My Theological Worldview

I love those quiz thingys you can take on the net... Such a wonderful diversion from productivity ;) Found this one mentioned on another blog, and the results are interesting!!

What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 82% Reformed Evangelical 75% Neo orthodox 68% Emergent/Postmodern 64% Fundamentalist 57% Classical Liberal 39% Roman Catholic 32% Charismatic/Pentecostal 32% Modern Liberal 25%

God bless,
Bec

New Semester Resolutions

Each Semester I make a resolution to be more organised and to consistently apply myself throughout the semester. This usually falls down around week 3 and by the time major essays are due it's a mad panic to read through the required amount of reference materials so that I can write something that answers the question. The stress is nasty, and leaves me exhausted. It is all exacerbated by the fact that I still get good marks, which I am never happy about because it encourages my leave-it-to-the-last-minute attitude.

So here are my 'New Semester Resolutions':

1. Do the assigned reading each week
2. Pick all essay topics in first week (getting started seems the hardest part)
3. Figure out what is due when, and what overlaps with other assignments
4. Minimise overlap between assignments by finishing some early if they clash so I can concentrate on one at a time
5. Start reading for major essays from beginning of semester
6. Get good regular sleep, keep late nights to a minimum
7. Observe Sundays as a Sabbath
8. Don't work overtime
9. Schedule regular quality time with important people in my life
10. Prioritise staying 'in community' at church, keep church commitments reasonable
11. Learn to say no to invitations, avoid overcommitting!!
12. Be sensible about amount of time to spend on things, prioritise and then do what I can in reasonable timeframes.
13. Study in College Library / with friends, studying at home alone it's too easy to get distracted and waste time
14. Set clear achievable goals for each study session
15. Keep resolutions beyond week 3!!!!!!!


God bless,
Bec

Holy Music

A lot is said of different styles of music in church and a lot of judgements are made about what is more appropriate "worship" based on the style of music. In more contemporary churches "good worship" is defined as music that stirs us and where we had a jolly good bounce and felt good. In more traditional churches "good worship" is defined more in terms of the sung liturgy, or beautiful hymns that have been sung "by the saints" for hundreds of years.

I recently read How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin J. Schmidt. He discussed at one point the impact Christianity had made on music, and applauded the Christian music that conformed to the classic forms, whilst making an argument that since Jazz and Rock and Roll there has been a decline in the "holiness" of music, due to its discordant and rebellious themes. (I don't have the book around anymore so if I'm doing an injustice to his point, my apologies).

I personally wonder how we can make an objective assessment of whether a certain piece of music is "holy" or not. This needs to go beyond our subjective experience of it, to what musically and lyrically is pleasing / unpleasing to God. Does God have a sense of aesthetics? Does He enjoy one form of music more than another based on its "beauty"? If you divorce the lyrics from music, are there styles of music that are more honouring to God than others?

I think this is all rather difficult to answer. God hasn't revealed through His word a preference for a certain style of music. I haven't found anywhere it says, "Thus saith the Lord, I hateth Rock n' Roll, giveth me only thy praise by way of the pipe organ", and neither has He said, "Thus saith the Lord, I am bored of choral music, please someone plays drums in mine sanctuary". And if we stuck to what is literally said in the bible then musicians would be "dressed in fine linen and play cymbals, harps and lyres" (2 Chron 5:12)

I would definitely say that God has a sense of aesthetics, or else where did we get a sense of aesthetics from?? Where does our appreciation of beauty come from otherwise? C. S. Lewis wrote "The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from". There is something about beauty that inherently draws us towards God, as it reveals God.

There is amazing diversity in creation, and all of it He said was "good". That would include a stormy winters day as much as a beautiful spring afternoon. (And yet that winter's day is dark, broody and chaotic, as is a lot of modern music.) I think God would appreciate a peach as much as He does a pear, and likewise from a musical perspective I think there isn't that much difference in essence between madrigals and the latest hillsong jumpy song. Given that God is a creative God and that we are made in His image, isn't creating music, of any genre in some way honouring Him, particularly when the music is written or played for the glory of God? This goes to the "spirit and truth" question, what is the motivation for the music?

