TD_Ep018-MLynch-Flood-and-Fury_wide002

Matthew Lynch – Flood and Fury

Matt and Kenny discussed passages in the Old Testament like the flood and the conquest of Canaan, that on the surface contain moments of troubling violence. But Matt contends that a closer and slower reading of passages like these can actually reveal a critique of violence and show us more of the goodness and mercy of God. We hope this episode will help bring some clarity to some of the difficult questions raised when we read the Old Testament, particularly in light of the God we see revealed in Jesus Christ.

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On God’s Mother – Lucy Peppiatt

Lucy Peppiatt - On God's Mother

*This is an updated re-post from December 2015*

When one of my boys was little he announced, ‘I know why God was mean in the Old Testament and nice in the New Testament.’ ‘Why’s that?’ I asked. ‘Because in the Old Testament, he didn’t have a mummy.’ Interesting thought…

Putting aside the fact that he was highlighting the problematic OT/NT distinctions, and the fact that it sounds funny to put it like that, I liked his expression—God had a mummy. I’m sad that I come from a Christian tradition where Mary mostly gets sidelined. The way that it’s always framed is in relation to a fear of compromising a strictly christological focus. I’m not entirely convinced it’s just that. 

I do know that I’m grateful to have studied theology to find wider and richer traditions, I’m grateful that my mother, who was brought up by a Catholic stepmother, talked a lot about Mary, and I know that every Christmas I think of Mary in a particular way. 

I think of her as a woman who went through the process of childbirth; a process that is raw, powerful, emotional, potentially frightening, and awe-inspiring. It’s exhausting and elating at the same time – and it is kind of icky – but in a way that nobody cares, because there are much bigger things to think about. There are no squeamish women at a birth, only practical ones, and the mother’s body is the centre of everyone’s attention. 

The reality that a messy, bloody, female-centred, bodily birth is at the heart of our salvation story never ceases to amaze me. It doesn’t really surprise me either that it’s always been a problem for some people.

Maybe we don’t like to dwell on the reality of God in a womb, but maybe we should. Maybe it would change the way we see God if we did. It might even change the way we see women. And doesn’t it make you wonder whether that might have been part of the plan all along—to change the way we see God and the way we see women?

Tertullian on Mary

Tertullian, a second century African bishop writes about the Mary giving birth in his treatise, On the Flesh of Christ, and it’s so interesting to me that he isn’t at all squeamish about Mary’s body here. Admittedly, his main aim is to form an argument for the very human flesh of Christ against Marcion and others, but on his way, he makes some extraordinary claims about Mary. 

First he addresses the heretics’ charges of the uncleanness and filth of the womb (which they claim is obviously an unfitting home for God). Secondly, he addresses the perceived shame of childbirth. His view, instead, is that childbirth should be ‘honoured in consideration of that peril’, and ‘held sacred in respect of (the mystery of) nature.’ This is just the beginning.  

For Tertullian, as he elucidates, the real human existence of Jesus Christ hangs entirely on his physical, fleshly connection with Mary’s body. 

Pray, tell me, why the Spirit of God descended into a woman’s womb at all, if He did not do so for the purpose of partaking of flesh from the womb. For He could have become spiritual flesh without such a process—much more simply, indeed, without the womb than in it. He had no reason for enclosing Himself within one, if He was to bear forth nothing from it. Not without reason, however, did He descend into a womb. Therefore He received (flesh) therefrom; else, if He received nothing therefrom, His descent into it would have been without a reason, especially if He meant to become flesh of that sort which was not derived from a womb, that is to say, a spiritual one. (Chapter 19) 

Jesus is made ‘of her’, not just ‘in her’. He is made from her and not just through her. She is not only a receptacle of the Divine, she contributes from her own body. It is her blood that forms him, her food that nourishes him, her breasts that feed him. Tertullian even has a fairly lengthy explanation of the link between the physical process of pregnancy and childbirth to the production of milk. 

But if the Word was made flesh of Himself without any communication with a womb, no mother’s womb operating upon Him with its usual function and support, how could the lacteal fountain have been conveyed (from the womb) to the breasts, since (the womb) can only effect the change by actual possession of the proper substance? But it could not possibly have had blood for transformation into milk, unless it possessed the causes of blood also, that is to say, the severance (by birth) of its own flesh from the mother’s womb. (Chapter 20) 

Not squeamish at all. 

He carries on proving his point making the connection of Jesus’ birth to OT prophecies. How else would he be connected to the line of David through Mary, unless the baby was truly hers, albeit born of the Spirit? 

