evangelism – Christ the Truth

Inclusive Community? Pick one. 2

GlenJuly 10, 2017July 10, 20172 Comments

We want community and we want inclusion. But how do we have both?

Because a community is not a random collective. A community is a unity. And it's unified around something or towards something. Sometimes it's united against something. Better if it's united for something. But whatever the principle of unity there is an inner logic or goal or ethos or context or journey that binds us together.

It seems patently obvious that whatever this principle of unity is, it cannot itself be "inclusion". If all you have is a principle of inclusion you don't actually have a community. As we invite people to "Climb aboard" we might want to insist "All welcome, whoever you are, come along for the ride!" but we'll be clear that this is a ride and it's heading somewhere. What we won't do is scoop up bystanders and include them quite apart from their commitment to the journey. Nor will we immediately put newcomers in the driver's seat without a clear indication that they want to go where we want to go. That would not be good for the community and it would not be good for the newcomer.

Here is Rowan Williams on why language of "inclusion" might not be good for the community:

“I don't believe inclusion is a value in itself. Welcome is. We don't say 'Come in and we ask no questions'. I do believe conversion means conversion of habits, behaviours, ideas, emotions. The boundaries are determined by what it means to be loyal to Jesus Christ.”

The community we want to include people into is already bounded by certain principles, centred on certain belief, heading in certain directions. Those outside the community are very welcome, but they're welcome like house guests are welcome. There is already an ordering to the house and guests knocking through load-bearing walls is not good for the community.

Nor is it good for the newcomer.

This is Jordan Peterson's point here as he insists that we should not simply affirm people's self-declared identities. We need communities to contradict our individual identities. If we don't have that, we go insane.

I've transcribed his 3 minutes below, but it's worth a watch:

If the world is required to validate your identity you are done for. And the reason for that is that every single one of you have a pathological direction in which you are likely to go. And that’s because every temperamental virtue comes with a temperamental vice. You think you’re sane. You’re not. You’re not even close. If I put you alone in a cave for two weeks you’d be done. You can’t be sane on your own.

So what happens is that your parents, if they have any sense, train you, roughly speaking, to be vaguely acceptable to other people. They keep nudging and winking at you every time you’re a moron so that you get nudged into something approximating acceptable. And you’re clued in enough to pay attention so that if someone raises an eye brown or doesn’t find your joke funny, (or something rather subtle like that), you immediately revise your identity. And we are always nudging each other and revising each other non-stop - exchanging information about how to stay sane.

And if I'm forced into a position where I have to validate your identity? What if your identity is wrong? What if it’s pathological? What if it doesn’t serve you well? And I start validating you... Do you think I'm your friend. I'm not your friend at all. I'm a mirror for your narcissism. And you will disappear and drown.

I see this happening all the time with people. If you’re fortunate you are surrounded by people who like you now and wish you’d be a little better. And they’ll let you know when you’re failing on that. You don’t even have to think that much, all you have to do is watch. Is this person rolling their eyes at you? (That’s a bad one. That means divorce by the way, when you get to the eye rolling stage. That’s not good.)

But basically you're fortunate that people don’t validate your damn identity. What makes you think you’ve got your identity figured out? You’re really complicated and you’re clueless as hell about it. Because you can’t represent yourself entirely. You’re the most complicated thing that exists. How are you going to come up with an accurate definition of your identity. You’ve got a hundred people out there helping you out if you’ve got any sense. If you’re vaguely tolerable. They’re kind of hinting at you not only what you are but also what you might become. Then you should welcome invalidation of your identity.

Now if they’re malicious well then that's a different story. But it’s not that easy to separate out accurate criticism, especially if it hits you right where it hurts which is when you’re wrong. You can’t separate that out from maliciousness or hate speech… good luck.

