A Superb Review of the theology of the new Batman movie here:
Redemption in Gotham
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Sunday, 15 July 2012
The Death Within
"By the mystery of your Incarnation, your nativity, your baptism,
by your agony, by your crucifixion, burial, resurrection and ascension,
and the coming of your Holy Spirit,
Good Lord, deliver us". The Great Litany.
It makes for pretty uncomfortable reading, but it's clearly there in the Gospels.
Jesus was becoming known by what He could do - the 'signs' that the Kingdom had clearly come meant that He was gaining quite a following. It was, no doubt, the very thing that John the Baptist and others were looking for, hoping for - the one who would truly bring the life and message of God.
Of course, the problem quickly becomes such 'signs' themselves. Jesus understood how that is what was wanted by the many who followed, not the genuine reality of the kingdom behind such power, and that is what truly counts. That's why the 'popular' moment of His ministry ends and the 'difficult' period truly begins - why He stops the majority of such public miraculous activity to journey to Jerusalem where He knows He will be killed.
For us, that's a hard truth - not exactly what we would expect of a Messiah, but then again, there are some 'mysteries' about the very nature of life itself that are at the core of what is happening here, and it is those that we rarely encounter.
Take death itself. We normally talk about this as Christians only in terms of its relationship to sin, and therefore, as both being 'enemies' of life. Now, it's clearly right to see death in it's ultimate, godless expression as just that (what is often talked about as 'the second death'- the point of eternal separation from God), and there's no denying that our mortal deaths are moments of great sorrow and tragedy, but there's something vital for us fallen creatures about that final moment. It can actually become, as it was for the thief on the cross, the moment of liberation into life, which is why our baptism is a baptism 'into' Christ in His death and resurrection.
Death is actually the instrument or means God uses to bring about life. Think for a moment of the splendor that was Eden - a gloriously furnished creation, which would sustain the creatures God makes to live there through every 'seed bearing' grass, herb and tree (Genesis 1:11&12, 29 & 30) He provides. The natural world is sustained by these plants 'giving seed' to the earth which die to yield new life, so God weaves the value of death into His creation from the very beginning.
The Same mystery is clearly evident in the creation of Eve. Unlike all other creatures He has made, He causes this person to be fashioned by placing Adam in a 'deep sleep' (2:21 - 'to die') to form the one who is truly 'bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh'. This, as Paul alludes to towards the end of Ephesians 5, is one of the clearest images in Scripture of the relationship between Christ and the Church (5:30-33), and in both, it is the work which God does 'within' death that is key to the glorious creation which follows.
It is perhaps hard for us to understand such works - they run so contrary to the way in which we would chose to achieve things, but the necessity is no doubt due to the manner of character (the nature of the Son) which God is seeking to place within us.
In the book of Revelation, John speaks of the 'Lamb's book', written 'before (or from) the foundation of the world' (13:8). It is this nature - expressed in the image of a slain lamb - that defines the God who has made us, sustains us and is at work to complete the work He has begun in what He has made. This nature resides at the core of His character, His work, His love and His goal for us and creation, which is why the 'power' of His kingdom lies in the clear unveiling of the 'message of the Cross' - from Christ's emptying of Himself to live a life aquatinted with sorrow and grief, to death amongst the lost. The seal of God's new creation is a world lead through such depths by Christ, that these powers may never hold dominion over the realm which is coming, which is overseen by the throne of the Lamb.
We cannot face our pains, trials and the dreadfulness of death alone - it is truly a tragedy for us to seek to do so - but through the Lamb of God, these woes become the very means God has used to invest eternity with the fulfilled Word who has come to us, that this realm may truly be furnished through Him.
by your agony, by your crucifixion, burial, resurrection and ascension,
and the coming of your Holy Spirit,
Good Lord, deliver us". The Great Litany.
It makes for pretty uncomfortable reading, but it's clearly there in the Gospels.
Jesus was becoming known by what He could do - the 'signs' that the Kingdom had clearly come meant that He was gaining quite a following. It was, no doubt, the very thing that John the Baptist and others were looking for, hoping for - the one who would truly bring the life and message of God.
Of course, the problem quickly becomes such 'signs' themselves. Jesus understood how that is what was wanted by the many who followed, not the genuine reality of the kingdom behind such power, and that is what truly counts. That's why the 'popular' moment of His ministry ends and the 'difficult' period truly begins - why He stops the majority of such public miraculous activity to journey to Jerusalem where He knows He will be killed.