This physical connection to Mary is the basis of the story of salvation, the proof that our own flesh, our souls and bodies, can be redeemed, and cleansed, and resurrected—and this through a woman. The fact that she is a woman is important. Eve’s first catastrophic sin is reversed. 

Into a virgin’s soul, in like manner, must be introduced that Word of God which was to raise the fabric of life; so that what had been reduced to ruin by this sex, might by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. (Chapter 17)

The blame-game is finished. It’s over. 

New Creation

There are three creation stories of the creation of humanity in the Bible. The first one is that male and female together are made in the image and likeness of God. The second is that a human is formed from the dust of the earth and woman is taken from man. She is flesh of his flesh. The third is that humanity is reborn through a Saviour, who is born of a woman, and He is flesh of her flesh.

When God chose to come to earth, he chose the hiddenness of a woman’s womb. When God chose to take on flesh, he chose to unite himself to a woman’s flesh.

When God chose to appear, he chose to come as a baby, entrusting himself to a woman’s body to be born. 

Mary cleaned him, changed him, cuddled him, fed him, sang to him, and whispered the story of his birth to him. This Advent we look forward to the coming of our Saviour into the darkness of the world. Let’s remember his condescension began in the hidden darkness of a womb, surrounded by Mary’s blood, preparing him for life among us.

Lucy Peppiatt WTC PrincipalDr. Lucy Peppiatt has been Principal at WTC since 2013. She teaches courses in Christian doctrine and in spiritual formation. She holds bachelor’s degrees in both English and Theology. She completed her MA in Systematic Theology at King’s College, London, and her PhD through the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Lucy’s research interests are Christ and the Spirit, Charismatic theology, theological anthropology, discipleship, 1 Corinthians, and women in the Bible. Lucy is part of Crossnet Anglican Church in Bristol, which is led by her husband, Nick Crawley. They have four sons and four daughters-in-law.

Get her latest book here.

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TheoMisc Blog

Theological Miscellany is a blog where we post a variety of theological reflections on scripture, life, culture, politics, society, gender, and pretty much anything. WTC attracts a whole range of people as students and a wide range of faculty from around the world with different interests and theological leanings. What draws us all together is our commitment to a Christ-centred theology, taught in a Spirit-led fashion in partnership with the local church.

Find all posts HERE

Come and Study With Us

WTC TheologyOur study of theology means engaging with a Kingdom that is powerful and transformational.

We offer programmes in ‘Kingdom Theology’ because at the heart of our study is the belief that Jesus came proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has brought the reality of the Kingdom to this world.

Find out more about WTC Programmes HERE.

Petley White Fury

Book Review of Christer Petley’s ‘White Fury’ by Dr. Steve Watts

Steve Watts - Book Review of Christer Petley's 'White Fury'

Petley White Fury

Christer Petley’s White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution (Oxford, 2018).

Available to purchase here.

“British historians write almost as if Britain had introduced Negro slavery solely for the satisfaction of abolishing it.”

This bitter observation, made by the noted historian and first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Eric Williams, appears in the final pages of Christer Petley’s superb White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution. It gives voice to a view that British historians, if not also the British public, have tended to see slavery primarily in terms of its abolition. And why wouldn’t they? Who wouldn’t want to see themselves on the right side of history? But if we are not careful it can be a story more concerned with praising John Newton’s amazing grace, than lamenting the utter wretchedness of the human cargo he had transported, so matter–of–factly, across the Atlantic.

Petley does not say so explicitly, but one gets the sense while turning the pages of his book that he had Williams’s words firmly in mind. White Fury, simply put, is an unvarnished portrait of British slaveholding. More specifically, it is a portrait of Simon Taylor, not only the most “successful” of the Caribbean planter class, but also one of the wealthiest men of the British Empire.

Employing Taylor’s correspondence as his principal resource, Petley traces the slaveholder’s career from the mid 18th to early 19th centuries as it weathers storms both literal and figurative. High winds, blight, and disease turn Taylor’s sugar plantations into high-risk, high-reward ventures, while the American and French revolutions and the unwelcome rise of abolitionism challenge his relationship to the Empire. And so we read of Taylor’s hopes, fears, struggles, ailments, frustrations, and finally his fury when the British government turns its back on what still remained a highly profitable industry. Abolition, for Taylor, was no humanitarian victory; it was nothing short of betrayal.