You never learn anything without pain. And often, when you receive a piece of corrective information from someone, if you could throw that person in jail you would. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

Inclusion in the abstract is not a value to aspire to. Welcome? Yes please. "Come to the waters all you who thirst?" Amen. But as each of us come we leave our self-determined identities at the door. In coming we are submitting to the community - a community that will keep us sane if only we let it invalidate our most cherished identities and re-form us as children of God.

The Missional Necessity Of Keeping People Out Of Church 4

GlenJune 5, 20174 Comments

Want the gospel to go forwards? Lock your church doors.

Here's Vishal Mangalwadi on how the gospel transformed church and culture at the time of the reformation:

Before the Reformation, Roman Catholic Churches were open seven days a week in Holland. The devout went to the church whenever they wanted to meet with God. They would light their candles, kneel, and pray. After the Reformation, the Church leaders decided to lock their churches on Sunday nights. Not because they became less religious, but because they became more religious.

Reformers learned from the Bible that the church was not the only place to meet with God. If God had called you to be a woodcutter, then on Monday morning you ought to meet with God in the forest. If he had called you to be a shoemaker, then on Monday morning he expected you to meet with him on the work bench. If he had called you to be a homemaker, you needed to serve God while taking care of your window plants. (From The Book That Made Your World)

Whenever the gospel is on mute, people will hover around the church, desperate to keep the delicate flame of faith alive. They'll come and "do their bit", light their candle, keep up their devotional practices. The church provides their holiness perch and they're desperate to stay on top of it. Needless to say, the mission of the church is paralysed by such thinking.

But the gospel actually means locking the doors of your church. It tells us: "You are not on a holiness perch, you are in Christ. You are sent. You walk in Him into your true calling. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord." And so the mission of the church is served by shutting its doors.

Of course, five centuries on from the reformation we still find many reasons to keep our doors open. There are protestant "candles" we feel we must light. And the missionary flow we endorse runs dry so quickly.

This goes deeper than a scheduling problem. It's not just solved by resolving to hold fewer midweek meetings. It took a reformation to shift the practice of those Dutch churches and it will take a reformation of our own churches to shift our mindset. It's more than a question of administratively releasing people. Are we spiritually releasing them? Do we preach the kind of gospel that liberates our people? Can we genuinely say to them "Go in peace" because we've given them profound gospel confidence? Can we lock the door after them and say "Enjoy! Create! Serve! Love! Share! Be blessed in Christ! See you next week!"?

Or will we keep our doors open, running a thousand church activities and then wondering why no-one has any deep friendships with non-Christians?

On the basis of Christ's gospel and for the sake of His mission, let's lock our church doors.

10 New(ish) Sermons 1

GlenSeptember 29, 2016September 29, 20161 Comment

Galatians 6

Galatians 6 audio download

The Gospel and Mental Health

Four Evangelistic Talks from John's Gospel

God so loved the world (John 3:16)

Doubting Thomas (John 20)

Water into Wine (John 2)

Raising Lazarus (John 11)

Four Other Talks

Liberated: Can Christianity really offer freedom?

Repent and Believe the Good News (Mark 1:14-20)

Jesus Walks On Water (John 6:16-24)

Jesus Sat Down (Hebrews 10:1-18)

Champions!

GlenJune 27, 2016June 27, 2016Leave a comment

We experience it all the time. Leicester City lifts the trophy and millions rejoice.

England beats Australia in the rugby and strangers introduce themselves to me with the words "Three Nil!" (To which I respond, "Eddie Jones, what a genius!")

The Euros come on TV and the whole nation is on tenterhooks.

What's going on? It's all about champions, as this extract from my book, 321, explains. (Get the book here, and as an e-book for just 99p).

Champions

"Who do you support?" they ask. "In the football, who's your team?"

"Umm," I hesitate. I've been here before. "Well I'm Australian but I lived for a while in Highbury, north London. So I suppose I follow Arsenal. At a distance. Sort of."

"Arsenal?! We STUFFED you on Saturday!" they beam.

