Griz in America

Time in Jackson...

2007-11-17T20:15:00.000-05:00

I got back from Jackson on Monday after seven days there. I had a great time there, not particularly for any event or activity, though there were a number of fun ones but because of the time I got to spend with the rest of the interns and staff that came along. It was a bit of a jolly boys outing and time spent in a rickety green, Ford minivan on Mississippi roads can really bond people together. We also got the chance to meet Ligon Duncan, pastor of First Prebyterian Church, Jackson. Dr Duncan is one of the speakers at the Together for the Gospel conference and I was so impressed with how gracious, Godly and fun to be around he was. Mark and Lig's interaction was a great reminder of the value of close, like-minded friends in the ministry.

Assumed Evangelicals

2007-11-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

You may well have read this article by David Gibson, it's been awhile for a number of years and seemed to be published in just about every Christian publication I read for a while about two years ago.

It's a good analysis of the dangers of assuming the Gospel and the way in which this leads to a slide into denying or ignoring the Gospel in subsequent generations. This analysis seems to have had a big impact and I regularly here people describe movements and ministries as 'assumed evangelicalism' which usually means that they have a formal commitment to the Gospel but that it is no longer front and centre shaping their ministry and their distinctives. It's not a description you want to have applied to you.

However, though I think that there is definitely utility to the analysis that Gibson and others make, I wonder whether the category ceases to be useful when we included these 'assumed evangelical' ministries and movements within the 'evangelical' camp and treat them as if we can have fellowship in the Gospel with them. Often the argument is that since a movement or ministry or church still has a formal commitment, through a statement of faith or some other means, to the evangelical Gospel, we should seek fellowship in the truths that we both espouse, even if their practice and ministry is not shaped by that Gospel. It's an assumed Gospel but the Gospel is still there.

I question this argument for I believe, and I think that the Scripture teaches, that intrinsic to understanding the Gospel is understanding its grandeur, its glory and its importance. One example of a passage that teaches this is found in Matthew 13:44 where Jesus teaches that 'The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.' Jesus is teaching here that the nature of the Kingdom is that you would sell all that you have in order to possess it. So, as we believe that the Gospel is the message of the Kingdom and the means of entry to the Kingdom, we must believe that the Gospel is worth giving up everything for. This is intrinsic to the Gospel and is basic to understanding the Gospel. Therefore, when we come across people who affirm the Gospel in some document on their website but whose practice and ministry shows no indication of being shaped by the atoning blood of Christ, the hope of heaven and the authority of Scripture we must call into question whether or not they do indeed believe the same Gospel as we do.

It is interesting to me that in 2 John, where we have one of the clearest statements of the doctrine of separation, that John does not write in verse 10 'If anyone comes to you and denies this teaching do not receive him into your home or give him any greeting' but he writes 'If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching do not receive him into your home or give him any greeting'. That is, John draws attention to the absence of the teaching not the positive denial of Christian teaching. What is this teaching? Well, some have referred to verse 7 which says 'For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist' and limited the rest of the teaching in the letter to those who deny the incarnation. Since the church has affirmed the Biblical doctrine of the incarnation since the council of Nicea in the fourth century this would limit John's warnings to Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and other groups firmly outside orthodox Christendom. However, I think that those that do this miss the teaching of verse 9, where John states 'everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God.' Again, note that the issue is stated in the negative, 'not abiding' rather than 'denying' that is the issue and here the scope is broadened beyond the question of the incarnation and is now the 'teaching of Christ' which is much more comprehensive and must include Christ's teaching about the value of the Gospel.

Of course, you can use this argument for separation on the basis of the smallest jot and tittle of theology. But most evangelicals will affirm that there is an irreducible core to the Gospel in which we can have unity without agreeing on other less fundamental issues. And it is not uncharitable to ask those that affirm the Gospel in their documents and creeds to show that the Gospel is at the heart of their teaching and practice, that it infuses all they do. A genuine evangelical should not take offense at this or feel slighted at the caution displayed in offering fellowship for they should understand that the Gospel is too weighty a thing to jeopardise by an unbiblical association. My contention is that an assumed evangelical is a non-evangelical until they stop assuming the Gospel and put the atoning blood of Christ, not just in a statement of faith on their website, but at the heart and centre and engine of everything they do.

To Jackson...

2007-11-06T22:16:00.000-05:00

I am now sitting on a Southwestern flight (the US version of Easyjet) on my way to Jackson, Mississippi where all the CHBC staff and interns are attending the John Reed Miller lectures at RTS which are being given this year by Mark Dever on preaching. We're then having a 9 Marks workshop in Jackson at the end of the week and head back to DC on Monday. I'm looking forward to seeing some authentic Southern culture but a little nervous of all the faux pas that I am liable to make. I certainly won't be driving anywhere without my wallet on me, in fact I probably won't be driving anywhere! We're staying in two townhouses provided by the church so it seems like we'll be well looked after during our stay. I'll keep you updated on our trip and any escapades I get embroiled in!

Idiocy Squared

2007-11-03T16:46:00.000-04:00

I have a funny story to tell you. But before I tell it, you must remember that I didn't know it was going to be funny until it ended, to me it was very stressful, all the more so because it was caused almost entirely by my own idiocy.

The story begins as I was giving a lift to Tony Payne, one of the Australians from Matthias Media, who were in town for a conference at CHBC, to Dulles airport which is about 45 minutes away. We were having a great chat talking about the differences between Australia and America, the Knox-Robinson view of church, the Federal Vision and the upcoming Australian election. As we approached the airport I saw a police car pull out into the road from where it had been sitting in the central reservation. I assumed that it was simply going back to the station at the end of its shift. Stupidly, I went by the police car in the left hand lane, having forgotten that the speed limit drops sharply going into Dulles though it is almost universally ignored. I decided, therefore, to pull in to the right hand lane and reduce my speed.

I was too late. Two minutes later I saw the light flashing in the police car, the lights, oddly enough, were on the inside of the car by the rear-view mirror, and I pulled over. Not only was I embarrassed at having been pulled over while giving Tony a lift to catch his flight, I was also panicking that I hadn't brought my wallet with me, in which was contained my driving licence. In fact, I had wondered whether or not I had it before I got into the car but had not bothered to go back and get it, thinking that the odds of a careful driver like myself getting pulled over were very slim.

After a couple of minutes the policeman came over to the car. He had was stout, had full, fleshy face with red hair and the kind of moustache that suggests a desire to communicate authority, an authority unfortunately diminished by the fact the moustache was ginger.

'Driver's licence please' he drawled, the last word obviously being a function of routine rather than courtesy.

'Erm, I'm afraid I've left my wallet back at home, I'm sorry about that' I said in as soft and refined a British accent I could manage, as if the fact that my nation was an ally in the war on terror and I had a tertiary education would gain me leniency.

'Speeding, no driver's licence: is there anything else you want to tell me before I find out?'

I furrowed my brow as if carefully auditing my life for criminal acts: had I been involved in any terrorist plots? No. Was I a member of the Mafia or a gang of Triads? No. Did I run a drug racketeering ring? No. Was I, as the immigration form asked on my entry into the country, involved in the genocide associated with the 1933-45 Nazi government of Germany? No.

After a moments pause to answer these questions to my own satisfaction I answered,

'No, I don't think so'.

'OK, step out of the vehicle'

At this point my expectations about what was to happen next were entirely governed by films I had seen where young men are pulled over by portly policemen with moustaches and Southern accents. My expectations were not good.

'Spread your hands against the hood and pull your feet back'

I did so.

'Pull your feet back further'

I did so, this time wondering what possible threat I could have posed with my feet six inches closer to the bumper of the car.

'What state was your license in?'

'It was a British licence'

'Oh then, you don't have a licence. Where do you live?'

'Washington D.C. I thought I had a year to get an American licence' As I said this, I did what I often do when speaking and gestured with my hand.

'Put your hands back on the vehicle!'

'Oh yes, of course, sorry.'

'How long have you been in America for?'

'Since August, 2 or 3 months'

'2 or 3 months? Well, when you moved to the District of Columbia you should have known that you had 30 days to get a D.C. license, it's common sense.'

'Oh, I didn't realise, I thought I had longer than that. I'm very sorry.' And, again, finding it odd talking to someone who was standing at a 90 degree angle to me, I twisted my body a took my left hand off the car.