What is strikingly absent from Taylor’s correspondence, however, is any meaningful comment on the thousands of people who lived, and often quickly and miserably died, on his plantations. He treated these, by–and–large, as little more than livestock. Not much better was his treatment of those few relatively-privileged African men given authority over the more destitute, among which numbered a substantial number of women and children. Not much better still was his treatment of those Creole women, euphemistically referred to as “housekeepers,” who produced Creole children without the legal status of heirs. His quest for profit eclipsed their personhood; their value enumerated, literally, in pound sterling. His overwhelming concern, then, was for their economic productivity, tempered only by an ever-present fear of their revolt.

Gratefully, Petley does not limit his study to Taylor’s self-interest. Instead, the reader is treated to a wider, richer view. At turns, Petley traces the passage of a slave ship on its dreadful course, details the hardships of plantation life, reveals the integration of Caribbean and British mainland economies, and much besides. Indeed, one can quite easily imagine a not too indirect line from the lucrative output of Taylor’s plantations to the proverbial spoonful of sugar in the average British home. All the President’s Men told us to “follow the money”; in this case, the same could well be said of the sugar.

All told, then, Petley offers both a bracing and enlightening account of this troubled period in British history. It is carefully-researched and highly readable. It is unflinching yet unpolemical. And it offers much to chew over, to reflect upon. So, of the many possible subjects to explore in the latter part of this review, I think it beneficial to highlight at least a few.

The first, concerns Taylor’s colonial British identity. As has often been pointed out, the American Founding Fathers were evidently not referring to the new nation’s multitudes of African slaves when they affirmed that all men were created equal. But in light of Taylor’s letters and the wider contours of British colonisation detailed in Petley’s study, it occurs to me that the Declaration is neither as tragically ironic nor obviously unjust as I had previously assumed. White colonists, and particularly those ruling over a multitude of black slaves, were in fact often at the more progressive edge of political liberalism. They were especially keen to assert their rights and freedoms vis–à-vis a potentially overbearing government back home. Such freedom, moreover, was further reinforced in contrast to the enslaved people who surrounded them, laboured under them. Freedom, alongside whiteness, western civilization, and religion, was what made them distinct, and––in their eyes––superior.

The second relates to Taylor’s stunning degree of compartmentalisation. How is it possible to be a champion of freedom while enslaving others? But perhaps that is just my naïveté talking. The world’s first democracy, after all, was underwritten by slave-labour, specifically in the silver mines southeast of ancient Athens. And yet the theological and biblical allusions scattered about Taylor’s letters still strain the boundaries of credulity. What is anyone to do with a slaveholder who unironically describes their position relative to the British government as being akin to Israelites straining under Egyptian bondage? And yet, there is Taylor again, thanking Providence for blessing his labours.

If there is a place for critiquing Petley’s otherwise fine analysis, it is here. Much more could have been said about the religious and theological content that emerges in the writings of both slaveholder and abolitionist. And the same surely goes for the beliefs of the slaves themselves.

Early in the book, for instance, there is brief mention of the nonconformists who arrived in Jamaica and immediately set to work undermining the strict hierarchy of the slave society they encountered. Unlike the baptisms into the Church of England for those select few of Taylor’s skilled and favoured slaves, these sought mass baptisms and grassroots change. Indeed, despite the caricatures of present popular imagination, such missionaries were more typically thorns in the side of imperial economic interests rather than ignorant agents of colonisation.

And later on, when Petley charts the rise and ultimate success of the abolition movement in Britain, he repeatedly refers to these as humanitarian activities. But this movement began among the Quakers and then gained momentum predominantly among evangelical Anglicans. Humanitarian is thus far too secular a word for something so explicitly theological. From Clarkson to More, from Newton to Wilberforce, slavery was a sin––a sin for which the British Empire was already being judged by God. What then to do with these conflicting theologies with real world consequences? What then to do with those places where slaveholder and abolitionist were otherwise in theological agreement? Neither party, it must be said, was in much doubt that the Empire itself had been providentially ordained.

With this criticism aside, I return again to Williams’s initial observation. Not only can the standard British account of slavery focus more upon abolition than the slavery itself, but it can also prioritise the voices of the powerful, regardless of whether they are doing the enslaving. Petley appears sensitive to this pitfall. At every opportunity he seeks to give voice to the thousands of otherwise historically voiceless men, women, and children unloaded upon Jamaican shores. Indeed, the very arc of the work seems to point in their direction. Whether intended or not, I appreciated his decision to address the immense cost born by these people first, prior to any exploration of Taylor’s own risks and labours. It gave the welcome impression of putting matters in their rightful place, if only in historical retrospect.