"You did?" I look at their shirt. Yep, it’s a dead ringer for the shirts worn by eleven men who, last weekend, bettered another eleven men neither of us have met. But that's not the way it’s ever phrased. It's always "We beat you." When our champions win, we win.

At that point I want to protest: "Who's we? I know where you were last Saturday. You were glued to the telly, part-man part-sofa, bellowing advice at the greatest athletes in the world. I'm not sure shrieking "Referee!!" every 90 seconds helped the cause. But if you want to claim victory in the name of your champions, who am I to sneeze on your custard?" That’s just how champions work: they win, you celebrate.

During the London Olympics, the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, wrote a poem to capture the nations’ feelings about Team GB. She wrote: “We are Mo Farah lifting the 10 000m gold... We are Sir Chris Hoy... We are Nicola Adams.” Of course none of us have made the sacrifices these athletes have made. And if you asked us to compete we wouldn’t have a hope. (Speaking for myself, the most aerobic workout of my day is brushing my teeth). But when Mo Farah wins, the nation celebrates. He is Britain’ champion and his victory is their victory.

Perhaps the epitome of “faith in our champions” is seen in the football transfer market. Here managers, coaches and scouts sift the world’s greatest leagues for that one miracle maker. Pundits speculate, fortunes are spent, millions of fans hold their breath and it's all founded on the myth of the one man.

The myth of the one man goes something like this: Somewhere, out there, is a player of such extraordinary talent that no price is too absurd, for – so the legend goes – if we have him, then everything will change. He will galvanize the team. He will win every game. He will turn our fortunes around. This man is out there and we must have him.

Of course it's a myth, but imagine it was true. Imagine your team actually found "the one man." And in spite of the naysayers, you'd always believed in him - he'd always been your guy. As the season unfolds, he scores the winner in every game propelling your team up the league, through the cup, all the way to Wembley. And there you are at the FA Cup final. His last minute double strike snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. The noise is deafening as he runs over to your end of the ground, arms outstretched. He’s mouthing the words “For you... It’s for you.” There you are amidst the deafening roar. How do you feel?

Remember that you have not assisted in this triumph. In spite of your high quality coaching from the stands, none of it has affected the outcome. Nonetheless, how do you feel? “Over the moon” is the usual expression. But that doesn’t capture it. We're ecstatic – beside ourselves with joy. We jump, we shout, we sing, we hug complete strangers just because they too share a connection with the one man. Victory, camaraderie, euphoria – this is how Christians feel about Jesus.

Jesus our Champion

Jesus is God's eternal Son but he became "the one man" to turn our fortunes around. From the very beginning of the Bible, stories about “the one man” were circulating. He was going to join Team Earth and defeat our enemy in a fight to the death (see Genesis 3:15). Throughout the Old Testament, hype surrounding “the one man” built to epic proportions. Then one day, as a wild and woolly man – John the Baptist – was giving people a ritual "washing", we got to see our man.

In a scene that opens all the biographies of Jesus (the Gospels), we see him taking a bath – a.k.a. getting baptised. This was the ceremony where Jesus identified with Team Earth publicly and irreversibly. It was like the footballer's official signing for the club – this was Jesus publicly wearing our colours. The rest of the Gospels reveal his “wonder-season”. He took on the forces that constantly defeat us: temptation, sin, evil, disease, death. These powers always get the better of us, but not Jesus. He “played a blinder”, living up to all the hype.

Then, at the end of his life, we see how deeply our Champion identifies with us. On the cross he took responsibility for everything that belongs to us – even our sins and the godforsaken death they deserve. As he died, the crowd fell silent, wondering if the hype was misplaced. Yet, just when they thought it was all over, Jesus scored a decisive winner against the ultimate “baddy”.

“Death is the final enemy” wrote the Apostle Paul (1Corinthians 15:26). In billions of matches, death has never lost a battle. Without exception it sucks us down into the grave. But Jesus ran headlong into that pit and smashed a hole right through it. On Easter Sunday he burst through to the far side as the ultimate victor. Then, like the triumphant footballer, running to his supporters, Jesus has his arms outstretched to the world and he cries: “For you! This is for you!”

