Regrets, I've had a few...

A crucial moment for anyone who has destroyed their marriage is to move from "regretting I ever married her" to "regretting I ever sinned against her". In my case I can truly say that God in his goodness gave me an amazing wife; it was I who broke the covenant and wrecked it all.

The fact that I have remarried, and to another amazing, Christian, woman, does nothing in itself to expunge that regret or to render irrelevant the importance of that shift of blame.

Letters

This blog is called what it is because I used to have a life in Christian ministry, and then it came to an end. It came to an end because, over a long period of time, I became cool toward God, professionalised in my work, and neglectful of my marriage. In the end I ended up committing adultery and losing my wife, my career, my reputation and, for a long period of time, all semblance of relationship with God. 

That I have come back I owe to so many factors – above all the preserving grace and infinite mercy of God, but, by way of instrumentality, the prayers of many, many people, and the loving support of my children and their spouses, and of many friends, including from the woman who is now my wife. 

A key instrument that God used in my return was communication by letter, and I wanted to write with thankfulness about the many letters I have received over the last years. You may not be in a position to meet up with a person going through what I was, but you may be able to send a traditional letter or write an email or Facebook message. These all had an impact on me. I stress the word "all", as some may seem to have been viewed very negatively. Indeed, at one level they were, and are, but they still formed part of the whole network of ways that God used in his sovereign grace to bring me back. 

I could categorise the communications in a number of ways 

1)   The aggressive and harsh

2)   The harsh and stern 

3)   The stern and loving

4)   The loving and spiritual 

5)   The spiritual and indirect 

1) The aggressive and harsh. 

I received a small number of letters whose tone was extremely unpleasant. In all cases they were from women; in all cases I knew that what drove the tone had more to do with experiences that the writer had been through themselves than specifically with me. 
 

In one case the writer assumed that I would not know who she was (in relation to other members of her family who I knew far better and who she quoted, unnamed, in her letter); on realising that I knew who she was she replied that she would never have written if she had thought I could identify her. She said that she would ask her daughter's forgiveness for quoting her; to the best of my knowledge she never has. 

Others were less underhanded, but almost as unpleasant. Adultery and betrayal, unhappy marriages and frustration – these things are all around us, and make for very vitriolic correspondents. 

I should say that one friend subsequently wrote to me with sincere apologies for her manner in writing her first letter. Reconciliation was very sweet. 

And the big point is that ALL these letters, although they made me sad and angry at the time, were part of the way God dealt with me to bring me back. Truth spoken viciously is still truth, and it struck home. The viciousness may say a lot about the author's state of mind and heart; the truth can be carried into the conscience.
 

2) The harsh and stern

I received a far larger number of letters, mainly from men, that could be described as harsh and stern. No personal venom, but a definite cold feel.  Sometimes they came from people I didn't know closely, but some were from people who had been close friends. 

 On one occasion the woman I was seeing saw one of these letters.  Her reaction, "THAT is from a FRIEND?" Notwithstanding her ignorance of Christian standards and expectations, she had a point. 

Yet every one of these letters had a real impact on me. Although sometimes my initial reaction was to be confirmed in my rebellion, deep down I knew differently, and over the long haul my conscience was challenged, time and time again. 

3) The stern and loving 

Then again, I received many letters and messages that were deeply serious but extraordinarily loving. These were often from former colleagues in Christian ministry – men I had known well or less well, who wrote to warn me of my spiritual peril. The letters did not pull punches – they told me plainly that if I continued on my present course I would be lost for ever, that I would go to hell – but they did so in a way that ached with pain and affection towards a wandering brother. 

These men were true shepherds. If tone could be described by way of action, while some letters yelled an order at a lost sheep, these letters came and offered to carry me home. 

 

And whereas others often fired off one missive and were done, these brothers sometimes made repeated, non-naggy, contact. 

Such letters never made me feel confirmed in my rebellion. They made me miss the love of these guys. They made me want to come home. 

4) The loving and spiritual 

 

The people who wrote most regularly were a handful of older ladies who never rebuked me at all. Whereas most of the stern letters were one-offs, a few people sent brief notes many times, sometimes with bits of news, a text that had spoken to them last Sunday, or a brief word of encouragement. Above all, I was reassured time and time again that they were praying for me. 

It would be a high-handed rebel indeed who could maintain steady anger towards such people. Some were like my mothers in the faith. Indeed, the most regular writer was directly connected to my conversion; it was after a meeting in her house nearly forty years ago that I had gone home to pray and seek God. 

These letters, too, really made me want to come home. 

5) The spiritual and indirect

This last category encompasses more than letters. It was more about contact. People who knew God, knew where I was at, knew what the score was, but without direct rebuking or nagging, simply interacted with me. Sometimes they asked questions about where I was at, in a way that took my spiritual state seriously, but with more serious empathy than direct condemnation. More often they just talked about other stuff. Life stuff. Being friends.

Facebook interaction was the general method – a comment on a photo here, a thoughtful political comment there, an appreciation for a YouTube music video or for a particular ale – these contacts from Christians who spoke naturally-and-yet-as-Christians broke down the illusion that I was living a brave new life, having all the fun. These people were human, and had warm and interesting and fulfilling lives, AND loved Christ, and let me know it without much direct speech.

