The good oil

sirlochlin got another client; our largest to date. I signed the contracts on Friday and they're just winging their way back to me with counter-signatures.

Threads

If you are interested in either

1. Romans, the argument of the early chapters, or
2. an example of how systematic theology relates to exegesis, especially in obscuring it, or
3. the relation of sin to transgression, either

a. in Paul, or
b. in historical-redemptive roles, taken by Gentiles and Isreal, respectively, or
c. as categories or themes which suggest we need modifications to our current language, then

read this.

For what it's worth I find Dr. Colvin's discussion adding weight to my tentative view that sin is primarily a description of the exilic state of gentiles rather than an instrinsically 'bad' act throughout all time. For a proud Pharisee in Jesus' time to label a fellow Jew 'sinner' was to name them outside Israel. Yet Paul's answer is that Israel herself has forsaken the law and has become even worse: they are the transgressors of the law.

This has very interesting implications, but I'm still thinking about them. Feel free to add this to your collection of thoughts that rumble inside your head, too.

The Unborn Image

Matthew Baird's poetry does strange things to my insides

This is so cool. Titleless, I would call it She.

Another reason to give thanks for Pope John Paul II

Steps toward reconciliation between different Christian communities

Cultivating triumphs

Two things:

1. David and Ange very nicely gave me a mini-garden in a lovely painted pot late last year. It consisted of 6 types of cacti. At first I had it in the old office, but it didn't do so well - lack of natural light I think. I took it home to the flat, but it didn't do well there either - horrible aphid infestation and then a curious black fuzzy stuff on some of the plants.

I brought it to the new office, got some smaller pots, fresh soil, split up the various cacti and transplanted them. I took only the tinest pieces of 4 of them, trying to get the non-diseased bits. They live on my 4th-floor window-sill, with plenty of light. I look at them every day and remove the random aphid I find - and for 2 days there appear to be none left. And happily, each plant appears to be doing very well. The old pot is out on our office deck getting cleansed by the whether, so in time I hope to recreate my garden - fresh, new and healthy.

2. Since finding in my new flat a place to call 'home', in which to feel comfortable and to which others should be invited, I have resolved to leave work between 5-6pm, or thereabouts. I have wanted to put effort into non-work things in my home environment - including building relationships, helping to make the flat a nice place to be, writing, reading, little jobs, etc. I've been pretty good at doing this (though the evenings disappear so quickly!), and now have what feels like a nice work-home rhythm. I aim to inculcate the little disciplines necessary to achieve a little on a regular basis (and for this I find myself thinking of Mr & Mrs Bartlett as role models). Over time, these amount to large accomplishments. And this is pleasing; not a chasing after the wind. Gardens may be found in many places.

I have a theory

A major reason Reformed culture tends to schismatism is because our most powerful stories are the legends of those who heroically stood up for 'the truth', being prepared to fight and split over ideas. Athanasius, Luther, Machen, et al.

It is ironic, I think, that a tradition in which abstract concepts have triumphed as 'the truth' nonetheless continues to reveal what really counts: narrative and the power of story. There's a lesson in that.

Hold not thy peace

The solemn imprecations of the psalms are not antithetical to worship beside the lime pits. They are a genuine and deep part of the response of a people who look to God to vindicate them against evil. And they should fall from the lips of those who, in behalf of God's people oppressed and persecuted, share their prayer. And they move me to tears.

Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;

For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.

For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.

Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul.

To worship with these words is one of the most fearful, awesome and humbling things we can do. We come to the maker of widows and ask that He vindicate us.

But since only true sons dare claim God's protection, to worship in these terms is to claim the inheritance of His name: and that ought to focus our priorities like nothing else. For, You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

machen's children

Sometimes Elder Snoek gives me what I suspect are warnings against being included in this observation:

"Writers have gone to great lengths to read their opponents' words and motivations in the worst possible sense (often worse than possible) and to present their own ideas as virtually perfect, rightly motivated and leaving no room for doubt. Such presentations are scarcely credible to anybody who looks at the debates with minimal objectivity."

This is an extract of a review of American Reformed theology in the twentieth century, by John Frame, entitled machen's warrior children (via John Barach). In it, Frame reviews Machen's spiritual children from the point of view of 22 areas of debate. It is quite long, but well worth reading. It gives a good sense of the flavours and boundaries of reformed discussion, ends with some excellent observations, and I bet you'll be surprised at some of the things you learn!