And it is this tendency that brings me to a final, discomfiting reflection. As I first began to read White Fury, I became aware that I was approaching Taylor in terms of how and why he did what he did. How could he have systematically disregarded and even destroyed so many people, so many images of God? Surely profit, no matter how great, could ever pay off such a grievous blood debt. How could he sleep at night? And yet… and yet. Follow the sugar. Follow the tags on my clothing. Follow the phone in my pocket, to the hands that made it, and under what conditions. I don’t know. Follow the often war-torn origins of the metals that bring my devices to life, ever-hungry for my entertainment spent in leisure. Do I want to know? Do we?

Compartmentalisation and its dear friend Hypocrisy are never too far away from the human heart. But there is yet more to say. My perspective, when reading Taylor’s letters and, indeed, Petley’s study, assumes a freedom to choose; the freedom to say no. It is clearly not, then, the perspective of one shackled to another in the dark, rows upon rows, stench and disease, frightened, angry, hopeless, human cargo shuddering along the Middle Passage. I struggle to imagine myself in that place, so far from freedom, even though it has been experienced by so many. So many. And that distance is haunting, and more revealing, than I would care to admit.

Steve WattsDr. Steve Watts teaches Church History and Spirituality at WTC. He received his PhD in Mediaeval History at the University of St Andrews and was most recently a postdoctoral fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. He graduated from Regent in 2010 with an MCS in Interdisciplinary Studies. He presently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with his wonderful wife Elissa and four bright-eyed children.

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TheoMisc Blog

Theological Miscellany is a blog where we post a variety of theological reflections on scripture, life, culture, politics, society, gender, and pretty much anything. WTC attracts a whole range of people as students and a wide range of faculty from around the world with different interests and theological leanings. What draws us all together is our commitment to a Christ-centred theology, taught in a Spirit-led fashion in partnership with the local church.

Find all posts HERE

Come and Study With Us

WTC TheologyOur study of theology means engaging with a Kingdom that is powerful and transformational.

We offer programmes in ‘Kingdom Theology’ because at the heart of our study is the belief that Jesus came proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has brought the reality of the Kingdom to this world.

Find out more about WTC Programmes HERE.

Church Closed

The Holy Spirit and the Church

Alain Emerson -The Holy Spirit and the Church

The Holy Spirit is the one who ushers in the Kingdom of God. That Kingdom is present, although often hidden, in the church. The Holy Spirit is the one through whom God actively loves us in time. The Spirit is the way that the Trinity is revealed to us, pointing us always to the truth embodied in the Crucified, and leading us to the Father. By Godʼs love, we live in the Age of the Spirit, that new time in which the church exists and testifies to the world that our time is not our own. God has taken time for us and the sign of that divine intrusion is the Holy Spirit at work in the church that lives and works in the world. God through the Spirit draws us into the life of the Trinity, forming the people of God. The Spirit chooses to have a body on which the Spirit can rest. That body turns out to be called “church.”

[1]

In recent years, it has become common to talk about the church as both ‘gathered’ and ‘scattered.’ It’s helpful language in many ways as most will concur that church should be both a gathered community and a scattered dispersion of Jesus followers in their local communities. Often though this language becomes fashionable, impressive coffee-shop conversation focused more on how to ‘program’ both gathered and scattered expressions, but lacking the creative leading of the Holy Spirit. I’ve also heard it said you need to choose what kind of model you want to be—a city on a hill (emphasis on gathered expression of church, implying a well-oiled machine of great Sundays and a ministry program menu to back it up) or the salt of the earth (emphasis on scattered church expressions—‘church-wherever-we-are’ types and the dispersion of everyday missionaries into the spheres of influence).

I have always thought, Why not both? Is this not the biblical mandate? And I wonder if our pre-Covid church categories and cultural Christianity of 21st Century forced us too rigidly into one model, or often motivated us to establish one in reaction to the other? Is this season of deconstruction allowing us to reframe our understanding of church and re-centre our ecclesiology on something more akin to the normative patterns of the New Testament.

Our theology / ecclesiology is so important here. First of all, we are primarily the redeemed people of God, sinners rescued from darkness to form a new ‘covenant’ community based on the sacrificial love of Jesus. We are an alternative community, the ‘one new humanity’ living in this world as a counter-cultural vision of kingdom family, a signpost of how people will live together forever in the new heaven and earth. Sacrificial Love is therefore the axis for everything this community does and is. As Jesus taught us ‘people will know we are His if we love one another’ as he loves us. We are not just a random set of individuals scattered all over the place colliding once a week for some fellowship and pep-talk. The church is a people, a one-minded, one-hearted family baptised into one Spirit.