'Put your hands back on the car! If you do that again I'm gonna lay you out on the street right here, you understand?'

'Yes, I'm sorry, of course.'

After this, he went and spoke to Tony and asked for his license and told me that I couldn't drive the car any more and that Tony would have to drive the rest of the way to the airport, park the car and I would have to get someone to come out to Dulles and drive me back and that if he caught me driving back to D.C. he would arrest me and throw me in the county jail, a phrase that conjured images of Martin Luther King writing letters and big men called Bubba. I was also to return to Dulles Airport police station the next day and present my license, if I didn't he would issue a warrant for my arrest.

I got back into the passenger seat, and asked if Tony had ever driven on the right before.

'Once, five years ago.'

Having worked out how to start the car (which was a Chevy Suburban, a car that would officially be classified as 'tank' in the UK) we made the journey to the parking lot and I showed Tony where the check in desk was. He very kindly gave me a few dollars to make a call back to CHBC and buy myself a coffee while I waited to be picked up.

I rang the CHBC office from a payphone and began the conversation with 'Hello Ben, it's Graham here, I need someone to pick me up from Dulles because I nearly got arrested.' Ben's response was to shout to the rest of the office 'Pipe down here! Graham nearly got arrested.' which brought the chatter behind him to a halt. After I had related the gist of my run in with the police officer I was told, on the authority of Mike Gilbart-Smith, that there was no rule that you had to get an American license within 30 days (I have to admit, I was skeptical that no-one would know this rule at the church, given the number of Brits that had passed through its doors) and that I should just get back in the car and drive back. Relieved that I wouldn't have to sit at the airport and would probably get back to finish my paper on Charles Bridges' 'The Christian Ministry' on time, I began to leave the terminal building.

Just before I got to the door, I remembered that I didn't have enough money to pay for the $4 parking fee at the airport. When Tony gave me money, I didn't mention it to him because I assumed that someone from CHBC would come with their wallet and pick me up. Then, I remembered that there was a period of time within which parking was free and that you could pay within the terminal building. I rushed to a machine and put the ticket it. To my disappointment, it was going to take $4 to get out of the car park/parking lot. Considering my options: ramming the gate, walking home or begging for the rest of the money, I chose begging.

I went up to a group of well dressed people who looked like airport staff and remembering the technique of every beggar I had come across in London's West End I began with 'I don't normally do this but could you possibly lend me a dollar to...' except I did it in the best Oxbridge accent I could manage which most of the beggars in Leicester Sq don't do. I swiftly noticed that the group did not care one jot what my story was, they were quite happy to give a dollar in order to stave off the threat that I was, in fact, a drug-addled Oxbridge graduate that could turn nasty at any moment.

I promptly paid for my parking and left the airport, driving home trying to do as little as possible to attract the attention of any police cars which meant blending in by driving at twice the speed limit of 25 mph like all the other cars on the road. I was pretty confident I wouldn't be caught because the policeman had driven off back toward the station as soon as we had pulled off to go to the airport. I arrived home to tell my story to the staff at CHBC, Kasey Culp actually buzzed people to tell them I was telling it, and to plan to go back to the station the next day.

I wondered what would happen when I arrived at the police station because the officer hadn't given me his name and had only given my a rough time to arrive, 'around 3' so I thought it unlikely that anything awful would happen. However, the thought of county jail and big men called Bubba still haunted me for the rest of the evening. In the end though, I very nearly didn't get to the station at all.

Just a few miles beyond Dulles airport is Leesburg Outlet Mall, an outdoors shopping centre with outlet stores that seem to have perpetual sales on. Needing some winter clothes because the weather has finally turned, I decided to combine my trip to the police station with a shopping trip and given that I didn't know how long I'd be a the station I decided to go to the mall first. The trip started well, I found what I needed and as I dropped the clothes back in the car I had borrowed from my fellow intern Scott, I decided to head back to the food court in to get some lunch before I headed to the station. I got a Burger King Chicken sandwich meal, ate it, threw away the trash/rubbish, went to the toilet/bathroom and headed back to the car. Which was when I discovered I didn't have the car key. I looked in my pockets, in my jacket, in my wallet and in my book. No key. As I wandered back to the food hall to look for it I wondered whether I should buy a tennis ball, cut it in half, place it over the lock, hit it and use the air pressure to force the lock . I then remembered that though half a tennis ball might be able to open a car, it was unlikely to be able to start the engine and that was crucial to the progression of my day.

I arrived back at the food hall, had a quick look in the last places I had been, the sinks of the toilet/bathroom, the table I had sat on and the till that I had been to to pay. The key was at none of these places. I asked at the information desk whether it had been handed in and signed my name in the lost property book, noticing that none of the items above me on the list had been found. During this time I was getting very stressed at the thought of having to get somebody to come out and open the car for me when I had no documentation to prove I was the owner, since I wasn't, and Scott, who did own the car, was on a ten mile hiking trip in the Shenandoah valley.

It dawned on me that the most likely thing to have happened was that as I threw my rubbish/trash away, the key was lying on the tray and had fallen into the bin/trash can. I decided to speak to one of the staff of the food hall so queued up again at the same till/register I had used before. When I got to the front of the line/queue I tried to explain what had happened to the Hispanic man who was operating the till.

'I think I may have lost my key, I think it may have fallen into the trash, can someone look for it with me?'

'Why don't you go to the information desk?' asked the lady behind me in the queue in a strong Pennsylvania accent.

'Yes, I've already done that, thanks.'

'Oh, I didn't mean anything by it' said the lady, clearly thinking I thought she was trying to get me to hurry up so she could pay.

'I know, sorry, that was kind of you' I said and turned to continue to explain my predicament to the man at the till.

'It OK, it OK' he said, interrupting me.

I was more confused than I was hopeful and asked 'What's OK?'

'You go round and make order again' he said gesturing toward the various stalls selling various combinations of grease.

'No, no, you see I've lost my key-' I began again.

'He's lost his key!' The woman behind me began to talk to the man in a raised voice.

'He can't understand you' she said and as I looked I saw that a look of utter incomprehension had spread across the man's face.

'Who's in charge here?' the woman asked and the man gestured toward the Starbucks stall 'Him, him' he said and I went to join that queue and talk to the manager.

As I got to the back of the line, the woman had been behind me came up to me and said, 'He couldn't understand you. One of things I've heard about this place is that none of them can understand you. If I were you I would just look through the trash and not worry about being arrested.'

Prior to this point, I hadn't considered that one could arrested for what I proposed to do, for laws are usually made against things that people would want to do. There is, I believe, no law against eating cockroaches for this very reason. However, as I looked around the room and saw that all of the staff probably had the same English skills as my friend at the till and that my situation was unusual and hard to explain, I decided that even without rubber gloves and even with the threat of legal sanction, in addition to the pending warrant for my arrest, hanging over me, I would have to take matters into my own hands and look through the trash myself.

The trash can/bin that I had used had been turned around so that it could receive no more rubbish since it was full. This meant that I was lucky that it hadn't already been taken away but that my items were likely to be near the top. I turned the plastic box the bag was in around and crouched down to rummage through. As I did so I wondered what the people eating their lunches thought as they saw me with my arms thrust inside a trash can or what the mother with a British accent a yard to my left playing with her child in one of those toy planes you can sit in thought as I peered in as if on some kind of archaeological dig. I had never rummaged through rubbish in public before nor seen anyone do it and I began to see just why that was.

Trying to ignore the smell, and the thought of what I was possibly touching, I soon discovered a Coke cup which was the right size and had the right amount of ice left in it to suggest that it may have been mine. Sure enough, near to this was a Burger King chicken sandwich wrapper and as I pushed that aside I saw the object of my search lying flat on the tray cover that fast food restaurants use these days. I grabbed it, relieved and elated, and as I turned to go and wash my hands I held the key up to the mother who was crouching with her child like a trophy, half in explanation and half in triumph. I soon washed my hands and the key and walked back to the car to drive to the police station and escape legal sanction.

The nearest station I could find on Google maps to Dulles airport was Herndon police department which was just east of Dulles and about half an hour away from Leesburg mall. After filling up with a little gas/petrol I drove to the station, got a little lost in Herndon and parked up in front, avoiding the space that was reserved for the commissioner. I went and explained what I was doing there. My explanation caused some confusion and consternation and it emerged that I was, in fact, at the wrong station and I was given the number of the Dulles Airport Police Department but no directions or a map. So, I rang the number and explained to the person who answered that I had been asked to come in and show my license but that I was at the wrong station and needed to get to Dulles police department.