For us, that's a hard truth - not exactly what we would expect of a Messiah, but then again, there are some 'mysteries' about the very nature of life itself that are at the core of what is happening here, and it is those that we rarely encounter.
Take death itself. We normally talk about this as Christians only in terms of its relationship to sin, and therefore, as both being 'enemies' of life. Now, it's clearly right to see death in it's ultimate, godless expression as just that (what is often talked about as 'the second death'- the point of eternal separation from God), and there's no denying that our mortal deaths are moments of great sorrow and tragedy, but there's something vital for us fallen creatures about that final moment. It can actually become, as it was for the thief on the cross, the moment of liberation into life, which is why our baptism is a baptism 'into' Christ in His death and resurrection.
Death is actually the instrument or means God uses to bring about life. Think for a moment of the splendor that was Eden - a gloriously furnished creation, which would sustain the creatures God makes to live there through every 'seed bearing' grass, herb and tree (Genesis 1:11&12, 29 & 30) He provides. The natural world is sustained by these plants 'giving seed' to the earth which die to yield new life, so God weaves the value of death into His creation from the very beginning.
The Same mystery is clearly evident in the creation of Eve. Unlike all other creatures He has made, He causes this person to be fashioned by placing Adam in a 'deep sleep' (2:21 - 'to die') to form the one who is truly 'bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh'. This, as Paul alludes to towards the end of Ephesians 5, is one of the clearest images in Scripture of the relationship between Christ and the Church (5:30-33), and in both, it is the work which God does 'within' death that is key to the glorious creation which follows.
It is perhaps hard for us to understand such works - they run so contrary to the way in which we would chose to achieve things, but the necessity is no doubt due to the manner of character (the nature of the Son) which God is seeking to place within us.
In the book of Revelation, John speaks of the 'Lamb's book', written 'before (or from) the foundation of the world' (13:8). It is this nature - expressed in the image of a slain lamb - that defines the God who has made us, sustains us and is at work to complete the work He has begun in what He has made. This nature resides at the core of His character, His work, His love and His goal for us and creation, which is why the 'power' of His kingdom lies in the clear unveiling of the 'message of the Cross' - from Christ's emptying of Himself to live a life aquatinted with sorrow and grief, to death amongst the lost. The seal of God's new creation is a world lead through such depths by Christ, that these powers may never hold dominion over the realm which is coming, which is overseen by the throne of the Lamb.
We cannot face our pains, trials and the dreadfulness of death alone - it is truly a tragedy for us to seek to do so - but through the Lamb of God, these woes become the very means God has used to invest eternity with the fulfilled Word who has come to us, that this realm may truly be furnished through Him.
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
An ugly truth
"There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. I wish I could believe that"
John Connor - Opening of Terminator 3.
It's a popular philosophy - captain of our own souls, our own destiny. It's popped in Western culture numerous times, probably even pre-dating the Greeks, been given political and economic currency since the Enlightenment of the 17th century, and is toyed with in some measure by anyone, I guess, who 'defines' themselves, at least in measure, on line,
but there's a flip side to this 'bright side' attitude to ourselves and life, a murdering sub-strata of 'monsters from the id' which are just as sinister as any Morlock and as incarcerating as the Arkum Asylum - it is these which are the sirens of times.
The problem, of course, is they are so cloaked in a 'shroud of decency', that their forms are barely made known in public, and so, faceless and hidden, they escape scrutiny, and the hollow dream of self-determinism continues to the ashes of the grave.
Intellectuals, the likes of Richard Dawkins and Melvin Bragg, can glibly and publicly espouse the virtues of the cardinal philosophies of this nightmare without blinking, because the truth is almost too shocking and certainly too painful to bear - the underlying errors regarding the nature of the human condition within game theory, the mammoth policies of economic, social, political, health and even spiritual change since the 1970's that have been constructed on those same errors, beginning in American culture and being implemented, often by force, across the globe, bringing us to the present state of affairs, where the collapse is real, but the reasons for it are still not understood.
It's a broken, cannibalistic philosophy, it's ultimate victim being the self, which becomes the property of others beneath an illusion of virtual freedom via the means of cyberspace - control through apparent self- expression, where individualism becomes a means of un-purchased but free entrainment to all.