One difficulty in determining the "holiness" of a piece of music is really that without the lyrics, a piece of music does not communicate clearly its subject matter. It communicates and ellicts feelings, and in time you can come to associate certain strains in the music with certain subjects, but it isn't clear without lyrics who or what is being played about. This is of concern in the respect that a piece of music maybe joyful, but is it communicating and elliciting joy about God or about something else? Charles Spurgeon wrote, "When I have heard of large congregations gathered together by the music of a fine choir, I have remembered that the same thing is done at the opera house and the music-hall, and I have felt no joy. When we have heard of crowds enchanted by the sublime music of the pealing organ, I have seen in the fact rather a glorification of St. Cecilia than of Jesus Christ. Our Lord trusted in no measure or degree to the charms of music for the establishing his throne. He has not given to his disciples the slightest intimation that they are to employ the attractions of the concert room to promote the kingdom of heaven." So Spurgeon wouldn't be a big fan of Planetshakers. Are the people there worshipping God or are they simply enjoying the music? Or both?

I think a good line would be to try an ensure that any music is not distracting. I often find with the louder styles of music that my attention is distracted away from God, whereas the softer music (or silence!!) is less distracting. In which case this isn't just a question of aesthetics as such, one can enjoy many styles of music, and yet find one style more distracting than another, when the aim is not the enjoyment of music but glorification of God.

I think lyrics are the clearest way I think we can assess a piece of music as to whether it is glorifying to God. Obviously if the words are blasphemous, irreverent or promoting a non-biblical world view then there's a problem. I also think there is an issue when too much is made of "me" in the words, rather than focussing on Christ. And this is probably where a lot of modern Christian music is problematic, "I love you Lord", "I give my life", "I come to you", "I called, you answered". I, I, I, me, me, me. Rather, He first loved us, he gave His life for us, He came to us, He called us, etc. And how about, "You are everything to me". Well, is that before or after we swear at our neighbour for cutting us off in traffic? Before or after we prioritise sleep over spending time with Him in prayer? How honestly can any of us ever say that He is EVERYTHING to us? Our faithfulness to God is quite pitiful, rather it is His faithfulness to us that is worthy of song.

God bless,
Bec

Science has discovered forgiveness

There is an interesting article today in the Sydney Morning Herald entitle More than divine: science discovers that there is power in forgiveness. It is interesting on a number of counts...

Let's start with the title "More than divine: science discovers..." This portrays the writer's conviction that somehow science is more real/reliable than theology. It is as if they were saying, "well you may have irrationally thought that forgiveness was a good thing, but now we KNOW rationally because science has proved it". Because apparently all theologically based ideas come from an irrational leap of faith, and so are spurious, whereas science is the only way to find truth in a world that doesn't believe in absolute truth. How many more theological ideas does science have to prove before the bright sparks figure out that theology is just as rational a way of understanding life, the universe and everything as science? (Francis Shaeffer's book Escape from Reason on this topic is a fantastic read btw).

OK, having said that, it is interesting that the study has shown that forgiveness is actually more beneficial for the 'victim' rather than the 'perpetrator'. I think the key section in this article is where it says, "Now, forgive the offender. Don't just shed the bitterness and drop the recrimination, but empathise with his plight, wish him well and move on - whether he is sorry or not." This directly mirrors the New Testament instructions that we should "pray for those who persecute you" (Mt 5:44), "love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back..." (Lk 6:35), "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." (Rm 12:14).

Now who would have guessed that if God asks us to do something that it would actually work out for OUR good?? LOL.