'So where are you?' they asked.

'I'm at Herndon but I need to be at Dulles.'

'So what do you want? Do you want the number for Herndon?'

'No,' I explained patiently,'I'm at Herndon, I need to know how to get to Dulles'

At this the man exhaled deeply as if I had asked how to get from Tripoli to Ouagadougou.

'Well, err, oh, well, where exactly are you?'

'I'm at Herndon...'

'What street is that...'

Seeing this was going to be painful, I explained that I knew how to get to the airport, at which the man brightened considerably and explained how I could get to the station from there.

I entered the station nervously but as I explained what I'd been asked to do to the man sitting at the desk I affected a calm confidence that only the innocent could possess. The man at the desk had a round face, entirely bald and looked like he came straight from central casting. He asked me which officer had pulled me over while he examined my photocard and counterpart licence and when I explained he had red hair and a moustache he asked 'White guy?'. After pausing to imagine a black police officer with red hair and moustache I answered in the affirmative. He said 'Yeah, I think I know who you mean' in a way that added 'and I think he's a complete jerk' and continued 'I'll let him know you called, thank you very much for coming in, sir' which restored some of my faith in the American police forces.

So, I drove back, still in possession of my liberty, my money and Scott's car key, an exhausted and grateful man.

I'll just finish with two observations for this post is already much too long. First, authority is a good thing but it is terrible when it is misused or even correctly used in the wrong spirit. I suppose I was driving without the possession of a license and going over the speed limit but there seemed an arbitrary nature to the fact I was pulled over and a rudeness and discourtesy in the way I was treated. I'm grateful that the ultimate authority in the universe is held by someone who is just, who shows no partiality and who offers mercy and forgiveness for sins, while upholding justice, through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, the ordinary grace of God. I wrote a post on this a few weeks ago but it strikes me as extraordinarily kind of God to help the kind of man who forgets his wallet, overtakes police cars and throws his car key away in the rubbish escape some terrible fate. If, even when I do everything I can to land myself in jail and with a huge mechanic bill, He rescues me then I think I can trust him in pretty much all circumstances.

The Decline of Oratory and Preaching Part 2: Defining terms

2007-11-03T16:45:00.001-04:00

I'm now able to write the second post on the subject of the decline of oratory. My basic observation is that oratory has declined as a factor in public discourse and that this has implications for Christian preaching in society today because preaching, the mode of communication prescribed by God, is a form of oratory. Now, some have taken issue with that and asked whether, in fact, oratory is proscribed by Scripture. I suppose that the verse they have in mind is 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul declares:

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

Is Paul here rejecting oratory? Well, dictionary.com defines oratory in three ways:

The art of public speaking.
Eloquence or skill in making speeches to the public.
Public speaking marked by the use of overblown rhetoric.

It seems to me that preaching is self-evidently oratory in its first definition, should aspire to be oratory in its second and should never be oratory in its third. In the rest of this discussion I shall usually use oratory in the second sense of the word, and sometimes the first. I never mean the third, though much of oratory in the first sense is also oratory in the third sense.

Hello again

2007-11-01T23:36:00.001-04:00

As you'll see I've not being blogging regularly recently. The main reason for this is that my fiance, Katherine, visited for a few days last week who you can see alluringly holding a glass of orange juice on her 23rd birthday. It was undoubtedly the best week of my time in Washington and I think that had I spent any time blogging while Katherine had been here then I probably should have been shot. Since then, I've done various things including go to a wedding with a male 'bridal attendant', parallel park a pick-up truck (not easy), and spent a long time listening to Australians talk to Americans. The last of these things took place at the 'Gospel Growth vs Church Growth' conference where Phillip Jensen spoke on that very topic. It was fascinating to see how the two cultures interact. Phillip Jensen was as provocative and insightful as ever and while I didn't agree with everything that he said I would recommend the mp3s when they come out.

I also got a copy of Private Eye today which I'm looking forward to reading. I do wonder, however, about the future of a satirical magazine when the headline on the BBC's website currently reads: 'London's police force broke health and safety laws over the shooting dead of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes' Err...

Two things

2007-10-15T22:44:00.000-04:00

1) This story is why, if you own a red letter bible, you should go out and purchase a proper one as soon as possible. It's not the politics that are the problem but the theology. Note what Tony Campolo writes 'Likewise, we believe the morality in the red letters of Jesus transcends that found in the black letters set down in the Pentateuch, and I'm surprised you don't agree.' Well, to start with, the Pentateuch is not the only part of the Bible that has black letters and Jesus will not allow us to set his words against the rest of God's revelation. He declares "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." If you believe that your political convictions should be shaped by the mind of Christ, which all Christians should believe, then you must search the entire Scriptures because Christ approved the old and commissioned the new. Good advice on choosing a Bible can be found here.

2) I think, though I can't be sure, that Al Gore's selection as the Nobel Peace Prize winner is the worst selection since Caligula tried to make his horse a Senator.

The Decline of Oratory and Preaching Part 1

2007-10-09T23:05:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a volatile few weeks in British politics which I've done my best to follow along with on the other side of the Atlantic. Probably the most significant event was David Cameron's speech at the Conservative Party conference. It seems quite possible that this speech has prevented an election being held which could very significant for the course of British politics for years to come.

Of course, the remarkable thing is that it is very rare in contemporary politics for a single speech to affect political events. Can anyone remember any of Tony Blair's speeches? The only one that springs to mine is the one he made in Parliament on the eve of the Iraq War and though it was an effective case for the invasion (I listened to it on a pocket radio while I was cleaning radiators in an old people's home, don't ask) Blair already had the votes in the bag and the speech changed nothing. Other than this one struggles to remember a single speech or piece of oratory that has changed the course of events in any significant way. When the Guardian newspaper selected its rather eccentric list of 'Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century' the most recent speech was, bizarrely, Earl Spencer's eulogy of Princess Diana in 1997 and the next most recent was a speech by Margaret Thatcher, a speaker whose conviction far outweighed her ability, in 1980. The last third of the century could only muster these two efforts out of a list of fourteen.

Oratory used to be a far bigger factor in British politics than it is today. One can see this by the number of politicians of the past that had a reputation for great oratory: John Bright, William Gladstone, Joseph Chamberlain, Lloyd George, Churchill, Nye Bevan, Enoch Powell, Harold Wilson, Denis Healey, Tony Benn and even Neil Kinnock are all politicians that built, if not all, then at least some of their reputation and political success on their ability to orate in front of live crowds. And, as politicians, they were not alone. All causes, whether political, social, or religious, especially religious, causes were furthered by the spoken word. The arena in which ideas had to compete was that of the oration.

This time is now gone. The historian Simon Schama writes 'by and large the digital age is cool to rhetoric and, as the enthronement of the blogger suggests, prizes incoherent impulse over the Ciceronian arts of the exordium and the peroration.'

Well, I had the incoherent impulse to write about the plight of oratory in modern society. Now, to be honest, I am a bit of a geek and this is the kind of thing that interests me purely as a historical question. I believe, however, that there are serious implications to this subject for the method that God has ordained for the propagation of his Gospel is preaching - a particular form of oratory. Christian ministers are not at liberty, like the politician, to abandon it when it becomes a less popular medium. But, the effect of the shift away from oratory in nearly every sphere of life is that whereas once the Christian preacher was one among many orators and spoke to people used to listening to the spoken word harnessed in the cause of an idea, the Christian preacher now founds himself nearly alone as one who seeks to present a monologue to live groups of people in order to persuade them. I believe, then, that understanding why it is that oratory, after such a long pedigree of usage, is now so rare is important for the Christian preacher, whose methods are prescribed by Scripture, to know how to respond.

My hope is to write a series of posts dealing with three reasons why oratory has declined in use and what a Christian preacher's response should be. Of course, I don't know what I'm talking about so please critique or dismiss what I write at your leisure...

I don't normally take photos in restrooms/toilets but...

2007-10-09T22:57:00.000-04:00

One feels the sign might be unnecessary.

The theory that lies at the heart of this blog...