Of wells and fairies

I wrote this story on August 4, 2000 -

Well. By the way, did I mention that my garden has a well? Sometimes the fairies like to play in the well. I don't know why. Sometimes they tell me to have a go too, but I say no. I am a wee bitty scared of the well. It is deep, and dark at the bottom, and once in it's hard to get out.

Sometimes the light is at just the right angle, and you can see the water in the bottom. It looks very black down there. Occasionally it is very sad, because you can see a fairy's body in it. They can't get back up if they go too deep, you see. So they fall and eventually drown. Sometimes I try and call to the fairies who are flying low to come back up before it is too late, but they hardly ever do.

I try not to drink from that well, because it is dark water with death in it. But sometimes, when the light is just right, and it shines deep into the well, it shines onto the wings on the fairies who have flown too low, and they sparkle and shine. They look beautiful. And they call me, and ask if I want to fly with them down in the well. And sometimes I want to, because I want the beauty of their wings and the light to shine on me, too. And the fairies don't know that they are doomed, and so I always hope that they can fly back out. Even then I often want to join them, because they aren't yet dead, and they look beautiful down there, and somehow it might work out okay. But it never does - only if one of the demi-fairies comes and rescues them. Sometimes they never even cry out for help, even when they realise that they have flown too low. I think the air down there must be a wee bit bad, and it must do something to the fairies so they can't call out. So the Demi-fairy hardly ever rescues them.

So, most of the time, I cry at the top of the well, as I watch their beauty fade and the shadowed depths block the light that sparkled on their wings. They seem to get tired, and slowly fly lower and lower, and the light can't reach them at all. But still, sometimes you can see them in the water, when they are dead and unmoving. I don't know why, but maybe it is to warn me not to fly with them into the well.

But some of my best friends are fairies.

Shut by the colon

when my stomach is empty the trapdoors of my mind blow in the breeze

anything is likely to come out

"epistemic other"

Breach of all sorts of copyright:

As it is so good, I have shamelessly lifted this post straight from Barb -

Doug Wilson says, "But an abstract noun should never forget that in its abstract form it never does what it is talking about. "Love," as found in the dictionary, does not have a beloved. But love, in order to exist in the world, requires a beloved. This is another way of saying that love is a transitive verb. So is obey. So is believe."

Just as Cornelius Van Til said in commenting on John 6:22ff, "Here faith and works are identical. Not similar but identical. The work is faith; faith is work. ... Well now, you see faith alone is not alone. Faith is not alone. Faith always has an object. The faith, your act of believing, is pointed definitely to God in Jesus Christ, and by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and conversion, it’s all one..."

....

Find me the one in scripture who is allowed to say that the substance of his faith exists while the procedure of it (or form) does not.

Met the PM last night. Thanked her for opening CHQ's new premises and chatted about CHQ and working from home. She said she hates it, too. Good thing to have done I feel.

A cross-shaped antithesis

[This is copied from what I wrote after coming home last night - ]

Here's the scene: I'm out drinking with CHQ types after the 'new premises' launch, having a conversation in the Good Luck Bar about getting a non-Christian "nice guy, hard worker, 24" workmate laid for the first time. As you do.

Against most at our tables, I asserted

(1) that this workmate's reputed virginity was wasn't due to some lack which we had to help him overcome, and
(2) that his virginity was clearly more valuable to him than what could be gained by losing it to some slapper.

As part of (2) I asserted that sex was by definition a relationship, and as such could not be counted as meaningless - something to be engaged in merely because it hadn't already been done.

The conversation was amiable, good-natured and fun, rather than strained and awkward: "o, here we go - now we get the compulsory 'christian' view". I felt I did my piece in it without losing the right to be heard or the privilege of an audience - and perhaps even gained the respect of some listeners. But the fact is that one could drive tankers full of effluent through the positions adopted by most of the people present. The idea, for instance, that a loss of virginity is a goal in itself that has nothing to do with a relationship involving another human being - what's with that? How does that view the other person? Surely, merely as a piece of meat having the right bits - with which one can achieve orgasm, a trophy of conquest. A human substitute for the masturbatory and self-serving hand.

I realize in reflecting on this that I am deeply committed to the 'antithesis' - the Van Tillian term for the epistemic and ethical gap, or dichotomy, between man-in-exile and man-in-redemption - between the principles of flesh and spirit. I am committed to it because I think there is a radical perversity in man, an exilic way of viewing the creation that is not cross-shaped. And at every point in the discussion I wanted to press the cross-shaped view; I wanted to narrate a story that was beautiful and lovely in its view of life, of human dignity and of relationships, a view that is practically irresistible in its allure and attraction. A story that, once told, requires a diminution in the hearer to resist; a kind of slinking away into the darkness to suck up the vomit of false gods. But my story produces beauty because it is the story of Yahweh, God of love, self-sacrifice and healing, and of us as His images.

