In a recent talk on the barge Henk Bouma shared with us some reflections on the way that Christians should seek to engage with Moslems. He talked about understanding Moslem culture, using verses in the Qu'ran to point people towards Jesus and said that to call oneself a Christian was not necessarily helpful in a Moslem country where the word "Christian" might have negative overtones and be more associated with Hollywood and militarism than Christ and the cross.
One key principle underlying this debate seems to me to be how far we are willing to go with the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:22 when he said "I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some." In short, so long as there is no compromise on gospel truth or Christian morality we are free to utilise whatever means me want in order to engage meaningfully with those around us. Therefore, if the word "Christian" is going to be misunderstood then we are free to drop it and replace it with a meaninful alternative.
A second key principle underlying this debate is how far we are willing to go with the apostle Paul in Acts 17 where he enters the culture of the Athenians and even uses pagan Greek poets and philosophers in his Christian presentation. God's fingerprints, if you are like, are present throughout his creation so that any religion, book, film, novel or cultural work will have something in it that points to the one true God. We need to start with where people are at, and in the context of engaging with a Moslem worldview this is going to involve starting with the Qu'ran itself.
In both these issues we may legitimately debate where the line is to be drawn. How far is too far? How far is too far in using someone's culture as a starting point from which to engage them with the Christian faith? How far is too far when it comes to being all things to all people? These are good questions. Henk did not compromise Christian truth, but he did challenge us how far we are willing to go in becoming all things to all people for the sake of winning some.
Sunday, 17 February 2008
The gospel writers as eyewitnesses
According to a recent survery 50% of young people think that there is no evidence for the historical Jesus, no doubt, in part, as a result of the doubt and confusion generated by everything from the Da Vinci Code to the supposed discovery of the Jesus family tomb last year. In the light of this, CS Lewis gives us the following helpful reminder of the fact that the gospels are eyewitness accounts. This is from his essay "Fern-seed and elephants",
"I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths, all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage, though it may contain errors. or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors, or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn't see this has simply not learned to read."
Lewis is saying that we have a choice. Either we believe that the gospels are eyewitness accounts. Or we believe that the writers were able to make up a writing style that didn't appear in Western Europe for another 1,500 years. His point is that either they are eyewitness accounts or they were written to look like it - even although that would anticipate a way of writing that was not yet present. It might be argued that to believe the latter actually takes a great deal more faith than to believe the former.
"I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths, all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage, though it may contain errors. or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors, or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn't see this has simply not learned to read."
Lewis is saying that we have a choice. Either we believe that the gospels are eyewitness accounts. Or we believe that the writers were able to make up a writing style that didn't appear in Western Europe for another 1,500 years. His point is that either they are eyewitness accounts or they were written to look like it - even although that would anticipate a way of writing that was not yet present. It might be argued that to believe the latter actually takes a great deal more faith than to believe the former.
Friday, 1 February 2008
The Christian and sex
In my preparation for last week's sermon ("The Christian and Marriage"), I was struck by the following quote from Christopher Ash's book "Married for God" (p71) "Christians tend to focus on the epidemic of sexual activity outside marriage, but I suspect we ought to devote at least equal attention to the epidemic of sexual inactivity within marriages." I think this also has implications for how we relate to people who are not yet believers. For many a black mark against Christianity is that they perceive that it is down on sex. It may be that in our desire not to go weak on sin that our positive message about sex has lost much of its beauty, force and clarity. I suspect if we were to do a survey, then the balance between denouncing sexual sin and commending a positive view of sex would fall far short of a 50/50 ratio.
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