They didn't just make me want to come home: they made me feel the pointlessness of not coming home.  That was a very big victory. 

   *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *  

In conclusion

 

I am grateful for ALL the above categories of correspondence. God used them all. My pastor through all of this was faithful in contact, and if meeting him could be put in terms of the categories of letters, he was both 3 and 5. 

I would say, if you know someone who has wandered:

·       Make contact. The most aggressive of the above types of letters were less painful and less of a stumbling block to my recovery than the massive roar of silence from the bulk of my Christian friends. Men in ministry who I had regarded as friends and colleagues for years made no attempt to contact me at all. To be honest, horrid contact is better than no contact.

·       Be real. Talk to the person where they are. Share your feelings of disappointment and betrayal if you have them. Be honest, so that genuine love may be seen and felt. But interact on a wider range of subjects than simply the sin. Be a friend.

·       Be open. Write in such a way as to encourage dialogue, more correspondence. Don't just fire off a missive (missile?) to salve your conscience as a "watchman"; plant a seed that may grow, starting an interaction that could save a wanderer. 

·      Talk about Jesus. When I was far away, I missed him. Every letter that made me miss him more was a nail in the coffin of rebellion. 

Thank you, all, for helping me come home. 

Three Questions - Three Watersheds

Having just put down a note on Total Depravity, I thought it worth going slightly further, to look at three questions that mark historical fault-lines in Christendom (at its widest).

1) Who saves us?

a) We do.

Pelagius said that human beings retain enough of goodness and innate ability that we can reach up by our own effort and find God, attaining his standards. (Whether or not Pelagius himself actually said this is a moot point - he may have actually been far closer to later Arminians than his opponents - or even his followers - gave him credit!)

 

b) God does

Augustine said that we are all subject to total depravity and that we are utterly unable to turn to God and reach his standard. 

That question was settled, and the Pelagian view declared heretical, at the Council of Carthage, and, although not an ecumenical/catholic council in the full sense, I understand that the church, both East and West, has been (officially) Augustinian ever since. Any turning to God is understood by all to be the outworking of God's grace - his prevenient (coming-before) grace that enables the exercise of faith. 

 

2) How does God save us? 

a) Through the rites and offices of the church - the sacraments.  

This view dominates the Roman and Orthodox wings of the church. Baptism expunges original sin; penance and the sacrifice of the mass grant forgiveness of on-going sin. The ministry of the word is to lead the faithful to the sacraments. 

b) Through direct faith in Christ by his word and Spirit

This view has always been held by some within the Western church, but came to prominence and dominance in one part of the church especially through Luther and the other reformers. It is the typical view of Protestants, and within that stream, of Evangelicals. The sacraments are physical helps to the ministry of the word.

 

3) Who can be saved?

a) All are equally unable to turn to God by nature, and all are equally addressed and challenged by the gospel; only those in whom God is personally at work by his Spirit actually respond to Christ in faith. This is the Calvinist view. The mixed results of preaching the gospel (some believe, some don't) have their root in God's prevenient grace which is particular to individuals - some receive it, some don't, and all who do come to faith.

b) All are equally unable to turn to God by nature, and all are equally addressed and challenged by the gospel; but God works universally in all (his prevenient grace) in such a way that all have the grace-given ability to choose to place their faith in Christ as they hear. This is the Arminian view. The mixed results of gospel preaching have their root in personal decisions for which we are all equally capacitated by God's universal, prevenient grace. As all receive grace, such grace must be resistible or else all would believe.

 

 

The value of these three questions is that they make clear where the streams of evangelical Arminianism and Calvinism diverge, and that Arminians can affirm absolutely their belief in Total Depravity. Of course, in practice, at a folk-religion level, all branches of the church have shown tendencies to drift back towards Pelagianism – we are all born as Pelagians, our sin manifesting itself as pride which asserts our own capacity to right-ourselves. It may not be unfair to say that some branches of Arminianism have sometimes so emphasised human decision and so failed to teach prevenient grace that they have become practical Pelagians, and this has been most unhealthy.

 

However, at its best evangelical Arminianism exalts the grace of God. Calvinists might feel that Charles Wesley was showing his roots in the 39 Articles rather than his shoots in Methodism when he wrote And can it be, but the fact is that he wrote it and it is unfair to charge him with schizophrenia.

 

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

 

It is only by grace that we see our need of grace;
the more we receive of grace, the more we perceive our need.

 

Total Depravity

The doctrine of Total Depravity is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions. While religion urges us to do this and do that in order to reach up to God, the Christian message is that our sin so weighs us down, so blocks us out from God, that there is nothing we can do by way of ritual action, social good or internal spiritual exercise that can possibly deal with the gravity of our problem and bring us into the presence of our Creator.

The doctrine of Total Depravity does not say that we are all as bad we could possibly be, but that there is an all-pervasive quality to our sin which mars every aspect of our nature, making us totally bankrupt and incompetent when it comes to dealing with God.