Therefore I think that man is at odds with his Creator when he insists on blinding himself to the ordinary meanings of words, words shaped not only by a Christian tradition and knowledge of God, but by man's inescapable constitution as a being created on God's terms, part of a cosmos imbibed with God's breath. In that crucible of meaning one cannot say 'sex' and not mean 'relationship'. Any linguistic community that does so, as my fellows were attempting, is on the verge of complete hedonistic suicide (death in the pursuit of pleasure) - an utter collapse of the constitutional threads upon which real gratification, love, and life depend.

Our conversation, of course, did not continue to its logical end. People have an instinct for when a dialogue has reached the borders of its usefulness, in views received and given. There's only so much that can be absorbed in one sitting.

I hope, though, that my contribution to the question of getting a workmate laid was effective in making the others think that perhaps there's another way. A way to live and to be that enlarges, rather than diminishes, the dignity and privilege we have as images of the creator God, a way to enlarge the honour we accord others. At the least, I hope it built a wee piece of 'social capital'. Perhaps, when the time comes for really serious questions, those of existential crises that rise in the quiet of personal solitude, someone will remember that guy Aaron Stewart, and think "yeah, I'll ask him. He seemed to have a trustworthy and beautiful way of looking at life".

Youth Study

Simon led a great study for the Wellington youth in between worship services. There were quite a number there - 25 or so - and Simon said he thought the responsiveness to the questions was very good.

The study was on body-ness, and how we should treat each other. It wasn't at all clichéd, though, mostly because Simon talked about how his own convictions and actions had been changed by reading the text - 1 Corinthians 12:12-31. He illustrated this by telling a story about a native convert in China, whom Simon had met. This man began leading many to Christ in his home area of China simply by showing acts of love and kindness to those outside his own kinship group. And he expected nothing in return! For his countrymen, this spoke of a very different God at work than the ones they already knew. And, this man's acts of service told them that this God could be their God, too. For, weren't His servants welcoming them into His love, freely?

When this man moved to New Zealand, however, he discovered a country in which none were without shelter, and none hungry. Here, a Christian heritage had been at work for so long that it had fed, clothed, and sheltered everyone. This was a nice problem to have! But how could the rule and blessing of God be extended even further, so that people came to realise and experience the real depths of His love?

Simon began thinking about this in the context of the body-life that Paul instructs the Corinthian church to have. He thought about Paul's instruction to recognise the necessity of the weak members, and to give more honour to those who seemed to lack it - the 'unseemly' members. Who were these, he wondered?

His suggested answers in our New Zealand context were the uncool and the aged. A practice of dishonouring these people is woven deeply into the fabric of our culture.

Being cool is - for Christians - to end up adopting a humour of sarcasm and irony, often at the expense of others - because sexual or toilet humour isn't allowed. It's also about being branded, and living consumption-driven lives. In these lives the proof of one's chic is to be able to refer to the humour in the latest movie, to know the songs of the approved bands, and - of course! to have seen their videos. It is about being good at sport, being able to wisecrack in group situations - to be the clown who makes everything revolve around his personality, but who truly cares for none of it. Outside the church body (if we're lucky) - it's about being as willing as the next guy to dare, to show your disdain for boundaries, to experiment, to show that you know what's cool, too. It's about refusing to be labeled, refusing even to recognise the meaning of authority, and to show oneself completely at ease with personal sexuality choices - often by participating in the choices of others. "Hey, I'm tolerant, I'm easy with it". The details will differ will the age group and the place, but we all know whom we weave out of social interaction because, well dammit, they're dull and an embarrassment - a detriment to our own need of acceptance as, and demonstration of, cool.

This is deeply ungodly. It does not represent the God we say we worship, who chooses to love the weak, whose strength is spent in restoring the unlovely.