I am coming to realise that many streams of the church have focused on individual conversion and individual spiritual formation and even individual evangelism at the expense of building an actual community of the Holy Spirit. Remember the desert fathers who taught us the importance of solitude (monk, comes from ‘monos’ which means ‘alone’) and counter cultural spiritual formation in an empire-compromised church reached the point where they realised a life spent completely ‘solitary’ could only take them so far in their spiritual journey! Basically, they realised they needed other people to truly grow and thus the inspiring individual spiritual lives of St Anthony and others soon developed into inspiring spiritual communities. As John Finny put it – “the cells [of the Egyptian desert] became clumps (groups of monks meeting for fellowship) and the clumps became communities (the birthplace of communal monasticism as we know now it).”[2] In this context Jesus-followers became committed to a healthier form of spiritual formation. The raw elements of these communities intrigued the masses, from the poor and destitute to kings and queens and the DNA of these communities was exported into the soil of many nations all around Europe resulting in a meta-change in the cultural landscape.

My point is that as much as we, in the charismatic church, want to see a dispersion of scattered servants, carrying kingdom authority into every sphere of influence, gossiping the ‘good news’, healing the sick and confronting the powers and as much as we want to break the over-emphasised institutionalised form of the church (I get it!), we should not allow our reaction to this to pay less attention to the gathered church and its corporeal reality. The early church never assumed that ‘kingdom work’ could be done as isolated individuals, who simply ‘checked-in’ with one another for church on Sunday or worse simply watched an ‘online’ service. Rather the corollary to the spontaneous expansion of the early church was small communities of believers learning how to become one in Christ so they could reflect the life of Christ in the world.

Contrary to what many of us may think, it’s hard to deny Jesus spent as much time forming a community as he did proclaiming good news! This of course is not a dichotomy we need to force but rather a recognition that the proclamation of the kingdom flows from the formation of a Christlike community—Family on Mission. We can only accurately display the kingdom of God when we are committed to the community of the King because the community gives credibility to verbal proclamation. The one new humanity is what God is establishing on the earth to give glory to Himself. Of course, we are not talking about an insular-looking cozy community serving its own needs – rather a family loving one another into Christ-likeness, empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news of the kingdom and to push back the kingdom of darkness. We must encourage everyone to do the work of the evangelist – but we must not forget the church as community is an evangelist—the body of Christ on earth, witnessing to his saving grace. Further the church is more than God’s agent of evangelism of social justice in the world, it is the agent of God’s entire cosmic purpose (Eph 3:10). The church’s pattern of life and commitment to loving one another serves as a countercultural structure to the political and social structures of the day. As Karl Barth describes, the church is ‘the provisional representation of the sanctification of all humanity.’[3] Therefore in its very ‘being’ the church should be prophetic and evangelistic.

Yes, we must absolutely equip the church to scatter into society and leaven the lump of the world, not ‘demanding’ or ‘imposing’ change but scattering the seeds of truth in the way (sacrificial love) of Jesus Christ—a love more powerful than any of the sin-systems of this world, even death itself! These seeds will plant roots in society and bring forth the fruit of change in the world. But where community is lacking and where there are no environments to nourish, the leaven can often become inactive and loses its flavour. In this season of lockdown and restrictions, with a lack of gathered environments, we are in danger of the church ‘losing its flavour’ as, in my experience ‘online church’ is not able to ‘salt’ God’s people as much as actual ‘sacramental’ community.

Practically, therefore, we need to adapt and think about how we establish our churches in these days which are built around family and where spiritual formation in the way of Jesus continues to happen in community, where it was also supposed to! This of course is more challenging in days of lockdown and restrictions, but what if we have an opportunity to make these environments better than what they were pre-Covid. While there are a host of advantages to how we pivot our technology in this season there is also the danger that church becomes even more a ‘spectator sport’ than it was pre-Covid! I really believe if we work hard, reform our patterns and gathered environments to engage more people in smaller, participatory groups built around Word and Spirit dynamics and establish these groups on the principles of discipleship and mission (the Great Commission), this could be an incredible moment for the church. What if we can maximise the opportunities to build these type of environments in this season, even if it is online, so at least the principles and practices are in place for once we get out of restrictions? If the last reformation put the word of God into people’s hands what if this is an opportunity to put it into people’s hearts?