So there are two ways of dealing with hurt. The world's way (before science discovered forgiveness and saved us all from ourselves LOL) was to hold on to it, use it as an excuse to act out in anger towards others, and build a wall around the heart so "no one can ever hurt me like that again". The result is that we shrivel. We become less able to have meaningful relationships, because we function on this "safe" level where no one can hurt us because no one can get close enough. We become less willing to engage with life and ride out it's good and bad days, instead withdrawing within a safe emotional shell. We also tend to lash out at others if they behave in a way that reminds us of the last time we were hurt. "This is just like that time when..." and so we hold on to a serious of things that happened in our lives, and often draw out of them a lesson about who we are and what our value is, "if you were worth anything this wouldn't keep happening", "nobody loves you", "you are worthless".

My own experience in this is that over my lifetime I have developed a bit of an abandonment/rejection complex. When I was little some people I really loved moved overseas / interstate, and I couldn't understand why they would do that if they loved me. Then when my little sister was born I felt rejected, now that my parents had her, they wouldn't need/love me. Also had bad experiences at school with being rejected/betrayed by people. Then a couple of years ago I went through a nasty divorce. I don't want to get into details, I was at fault as much as my ex-husband was, so I don't want to labour the example as if he was 'the bad guy' and I the 'innocent party'. Neither of us lived up to our vows. Sadly, the marriage for both of us I think provided more of a sense of rejection than of love. It was very lonely, and deeply, deeply hurtful. I am deeply sorry for what happened, for the ways I failed to honour him and the hurt that I inflicted on him.

When the divorce finally went through I thought I would die because of the pain. I could not conceive of the possibility that the immense ocean of pain and grief would ever, ever end. I hated him as much as I loved him. What I found was this, that whole "bless those who persecute you" thing works. As I began to pray that God would bless him, more and more the pain went away, more and more I felt safe and that I didn't need to barricade myself inside an emotional shell. More and more I became grateful that if all of that had to have had happened that at least I had come to know God in the process, and I had learnt from walking with Him through suffering just how much His heart breaks for us, and also that my faith was not based on what God could do for me, but that knowing Him was consolation enough. I still regularly pray for God to bless him. It's funny but I see it now as an honour to be able to do that, given that it does me no good at all! It gives me a great sense of peace and joy.

I think an important thing to realise with forgiveness is that it requires first that you acknowledge that something wrong has been done to you. You can't forgive something that you rationalise away, and when you start building the walls you internalise the experience and make it part of who you are, and so it doesn't seem wrong, because "people just don't like me" so it was natural for that thing to have happened. To forgive I think you have to look at yourself squarely in the mirror and realise that you have worth and value and that what was done was wrong. It's only at that point that you can forgive it. If you don't think it was wrong, no matter how hurt you feel, you won't think you need to forgive it. This is particularly difficult when you weren't entirely innocent yourself, because there's a sense that "I deserved that". This comes out of spurious thinking that says "two wrongs make a right". What you did was wrong, but that doesn't make what they did less wrong. In this case, you probably need to forgive yourself as well as them.

God bless,
Bec

Selling Jesus

OK, I've been holding back on writing this because it seriously gets my goat, and I don't know how dispassionately I can discuss it, but here we go... I hate the way some churches go about evangelism. I hate how marketing principles have crept into drawing non-Christians into the church. I hate how getting people to church and to make a decision has become the point of evangelism.

Here are some of the bad reasons that church marketing uses get people to come to church:

• We have a great "worship experience"
• Jesus wants to make you happy
• Jesus wants to make you rich
• Jesus wants to make you fit & healthy
• Jesus wants to help you have the best sex ever

All these examples fall into two errors:

1. Conforming to the world by promoting the cult of Me
2. Selling Jesus on His "lifestyle benefits"

All these reasons are NOT about Christ but about people. It sends the message that church and Christianity is about us not about Christ. It does not matter to Jesus one bit how great the music is if it isn't centred on Him. He seeks those who worship "in spirit and in truth" not necessarily those who worship "in tune and in time". If it's about the "worshipper" and how much we enjoy the experience then we are seeking our own pleasure NOT worship of God. This is not worship of God but idolatry. I am not saying we are not allowed to enjoy worship, but the lights/smoke/volume/rockingness is secondary to the question of whether we have worshipped God in spirit & truth.