And then there's the aged. The vitality, drive, freshness and economic value of youth is exalted and made the measure of all things good. If it is not the pursuit of pleasures that only the young can have, then it is their productive capacity, the young talent, that is pushed and reinforced as the organising principle of the nation's social, education and economic policies. And it is all accompanied, of course, by the overwhelming aesthetic of youth - the glory of young bodies, untouched by age and the accumulated signs of provision and nurture in the service of others. Drooping breasts that have fed a generation of babies? Hips that have birthed life? A stomach with stretch-marks? Grey hair? No. Perversely, it is the symbolism of immaturity, non-responsibility, comfort and sexual arousal (not 'pleasure', because true pleasure is found in a relationship of mutual love and service) that is pushed at us, over and over again. The old are a burden, to be bundled into rest homes, their inconvenience safely shut away from the younger families to whom they gave life and, no doubt, helped to set up. We do not even have a language to speak of respect for the old and what they represent: even the titles that once marked a life's progress, the degrees gained by rites of passage, have virtually disappeared into a familiar, leveling, first-name-only basis.

This too is deeply ungodly. The aged are the teachers, the sustainers, those who in God's covenant faithfulness are sources of wisdom and experience, who are given the task of instruction and example, who pass on the tradition.

Simon was quite open about his own confrontation with the requirements of body-life - especially the way his own interests had been served by maintaining the required-for-coolness distance between himself and the other youth of his church. The great thing about Simon is that he's completely genuine when it comes to being convicted about things. Once at the point of confrontation with the need to change, he does it. And he's not ashamed to show that process to others - which is a fantastic way of disarming the self-protective guards we so often erect around ourselves. Humility and honesty yields its own return in kind. We all, deep down, would rather be loved and accepted for who we are than remain safely unseen behind our masks. Simon at his best gets behind the masks by dropping his, and it's a wonderful gift.

At one point in the study Jasmyn suggested that we each send a piece of paper around the group ("pass to the person on your left") with our names at the top. As we received a page, we had to write the gifts and goodness we saw in its owner. That exercise, combined with the discussion before and afterward, and Simon's able leading, produced an excellent study that had a feeling of genuine learning and growth rather than the more usual 'well, we've gone through all the questions with the required amount of discussion - can we go now?'

Hopefully, then, our youth will begin showing Christ's kingship in Wellington, New Zealand, bringing the redemption of God into their own communities, and then beyond - as 'outsiders' realise that this God is different to the ones they worship, and the works of this God are marvelous to behold.

Well done, Simon.

When I am feeling defensive, I seem to adopt a pompous tone in my writing. The trouble is, I don't spot it till days afterward.

Alastair defends the Apostles' Creed

Nearly 500 years after Martin Luther said that the church stands or falls by the doctrine of justification by faith alone, Alastair writes about the Apostles' Creed as an acceptable and ecumenical confession that tells the gospel without including that 'abstract doctrine'. In a time when the Reformed world is splitting over exactly how justification by faith alone should be viewed, this discussion is vital:

"It seems as if people are suspicious of seeing the Apostles’ Creed as the central declaration of Christian faith, because it does not mention the doctrine of justification by faith alone and other doctrines like that. As Douglas Wilson has pointed out, the Apostles’ Creed may not explicitly mention justification by faith alone, but it is all about faith, starting with the words ‘I believe…’. I am also persuaded that the Creed is perfectly right not to mention the doctrine of justification by faith alone, because the object of our faith is not the doctrine of justification by faith alone but the Christ proclaimed in the Creed. We are saved by believing in Him. One can be saved without believing in justification by faith alone."

more...

Speak easy

People such as myself who have found the need to try and express some theme or part of the scriptural story that we feel, rightly or wrongly, has been ignored have a major problem. Firstly, we have to start with the very language that has suppressed those themes or parts in the first place. From there, we have a choice: either to

(a) invent a new language, or
(b) subvert and re-apply the old language.

The constant flicking-back-and-forth between these two options is a strained and difficult process. Words create 'channels' in the mind along which thoughts flow; that is why some things get suppressed in the first place. But new words and phrases can unblock channels that one somehow suspects ought to be there but have had no way to be expressed. The difficulty lies in finding those new words or phrases, and making them understood.

This process even more difficult when it is faced with a twinned prejudice and a constant test. The prejudice is against, on the one hand, anything wholly new (because what is true is already known, so therefore anything new must be false), and on the other anything new that borrows the language of known 'heresies' (because modern critics cannot distinguish between a form of words and a new meaning, despite the fact that the beginnings of Christian theology was built on exactly that distinction).

The constant test is a set of questions almost invariably beginning "so are you saying that...", or "so are you denying that...". These questions arise out of and are put in the terms of the old language - precisely that which one is trying to modify. Half the time, one simply doesn't know the answer, because the question's categories don't fit what one is trying to express. But in the worst case, even a hesitation in answering can be enough to be condemned.