If you are unsure how to do this, ask the Holy Spirit and give yourself to more rigorous Biblical reflection on the New Testament with your leadership team. The Holy Spirit specialises in granting wisdom for how the church is established and as we submit ourselves to the scriptures He will guide you in these uncertain but full-of-opportunity days! Ephesians 3:8-10 reminds us God grants those who are called to lead and serve His church a ‘mysterious’ wisdom in the administration (or planning /‘architecting’) of the ‘household of faith.’ Look to Him. He’s been waiting for a chance for us to put down the church growth books, break the clergy-laity divide, surrender whole-heartedly to His leading and pick up the New Testament again – it’s all in there! Also be aware of who God has placed in your church body; doubtless there are many mature people who haven’t yet been empowered, equipped, and challenged to lead and disciple others. Maybe now is the chance to deploy them into service – take a risk, call them into action alongside you and go for it! A new wineskin built on the reality of the priesthood of all believers, the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the radical servanthood of the Spirit of Jesus.

Maybe this is our reformation?

[1] Stanley Hauerwas and William H Willimon, The Holy Spirit (Abingdon, 2015).

[2] John Finny, Recovering the Past (Celtic and Roman Mission), (Darton,Longman & Todd, 2013)

[3] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics v. 4: The Doctrine of Reconciliation. eds. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance (Edinburgh T. & T. Clark, 1958-1962), 614.

Alain Emerson WTC FacultyI’m Alain Emerson and I live in Northern Ireland where I help lead Emmanuel Church and also provide leadership for 24-7 Prayer in Ireland. I have the privilege of teaching at WTC on the module, ‘Shapes of the Church: Past, Present and Future,’ which is part of the Church Planting and Leadership Programme. As someone who has grown up in the
church and found myself in church leadership most of my adult life, I have a passion to see the body of Christ become all it was destined to be. I am fascinated by the many shapes of the church which have emerged throughout the centuries and the current
conversation. This has informed and inspired my own practice as a church leader, church planter and overseer over a network of churches. During these unique Covid days, I am convinced the Spirit is giving us an opportunity to reform many of our structures and patterns and yet the theological framework upon which we establish this is of utmost importance. This is a small contribution to the on-going conversation.

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TheoMisc Blog

Theological Miscellany is a blog where we post a variety of theological reflections on scripture, life, culture, politics, society, gender, and pretty much anything. WTC attracts a whole range of people as students and a wide range of faculty from around the world with different interests and theological leanings. What draws us all together is our commitment to a Christ-centred theology, taught in a Spirit-led fashion in partnership with the local church.

Find all posts HERE

Come and Study With Us

WTC TheologyOur study of theology means engaging with a Kingdom that is powerful and transformational.

We offer programmes in ‘Kingdom Theology’ because at the heart of our study is the belief that Jesus came proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has brought the reality of the Kingdom to this world.

Find out more about WTC Programmes HERE.

Welcome Home - Ghost Ship

Welcome Home

A blog post by Revd Azariah France-Williams.

A Warm Welcome?

Ghost Ship - Azariah FW

There is a myth that black West Indians were invited by the U.K government after WW2 to help rebuild the shattered British landscape. In fact, the government was not willing to have members of the Islands come over. They sent emissaries to the Islands to in effect declare:

“England is not open for business, thank you for your interest, we do not need your help.”

The problem was Islands like Nevis had incredibly high literacy rate coupled with easy access to English newspapers. The classifieds were clear, England was bleeding and needed labour to staunch the flow of blood. So although the government did not want the black presence, the businesses did.

One of the travellers over that period was a nineteen year old girl from Nevis who boarded an Italian boat called the Lucania. The sea spray flecked her cheeks as she boarded British passport in hand in 1955. That young bright-eyed teenager was the woman who would become my mother. She came to bring her strength and her love as a full citizen, with full rights, bringing her full self. But it can be hard to bring your gift and feel like you are merely tolerated. She worked as a seamstress and would sit on the long bench in front of her sewing machine at Hepworths factory in Leeds. Her white colleagues had a game where they would all shuffle down the bench until she toppled off the edge of the bench. White supremacy can not accommodate anyone that is ‘other’ and will strive to reestablish a world where the ‘other’ is on the floor. Although she was treated badly, she determined to make others feel welcome driven by her faith and love.

There is a Peters and Lee song called ‘Welcome Home’ the lyrics are warm and melodic, causing one to sway and smile whatever mood you were in before listening. School was not easy for me for a range of reasons. Whenever I arrived home from school, I would spot the net curtains twitch and I would know what to expect. Upon entering the house the ‘Welcome Home’ song would be blaring out at top volume and my mother would take my hand and pull me into the hallway, and dance with me. After I got over the embarrassment I would sway along and join in with the singing. We would laugh, and settle into the rest of the afternoon.

Mum welcomed me in the place she received no welcome. U.K stood for UnKind.