It is against that backdrop that the Christian gospel says two things, or one thing with two elements:

• Where we are unable and bankrupt, God is able and active. His grace is extended to us - what we cannot do, he will do - he treats us in a way we have not deserved and cannot deserve. Our only hope lies not in what we do but in his grace and kindness - we can only throw ourselves on his mercy. This insight in itself marks out Christianity amongst the world's religions.
• God's grace comes to us specifically through the person of Jesus Christ. His obedient life, his submissive death, his resurrection - these are the events in which God's grace is worked out for us. Grace reaches us in life, in time and space because grace has reached down into time and space - ours is a historical faith.

If grace is a religious rarity, historical grace is unique. While religion always ends up saying "DO", God in Christ says "DONE".

That is my hope and my life.

Denying the Denial #1 - Too heavenly minded?

Reading some contemporary radical, emergent or liberal christian writers I am struck that conservative Christians are often accused of ignoring, downplaying or even denying some insights because of an obsession with certain narrow shibboleths. Those who make this accusation very frequently, in their turn, ignore, downplay or outright deny the very element that the conservatives enthuse about. I couldn't say that it is deliberate, but in accusing conservatives of caricaturing the faith, a doorway is often opened to make outright denial of the faith appear balanced and reasonable. 

In fact, when you begin to look at the accusations of imbalance, the antitheses being set up seem to me to be almost routinely false and unfair. I wanted to write about some of them. 

1) Spiritual/eternal salvation versus temporal/social salvation

It is common in liberal theological discourse to critique conservatives for having a heart set so much on a heavenly hope that they are of no earthly use. Aspects of the critique (as ever) have some truth of course; the notion of the future hope as "heavenly" in the sense of spiritual-but-not-physical is not a biblical one, but it still pervades much popular piety. And an under-realised eschatology (so much "Not Yet" that there is no room for "Now") also saps at present usefulness. Some streams of dispensationalism, which assign us the role in the present age of simply "holding the fort till he come" have gone hand in hand with churches supporting some hideous social injustices. All of these things can be granted. But a strong hope in the coming kingdom as involving new creation, a future, transformed, physical world and a conscious eternity in the presence of the King is also sneered at, as if, in itself, such a hope made a focus on peace, justice and transformation in this present age quite impossible. 

This is simply not the case.  In fact, exactly the opposite could be maintained. It is the hope of final judgement and future transformation which is the ground on which present efforts to change the world are based. It is the moral imperative of an invisible, spiritual realm, of a final judgement to come, which gives concern for this present age its bite and passion.

Why does the Good really matter? Why is injustice such an offense? Why should I care about truth, about corruption, about exploitation, about evil?

Christ died at the hands of human beings in the greatest outrage of injustice, spite, duplicity, cruelty and wrath against God that the world has ever seen. Given a chance to murder our Creator, we did exactly that. In the resurrection, God said that such injustice would not have the upper hand - indeed, by this same Man he will judge the world he created. We live between that great statement of intent and the day of judgement it promises. As we live between the Injustice of the cross, and the great Justice to which the resurrection points, how can we not take up the struggle against all that is evil? Failure to do this would show us to be as out of touch with the purpose of the cross as would a failure to seek personal holiness on the grounds of the abounding of grace. If you know grace, you hate sin. If you hate what we did at the cross, you hate injustice wherever you find it.

In fact, it is in the very passages where Jesus most sternly teaches on the reality of the two eternal destinies that we find his strongest words on compassion and practical care. What is the criterion for the final judgement? Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned. Such are the works that inevitably follow faith, as James hammers home to us; such is the judgement that will decide our eternal destiny.

This is why the recovery of serious, eternity-oriented Christianity has so often gone hand in hand with a revival of practical concern for others, and especially for the righting of social wrongs and injustices. The Evangelical awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries became the foundation stone for many social reforms that are taken for granted in the present day, even by many who have no clue as to their roots in Christian piety. The existence of trades unions and all of the rights and protections that have been won for workers over the years; prison reform; slavery's abolition; child labour reform and provision of schooling; a raised age of consent as a safeguard against human trafficking... the list goes on. Eighteenth century Anglican Deism with its distant, theoretical, non-miracle-working god and calm, drawing-room politeness was not a world-changing faith - Methodism was.

Ironically it is when Christianity is reduced to doing good in the here and now, when the supernatural, the miraculous and the eternal -  hope and dread - are rejected or at least marginalised, that it becomes LESS earthly use. When doctrine has been sheared of its more offensive corners, then faith becomes an innocuous moralising, a toothless tendency, not a militant movement out to overthrow injustice and cruelty. 

It was not as a theological liberal that General William Booth of the Salvation Army said;

While Women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight, I’ll fight to the very end!

That concern for the practical and social had at its heart a  concern for the eternal;

“Not called!' did you say?

'Not heard the call,' I think you should say.

Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”

Nor was it as a theological liberal that Wesley wrote to Wilberforce;

Unless the divine power has raised you us to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.

May God help us so to recover such a vibrant sense of the imminent age to come, of future judgement, and of a genuinely divided eternal destiny that we are energised into fresh evangelism and social action in the present age.