2007-10-04T21:38:00.001-04:00

If nobody said anything unless he knew what he was talking about, a ghastly hush would descend upon the earth. — Sir Alan Patrick Herbert (1890-1971)

Ordinary Grace

2007-10-04T21:01:00.001-04:00

ordinary

adjective

Commonly encountered: average, common, commonplace, general, normal, typical, usual. See surprise/expect.

Well, I'm about to do a bit of work and then go to bed but I thought I'd share my thoughts on something. I don't know about you but I sometimes read the Bible, perhaps Acts or the story of Elisha and certainly the Gospels and wish that I could see the spectacular events of those times. I read stories of revivals in times past and far places and wish that I could see God move so clearly, so obviously as it seems He sometimes does. But then, don't I see God all the time? Don't I see God's work every hour? Don't I see it in air that is breathable, food that sustains, friends and family that love? I take it for granted that in the morning I will be able to switch my light on, that my Bible and my clothes will be in the same place as it was when I fell asleep, that the building will not have sunk to the ground and that the sun will be shining. I control none of these things and yet I plan for them, more than that I depend upon them.

Why? Because God has an excellent track record of providing these things - so much that I don't even notice Him doing it. Of course, I can explain proximate causes - how the electricity is generated, how Newtonian physics works etc etc, but isn't it the height of ingratitude to use the fact I understand the means of kindness to ignore the kindness? Do I imagine God only causes in the things that I didn't learn at school? No, here are a treasure trove of tokens of grace ready to be taken by the one that has eyes to see. We might call all this providence. I like the term 'ordinary grace' not that it is average in its nature or extent but that God's character is so kind, so loving and so gracious that He is that God that He normally shows grace and kindness even to those that ignore and rebel against Him. And if I can trust God tomorrow in all the millions of details I would not even have the time to petition Him for if I had the mind to remember them then can't I trust Him in the things He has specifically promised to do? Can't I trust Him that on day He will return in power and glory with His angels? Can't I trust Him that on that day Christ's blood will cover all my sin and can't I trust Him that I will be accepted in to a country in which all that is ordinary is special and all that is special is ordinary.

Thanks Google!

2007-10-02T11:34:00.000-04:00

I was cleaning out my spam account just now and the little bar at the top which gives you links to stuff was suggesting I click on a recipe for a 'Spam Hashbrown Bake'. Just reading the words made me want to throw up.

The triumph of the collective...

2007-10-01T19:36:00.001-04:00

Watch this

Quick tip

2007-10-01T00:27:00.000-04:00

If you're from England and you want to amuse Americans, use the word 'ghastly' at an appropriate moment. They love it.

Bob Dylan...

2007-09-29T09:58:00.000-04:00

Last night, (Friday), I went to see Bob Dylan with Elvis Costello supporting. It was held at an outdoor pavilion and and we were sitting (standing for most of the time) on the grass, what seemed like 500 metres away. The set was very bluesy, Highway 61 was one of the songs that I recognised, and the band was excellent but it didn't represent my favourite portion of the Dylan oeuvre. While I've always thought that Dylan is an underrated vocalist who has put in some excellent performances on certain tracks down the years, even I had to admit that what vocal ability he once had seems now to have gone. I think he sung about two notes during the entire concert, the rest was a guttural bark in to the microphone. It was nevertheless, a great experience to hear one of the few genius' that modern society has produced sing 'Blowing in the Wind' even if one had to be charitable to use the verb 'sing'.

Going to the concert was a chance to reflect on Dylan's career. He has produced some of the most thoughtful, inspiring and insightful lyrics, along with some killer melodies, for nearly fifty years. His cultural contribution is vast and he commented intelligently and movingly on nearly every subject has touched. His album 'Saved' is, melodically and theologically, the best Christian album I have ever heard. Listening to Dylan, and Costello who is also an excellent songwriter, I wondered why it is that society no longer produces the kind of artist with the mix of pathos, insight and commentary of a Dylan or a Costello. Now, it may be that there's someone writing these kind of songs knocking around in obscurity but that proves my point. Who is there that writes songs like "Blowin' in the Wind' 'Oxford Town' 'Hard Rain's Gonna Fall' or 'The Times They Are A Changing', still less that gets them a wide audience? Now, we have to put up with James Blunt whinily whining away in his whiny voice. The nearest we've come in Britain is Billy Bragg.

Why is this? Why is it that the cultural greats seem to belong to generations past? I dunno, I'm off to play a bit of Championship Manager.

Thoughts on politics...

2007-09-27T11:20:00.000-04:00

It's easy to believe that politicians of whatever stripe are vain, power-hungry and malicious but this story reminded me that most politicians are still human beings and, as Romans 13 teaches us, worthy of more respect, because of their position not despite it. We should recognise that both leaders of our major parties in the UK have been faithful to their wives and seem to be devoted fathers, even in the face of both facing tragedy in their family. That doesn't mean that either are right on every issue, or that neither is capable of conduct that should be criticised. What it does mean, though, is that we should accord both the presumption of integrity and honesty that men generally deserve, especially if as Christians we believe that the hand of God is somehow behind their prominence.

Of course, the problem is that political discourse in the UK, and probably in the US too, is at a pretty low ebb. For instance, take the war on Iraq, a very controversial and difficult issue. Too often, the discussion has come down to pejorative labelling and the repetition of mantras rather than an intelligent discussion of objectives and means based on a common respect for the intelligence and honour of the participants, even by people who should know better. Someone said to me the other day that he felt that the major obstacle that Europeans had in understanding American foreign policy was the assumption that at the heart of it must be a grab for economic and political power. In fact, he said, no matter how misguided you think US actions have been, they have been based on genuine principle.

We would do much better in the whole of political life to engage people in debate on the basis of their stated reasons or arguments and not on reasons or imagine our opponents to have. Some would say that the problem with this is that the media will not allow politics to be conducted in this way. That may or may not be true but it's very sad to see a politician like Harriet Harman make these remarks in the her first speech as deputy leader of the Labour Party. She said:

"Whatever it takes to support families - Labour is the party of the family and we will do it. Families do need practical help, they don't need to be told by politicians how to lead their lives. They don't need Tories "sending a message about marriage"....

What does that really mean?

It means saying to children whose parents have divorced or who are being brought up by a mother or a father on their own, it means saying to those children: "there's something wrong with your family" - and we will not stand for that.It means saying to the gay couple or the lesbian couple who have loved each other for years - there's something wrong with your relationship. And we will not stand for that either. Because that Tory message about marriage is just the same old back to basics. And the truth is that until they drop it, the Tory party is still the nasty party."

Now, I really have no axe to grind for the Tory Party, though I have to admit that in this area of policy I am more in sympathy with them than Labour, but simply labelling political opponents 'nasty' really will not do. Harman makes no attempt to address or discuss the reasons why the Conservative Party, or at least members of the Conservative Party, might hold the views they do but instead dismisses them as a priori 'nasty'. Does she really believe that the only motivation for seeking to discriminate in favour of marriage in the tax and benefit system is malice against those who aren't married? Is the Labour Party being nasty when it argues that there should be restrictions on immigration? Or that shops should have their licenses taken away if they sell to under age drinkers? Why not? What's the difference between the two positions? Because there is very little discussion of policy from first principles, politics becomes a question of branding, who can persuade the public that the other party is weak or nasty or old or whatever. It's not just Labour that do this: David Cameron is just as guilty in this as any other politician, but the upshot is that it becomes harder and harder to engage in, still less persuade anyone with, political arguments and so political arguments are less and less worth making and if democracy depends on anything, it's that people will bother to make political arguments.

Men and the church

2007-09-26T07:32:00.000-04:00

The top video is a clip from Harry Enfield, I've been watching a bit of his stuff on Youtube and it's reminded me of how funny he used to be in the mid-nineties.

If you wait for a couple of minutes, you'll hear a very funny monologue by Bill Bailey on male identity in the lower video. I put these up partly to just amuse you and partly because I think both clips express something on the modern view of gender. The Enfield clip is an example of the modern trend, which I think is fairly ubiquitous in modern society, to imagine that past attitudes to gender and sexuality must necessarily be at best ridiculous, at worst noxious. The Bailey clip shows the modern reality: there is as Bailey puts it, 'a crisis in masculine identity'.