To some extent my mother came to the U.K to find some purpose and identity. As a ten-year old, when the second world war had finished, she wanted to now be a part of the ongoing rebuilding enterprise. She was coming to the mother country for affirmation and validation. It was a big journey with companions along the way and the thought was always that she would head back to Nevis, head home after she had done her bit, seen the world, and saved up some money to cultivate her patch of land, return and settle down. Because we all know there’s no place like home.

There is no place like home.

In the movie the Wizard of Oz Dorothy and her ragtag crew of three friends and Toto seek him out to receive the gifts he is presumed to be able to offer. Dorothy’s dog Toto pulls back the curtain and then they met the wimp behind the wizard. He shuffles from behind a curtain and the game is up.

A biblical hero with his three friends on a journey is Daniel. The story here is that they survive their own tornado and are taken to the land of power and oppression. The sheer scale and magnitude cowed many of the stolen into capitulation to the new power. They had their names changed and the emperor, the Wizard demanded they saw the world he did.

He set up a huge statue to himself and demanded everyone gathered to worship, and bow down to this oppressive display of power, but Dorothy and her three friends, I mean Daniel and his companions, would not bow down seeing the fragility behind the projection of power.

‘There is no place like home.’ Daniel and his friends bring a sense of home with them. They connected to the God of their ancestors and even in a strange land they stood despite the risks. In my book Ghost Ship, I am attempting to stay standing, I am holding onto the edge of the bench, the Church of England has rejected her children from other lands. Well eventually Dorothy got back home, and Daniel’s descendants returned, but now identity was hybridised. Home would have to be reimagined all over again. My mother never made it home but made herself a home to so many. 

God knows black lives matter, God is unambiguous about that love. When our doorbell rings and someone different to us turns up at our door, in our nation, at our church can we dust off the record player and play ‘Welcome Home,’ they may be tired, and one day it may be you needing to push the doorbell hoping to hear the music.

‘in as much as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me’

Azariah France-WilliamsRevd Azariah France-Williams is the author of Ghost Ship: Institutional Racism and the Church of England available from Amazon and SCM Press.

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TheoMisc Blog

Theological Miscellany is a blog where we post a variety of theological reflections on scripture, life, culture, politics, society, gender, and pretty much anything. WTC attracts a whole range of people as students and a wide range of faculty from around the world with different interests and theological leanings. What draws us all together is our commitment to a Christ-centred theology, taught in a Spirit-led fashion in partnership with the local church.

Find all posts HERE

Come and Study With Us

WTC TheologyOur study of theology means engaging with a Kingdom that is powerful and transformational.

We offer programmes in ‘Kingdom Theology’ because at the heart of our study is the belief that Jesus came proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has brought the reality of the Kingdom to this world.

Find out more about WTC Programmes HERE.

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Praise as Defiance in the Face of Suffering and Death

Catherine Delve - Praise as Defiance in the Face of Suffering and Death

Praise as Default

Ever since I was a child, I’ve known something of the power of praise. Praise was a default after my dad walked out, albeit after 24 hours once the initial shock had passed. It seemed something of a rebellious act—my own small act of rebellion in the face of disaster and grief. And it has seemed like this at multiple times since, when all appeared to be lost. Whether close to bankruptcy (a fair few times), or dealing with the onset of a chronic health condition in my 30s (which threatened to lead to confinement to a wheelchair), facing the seemingly impossible has been a regular occurrence in my life, as I’m sure it probably has been in yours too.

When Paul and Silas found themselves in prison in Acts 16:25, facing the injustice and humiliation of a Roman flogging and having their feet restrained in stocks, their response was to praise God. I can’t imagine that this was praise born out of thanksgiving for the situation in which they found themselves. A Roman flogging was not like a tame rap on the knuckles. It was a brutal act; their backs were likely torn and bleeding. They would have been in terrible pain and discomfort. Nonetheless, they continued to believe that God was exactly who he said he was, and they praised him as a result. As they did so, something powerful was released. There was an earthquake and the prison doors flew open! Freedom manifested itself.

In the West, our challenges are normally less extreme, but nonetheless they are real. But now, the unparalleled and testing times we find ourselves in globally as a result of the coronavirus are stretching many of us to our limits, and for many, are extreme. The grief of the loss of loved ones, the feelings of loss of control, the sudden loss of income for so many, and uncertainty about the future presses in on every side. It is so easy at times like this to feel blind-sided by our circumstances and to be overcome by fear or anxiety. Equally, it is easy to question where is God in all of this. Where are you God when I can’t seem to see you or feel you? And indeed, who are you, God? Can I trust that you are good, that your mercy is new every morning?