Oliver Stone's striking movie, Nixon, began with a statement which causes us to consider such greed - 'What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but looses his own soul'. Stone's 1987 movie, Wall Street, clearly defines the soul-less 'bubble' that our culture has inhabited for some time. Those words of Jesus stand before our present society and show us its blindness and pain. We must put aside the folly of our self-determinism, and once again seek the one who brings meaning and significance beyond the vanity of our broken age.
John Connor - Opening of Terminator 3.
It's a popular philosophy - captain of our own souls, our own destiny. It's popped in Western culture numerous times, probably even pre-dating the Greeks, been given political and economic currency since the Enlightenment of the 17th century, and is toyed with in some measure by anyone, I guess, who 'defines' themselves, at least in measure, on line,
but there's a flip side to this 'bright side' attitude to ourselves and life, a murdering sub-strata of 'monsters from the id' which are just as sinister as any Morlock and as incarcerating as the Arkum Asylum - it is these which are the sirens of times.
The problem, of course, is they are so cloaked in a 'shroud of decency', that their forms are barely made known in public, and so, faceless and hidden, they escape scrutiny, and the hollow dream of self-determinism continues to the ashes of the grave.
Intellectuals, the likes of Richard Dawkins and Melvin Bragg, can glibly and publicly espouse the virtues of the cardinal philosophies of this nightmare without blinking, because the truth is almost too shocking and certainly too painful to bear - the underlying errors regarding the nature of the human condition within game theory, the mammoth policies of economic, social, political, health and even spiritual change since the 1970's that have been constructed on those same errors, beginning in American culture and being implemented, often by force, across the globe, bringing us to the present state of affairs, where the collapse is real, but the reasons for it are still not understood.
It's a broken, cannibalistic philosophy, it's ultimate victim being the self, which becomes the property of others beneath an illusion of virtual freedom via the means of cyberspace - control through apparent self- expression, where individualism becomes a means of un-purchased but free entrainment to all.
Oliver Stone's striking movie, Nixon, began with a statement which causes us to consider such greed - 'What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but looses his own soul'. Stone's 1987 movie, Wall Street, clearly defines the soul-less 'bubble' that our culture has inhabited for some time. Those words of Jesus stand before our present society and show us its blindness and pain. We must put aside the folly of our self-determinism, and once again seek the one who brings meaning and significance beyond the vanity of our broken age.
Sunday, 17 June 2012
The Nightmare
It's been an interesting six weeks for me. For the first time since loosing Kay to cancer, I've been attending church regularly and this has brought the beginning of fresh friendships and lots of interesting conversations on a range of issues. It's also been interesting to see, over the same period, that my engagement with the world in general, particularly over social electronic forums has picked up, and I've actually found myself writing, researching and thinking more of late than in quite some time. All of this has been causing me to look again at the present turmoil of the world and really ask how such evil thrives and decimates - what causes such wickedness to become so prevalent and pervasive?
Whilst we can certainly point to the propensity in the human condition to the flawed and the crooked because of the nature of the corruption of our hearts, there does seem to be a particularly dark edge to current events. There certainly appear to be some parallels in the time of the Prophet Ezekiel.
The culture of Israel had become riddled with arrogant pride in her immoral spiritual and business relations with her neighbors, and God brings a stark analysis of her real condition and its consequences (Ezekiel chapter 16). What struck me here, however, was what resided at the heart of such rebellion.
Ezekiel raises the judgement of Sodom (verse 49), describing the condition of that city as it met its end. His analysis is telling.
We would, perhaps, focus on Sodom's sexually immoral lifestyle, but the root problems are stark and chillingly familiar - Pride, excess of material goods, an abundance of idleness, negligence and indifference to the needs of others, arrogance which made allowance for wickedness as socially acceptable.
In Romans 1, Paul talks about how it is when people exchange the truth about themselves and God for the lie of self-sufficiency in regards to how we define ourselves that we then see the emergence of a culture that is riddled with these forms of cruelty - cruelty to ourselves, because it numbs us to our true condition and then cruelty toward others, as what is deemed to be acceptable is derived from a selfish notion of reality.
This downward spiral leads to deeper and deeper severance from what truly makes us whole; a squandering of God's rich gifts until we are left, empty and alone, in a cruel world so often of our own making.
The end would be dark indeed, but the same God who spoke through Ezekiel and the Prophets still speaks to our day and tells us, wonderfully, that there is mercy in our time of need. The future of the world is not in the hands of such darkness. Christ has come to reconcile all things to God so that we can employ and use the bounty He has made well, with thanksgiving and delight, caring for each other through the love He sheds abroad in our hearts - the love which made and redeems creation.