Now, compare the attitudes mocked by Enfield with these words: 'As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church' 1 Cor 14:33-35

'Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.' 1 Tim 2:11-15

Doesn't the Apostle Paul sound a lot like Enfield's 'Women know your limits?' Isn't his attitude as anachronistic and laughable as the men at the dinner party? Well, of course, to anyone who doesn't consider the Bible to be anything more than an ancient religious text then he does - except perhaps more sinister. To Christians, however, who take the Bible as the inspired Word of God and the Apostle Paul as the authoritative messenger of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul's word are a bit more of a problem -even embarrassing. One can turn to numerous sources to see commentators, reformed conservative evangelical ones at that, try and say that these words mean something different to what Paul appears to say and that the implication of the plain reading of the text, that women shouldn't teach men in church, is in fact now the reverse of the case. In reading these, I have found that Doug Wilson's comments ring true:

'Often a liberal is far more honest in handling the text than is an evangelical. This is because the evangelical is stuck with the results of his exegesis. The liberal can say that the apostle Paul taught the headship of the man in marriage, and wasn't that silly? The evangelical, trying to keep up with current trends, and also trying to keep the Bible, has to try to make Paul into a contemporary sensitive male, which is frankly not very easy.'

It might be worth considering why it is that evangelicalism is riven with such controversy on this issue. It cannot be that the Bible's teaching on gender is more difficult to believe than any other. Evangelicals are more united on other issues, for instance the bodily resurrection of the dead, or the Trinity, that are far more strange to secular ears and which have far less empirical evidence for them than the Biblical teaching on gender roles. Why is it then that so many seek to shift away from what is the plain meaning of Scripture?

May I suggest two possibilities?

First, that this issue touches upon the core of the created order - that of God, man, women, creation that was set up in Genesis and that this issue is far more important than is sometimes appreciated. It is not mere the rather humdrum question of who will do the talk on Sunday morning but will we accept the world as God has ordained it? I think that it's precisely because of this that Satan has bred so much confusion on this issue because to reject the order in which a husband should have authority over a wife and the churches elders should be male is ultimately to reject the order in which God is authoritative over humanity. This is not to say that everyone who think women might be able to teach men in church is a God-hater - it's simply to suggest a reason why Satan might have a particular agenda to confuse on this point.

Second, and I think this is far more certain, the sheer obviousness of Paul's words mean that alternative explanation for them must be found by anyone who wants to practice something other than what the Apostle teaches. Let me explain: my practices may not be consistent with the doctrine of, for instance, penal substitution and its implications but those inconsistencies may be hard to spot, an attitude of pride for instance, or it may not immediately be obvious that this or that practice is, in fact, inconsistent with the doctrine of penal substitution. I can, therefore, affirm the doctrine while still living a life inconsistent with its implications, for a while, at least. When we turn to the Bible's teaching on male and female roles in the church, however, and the question of whether a woman will stand up and teach men, the plainest sense of the Apostle's words is that women should not do so. If I desire to allow women to teach men then I am forced to have some kind of explanation for why this is permissible. Unlike penal substitution, I must get rid of the doctrine before I act in ways that do not accord with it. Therefore, faced with what appears to be an arbitrary and meaningless prohibition that is inconvenient to abide by, an evangelical who wishes to draw his doctrine from Paul at other points is forced to arrive some reading of 1 Tim 2:12 that changes the meaning sufficiently so that what at first seems to be prohibited is now in fact allowed.

This is not to say that those evangelicals who allow or encourage women to teach men are being duplicitous, but it is to attempt an answer why it may be that those evangelicals are inconsistent on this point and allow an exegesis of 1 Tim 2:12 or 1 Cor 14:33-35 that they would not allow on any other passage of in the Bible.

Lig Duncan, writing on the Together for the Gospel blog, explains how a position that allows women to teach men undermines Scripture: 'the denial of complementarianism undermines the church's practical embrace of the authority of Scripture (thus eventually and inevitably harming the church's witness to the Gospel). The gymnastics required to get from "I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man," in the Bible, to "I do allow a woman to teach and to exercise authority over a man" in the actual practice of the local church, are devastating to the functional authority of the Scripture in the life of the people of God.

By the way, this is one reason why I think we just don't see many strongly inerrantist-egalitarians (meaning: those who hold unwaveringly to inerrancy and also to egalitarianism) in the younger generation of evangelicalism. Many if not most evangelical egalitarians today have significant qualms about inerrancy, and are embracing things like trajectory hermeneutics, etc. to justify their positions. Inerrancy or egalitarianism, one or the other, eventually wins out.'

This is surely true. Allowing a woman to teach a man in the church is inconsistent with evangelicalism because the hallmark of evangelicalism is upholding the plenary authority of Scripture above cultural trends which means not allowing women into the pulpit or into the leadership of the church – no matter how strange it might seem to modern ideas.

Of course, one problem many people have is that 1 Tim 2:12 and other passages seem to come as a bolt from the blue, a strange teaching that has little biblical precedent and that seems to go against the trajectory of verses like Gal 3:28 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.'

This leads to some evangelicals rejecting Paul's words in 1 Tim 2:12 completely, of course, but it also leads more conservative evangelicals to apply Paul's words in a minimal and merely formal sense. Randy Stinson and Ligon Duncan write in their 2006 preface to the new edition of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 'Some conservative evangelicals are serving in denominational settings where the battle over women’s ordination was fought years ago; they tend to see this as an issue of the past... They say that as long as women are not ordained to the pastorate, or maybe to eldership, Scripture is being obeyed. They claim that women can do anything in the church that non-ordained men can do, as if that secures a biblical view and answers all the practical matters relating to the ministry of women in the church.'

Thus, some churches design ministry models in which the difference between a man in ministry and a woman in ministry is that the women don't get to do the fun stuff of standing up in front of people and teaching them. However, in virtually all other tasks, the labour is divided equally between the two.

What is needed therefore is the church to adopt a comprehensive, fully orbed, view of masculinity and femininity in the Bible that includes verses like 1 Tim 2:12 but doesn't stop merely at the question of whether a woman can teach men but, instead, goes on to consider how God's order of creation should shape and affect all of life, rather than imagine that it starts and ends at the pulpit steps.

What I think we will discover is that the Bible has a much higher, much more demanding view of masculinity than we suppose. Feminine virtues are much admired in today's society, and much there is to admire in them. But God created us male and female, and therefore there are things that are distinctively masculine that the church and the world needs. It is clear that the world's society has increasingly little to offer young men in the way of role model or understanding about what it means to be a man. Churches need to offer a vision as men as head of their households, defenders of their wives, compassionate to their children, leaders in their churches, rather than either victims to their libidos or cringing effeminates. I remember as a fifteen year old in a youth group session on relationships the question coming up, 'why are Christian men so wet?' I didn't really know what it meant at the time but I soon found out! Too often, the answer given to men's sins in the church is to tell them to be a little less masculine and a little more feminine - how often is 2 Tim 2:22 used in sermons to beat up on young men? This will not do. The root of my problem is not that I am too boisterous or too boyish and the answer to my problem is not to become more effeminate. The root of my problem is that I am not man enough and the answer to my problem is to become more masculine: for that is how God made me.

My problem is that I am not man enough to control myself, not man enough to deny myself pleasure, not man enough to persist with discipline, not man enough to root out sin in my heart and confront the evil that lies within, not man enough to speak boldly and clearly about the truth of the Gospel to those that need it, not man enough to endure servanthood and humiliation. The truth is I need to become more manly for who is the ultimate man? The ultimate man is Jesus Christ. Jesus, who drove out the moneychangers from the temple; Jesus, who confronted the rich and the powerful and who was frank and direct even to his dinner hosts; Jesus, who walked fearlessly toward physical pain and whose very voice was sufficient to topple a band of Roman soldiers. Jesus Christ was not, in the words of Mark Driscoll, 'a hippy in a dress, rocking out to the Spice Girls, driving around the Middle East in a Cabriolet hoping to meet nice people to do aromatherapy with and drink herbal tea', he was the Ultimate Man.

If the Gospel is to flourish in the UK then we need men who follow in the pattern of the ultimate man. Ephesians 5 tells us that the epitome of masculinity is not drunkenness or sexual incontinence, as the world would have to believe, nor is it the dead-fish handshake of modern evangelicalism. Instead, Ephesians 5 tells us that the epitome of masculinity is the one who follows Jesus in saving those they lead. God calls men to follow Christ in leading for the sake of those that follow. Therefore, we need men who will love their wives faithfully and passionately, who will lead them responsibly and righteously. We need men who will instruct and discipline their children and bring them up in the fear of the Lord. We need men who will teach the church sound doctrine and oppose those who teach heresy. We need men who will stand up for morality and preach righteousness to those who reject it. We need men.