A Christian is someone who has found themselves swept up in this story. We have recognised our place in Team Earth. We have owned our failures and faced the certainty of defeat. But, more than this, we have seen Jesus. We have heard his claims to be the long-promised Champion. We have witnessed his life, his death and his resurrection. We are persuaded that he is who he says he is. And now the penny has dropped: If he is our Champion then his victory is our victory. We know we look like "a bunch of losers" and we know we haven't expended a calorie of effort in the victory. Nonetheless we sing like we've won because, though Jesus our Champion, we have:

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:57)

Get 321 here, and as an e-book.

Four Thoughts on Evangelistic Events

GlenApril 5, 2016April 5, 2016Leave a comment

I've just been asked my thoughts on evangelistic events. Four things spring to mind:

1. If an event is basically a social mixer so that Christians and non-Christians rub shoulders there is a problem here. And the problem goes deeper than the fact that the gospel may be sidelined on the night of the event. The problem is that Christians often don't socialise with non-Christians unless there's an evangelistic/pre-evangelistic event put on by church. In other words, they don't feel able to get out into the big bad world and enjoy life with non-Christians until or unless their Christian leaders give them explicit permission. That's a big issue in church life. And maybe less events (of all kinds) would actually free people to do more evangelism.

2. I often find that Sunday mornings are the easiest events to invite people to. Other events which we hope might be stepping-stones can be equally, if not more, off-putting to non-Christians. You'd be surprised how many people might be up for giving church a go. Remember Sunday is where the action is!

3. Having said all this, I definitely still believe in events. Because the gospel is an event. And conversion is an event. Sometimes, when people talk about evangelism, they speak in terms of "processes" - they tell you the number of times someone needs to hear the gospel before they'll convert, they'll big up the importance of building trust and doing life and loving on people. The thing is, conversion is crossing from death to life. And an event at which Christ is offered and unbelievers are confronted actually mirrors the nature of the gospel we claim to believe. Such events bring people to the event they must consider. So events can be very good ways of serving what we say we believe.

4. If you are going to put on an event, work backwards from the end result you want. If you want folks trusting in Jesus then you better give good time and space to the gospel message. And that better be undistracted time and space. When you work backwards from there you might find yourself designing quite a different event. If you simply want Christians and non-Christians mixing, having a good time and gently leading people on to 'the next thing', then, fine, put on a pub quiz and have a 5 minute talk before the results are announced. But if you want people to really consider Christ then clear a space for a talk in undistracted space. I prefer interview testimonies followed by a talk or a 'meal with a message', but whatever you do, begin at the end. Imagine the talk you want your friends to hear. Imagine what you want to happen as the speaker draws to a close. Now work backwards.

The Guy With The Mic Does Not Speak For The Room 3

GlenMarch 18, 2016March 18, 20163 Comments

Last month I was helping out with a number of student missions. One mainstay of the university mission is a "lunch bar." The Christian Union provides free food, there's a talk (often with a provocative title) and then the speaker fields questions.

I was not the lunchtime speaker at the last mission I helped with so I got to sit in the audience and watch. What I learnt at those lunch bars has stayed with me because it has implications that go far beyond the student world. Here's how it unfolded...

The talk titles for this mission were fairly provocative and the Q&A session was facilitated by a roving mic which the questioners held to command the room. Those two facts led to an interesting and perhaps predictable dynamic. Only certain people have the confidence to take the mic and therefore if it's a particularly hot topic, you are in for a spicy 10-15 minutes at the end.

What happened pretty much every day was that we had a number of Christians from the CU, a number of guests of those Christians, some randoms who came for the food and some randoms who came for the hot topic. We then heard an excellent talk which tried to honour the question but which was basically a presentation of Jesus in 20 heart-warming minutes. Then the questions came. Invariably those who self-identified as unbelieving took the mic first and asked pointed questions. Every now and again a genuine enquirer was brave enough to ask a question on topic, but not often. And by the time our hour was up, we'd gotten well and truly off the beaten track into the realm of "Old Testament genocide" or some other subject equally far from the set topic.