Whilst we can certainly point to the propensity in the human condition to the flawed and the crooked because of the nature of the corruption of our hearts, there does seem to be a particularly dark edge to current events. There certainly appear to be some parallels in the time of the Prophet Ezekiel.
The culture of Israel had become riddled with arrogant pride in her immoral spiritual and business relations with her neighbors, and God brings a stark analysis of her real condition and its consequences (Ezekiel chapter 16). What struck me here, however, was what resided at the heart of such rebellion.
Ezekiel raises the judgement of Sodom (verse 49), describing the condition of that city as it met its end. His analysis is telling.
We would, perhaps, focus on Sodom's sexually immoral lifestyle, but the root problems are stark and chillingly familiar - Pride, excess of material goods, an abundance of idleness, negligence and indifference to the needs of others, arrogance which made allowance for wickedness as socially acceptable.
In Romans 1, Paul talks about how it is when people exchange the truth about themselves and God for the lie of self-sufficiency in regards to how we define ourselves that we then see the emergence of a culture that is riddled with these forms of cruelty - cruelty to ourselves, because it numbs us to our true condition and then cruelty toward others, as what is deemed to be acceptable is derived from a selfish notion of reality.
This downward spiral leads to deeper and deeper severance from what truly makes us whole; a squandering of God's rich gifts until we are left, empty and alone, in a cruel world so often of our own making.
The end would be dark indeed, but the same God who spoke through Ezekiel and the Prophets still speaks to our day and tells us, wonderfully, that there is mercy in our time of need. The future of the world is not in the hands of such darkness. Christ has come to reconcile all things to God so that we can employ and use the bounty He has made well, with thanksgiving and delight, caring for each other through the love He sheds abroad in our hearts - the love which made and redeems creation.
Sunday, 20 May 2012
Saying it well
There's quite a bit of interesting thinking and perhaps changes going on right now, so I hope to post something on at least one of these strands in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here's something that is really worth watching with Michael Horton from a recent conference in America. I suggest you sit back with a warm cup of something and soak in these moments which resonate with truth. Enjoy:
Friday, 6 April 2012
Tactile Truth
"Whatever you think about heaven, remember it has to be real and it has to be now...heaven is about everything - the colour of your beloved's eyes, your forefinger touching your own nose - it is about being risen and glorified right now. It is not something other than this world; it is this world perfectly offered in the land of the Trinity. It is all the moments of time and all the conjunctions of space as Christ holds them reconciled for the splendour, the sheer majesty, of the Father's grace... and it is all of them held for the endless exploration of their depths - depths which we, even as at the moment of again, seeing our beloved's eyes, have only just begun to suspect".
Robert Farrar Capon - The Youngest Day.
It's probably one of the biggest problems in theology - making it real. We live in a world where, let's face it, the virtual plays a huge part in the daily routine - whether it's doing the shopping, organising records at the office, or entertaining ourselves. I guess that's why I enjoy people photography so much... in this sadly often dislocated inter-action which passes as life, working with another person allows you to truly glean something about them and hopefully learn something of the real value of another person; something which virtual exchange can often limit or entirely mask.
Popular ideas of heaven can be like that. Like Sunday School images, they can charm us into looking at a place detached and distant, where nothing we currently understand really adds up to much and isn't going to matter....
so, why do we bother with all this?
That's the trouble with so much that passes under the guise of 'spirituality' - if you examine it a little closer, it essentially says that none of this really adds up to much, if anything at all.
Easter has a way of bringing us back to earth with a bump. The tactile moments the Gospels convey concerning the last supper, the garden betrayal, the bogus trials, the execution, and the very tangible shock of what follows, all immersed in the very real anguish and joy of those who were there, tells us, as plain as the noses on our faces, that God is with us, and that it is, indeed, this world, this strange, feeble and failing race of creatures that we belong to that He is involved with, deeply, in terms of making this world, this existence, the one which will have eternal ramifications.
Reality isn't merely defined by a series of 'truths' we adhere to and practices defined by such truths - these are, at the end of the day, merely a means to lead us to a real person, who has come to show us that eternal life is to be encountered, now, in the richness of the communion He has known with His Father, our Father, before anything else existed - that is what will mark and define the quality of life, forever. It's seeing that everything is related to this vital reality that truly allows us to begin to know, to encounter, what heaven is really all about.
Robert Farrar Capon - The Youngest Day.