Satan is not foolish when he attacks gender roles in the church for he knows that when he confuses the church on this point he robs it of two of it's most valuable weapons.

He robs it of women who are joyful in the role that God has given them, who are a support and a help and a joy to their husbands and fathers and brothers. And, he robs it of men who will do the Father's will. Sanctified men, righteous and loving, wise and humble, leaders and servants, fathers and husbands, preachers and prayers. These are the men the Devil fears. These are the men the world wants but cannot have. These are the men God will use. Pray the Lord raises them up.

This is very worrying...

2007-09-25T14:50:00.000-04:00

This is very worrying. From what I know about Trevor Phillips, having seen him on the TV and so forth, he's seems a nice chap and I'm sure that his intentions are noble: that people of different cultures and ethnicities are able to feel welcome and integrate properly into society. However, there is a big difference between saying that we need to investigate and understand the past more fully and more truthfully, and saying that we need to rewrite history in order to satisfy a particular political purpose. We should always study history with the desire to be more faithful to the facts and if that means that we acknowledge a Turkish contribution to the defeat of the Spanish Armada then that's fine. But to define the end of historical research in these terms will only skew history and nations that deliberately skew history for political purposes tend to have a bad track record of maintaining liberty. No-one writes history without an agenda but that agenda must always stay humble before the facts and not become the servant of political ideology.

For your consideration...

2007-09-21T20:05:00.000-04:00

Here's a video of Elvis singing Unchained Melody towards the end of his life.

A few comments, first - how big a face has Elvis got here? It's massive! He's up in Nicholas Soames territory for sure.

Second, how come they couldn't find a microphone stand? This is the King of Rock and Roll! At what point after they started looking for one did they think 'Forget this - let's just get a roadie to hold one - I think I've got a spare white suit in the back.' It's this kind of thinking that has led to hundreds of men and women to hold 'Golf Sale' signs in Oxford Circus . When did this become acceptable? It's not like the problem of someone singing and playing the piano at the same time was somehow one that humanity had never faced before. Imagine you're the guy holding the mic and you get an itch you can't get at with your left hand? What do you do? Hope that you know the song well enough to get a scratch in during an instrumental section or try and hang on? You know that when you get that job all you can do is screw it up, there's no glory in being the guy in the band who holds the microphone. As soon as someone visits a music shop you're out. I think I might have played a high risk game and turned the song into a duet - at least try to go out in style before I'm replaced by an inanimate object.

Third, about 2:27 in he says 'Hit me with it' . Nothing discernable happens. What did he hope to be hit with and why?

Fourth, listen to the sound he makes at 3:21 just as he finishes - he then crys 'yup' in satisfaction. This leaves me with the thought - was the entire concert an attempt to dislodge some phlegm? Is this why he leaves straight afterwards? Wouldn't you feel shortchanged if you bought tickets and then found out that was the reason he was performing?

Fifth, listen to what the band play at the end of the song - who thought that was appropriate? Who thought, 'what will fit the mood nicely after a big romantic ballad? I know ...' and came up with that? Anyway, these are things I think about when I'm not getting emails from you, so keep in touch.

Winning analysis

2007-09-20T12:00:00.000-04:00

"I'm absolutely astounded at what's happened.

"Winning football matches is what the game's about and he is a winning manager who puts a winning mentality in players' heads and they go and win things."
Former Chelsea captain Ray Wilkins

Out of proportion

2007-09-19T22:40:00.001-04:00

As a Manchester United fan I think this is a good thing. The fact it's the lead headline of the entire BBC News website, probably isn't.

My country...

2007-09-19T20:48:00.000-04:00

I'm writing waiting till it's time so I can lock the church up. I'm tired because this morning I took Mark Dever and Mike Gilbart-Smith to Dulles airport at 5am this morning. They were both flying to the UK to speak at various conferences and preach at various churches. As I stood in the car park/parking lot I realised that I would desperately love to be on the plane with them. Not because I'm not happy to be in the States or because I was especially keen to spend seven hours with messers Dever and Gilbart-Smith (fine brothers, thought they are) but because I want to see my country again. Of course, I'd love to see my family and friends who I miss very much but also because I want to be home I want to be in the country of my birth. I had the feeling that I think can best be described by the word patriotism, a feeling unfamiliar to someone brought up reading The Guardian.

One of the things that being a foreigner for while teaches you is the distinctive things that I like about my country. I love the greeness of a country that has been inundated with drizzle for millenia. I love the clarity of the road-signs and the presence of roundabouts in built up areas. I love postboxes and the fact that, for now at least, the post comes before 12pm each morning. I love the fact that it is called post. I love that there are four nations within a days drive of one another and that in one of them they insist that the roadsigns are written in Welsh not matter how close it is to the English, thus signs to the town of Flint appear with the word Fflint written below. I love towns in which driving is hampered because the roads were designed when a horse and carriage were an exciting novelty if not simply a glint in a horse-whisperers eye.

One of my links to the UK is the fact that every fortnight (that's two weeks my American friends) I receive a copy of the satirical magazine 'The Private Eye'.I'm reminded of this because in the last edition there was a cartoon where a woman was explaining to a young man that 'We're not called young offenders' social workers any more. I'm a scum whisperer.' I think the magazine is wonderful. There are many things that are not good about it - crudity, an occasional personal viciousness and some may argue that satire leads to cynicism but I can't think of many better reactions to the fact that people in power are often corrupt, stupid and vain than writing cartoons and making jokes about them. Other civilizations would throw Molotov cocktails , the British record Colemanballs. One only needs to compare the Eye with its American counterpart 'The Onion' to see how vastly superior the Eye is in humour, in sharpness and in investigative journalism, which is entirely absent in the American organ, to its American counterpart. Reading the Private Eye, then, flames my appreciation of British culture.

The apogee of British culture (and note I use the word British to include all nations within the Kingdom) is, of course, represented by Radio 4 and Cricket. There is, therefore, no more authentically British experience than listening to Test Match Special on Radio Four LW while watching Cricket at Lord's. The church-like hush, the off-topic conversation, the orderly and respectful partisanship and the mirthful celebration of success are all golden threads of the greatness of the nation. I cannot but have affection for the way that the appeal of both is somewhat obscure to the foreigner or the uninitiated but with patience and humility one can come to have a richly textured joy through both. I have a keen appreciation for baseball and have been to many games already since I arrived in the US, but faced with a choice of all the baseball in the world for all eternity and one last day of cricket, I would choose cricket every time.

Of course, in many ways, the country represented by Radio 4 and cricket is disappearing, and being replaced by a more vulgar, less subtle version. It is hard to think of these things without the tinge of elegy entering into one's tone. Nevertheless, while cricket is played over five days to a draw, and Radio 4 still broadcasts Just a Minute and I know that no book review written by a subject of Her Majesty the Queen will ever have a first sentence like this one I shall still be proud to be a citizen of my country.

Of course, when one thinks about one's country, it is impossible not to think of the state of the church there and the state of the Gospel there but I'll post about that separately.

Blogs I read...

2007-09-19T11:20:00.001-04:00

Here are a few blogs I like to read every now and then:

Between Two Worlds: a one stop shop for goings on in the world of American Conservative Evangelicalism.

Adrian Warnock: the same thing basically by a Brit.

David Field and Doug Wilson: two Presbyterians who I often disagree with but always find interesting.

Church Matters: the 9Marks blog.

Ugley Vicar: intelligent Anglican comment.

Fake Don Carson: a very funny blog that will soon be taken down so read it now!

Unashamed Workman: blog on preaching

Reformation 21 blog: everything Carl Trueman writes is worth reading.

Oval Office 2008: best blog I've found on the '08 Presidential election.

I don't check these every day, nor do I agree with everything written on them, but these are where I normally go if I'm short of something to read.

This is a very good article...

2007-09-19T11:19:00.000-04:00

Masculinity in the Pulpit

Douglas Wilson

The vocation of preaching is not just a simple act of communication; it is also a symbolic act. So not only must the preaching be biblical and good, but the symbolism must also be biblical and good. And our failures in this regard are why we are having such trouble today with the question of the ordination of women.