Once the official time was up though the temperature in the room cooled significantly. We would turn to our neighbour and almost invariably their reaction to the event was:

"Really interesting".
"Hadn't thought about any of that before."
"My granddad died last month and it's made me wonder."

After every lunch bar we'd have sensational conversations - about the John's Gospels given out, about the talk, about random "religious questions" they'd always wanted to ask. Very little mention was made about the Q&A and if there was conversation about it, the number one impression they got was how the speaker reacted to the angry questioners. Very few could even remember what was said, even though it was just minutes earlier.

And here's what I've been thinking ever since: Don't be cowed by the angry questioner with the mic. He doesn't speak for the room and "refuting" him isn't the goal. We can try to respond thoughtfully sure. But our deeper goal is to engage graciously and our ultimate priority does not lie with the mockers. They sneered in the Areopagus (Acts 17) and they will sneer today. So what? Paul preached, some sneered, some believed, Paul moved on. Let the sneerers take the hindmost.

How often are we intimidated by those who have the microphone - those who speak loudest in the media - those who set themselves up as spokespeople for the culture? We could spend all our time fretting about the messages that dominate the airwaves. We could waste our days wishing to wrest the mic from others or fantasizing about how we might refute them publicly with devastating smack-downs. Or we could just get on and preach the gospel, ignore the sneers - they will always come - and engage our neighbours who just aren't where the sneerers are at.

Don't be deceived - the guy on the mic does not speak for the room. Those in the media do not speak for your friends. Preach the gospel, turn to your neighbour and let's engage those conversations - the fields are still white for harvest.

How can God expect me to have faith? 1

GlenFebruary 4, 2016February 8, 20161 Comment

This week I'm at the University of East Anglia to help the Christian Union with these events. Last night I spoke on the topic "What do Christians actually believe?" Afterwards there was a great question about faith which I answered so badly I thought I'd have another go on the blog. Here's what I wish I'd said...

How can God expect us to have faith? It seems so uncertain.

We all live by faith. Whether we are Muslims, Christians, atheists, agnostics, we all live by faith. I mean this in at least two ways.

First of all, we all must trust the testimony of others. Only a small fraction of my knowledge has been attained through direct observation, scientific experimentation or mathematical proof. For the rest, I've been told it. Teachers have told me, books have told me, journalists have told me, my parents have told me. I can have all sorts of rigorous standards which I expect these sources to adhere to. But I simply cannot personally fact-check everything I'm told. I have to take it on faith.

I once made this point in a conversation and the other guy said "No, you can check your knowledge scientifically and if you don't, it's not certain knowledge." I said "I can't scientifically assess the truth claims of my wife." He said "Yes you can." I said "No I can't. If I seek to falsify each of my wife's statements (falsification being at the heart of the scientific method) I wouldn't have a wife to assess!!" The scientific method is great for some truth claims but by no means all!

Nonetheless there are things that I know apart from such investigations (i.e. that my wife loves me, that she is trustworthy, that she has always been called "Emma", that she is beautiful, that she is "right" for me, that she exists, that this world exists, etc, etc!)

So that's the first point. So much of our knowledge comes to us in ways other than direct observation / scientific experimentation / mathematical proof. We live most of our lives by the testimony of others. In other words we live by faith.

There's a second sense in which we live by faith. We all have a view of the world that depends on larger commitments to truth, beauty, goodness, etc. You might object and say "I don't have any larger commitments. I am completely neutral as I build my view of the world from the ground up." But then I'll ask you, "Why do you do it that way?" At that point you'll have to justify that particular method of interpretation and this will reveal a worldview that precedes and shapes your approach to the world. It's inescapable. None of us can say "Just the facts ma'am, just the facts." Even that turns out to be a kind of worldview. Everyone has commitments of the heart and mind that go deeper than the facts.