Now I'm not saying that this is all bad. On the contrary, it's inevitable. Of course we are restricted to understandings provided by the language we use; of course we want to test new things by the standards of what we know already; of course we sometimes have difficulty seeing the difference between an accustomed usage and a new one. These things are to be expected.

What makes all the difference in the world is the spirit with which these difficulties are faced. There are those who are harsh, dogmatic, stubborn, ungracious and arrogant when it comes to facing someone struggling to say something new. These are the ones whose minds are rigid, and convinced of their own rightness. They are the ones who are unwilling to see from another's point-of-view, because anything but theirs is - by virtue of the fact that they are right - wrong. They are those whose grace is in a sledgehammer, whose love is in judgment, whose fellowship is in narrow little exclusive clubs of self-congratulatory pride. It is best to flee from these people. In thinking that the church stands or falls on their own opinions, they will destroy it.

On-the-other-hand. There are those who remember their own struggles (and who have them still), who know that knowledge and expression of understanding is a complex thing, who recognise the good things and love the potential they see, who deal in charity and love with the one who is trying to wrestle with scripture. These folk remember their own immaturity (and feel it still), they blush to think of some of the things that they did when younger, and do not think that the only acceptable mistakes to make are the ones that they made. But none of this is the most important thing. The best folk remember that God is in control, that God is Lord, that the church is Christ's and sealed with his blood, that God's way with people is slow, patient, gentle and mysterious, and most of all, gracious.

When people like me, therefore, read others who are beginning to say the same things as we have been trying to say, for which we have suffered abuse, slander, accusation and unjust separation from the Lord's body, it is a great joy. It is even better if those who say it are somewhat respected and are (in some circles at least) listened to carefully. These are things that the always reforming in semper reformanda is made of.

This is no more so for me personally than in the questions of eschatology: regeneration, new creations, and judgments, and faith: covenant, works, doctrine, instruction, and grace. I am completely convinced that - at least in New Zealand - the Reformed tradition has ossified many of these important, even central, biblical themes, and has contributed to a lackluster and pathetically implemented gospel. Whatever Calvin and the other Reformers said or may have said, these things are not said now.

It is therefore among my greatest joys to find Douglas Wilson, among others, saying very important things about faith, new creations, regeneration (and here), and covenant identity. These are all things that, if meditated on deeply and widely, would not necessarily change any of our confessions, but would surely change what was being said in the street, here and now.

And a disclaimer: I am not claiming that all I have ever said has been wise, correct, timely, or appropriate. I am not even claiming to be particularly wise. Given what I have said above, this kind of conclusion would be absurd. I disagree with myself all the time, and blush often. Neither is this a quest for sympathy, a sob-story 'with intent'. It is, as ever, an attempt to speak clearly about what I see as vital issues facing the church.

Matthew Baird's latest creation. This man is a poet of note.

The story of Eden

God's action in Christ to end - or at least to begin the journey back from - exile is part of a larger story of man's estrangement from his original relationship with God and God's creation. It draws on the imagery of Genesis, where our first king and representative, Adam, was exiled from God, for treacherously turning against God, betraying Him by siding with the serpent, and thus failing to rule the creation properly as God's representative.

Two crucial consequences fall out of this story.

The first is that Adam and his wife, Eve, realised that death had come upon them, just as God had warned it would.

Adam and Eve were orginally naked, but also unashamed, because God had declared all things good. Yet they'd nonetheless set themselves up as rivals to God, declaring their own version of what was good and what was evil. They did this by eating of the only tree that God had set aside from their use. So, they lost the glory of standing under God's declarations. And in shedding the covering of God's words, they found themselves truly naked in the sense known by the later re-tellers of the creation story: shamefully exposed.

Adam and Eve found themselves insufficient to the task of shaping creation and its responses - even their own bodies! - to the dictates of their words. God's had won; God was to be trusted after all. He was not a liar.

And God came to them and reinforced the lesson in terrible judgment: "Very well, Eve, since you despised life, your body will now give you pain and anguish in the bringing forth of life in childbirth. And Adam, since you listened to your wife, I tell you that even the ground from which you came in your birth will turn against you, producing thorns and difficulty, pain and hardship, whereas before it overflowed with sufficiency for you. And to that ground you will both return, for you have removed my sanctifying word - which is your glory - from yourselves and have thus nullified the life you had."