The reason the evangelical church feels the pressure to ordain women (despite clear texts) is that the standards used to evaluate the occupant of the pulpit (for well over a century now) have been the standards of feminine piety. This means that clergymen have been trying to live up to their reputation as the "third sex." Put another way, we have insisted upon effeminacy in the pulpit, and we are now being pressed with the next logical step. If that is your standard, what possible basis could you have for excluding women, who can do what we are currently doing better than we are currently doing it? This is quite accurate, but the real question here should be whether or not we should repent of what we are currently doing. If we are going to have pretty boys in the pulpit, it would be much nicer to have pretty girls. I confess it. But should we have pretty boys?

The texts on this are so clear, and the pressure to disregard them so massive, the only way to account for it is through identifying another kind of disobedience—a global disobedience. We have been seeing the Scriptures (all of Scripture) in such a skewed fashion for so long that it necessitates that the words barring women from the pulpit be seen through the grid of creative theology.

"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety" (1 Tim. 2:11-15). So okay, here it is, right in the Bible. Of course there are arguments for setting this aside. And there are far more compelling arguments that make the set-asiders a laughingstock. But the question really ought to be, "Why are we even talking about this?"

This kind of creative exegesis is usually found only in authoritative texts—Scripture, Constitutions, Books of Church Order, and so on. Someone is bound by that authority to behave in a way that is consistent with the authority, but said someone doesn't really want to be obedient. Because they have to keep up appearances, they engage in some amazing circumlogicalities. "The Constitution is a living document," said the legal scholar. "It can stretch as far as you want, but only to the left."

"In an ancient Ugaritic text that somebody found, a word that means servant looks kind of like the Hebrew word for warrior-princess after it is back-translated into Greek. I think. And this has enormous ramifications for our church polity today," said the Rev. Xena.

Nobody has to deal with people who interpret newspaper articles this way. No one interprets the writing on the side of your paper cup from Arby's like this. And when it comes to works of literature, we have to deal with such people sometimes, but usually to the extent that the work of literature has entered into the canon and has hence become somewhate authoritative. So, for example, Pride and Prejudice can be discovered to be a feminist manifesto, but this is only because the text speaks with more authority than the unsubmissive can stand.

It is not surprising that lack of submission to the text is an issue when we are talking about texts that require submission. And this brings us to the true irony. The masculine preacher can only be this way if he learns to submit himself. Masculine preachers are not those who demand submission from others; masculine preachers are those who submit themselves.

True masculinity is submissive. Right, submissive. Effeminacy in the pulpit is disobedient and rebellious. God tells the preacher to go and speak as the very oracles of God (1 Pet. 4:11). He might not feel like it. He worries that people will think he is getting above himself. He wonders if he is really called to the ministry. When tackling any lofty scriptural subject, far above him, he is frequently as disappointed with his performance as the farmer's wife was when she asked the sow to fold the linen. But how he feels does not matter. He is told what to do, and he is under authority. "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."

We are frequently told that feminists don't like masculinist bravado and bluster in the pulpit. It is fine if they don't like it; no one should. But the real cause of the genuine conflict is this: masculine preachers (not maschismo preachers) are models of respectful submission. Men who preach with masculine authority are modeling obedience, and this is the one thing that rebels cannot abide.

Oh my goodness

2007-09-15T00:13:00.001-04:00

If you're the kind of person who only reads the top post on a blog then please skip this and move on to the post below this one but I felt I had to mention my discovery that there is another staff member of CHBC who has a blog. This time it's Adam Grusy, New Mexico native and my fantasy football victim, who has a blog here- with his wife and soon to be born child along with a nice picture of his post surgery foot. My favourite picture is the one on the right. Now, which of these three options do you think explain what you see? a) Mark Dever has a large head b) Adam Grusy has a very small head or c) the photo is cleverly staged and Adam is standing six feet further away from the camera.

9Marks Workshop

2007-09-14T23:52:00.000-04:00

It would be remiss of me not to point out that there is a 9Marks Workshop happening a stone's throw from my old house in London at East London Tabernacle. The workshop will deal with many of the issues that the Weekenders do but you won't have to fly to D.C. to hear it. If you're considering full-time ministry then I would urge you to go - I think I can guarantee that you will hear things from Mark Dever and Mike Gilbart-Smith that won't hear at any other conference. Let me know if you're planning to go - I'd love to hear how it goes. (I tried very hard to get on the trip - unfortunately, 9Marks does not have the budget to fly me out just so I can carry Mark's bags although a donation to 9Marks specifically for this purpose may do the trick - come on people, make this happen!)

P.S. A big shout out to Mike Law Jr and anyone else whose Google alert was set off by this blog post. Check out Mike's blog with lots of pictures of his baby here. I think this is an American thing.

Weekender Thoughts...

2007-09-14T23:27:00.000-04:00

We're in the middle of a Weekender, which is great to be a part of. We've just had an evening of membership classes and it's been a great reminder of the importance of Christian community in ny sanctification and perseverance.

Last night we attended the elders meeting - once again I was struck by the great care for the flock that these men demonstrate in their servant-hearted leadership, as well as the great benefit that the congregation gets when their spiritual oversight is shared by many men and not just left in the hands of one man. It seems to me clear that Christ intended each member of His flock to be shepherded by many undershepherds rather than just one or one man who has been delegated the authority to shepherd. It is clear that the Elders at CHBC remember Hebrews 13:7 and act as men who will have to give an account for each member of their flock.

This is why membership is important - every man who takes on the office of elder will have to account for the souls in their care and this is why each member should be known by at least one elder and probably many more. What I'm always struck by is how long the elders spend discussing individual cases, carefully weighing the best course of action, together, for that individual. It's great to know as a member of CHBC that my soul is being pastored with such care.

My Weekend

2007-09-12T21:33:00.000-04:00

My weekend starts tomorrow. 'Oh great, another example of Graham's cushy lifestyle that he just has to talk about' I hear you say in an exaggeratedly sarcastic voice for comedy effect. Well, this weekend, though it is long will also be very busy because I will be helping at a 9Marks Weekender. 'What is a 9Marks weekender?' I hear you say in a more normal voice tinged with curiosity and, perhaps, some suspicion. Well, it's a conference where about 50 pastors and theological college students (or seminarians as people call them round here) gather at CHBC to learn about how the church does it's work. I went on one in March and enjoyed myself immensely, as well as being inspired by the vision for the local church that the guys here have. You can find out more about a Weekender here.

I would recommend you come to a Weekender if:

You are thinking about full-time vocational ministry

You are familiar with the 9Marks approach and see its validity.

You would like to see a practical example of a church seeking to operate on Biblical principles.

You may have noticed that I didn't say that you must be a Baptist or a congregationalist. You see, although when you come on a weekender you're going to see a congregational Baptist church at work, the real benefit of a Weekender is that you get to see a church that has read the Bible and come up with an understanding of how the church should be run and then sought to put that into practice. Now, here's the thing: I think this is rarer than we imagine. My experience is that most people in the conservative evangelical scene in the UK are not thinking about church - regardless of their practice, they're just not thinking of what a Biblical church is, what officers it should have, where authority should lie in it and so forth. We've got as far as exegesis but not much farther (us Brits have a reputation for exegesis here at CHBC; indeed, I have been called an exegesia-nazi by Ben Wright.)

Now, my hope is , that any of you who are considering full-time Christian ministry will not only think biblically about the church but also put it into practice. So, if you see plural elders in the Bible, have plural elders in your church. If you see some kind of method of distinguishing between the members of a local church and the world then come up with a method of distinguishing between the members of a local church and the world. If you see episcopalian bishops then have episcopalian bishops and give them the authority that your system gives them due. If we find these things in the Bible then we should practice them and if we don't find them in the Bible then we shouldn't. As my friend Mark "Schmoward" Howard says 'You can't be flexible about church in order to teach the Bible and then be flexible about the Bible when it teaches you about church." This isn't some kind of ecclesiological extremism, it's the simple business of obedience to Christ. If we're going to preach that Christ is Lord over the universe we should make sure that He's lord over our churches.

In pursuit...