Here is the Christian worldview in a 5 minute animation:

Here we find a God who is before, behind and beyond this world. There is a Father loving His Son in the joy of the Spirit (find out more here). This personal, good, truthful, beautiful, loving God is the ground of all being. From this God comes everything else and we are intended to participate in the life of this personal, truthful, beautiful, loving God.

Jesus came as the expression of God lived out in our humanity. He took on Himself the consequences of our vicious, wicked, lying, ugly, hatefulness and then rose up from the dead to offer us His kind of life. Connection to Him puts us in touch with what is most deeply true about reality: that there is Goodness, Truth and Beauty bound together in love. In other words, Jesus reconciles us to God.

This is the framework from which Christians view the world. And I'd like to suggest that it makes sense of reality in a way that no other view does. Here we have a very high regard for truth. We will want to assess the world rationally and rigourously. But we also see that there is a personal, an ethical and an aesthetic dimension to truth that must be explored too. Beneath and beyond the axioms of mathematics and the findings of science, there is love. Here in the Christian view is a grounding for our dearest intuitions - that personal relationships are what's most important.

We all live as though love is the greatest reality. Only the Christian can ground that intuition in something deeper than wishful thinking. The atheist does not have love as the ultimate reality. The theist-in-general does not have a God who is essentially love (since a single-person God cannot be love). It is Christianity that actually gives to the world a pair of spectacles that brings the world into proper focus.

Christian faith is about adopting these spectacles (rather than any other).

If the question is "Why does God expect us to have faith?", the answer is: Everyone has faith. What God wants is for us to have the sort of faith that actually fits us, fits the world, fits ultimate reality. He says "See the world like this. Doesn't that make sense of you, me and everything else?"

C.S. Lewis said this: "‘I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen. Not only because I can see it but because by it I can see everything else."’

This is another way (a much clearer and more succinct way!) of saying the same thing. You can get to grips with the sun in two ways. You can look at it (carefully!) but you can also look at everything else in its light. Both kinds of looking establish the reality of the sun.

The same is true of Jesus (who, incidentally, claimed to be the Light of the world, John 8:12). We can look at Jesus to see this God of love walk the earth. Here is something we can investigate and I urge you to do just that. Pick up one of the four biographies we have of His life, read, pray, chat it through with others. This is what it means to "look at the sun." At the same time we can look around at a world which Jesus illuminates. You can say to yourself "Could it be true that the Jesus-God is the deepest reality in this world? Could it be true that His kind of truth, beauty, goodness and love are what's ultimate in the world?"

When you put the two together you have a "Sun" that accounts for the sparkle. You have an Explanation for the light that we prize in this world.

As I look back at my conversion I see these two things going on. On the one hand I was reading the Gospels and in them encountering the unmistakable Light of Jesus. It got to the point where I could no more deny that He was Lord than that I could deny that the sun was bright. There is something self-authenticating about the Light of the world - He recommends Himself just by the force of His own compelling personality. At the same time though, I was listening to the Blues Brothers on repeat: Everybody needs somebody to love. It was striking me forcefully that love was the deepest reality in the universe. And all of a sudden these two things came together: I saw a sparkle in the world and I had found a Sun to explain it. There's a word to describe this kind of eureka moment: faith!

Why does God expect us to have faith? Everyone has faith. But which faith actually fits? I'd urge you to pick up the Gospels, shoot up a prayer and say "God, if you're there, shine!" See if the Jesus you meet there doesn't make sense of everything. It's worth a shot, don't you think?

Angry Evangelism 3

GlenJanuary 16, 2016October 10, 20213 Comments

I've come across far too many angry evangelists for this to be a coincidence. Out we go, door-knocking, flyering a uni campus or getting into conversations on the streets. (I'm a believer in first contact evangelism so I'm often doing this kind of thing (see here and here).)