All the other reasons listed above, Jesus wants to make you happy, rich, healthy and for you to have great sex also fall into this trap of being about us rather than Christ. It is attempting to sell Jesus in exchange for money/health/sex. Jesus is not going to give us health, wealth, great sex in exchange for our love. The cross should be enough to gain our love as it is the ultimate sign of His love for us.

Does Jesus want good things for us? Yes, but ALL this is secondary to the truth of the gospel. People who teach these things as primary to the gospel are dancing dangerously close to Paul's definition of "false teachers" in 1 Tim 6, who preach that "godliness is a means to financial gain" (v5). I think Paul would be happy with my broadening the application to "godliness is a means to health, wealth and HOT sex!!"

All of this I think stems out of an unhealthily Arminian view of salvation. We need to remember predestination, those who are going to be saved are going to be saved, so we don't need to twist their arm. We need to "go" (NB. See the great commission, "go into the world" not "get them to come to church") and do a honest job of "witnessing" (NB. Interesting that the bible uses the word "witness" not "sell" or "market"). Yes the human will has a role in salvation, but to be a true convert you need not just to make a decision for Jesus, but you need to be predestined, called, regenerated, granted faith and repentence, justified before God and adopted into His family. All these things God does. If there is any role of our will in the process it's only because He enables us to do it, the decision is not a saving work!! (i.e. If making the decision saved us, it would be a work not grace that saves us).

Anything good that God does in our lives after salvation is as much pure grace as salvation itself. It is presumptuous to assume that He will do it, although it is in His character to give good gifts to His children. However it does not make a good basis for relationship, to love Him for what He can give us, rather than for who He is. I feel so strongly about this because I hate anything that seperates people from God, especially those things that have the appearance of bringing uscloser but in actual fact still divide. To try and trick people into coming to Jesus by manipulating them with their idols is sick. Idols do not lead people to Christ.

Nothing else in life is of any value in comparison to knowing Jesus. Even when that brings suffering and pain. Faith needs to be based on who Jesus is. If faith is based on the blessings of God, then if people do not "get what they signed up for" they will abandon the faith. Which is to say their faith was never IN Jesus to begin with, although they may have thought they were Christian because they prayed the sinner's prayer.

Just to finish on a bit of a lighter note, I found this vid on YouTube, talks about It's-all-about-Me worship:

God bless,
Bec

Being a Woman

I have just finished reading Kevin Giles' book The Trinity & Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God and the Contemporary Gender Debate. It is such an interesting read, there is so much that comes out of it.

His discussion on how the cultural context of the reader influences interpretation of the Bible I initially found uncomfortable. I like to think that if you do your exegesis properly that the cultural assumptions of the reader don't come into it. However, after reading his section on how the theology around slavery changed as a result of the changes in society that were happening, I can see that this makes sense.

His contention was that up until the 1800s the majority of theologians held that the bible not only regulated but legitimated slavery. That good evangelical theologians made an argument from the bible that blacks were by nature subordinate to whites, and that slavery was a divinely ordained institution. Very few would make that argument now, praise God.

Most interestingly there is actually a better biblical case for slavery than there is for the subordination of women, and yet most theologians who are pro-subordination of women are anti-slavery. It is fascinating that in the same sections of scripture that deal with the "household codes" that say that women should be submissive to their husbands, that slaves should obey their masters, that children should obey their parents, that the slavery clause is interpreted as culturally specific for the first century and not a timeless principle, YET the women clause is held to be a timeless principle.