In the exile of Adam and Eve, pictured in their expulsion and barring from the place of God's dwelling - Eden - even the breath that God first gave Adam is eventually given up as their bodies go to the grave in dust. Exile and death is de-creation.

The second crucial consequence of the story is the opening of mercy to man. Amidst all this entry into death - the collapse of creation's blessings around his ears - Adam hears God tell his wife that she will bear a seed, one to crush the serpent's head, to do what Adam did not do. And if the head and cause of all the trouble be crushed, then surely there was hope for a restoration to life after all?

Adam clearly thought so. The first thing he did after God drove home the terrible consequences of his treachery was to call his wife Eve, the mother of the living. What great faith! Adam throws himself, and the future of a humanity he still leads (and has led into death) onto God's mercy.

Yet God does more than merely promise a new start. He shows that the damage of Adam's failure will be undone. Adam had shed the glory of God from his bare flesh by casting off the covering pronouncement about what was good. Thus, his bare flesh stood truly naked, becoming ia symbol of rebellion and shame. And Adam knows that this flesh is destined to return to the dust in exile. Yet God, in an amazing act of mercy, replaces this first covering with another - this time one that could be touched and smelt, one made of animal skins. Only then, having clothed Adam and Eve in mercy, does He banish them from the garden, into exile.

James Jordan has suggested that this covering is in fact a replacement flesh, a new way in which Adam and Eve could walk about the creation under God's glory. He suggests that it is actually a foretelling of the resurrection, of the spiritual body (meaning, 'of the breath') that will rise from the dust. I think this is a very compelling view, both exegetically and thematically. So here, God enters the fray, and with His own hands comforts Adam and Eve in their suffering.

And now we jump ahead, thousands of years. In the fullness of time, the man Jesus appeared in Israel, proclaiming the restoration of the rule of Israel's God for man, and therefore, inescapably, restoration and the end of exile. And we look back on that event and say with the testimony of the return from dust (the resurrection) and the apostolic proclamation, that yes, that man was the true seed of Eve, who crushed the serpent and broke out of Adam's failed headship. In him we therefore hope. And so we honour and trust God's word. We call God faithful, and not a liar.

And what a God we serve. In Christ He is revealed as a God who solves the problems of our exile by participating in it Himself, even as He first made new flesh for our parents to wear, by sending His own Son in our likeness to die in and for our situation. In that Son we find our new covering. So our God is neither remote nor uncaring, but incredibly involved in the pain and suffering - He is beside us all the way. He came into our exile and led us out 'from the inside'. Such condescension, such selfless compassion, should leave us staggered. Who has a god like ours? And if God participates in our suffering, who will dare to say that it will not be overcome?

So, we continue the story of the Garden as the new people of God, under a new king, Jesus of Nazereth. We have the renewed breath, the Holy Spirit, given in God's act of re-creation. So, in response we act to reverse the damage of Eden, to produce and nurture life, to be where the world is in pain in self-sacrificial healing, trusting that God will continue the process of recalling us from exile. It is this story that shapes us.

Rejoice!

I mentioned in the list of recent things happening in Wellington several items in connection to the MAD (Mentoring and Discipling) team. We just had a meeting to organise aspects of the upcoming seminar to be taken by Tim's Dad, on priorities and place throughout life.

Far out. It was good. Somehow we managed to pull good discussion and clear decisions out of stupid jokes and disorderly conduct. But thanks be to God for Mr Heeringa who started the whole team, all the young folk (the average age must be about 22) who are enthusiastic and willing, Tim the organisational bright spark, and the various strands of maturity, leadership and ideas that seem to be coalescing in that group.

Tell you what. I am positively bubbling over with hope for the future prospects of our people. Among other things, we're already talking about future seminars along the lines of the articles in Comment magazine which explore vocational Christianity - how the kingdom of God meets the workplace. Like this one on The Craft of Automotive Mechanics.

I can't remember ever feeling so energised and optimistic about what we can do and effect as a church - except in a personal sense when I was discovering the Reformed faith under the most able teacher I've ever had. And this is better than that, because now it's a thing of the body, in both the corporate and corporeal senses.

It really seems like blessings are right here, right now.

Fear and procrastination

I have difficulty doing things that make me nervous or scared. And I get scared of the dumbest things. Like talking to somebody about something I don't know much about - eg, insurance cover. So I tend to procrastinate about it.

This is not a good characteristic of someone with responsibility to make things happen. Today, I have tried to be more action-focused and not to put off things that need doing. I'm helped by seeing people who are good at making things happen, like Tim. And today, I think I've been moderately successful.