Almost always these are two-by-two scenarios, so there I am with a fellow evangelist and we get chatting to someone about Jesus. Within 90 seconds my partner is agitated. This happens all the time. Maybe the non-Christian is showing scant regard for the importance of their own soul. Maybe they're denying their inherent sinfulness. Maybe they have the temerity to question certain gospel events. But pretty soon the non-Christian turns out to have actual non-Christian views and my Christian partner gets antsy.

Suddenly the Christian turns the conversation towards the conviction of sin, the inevitability of death, the judgement to come etc, etc. All of these have their place - absolutely - but I often wonder whether these are raised out of frustration and the desire to sledge-hammer a way through a conversation that hasn't gone as planned. I don't think I'm imagining it. I think that there are a lot of angry evangelists out there. And not just "out there".

I still remember (with more than a wince) a carols service I preached at 12 years ago. Workers piled into our central London church for a lunchtime sing-song and some mince pies. I vividly recall drawing attention to the carol before my talk: "Do you realise what you've just sung? O Come Let Us Adore Him. Adore Him? Such praise of Jesus! Doesn't that turn your English stomachs?" Yes I used that phrase: "Your English stomachs." *sigh* I can still picture the looks, the shifting in the pews, the ultra-awkward festive refreshments afterwards.

I was trying to draw attention to the person of Jesus - how incredible that billions would sing adoration to Him even after all these years. But what came out was anger, snarkyness, frustration, superiority. Ugly stuff.

I see this kind of thing quite a bit. Christmas and Easter services are prime examples. The preacher is often found saying: "And where have you been the other 50 Sundays of the year??" with their tone if not their words.

What's going on?

Several reasons might be given for a Christian's angry evangelism:

a failure to grasp the gospel (we don't see it as good news, so we put all our focus on "hard truths")
a failure to grasp the nature of evangelism (we think of it as delivering an ultimatum rather than the offer of Christ).
a failure to grasp the bondage of the will (that the unregenerate "cannot see" 2 Cor 4:4)
a failure to have any non-Christian friends (such that non-Christians genuinely surprise and threaten us).
plain old self-righteousness.

I think these are going on all the time in evangelists, in evangelical pulpits and, let's face it, in me. And it's ugly.

But let me here draw attention to something else going on. Essentially it's a view of evangelism that sees humanity as standing on either side of a "decision for Jesus."

Now there certainly is a vital distinction between those in Christ and those who are not. But this kind of evangelism revolves around, not Christ, but the decision.

On this understanding an "evangelistic sermon" is not so much a sermon full of the good news. It's a sermon imploring non-Christians to make a decision. Such preaching makes Christians feel bored (because they've already made the decision) and non-Christians feel got-at (because the preacher is clearly not addressing their own flock but taking aim at the visitors).

Let me suggest a far more important line that should define our preaching. This line is between the "life of heaven" and the "life of earth" - between God's righteousness and our sin.

Only one Person stands on the right side of this line. Only Jesus. The rest of us - Christians and non-Christians - are on the wrong side of His story. In evangelistic preaching then, we don't speak over the heads of Christians to hit our real targets - the unwashed. We speak to the children of Adam and reveal the problems of Adam. These problems are common to all, but praise God, there's a solution for all. Jesus is the "life of heaven", He is God's righteousness and He's made available to all. Christians need Him and need to look to Him constantly (not just in a one off salvation-moment). Non-Christians too need Him and need to look to Him for the first time. But the problems addressed are the problems of all and the solution proclaimed is available to all.

But what does preaching look like on that first paradigm...

Someone from the right side of the line condescends to preach to those below. And the essence of their message is an "arrow up" - it's an exhortation to make a salvation decision (the way that the preacher has already).

So preaching comes from on high and it's message is for those below to make their way up. Not so on the second model...