I have been thinking about all this, and what it all means for me as a woman. Before I knew Christ I was a militant feminist, I wasn't in it for equality, rather because I feared that in my nature I actually wasn't equal I fought to prove that I was better than men. As an intelligent woman I often found that I could out-argue many men, and I rather relished 'proving my worth'. I also thought that to be equal with men meant being like men, particularly in the corporate world. It seemed that the women who moved up the management hierarchy were those who were tough and steely and who were comfortable in highly testosterone filled environments.

When I met Christ my perception of myself as a woman changed. I came to realise that I didn't need to prove anything to anyone about my worth. That my worth and my identity did not come from proving that I was better than or like a man, that I could be a woman, be gentle and soft, as well as intelligent and productive in the workplace. I started to incorporate what Jesus was showing me about myself into the way I worked. In managing my team I focussed on looking after my people rather than being so relentlessly task focussed. It is interesting, shortly later I was made redundant and was looking for work. When I applied for another team lead role at one of the major banks, the feedback from the agent after my interview with the bank was that I was "too nice" and they were looking for more of a "cold hard career bitch".

My response to all this was that wasn't the kind of woman I want to be, and that if that's what they were looking for I was glad not to work there as it would be a nasty environment! But I think in abandoning the 'career bitch' stereotype and also the 'barbie doll' stereotype I've fallen back into another stereotype of womanhood.

This stereotype I think is more subtle and dangerous, because it's so often labelled "biblical womanhood". The difficulty is, as Giles' says, you can make a biblical arguement for the subordination of women, but you can also make a biblical argument for the egalitarian position. I've fallen into the "men and women are equal, but men are more equal than women" line of thinking and that I think is just a product of growing up seeing the "Christian ideal" of women in submission to men.

This I think though was a product of the times. Growing up I heard stories about women who had stayed with their husbands who were abusive, and had heard these women commended for their faithfulness. But in many cases these women could not have supported themselves if they left their husbands, and were living in a time where divorce just did not happen.

What I am wondering is this... times have changed, do the household codes of the first century apply now? The cultural context of the first century is not the same as ours. In the first century the pater familias (the father of the household) had the power of life and death over his wife, children and slaves. In our culture and time any man who killed his wife & kids would be charged with murder. Different times.

Throughout the bible God is shown to be interested in justice and mercy. I think an interesting piece of scripture in this context is Matthew 23:23; God is more interested in "justice, mercy and faithfulness" than quibbling about law. This whole debate on what constitutes a biblical position on subordination could really be seen as quibbling about law. Giles' point about text-jam - where both sides can proof-text their viewpoint until the Lord returns seems to me a quibbling about law.

Maybe the key issue is that in the first century women did not have the opportunity for justice in the way we do now, and so the bible addresses the situation and opportunities of the time. But what does justice for women mean now?

The subordination of women didn't come in until the fall, Genesis 3 is the first place in the bible where a clear and unequivocal statement is made on the subject, God said to Eve "...Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." (v16). This situation of inequality between the sexes is a result of the fall, not God's eternal purpose.

So I'm seeing a new alternative for how I view myself as a woman. Still do not want to be a militant feminist, I love and respect men WAY too much! And the subordinate woman thing I am seeing isn't right. So maybe the issue is really in defining my value, position, identity and relationships in terms of my gender. Maybe I can be gentle and soft because I'm Bec and it's who God made me, and reflects Christ. Maybe I can be intelligent and be gifted for teaching because those are gifts God gave me for the service of the body regardless of whether I have a Y chromosome or not. Maybe how I relate to people (future hubbie included) is a result of my "Becness" rather than my femaleness. Maybe I should stop trying to shove myself into a cookie-cutter shape of what it means to be "a woman".

God bless,
Bec

Rudd's Apology Speech

The full text of Kevin Rudd's Apology Speech today is available here:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/12/1202760291188.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

Praise God! I truly pray that this provides a platform that allows Australia to move forward on fixing the issues of infant mortality and differing levels of economic opportunity, and general life expectancy rates in our Indigenous communities. I pray that this will save lives.

All praise and glory to Jesus.

God bless,
Bec