On another note - I am loving our flat. It's like a whole new world after my perception of the barrenness of life in the other one. And every day, I get to walk beside a lovely beach.

Blessings abound.

Moves

Friday afternoon everyone in CHQ packed up their offices. Friday night I packed my room into a van and transported it to Oriental Bay.

This morning I left my new flat for my new office, and have nearly finished setting up. It's great. I have a window desk with quite a nice view. And my new flat is lovely. Apart from living with Christians now, I'm also with Matt and Tim. We have a lounge with a great view and - what's more - sun both inside and out.

I found a piece of paper on which I'd written this some time ago: "worship" means a (public) approach to God

I like finding things I've written that I still agree with. Especially if they spark off thoughts I haven't had for a while.

The Treaty of Waitangi / te tiriti o waitangi: incomplete notes on NZ's foremost political problem

not a legal instrument, but a peg on which to hang integrity

- in Hebrew thought, 'my people' are those by whom I have been adopted, almost if not actually synonymous with those with whom I identify, and on this basis the Christian scriptures construct intergenerational solidarity

- I am part of my people in a way which identifies me with their obligations and their benefits

- in 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi/te tiriti o waitangi (the English version is significantly different from its Maori 'translation', though not intentionally, I believe) was a solemn covenant entered in good faith between the Christian apologist, Governor Hobson, on behalf of his Christian Queen, Victoria of England, and the Maori peoples of NZ, by virtue of the signatures or marks of many of their chiefs

- for various reasons the Treaty/te tiriti cannot be considered an enforceable legal instrument within any category avaialable to our legal system

- 'sovereignty', passed to the Queen in the English version, included by English law 'eminent domain'/underlying title, which conveys absolute rights to the holder

- soveriegnty vests rights of posession, use and disposal in the ultimate hands of the Crown, to pass 'in trust' as 'private' ownership to whomever it wishes (and a common law tradition exists to preserve the 'customary use' of unconquered (or is it conquered??) native peoples)

- yet 'sovereignty' in the Maori version was translated in terms of 'governorship' (a transliteration of the word 'governor'), giving the sense of 'overall benevolent oversight'

- rangitiratanga, preserved to Maori in te tiriti, meant control & guardianship, which excludes eminent domain (not only because rangitiratanga has no such category, but) especially when read in conjuction with the express guarantee of taonga (treasures/resources-under-stewardship) preservation

- Maori believe that their role with respect to the land & taonga is not to be construed in terms of any European legal constructs or privileges such as 'rights', 'ownership', 'exclusion', or outcomes such as 'disposal' or 'profit'

- rather, Maori self-identity is as guardians & stewards, preservers of the land for all their generations, who are 'the people of the land' (tangata whenua)

- after the Treaty/te tiriti, all people of NZ have become by that agreement, 'people of the land'

- in other words, the basic spirit of te tiriti on the part of maori was to welcome a new people to use and benefit from their land, provided they retained the guardianship (rangitiratanga) of it

- return of rangitiratanga is no threat to NZ, will remove the stain of dishonour from a Christian heritage in this land, and will be a great blessing and example in terms of covenant-keeping

- breach of Maori obligation is also to be dealt with by the courts in response to the Treaty/te tiriti, because by that treaty they too are obliged to act faithfully

My opinion is that the Crown, my people, should keep covenant, repent of their breaches, and restore rangitiratanga to the iwi (tribes) of Maori from whom it was faithlessly wrested.

Things To Celebrate

In and around Wellington Reformed church these things have begun, all in the last year:

- bi-monthly corporate prayer time after the second service, which the congregation just voted to go to monthly;

- Tuesday night open home pot luck dinners at Dave & Ange's, all welcome;

- Wednesday night city bible study, all of young people except for the occasional Mr. Goris;

- Thursday morning breakfast of city-dwellers/workers, 7.15 at the Lueven, all young folk except the occasional Dennis Bartlett;

- Saturday morning prayer & accountability group of the church's core young men, 7.15 various locations;

- Wednesday prayer group of the church's core young women;

- the Mentoring and Discipling group (MAD), again of young folk, started by Peter Heeringa;

- various talks to the MAD team by experienced older folk on life and faith;

- the first appearence of the MAD team at youth camp, specifically to be role-models & mentors;

- the beginnings of a new structure for youth group, which will incorporate the Waikanae youth and encourage mutual responsibility and increased care/inclusion for all;

- the initiatives taken by the HomeEc committee, especially in the area of hospitality;

- the first seminar to be held under the auspisces of the MAD team, to be led by Tim's Dad on the subject of Christians in Business;

- the encouragement and uplifting of both the congregation's and Session's spirits at such things, as well as the upbuilding of all involved

Blessings surround us

I swear DMcC is some sort of creative genius. Read his conversation with God.