Here the preacher is on the side of the hearers - part of the same problem but also offered the same solution. And so this is the essence of the message: arrow-down! In the law, heaven does indeed stand above us and condemn us. What is revealed from heaven is, first, the wrath of God (Romans 1:18ff). But this wrath is revealed to all humanity and convicts all alike of sin. "But now a righteousness from God has been revealed" (Romans 3:21). Here comes the gospel and, once again, it is arrow-down as Christ is offered to lost sinners.

Christians need this gospel. Non-Christians need this gospel. No-one should feel superior. Everyone is humbled. No-one should feel uniquely "got at". Everyone is lavishly "given to." What place does anger have on this understanding.

But what understanding do we have? And how does it shape our preaching?

Who is Jesus in Islam and Christianity? 2

GlenJanuary 15, 2016January 15, 20162 Comments

Here's my dialogue with Adnan Rashid from 2 December 2015. Unfortunately the video seems to have been lost but not the audio.

AUDIO

My opening talk is from 27:08-48:30 and then Adnan and I took questions from the audience before finally questioning one another.

I absolutely loved the evening. We were well hosted by the Postsmouth Uni Islamic Society who provided the refreshments. There were about equal numbers of Christians (from the Christian Union) and Muslims in the audience. At the end scores of Muslims personally requested John's Gospels. I drove home buzzing. When you talk to Muslims about the gospel you speak about the things that matter: Who is God? Who is Jesus? Is the Bible the word of God? What is salvation? How can I know I'm right with God?

My approach for the opening 20 minutes was to unpack John's Prologue a little bit (as a taster to encourage folks to keep reading John). In particular I explored Jesus as the divine "Word of God". If Jesus is the revelation of God then it is not a question of whether He passes the "divinity test" set by others. Divinity is what we see in Jesus. And, as you read through John's Gospel, what an attractive divinity we see!

The first objection to this would naturally be: What about the Old Testament? But of course John is talking about the Old Testament. He is emphatically not saying that Jesus-the-Word is a New Testament novelty but an eternal reality - since the very "beginning."

Therefore I took time to demonstrate that Jesus is the divine Word of God from Genesis onwards. I think this is vital in Muslim evangelism. Whenever the Muslim is able (either tacitly or explicitly) to present the Trinity as a New Testament novelty they score a massive advantage. Whenever the Christian is able to demonstrate the Trinitarian Old Testament they make a devastating case. It really is that important.

Of course it's that important - it's essentially the question, "Is Jesus really "the Word of God" or is He merely the best Word of God, the seal of a series of improving words about God??" If we falter here then we have begun on the Arian trajectory that, historically, flowered with Islam.

For this reason I pointed people to these 24 Old Testament Scriptures that cannot be understood with a unitarian doctrine of God. Moses and the Prophets were emphatically not unitarians and their writings cannot be understood unitarianly.

A monadic doctrine of God is not primary historically, it is not simple philosophically/theologically and it cannot be basic methodologically. In short, Trinitarianism is not an offshoot of some more fundamental Unitarian understanding. Quite the reverse. Unitarianism is an heretical offshoot of Trinitarianism.

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Recently the question has been raised of whether Christians and non-Christians worship the same God. Many who say Yes have based their case on the Old Testament and/or the claim that, of course, we worship the same God as the Jews (e.g. Miroslav Volf and Bruce McCormack). The argument goes, if we're content to say that Christians and Jews worship the same God, then the door is open to say that those other monotheists - Muslims - also worship the same God.

It seems to me that many evangelicals are uncomfortable with this "same God" position, but they don't have a sufficiently Christ-centred, Trinitarian understanding of the Old Testament to be able to refute it. I'd urge them to revisit the issue of Christ in the Old Testament (perhaps start with this series of posts). This is not a needlessly divisive distraction but a crucial point about the basic nature of our God.

Look out in the next week or so for a podcast follow up (you are subscribed to The Evangelist's Podcast I hope??). I'll discuss the debate and some of these implications in greater depth. But before then, have a listen to the debate. And it might help if you saw the POWERPOINT SLIDES for my opening talk.