.’

A Review of the Seoul Statement of the Fourth Lausanne Congress (2024), Part Six (The Family of Nations)

The sixth section of the Lausanne Statement in Seoul, Korea addresses a concern for peace in a world of violent conflict.  Just how are Christians to advocate peace in the world?  The statement does not call for peaceful ‘coexistence’.  Instead, the Church’s universalism is stated in terms of ‘God’s saving rule over all peoples’ (6.77).  Thus, peace comes not by opposing evangelism but by nations permitting Christians to proclaim the Gospel.  Peace and reconciliation come through Christ and the transformation and love that flows from Christian faith.  This thoroughly Biblical and Christian understanding is hardly that touted by others (including universalists in the broader ‘Church’) that all faiths are equal ways to God, and therefore peace is by affirming everyone and even celebrating whatever they contribute to the smorgasbord of multi-faith multi-culturalism.  (This appears to be Pope Francis’s view and one that has been articulated in contemporary Roman Catholicism.)[1]

Noting that some areas of the world have found greater peace and harmony (6.78), the Statement also notes that this is not the case in other regions (6.79).  It condemns those who stoke war (6.80) while calling on Christians to care for the vulnerable and serve as peacemakers (6.81).  Quoting from the previous Lausanne Congress in Cape Town of past Christian complicity in violence, the Statement laments such moral failures of Christians (6.82) and calls for repentance (6.83).  This last paragraph expands on the notion of a ‘nation state’ as a state with multiple, culturally distinct groups.  I suppose the reason for repeating the concern already stated a decade ago must be the divisions between people resulting in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.  Indeed, 6.84 states explicitly that God fulfills His promises to the Biblical people of the Middle East through Jesus Christ.  Thus, Christians should oppose theological errors that stoke current violence.  This all too general comment seems to be a warning not to read the identities and politics of Biblical times onto the current political situation in the Middle East.  If so, a more direct challenge to such theological anachronisms and exegetical errors would be worthwhile, without, however, turning Lausanne into a political entity when this is not its purpose.  Indeed, the Statement rightly distinguishes politics from God’s mission: ‘We lament that some Christians have looked to the state rather than the gospel as the key means for bringing about God’s intentions for the world’ (6.85). 

However, this Statement makes a crucial error in weighing into a socio-political perspective that befits current, cultural trends beyond Lausanne’s missional purposes.  Thus, it says that it opposes the ‘great evil’ of nationalism in the sense of a state aiming to have a single, national culture (only one possible meaning of ‘nationalism’, note).  This political perspective appears to swallow the pill of identity politics in the West, which holds that multiculturalism is an intrinsic good rather than a highly problematic commitment that has led to and is leading to increasing violence.  It seems, despite statements to the contrary, to affirm religious plurality as not only acceptable but beneficial—a large part of ‘culture’ is religion.  Fundamentally, this view maintains that all cultures are equal, static, and valuable such that a multicultural state is—without further specification—to be valuable.  It removes the prophetic role of the Church to speak to the nations and all cultures the truth that they are not the Kingdom of God.  Far better would have been a statement that Christian faith transforms cultures and is called upon to develop a superior culture in the Church.  Otherwise, ‘the Kingdom of God’ language is rendered nonsense.  As Paul says, ‘But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Philippians 3.20).

Paragraph 6.86 notes the Korean situation in particular, since the document was written in Seoul.  Christians are called on to pray for unity between the north and south and the open proclamation of the Gospel in the north.  I see no reason to pray for unity, which is, after all, a political agenda, but praying for the open proclamation of the Gospel everywhere is, indeed, a Christian prayer.  The concluding paragraph to this section (6.87) further calls on Christians everywhere to intercede for the persecuted and labour for peace, build Christian communities, promote a culture of peace, and proclaim the Gospel.

Much of this Section lays out hope for peace in the world, primarily through the Church and Christians working toward that end.  At such an altitude, the particulars on the ground that need to drive any serious efforts are almost imperceptible.  One wonders what such a Statement has to offer Christians facing regular persecution and death from Islamists, such as in northern Nigeria.  Given the nature of this Statement, avoidance of particular issues is only to be expected, but this raises the question whether Lausanne conferences would do better to produce a different type of document in future meetings, one that focusses on a few issues facing the Church at the time rather than a sort of systematic theological restatement covering many theological topics. 

One specific issue that really needs to be addressed throughout the world and that is a major threat to peace is Islam.  The multiculturalism of Western nations has provided an open door to radicals.  This Lausanne Statement affirms multiculturalism but makes no mention of such a threat.  It appears to understand culture in terms of cuisine, dress, and some traditional customs rather than as something deeply shaped by religion and something the Church as its own culture (the Kingdom of God) challenges.  The Church often stands against culture and always seeks to transform culture.

(The seventh and final section of this statement is titled 'Technology: The Accelerating Innovation We Discern and Steward.  No further comment on the statement is offered in this series.)

Previous Section Review: A Review of the Seoul Statement of the Fourth Lausanne Congress (2024), Part Five (Discipleship, Local Church)

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[1] Cf. Rollin G. Grams, ‘Is the Pope Catholic?  A Response to the Universalism of Pope Francis,’ Bible and Mission Blog (15 September, 2024); online: Bible and Mission: 'Is the Pope Catholic?' A Response to the Universalism of Pope Francis.