Dinner and Pipes

Matt and I had one of our occasional dinners at Roti Chenai with Richard Flinn last night. Dave and Ange joined us a wee bit later and we went to the Good Luck Bar. It was really good. Lifted my spirits no end.

We talked about some cool things too:

- an amazing providential confluence that seemed like a 'grade b' miracle on Richard's recent hunting trip;

- the Queen's Birthday Camp and positive things in Wellington region/church (esp the Mentorship & Discipleship team)

- the differences and emerging clash between the Puritan and Continental streams of Reformed theology;

- 'evanagelism' as a social/relational practice, and our tendency to keep relationships with non-Christians to matters that don't directly implicate our faith;

- the scope of 'the gospel', and the origins of dualism in the modern Evangelical/Reformed Church in the state restriction of church power during the English reformation;

- 'first-principles' interpretation of scripture: getting its orginal meaning, then applying it to analogous contemporary situations, with Calvin's approval of the same approach and his consequent widespread relevance even today;

- environmentalism and the distinctives of a Christian approach;

- environmentalism & the meaning of the fall/the curse for 'nature';

- modern attitudes to children and the closing wombs of a godless culture;

- motherhood, its privileges, place and exercise in a culture of extended households (eg, with maids);

- the creation and inter-generational accumulation of capital as a means of extending both the capacities of the family and their 'reach' as centres of kingdom work (eg, employing underprivileged young women as maids);

- 'slavery/servanthood' and the godly practice (seen by Richard in the American South) of 'enveloping' the slave/servant and their dependents within the nurture and care of the extended family.

Today's Bruderhof - for Ange

Children are living beings—more living than adults, who have built shells of habit around themselves. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should not have mere schools for their lessons, but a world whose guiding spirit is personal love. It must be an ashram where men have gathered for the highest end of life, in the peace of nature; where life is not merely meditative, but fully awake in its activities; where children’s minds are not being perpetually drilled into believing that the idolatry of their nation is the truest ideal for them to accept; where they are bidden to realize man’s world as God’s kingdom, to whose citizenship they have to aspire; where the sunrise and sunset and the silent glory of stars are not daily ignored; where nature’s festivities of flowers and fruit have their joyous recognition; and where the young and the old, the teacher and the student, sit at the same table to take their daily food and the food of their eternal life.

Camp was great, see matt's post about it. I'm somewhat depressed at having to return to ordinary life. 3 cheers for Peter Heeringa, by the way. A spiritual grandfather and pillar of the church.

Public Relations 101: The manifesto for homosexual acceptance (via Alastair)

Holiness: Unity with the Roman Catholic Church?

Alastair has written a trenchant piece entitled Are Roman Catholics our Brothers?

"The purity of the Church is not an inherent purity. The purity of the Church results from the fact that it belongs to Jesus Christ. If we seek to look for the purity of the Church within the Church itself we will soon settle for a lowered standard of purity, achieved by disowning those we deem to be corrupt."

I highly recommend reading it.

In other words...

This came through from Bruderhof just as I was making my comments in the post below.

"It is better to allow our lives to speak for us than our words. God did not bear the cross only 2,000 years ago. He bears it today, and he dies and is resurrected from day to day. It would be a poor comfort to the world if it had to depend on a historical God who died 2,000 years ago. Do not then preach the God of history, but show him as he lives today through you."

Us being God's representative makes this immensely more than a "yeah, we know. Heard it before" kind of platitude.

How to love yourself

I had a Word last night:

Being God to the creation means, among other things, treating yourself as God would treat you.

So:

- no self-abusive/unhealthy work practices
- no raging against the machine of the body (pushing it beyond limits)
- no anti-constitutional behaviour (rebelling against the warp & woof of creation)
- no forced servitude to alien masters (addictions, lusts, self-aggrandizing goals)

And of course the way God treats Himself for the sake of others is self-sacrificially, so that's another characteristic to adopt.

Being an image of God thus gives me a vocation with respect to my own person/body, perhaps as the first or prime example of godliness. I like this lots. I can feel new convictions growing!