What is Be Thinking

I've had a better chance to look at the Be Thinking web site, and put a link into my places to visit side bar. I've copied the following from the about us tab on their site:

bethinking.org aims to bring together the best possible resources for thinking about and communicating the Christian faith. Its goal is to help to prepare all Christians to provide an answer to those who deny the truth of Christianity. Whether that’s answering the attacks of Richard Dawkins, discussing our faith with a Muslim colleague or chatting about the latest episode of Dr Who with a neighbour, bethinking.org aims to provide you with talks and articles that stimulate you to think about your faith and its relation to the world and culture around us, and then to show how Christianity is not only true, but provides the answers to life’s biggest questions.


The technical term for all this is ‘apologetics’. Whether you are a student, at home or at work, we want bethinking.org to help you to talk about your Christian faith in a way that is relevant, attractive, true and culturally aware.

I like the description of apologetics as 'attractive'. Yes, we must strive for relevance, truth and cultural awareness, but attractiveness is so important. We can often speak the truth in relevant and aware ways which are far from attractive. Here is a skill many of us need to learn.

I'm grateful to the UCCF for this site and rejoice that there is so much good and useful information on it. I'm in danger of not getting any work done today so keen am I to read more on this site! Keep watching, I'll add some comments to some of the articles in days to come.

Good Questions and 'Good' Answers

Another day in 121 made more enjoyable by finishing Chris Wright's book 'The God I Don't Understand' (2008) on the train.

I've posted on Chris Wright before - here. Chris, in my opinion, is one of the finest biblical scholars presently serving the church. His books on Deuteronomy and Ezekiel are very good and his larger 'The Mission of God' is excellent. I must have read 'The Mission of God' the autumn before beginning my blog so there are no posts on it, so there's a good excuse to read it again!

In this book Chris identifies some questions which are hard to answer, e.g. Why suffering? What was all the fuss about the Canaanites? The Cross: Why, What, How? And the great climax, what's the end all about?

Chris' aim in the book is to reflect on what the bible actually says about these matters and then to draw lines within which we can study and gain understanding and beyond which we will, in this life, never fully understand our God and his ways.

On suffering Chris very helpfully writes of a proper Christian response to suffering, as modelled in Scripture, being: lament, grief, anger, disgust and protest. Not resignation, not transferring blame to 'the curse' or 'the judgement'. In summary:
The Bible compels us to accept that there is a mysteriousness about evil that we simply cannot understand (and it is good that we cannot).
The Bible allows us to lament, protest, and be angry at the offensiveness of evil (and it is right that we should). (p. 55)
This is a much more biblically robust way to respond to the evil of suffering than a resigned grin and bear it, or don't worry it will be better in heaven kind of approach which really helps no one and only brings the gospel into disrepute.

In the section on the cross Chris writes very well of the Trinity and how we cannot set the Father against the Son: i.e. The Son wins a grudging forgiveness from an unwilling Father, or the Father makes an unwilling victim of his Son. We don't understand the mystery of the Trinity but we know the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the two always work in perfect harmony. So any presentation of the cross or the atonement that falls down here will fail to do justice to the biblical presentation of Christ's work on the cross. A timely reminder and challenge to those otherwise minded.

A good book, easily read and very highly commended.

More Total Church

Some final thoughts from this wonderful and highly commended book.

On discipleship and training:
Others should learn truth not only from preaching but from lives that display the truth that has been preached!
Keep saying the obvious or people will forget.

On spirituality:
"Biblical spirituality is not about contemplation; it is about reading and meditating on the word of God. It is not about detached silence; it is about passionate petition. It is not about solitude; it is about participation in community. ... It [biblical spirituality] is centred on the gospel and rooted in the context of the Christian community." (p. 137)
Yes, a necessary corrective to too many forms of spirituality which are self seeking and self serving. See also Peter Adam 'Hearing God's Words', Apollos (IVP) 2004.
Union with Christ is the beginning of Christian spirituality, not it's goal!

On prayer the suggestion is made that we should prioritise prayer with others over prayer alone. So long as we are not saying that one is better than the other, there is truth in our learning to pray together, and our times of prayer shared with others encouraging and strengthening our times of prayer alone.

On theology:
"Theology must be in the service of teh church and its mission. Authentic theology must be shaped by what we might call a missionary-hermeneutic. Theology divorced from this context is essentially barren, self-referential and indulgent." (p. 152)
There is no theology apart from or outside of the community of faith. This position, while true, needs to be rigorously defended today.

On apologetics: (I really like this comment)
"The rejection of revelation is only a symptom of an underlying problem. ... The underlying issue is not a rejection of the possibility of revelation, but a rejection of the actuality of revelation. In other words, the underlying problem is not revelation per se, but what is revealed - our need for a Saviour." (p. 161)

An accurate analysis of the malaise afflicting the church in our days. This surely is what Romans 1:18ff is about, the rejection of God, the rejection of the gospel because we don't like it.

On a theology of the cross:
"We begin to see the relevance of the theology of the cross when we start to consider what forms a theology of glory takes today. Liberalism can be labelled a theology of glory, for it argues that God is known through human reason. Sacramentalism claims we encounter God through the symbols and rituals of the church. Creation spiritualities can also take the form of theologies of glory whether it is the sentiment expressed in 'nearer to God in a garden' or the more developed theology of someone like Matthew Fox. Power evangelism, too, looks for the revelatino of God in acts of power, arguing that miracles are an essential part of effective mission. And mysticism says that God is known through spiritual experiences or contemplative exercises." (p. 167)
Against all this, we know God through the message of the cross. Human wisdom does not recognise divine wisdom.

I think it is good that my last word on this great book is on the cross of the Lord Jesus, which so powerfully and clearly shapes and influences the authors and their experience of church. If only the cross were more clearly at the centre of our church life.