NT Wright wrote an insightful piece recently (you can read it here), which despite its clickbait title, helpfully encourages us to join God in lamenting the tragedies which overwhelm us. As my friend and OT scholar Matt Lynch has already identified, the charismatic church doesn’t really know how to lament if the lyrics of the top one hundred songs in contemporary Christian music are anything to go by.[1] Now would be as good a time as any other for us to focus on developing this. However, what our tradition is much better at is eschatological hope. Consider some of the songs of the moment: Raise a Hallelujah, Way Maker, God of Revival, Good Grace to name but a few.[2] Much of our sung congregational worship is of this ilk. Perhaps we could even say that this trend in contemporary Christian music has led us to build a somewhat lopsided tradition which knows how to do declaration and hope, but knows less how to do reverence or lament.

In times such as these, this lopsidedness poses challenges and demands that we become more thoughtful and nuanced in what we are singing and why. Sometimes it is very challenging to sing songs of hope when hope is in danger of being drowned out by fear and death. Is it even appropriate to sing songs like this when people are dying, businesses are failing, many of the self-employed have lost their incomes overnight, and victims of domestic violence are in lockdown with their abusers and more at risk than ever? Isn’t this type of worship triumphalistic and naive?

I would like to suggest that just as Paul and Silas raised their voices to sing while they were in prison, we could do the same whatever our ‘prison’ is. It is at times like this in particular that we need to hold onto our hope more than ever. Do we really believe and trust that God is who he says he is and that he will accomplish all he has promised? This is not inappropriate triumphalism. We may not see the realisation of his promises in our own lives this side of eternity, but we pray in the promises for the world nonetheless. That is where our faith is truly tested and stretched. Just as Israel questioned where YHWH had gone in their time of exile, we may well wonder where God is, but let’s not be mistaken in believing that God has abandoned us. Now is the time for us to put our hope squarely in the right place. It is not about being naive. People are dying and will continue to, whether from Covid-19 or of something else, despite our best efforts (rightly so) to prevent it. However, one day I will die, and one day you will die! The essence of our faith is trusting that death does not have the final word.

However, praise as a form of defiance is not just about declarations of hope. It is also about resisting the powers. Twentieth-century theologian, William Stringfellow, brilliantly articulates the reality of the principalities and powers as aligned with either the power of death or the power of life.[3] He observed that war is a symptom of death, and not the other way around, i.e. death is not a symptom of war. This same logic applies to Covid-19. This virus is a symptom of the power of death powerfully at work in our world. Death is not a result of the coronavirus. The coronavirus is the result of death. As such, our resistance as Christians is against the manifestation of death in all its forms, rooted in the hope we have that death has been swallowed up in the victory of Christ on the cross.

Thus praise is our defiance in the face of death. Praise is our small act of rebellion in the face of fear, loss, grief and isolation. Except it is not a small act, it’s a powerful one. The power of the resurrection life of Jesus cannot be contained. The tomb couldn’t contain him; nothing since has contained him. Whatever state the church has been in—whether limping or running, colluding or serving, complicit or cooperating, defeated or empowered by the Spirit—the resurrection power of Jesus has broken through. My faith and yours are a testament to this.

So today, tomorrow and for as long as my body has breath in it, my praise will continue to be my powerful act of rebellion and defiance—rebellion against the power of death, and against the power of fear. I encourage you to try it! Even when it’s a sacrifice, even when I’m grief-stricken, even when I feel weak and out of control, I will declare with every fibre of my being that Jesus has overcome the power of sin and death. While taking faltering steps towards a better co-expression of joy, pain, reverence and hope, my cry is ‘Come Lord Jesus, come.’ In my life, in the lives of those in my household, in the life of the church, in the life of my neighbours, in the life of all in my city and nation, in the nations. Come on, Church! I believe this. We believe this. Now is the time to raise our corporate voice, our corporate and powerful act of rebellion against the power and fear of death.

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TheoMisc Blog

Theological Miscellany is a blog where we post a variety of theological reflections on scripture, life, culture, politics, society, gender, and pretty much anything. WTC attracts a whole range of people as students and a wide range of faculty from around the world with different interests and theological leanings. What draws us all together is our commitment to a Christ-centred theology, taught in a Spirit-led fashion in partnership with the local church.

Find all posts HERE

Come and Study With Us

WTC TheologyOur study of theology means engaging with a Kingdom that is powerful and transformational.

We offer programmes in ‘Kingdom Theology’ because at the heart of our study is the belief that Jesus came proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has brought the reality of the Kingdom to this world.

Find out more about WTC Programmes HERE.