It's probably one of the biggest problems in theology - making it real. We live in a world where, let's face it, the virtual plays a huge part in the daily routine - whether it's doing the shopping, organising records at the office, or entertaining ourselves. I guess that's why I enjoy people photography so much... in this sadly often dislocated inter-action which passes as life, working with another person allows you to truly glean something about them and hopefully learn something of the real value of another person; something which virtual exchange can often limit or entirely mask.
Popular ideas of heaven can be like that. Like Sunday School images, they can charm us into looking at a place detached and distant, where nothing we currently understand really adds up to much and isn't going to matter....
so, why do we bother with all this?
That's the trouble with so much that passes under the guise of 'spirituality' - if you examine it a little closer, it essentially says that none of this really adds up to much, if anything at all.
Easter has a way of bringing us back to earth with a bump. The tactile moments the Gospels convey concerning the last supper, the garden betrayal, the bogus trials, the execution, and the very tangible shock of what follows, all immersed in the very real anguish and joy of those who were there, tells us, as plain as the noses on our faces, that God is with us, and that it is, indeed, this world, this strange, feeble and failing race of creatures that we belong to that He is involved with, deeply, in terms of making this world, this existence, the one which will have eternal ramifications.
Reality isn't merely defined by a series of 'truths' we adhere to and practices defined by such truths - these are, at the end of the day, merely a means to lead us to a real person, who has come to show us that eternal life is to be encountered, now, in the richness of the communion He has known with His Father, our Father, before anything else existed - that is what will mark and define the quality of life, forever. It's seeing that everything is related to this vital reality that truly allows us to begin to know, to encounter, what heaven is really all about.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
At play in the field of God.
"We only need to think for a moment how much the Christian understanding of life depends upon the existence of Grace; let us recall that the Holy Spirit Himself is called a 'gift' in a special sense; that the great teachers of Christianity say that the premise of God's justice is God's love, that everything gained and everything claimed follows upon something given and comes after something gratuitous and unearned...that in the beginning there is always a gift.... In the midst of creation is a sacrifice of God in Jesus Christ which makes everyday a feast day, celebrated as sacrament, in all the visible signs of what has been bestowed. in such leisure, men are lifted above the frontiers of the mundane into the ecstasy of what has been given - the Logos - that we might be rapt into the love of what is above and beyond us amidst what is seen".
Josef Pieper - Leisure- the Basis of Culture.
I made an interesting discovery during a lunch-break at work this week.
Due to some unseasonal good weather, I went out for a walk along Plymouth Hoe with my camera, and found myself at the Mayflower memorial arch - a place I'd been before, but I'd never ventured onto the viewing platform which looks out to the sea. Inscribed into a semi-circle of green slate plates upon the railings is a statement which encapsulates the intent and accomplishment of those who sailed from this site to the new world:
'As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many and, in some sort, to our whole nation'.
I found myself wondering about that... how often do any of us do something which makes that kind of an impression upon others? Most of us are not Bach's or Galileo's (and many such folks were miss-understood or maligned in their own days), and what we do seems pretty small, but what is true is that we so often benefit from such moments, which can enrich our own lives beyond ways we often comprehend... Perhaps the best we can do is take a moment when such thoughts play upon us to recognise and appreciate the value of such gifts.
There is, of course, an even bigger 'canvas' which we all play upon, and that is the splendour of life itself. Josef Pieper seeks to remind us that that activity itself is only possible because of the love, care and giving of another - it is by their giving that all of our activity is possible, because it is born purely out of love, shared with us.
In his book, the Parables of the Kingdom, Robert Farrar Capon begins his study on the teachings of Jesus in these gems by seeking to describe the essence of what scripture itself is trying to say to us - what statement is writ large beneath its archway of departure?
"It is about the mystery by which the power of God works to form the coming city, the new Jerusalem, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband". What this means, he notes, is that the Bible is not about some strange place called heaven, nor somebody far away called God, but it's actually about this place, our journey, and the intimate and immediate-ness of the one who is at the heart of it all, who is at work to bring all of life to a place where it is true to His care and His purpose.
When we consider the actions of those who took to sea aboard the Mayflower, not truly knowing what awaited them or if they would even survive the journey, their actions often seem extraordinary, but the benefits have been equally astounding. So it is with the God who has acted in creation, revealing Himself through Jesus Christ. We cannot dismiss the benefits, which sustain us, however we respond to the source.
The call to each of us is to the journey - to the wonder and the mystery. May we be brightened by such a endearing light.
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