2007-09-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

One of the things I enjoy about being in a foreign country that speaks a version of the same language I do is the difference in the use of vocabulary. One example is the use of the word "pursuing". Now, in the UK I can't remember too many people using this word that weren't a) Policeman chasing after criminals or b) bounty hunters hunting lions and/or tigers. But in the US, it's used frequently to describe a desired future outcome which the person is taking active steps to arrive at. It manages to capture a sense of action and energy while also acknowledging the contingent, provisional nature of things so that someone might say 'I'm pursuing seminary' rather than 'I'm going to seminary' or 'I want to go to seminary'. So, if you ask someone holding a frying pan what they're doing they might reply 'I'm pursuing having bacon and eggs for breakfast.' Or you might enquire about the intentions of a man standing on the kerb who might explain 'I'm pursuing walking on the other side of the road.' I'm trying to work this usage into my own speech. So, when someone asks why I spent all morning in bed I might answer 'I'm pursuing a low-energy work-life balance.' or if they ask why I'm having an extra large helping of chips I might reply 'I'm pursuing a high-body fat ratio'. Why don't you try to use it the same way today?

In defence of long sermons...

2007-09-10T09:39:00.000-04:00

This week I had to listen and compare two sermons on the same Old Testament text. I chose to look at Mark Dever and Mark Driscoll on Ruth 1. Now, what struck me about both sermons was their length. Dever's was 58 minutes long while cool, hip, Mark Driscoll's sermon was a huge 67 minutes long. I thought both sermons were good but what struck me was that both preacher's, who lead growing churches with a large proportion of young people, were choosing to preach for an hour - sermons that most people would classify in Western culture as long.

Now, I'm about to express one of my crazy, ill-informed, presumptuous opinions so read on at your own risk but I think that This Is A Good Thing. Not that they're preaching for an hour, specifically,but that they're preaching long sermons rather than short sermons. Now, I know that in many circles the idea of preaching for an hour would be considered unwise and counterproductive so in this post I want to defend long sermons. Not a specific length, but seeking to preach for as long as circumstances and ability allow rather than seeking to be self consciously brief. I would generally classify a twenty minute sermon as very short, a thirty minute sermon as quite short, a forty minute sermon as quite long and a sixty minute sermon as long. Now, just so you don't think that I'm defending preaching long sermons because I possess the ability to concentrate and listen to long discourses well above average, I should say that I have found listening to the length of sermon here at CHBC challenging and I have, and people who knew me at University will understand the import of this, even begun to take notes to help me follow along. I do think, however, that there are good reasons to preach at length rather than seek to be brief. Tell me what you think of them:

They show we value God's word. Most people won't choose to listen to a 45-60 minute monologue but listening to long sermon shows that we value listening to God speak to us through the preaching of God's word.

They allow time for application. The preacher has a difficult job, he must explain the text, explain the theological truths behind the text and then apply the text to his hearers. My experience is that shorter sermons leave out the last part which turns the sermon into an exegetical talk and not an example of preaching. Longer sermons allow us to think through in detail how our lives should change in response to what God says.

They bring healthy growth. Long sermons bring growth within the Christian - P T Forsyth "Sermonettes breed Christianettes" and they lead to numerical growth that is made up of people who value the word of God and His Gospel. Phillip Jensen explained this at the last South East Gospel Partnership conference (I think it's session 2):

"The churches that have the highest demands upon people are the churches that will grow most definitely...The church that says: come here and be different is the church that will grow. It’s the principle of the bar. Raise the bar and you will reduce the number of people coming in the first place but increase the number of people coming in the long run. Lower the bar, you increase the number of people coming in the first place, but you lower the number of people coming in the long run.

So you say, “Look, if we cut our services down from an hour or an hour and 15 minutes down to 45 minutes or 30 minutes, more people will come.” Absolutely true: you’ll get more people. Which of the people will come? Well, the people who don’t really want to go to church but feel obliged to. They’re going to build an empire, that mob, aren’t they? So immediately people say: I like that new 9 o’clock service you’ve got – it’s so punchy. By which they mean, so short and undemanding. And so initially it will grow, but over a period of time no one will come to it because it’s a nothing. Whereas if you turn your 1 hour service into a 1.5 hr or 3 hr service, if you say, “Look if you’re going to come to church here, come at 9 o’clock in the morning and we’ll have lunch together afterwards, we’ll spend the day with each other as Christians”, you won’t get many people, will you? But 10, 15, 20 years down the track, there is a possibility that you’ll have thousands turning up because those who do come will be so impacted by the experience that they’ll sell it to all their friends."

The importance of culture...

2007-09-07T17:05:00.001-04:00

...is surely demonstrated by the fact that yesterday I was criticised for being too equivocal. Too equivocal. God Bless America.

In a cafe...

2007-09-03T16:18:00.000-04:00

I'm in a cafe reading and writing like the plugged-in arty type I am and opposite me are two women, one of whom is telling the other about the latest developments in her love life. This wouldn't be noteworthy except that the other women keeps telling the other things like 'you are a wonderful example for us all' or 'you are a hero of our time'. Is this normal when women talk to each other? Normally, if two blokes can talk to each other the best one can expect is to be told 'well, I don't think it's all your fault.' I can't quite work out what their talking about but it seems they're affirming each other pretty well. More updates on conversations I overhear to come...

Covenants

2007-09-02T15:21:00.000-04:00

Becoming an intern at CHBC means becoming a member of CHBC and becoming a member of CHBC means agreeing to the church covenant. This morning we celebrated the Lord's Supper and we read the covenant together. I think it's beautiful. Here it is:

Having, as we trust, been brought by divine grace to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to give up ourselves to him, and having been baptized upon our profession of faith, in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, we do now, relying on His gracious aid, solemnly and joyfully renew our covenant with each other.

We will work and pray for the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

We will walk together in brotherly love, as becomes the members of a Christian Church, exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require.

We will not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, nor neglect to pray for ourselves and others.

We will endeavor to bring up such as may at any time be under our care, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and by a pure and loving example to seek the salvation of our family and friends.

We will rejoice at each other's happiness and endeavor with tenderness and sympathy to bear each other's burdens and sorrows.

We will seek, by Divine aid, to live carefully in the world, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and remembering that, as we have been voluntarily buried by baptism and raised again from the symbolic grave, so there is on us a special obligation now to lead a new and holy life.

We will work together for the continuance of a faithful evangelical ministry in this church, as we sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines. We will contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the Gospel through all nations.

We will, when we move from this place, as soon as possible, unite with some other church where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God's Word.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.

Pray for that I'd be able to keep it here and any other church I join.

Issues

2007-09-01T12:14:00.000-04:00

Too often in this world superficiality and shallow, illogical, thinking dominates public discourse. Here's a band that redresses the balance. Enjoy.

Another post with an unimaginative title

2007-09-01T11:45:00.000-04:00

One cool thing about having a website (along with the fame, glamour and merchandising opportunities) is a thing called Google Analytics. Basically, it tracks who's visiting my site from where. For instance, it reveals that I have readers from as far away as Rio de Janeiro! Although, to be fair, it also tells me that the person spent an average time of 00:00:00 on the site so I'm guessing they got here by mistake. Anyway, let me give a big shout out to the people of Bletchley who have spent a world record average time of 16 minutes 56 seconds on this site. Why not write to your local paper and see if you can encourage your town to beat that record?

One of the ways in which I'm seeking to immerse myself in local culture is by participating in a Fantasty Football League. If you're interested you can look at my team here. But you're probably not.

Here's a picture of me with the car I've been driving this week. You're meant to notice that the car is big.

four weeks...

2007-08-31T16:50:00.000-04:00

The picture is the scene I'm looking at: Mark Dever preparing his sermon in his study while others hang out around him. I've been in D.C. for exactly four weeks now, almost to the minute. Since then I've averaged about 6000 words a week which is three times what I was writing for my degree plus a multitude of other meetings. I've been to elders meetings, members interviews, invitation meetings, staff meetings, 9Marks meetings, Core Seminars and looong church services. I guess calling them meetings makes it all sound rather labourious and dull but in fact it's all extremely informative and inspiring. You may know that Mark Dever wrote a book called 'The Deliberate Church' and when you get here it's not hard to see why. Everything here is thought through to a very high degree of detail (this is not surprising for a church pastored by a man who listens to his classical music collection in chronological order and has a system for how he listens to the various CDs in his multi-changer).It's an excellent book which is readable even when you have to write a three page paper about it. What you see here is that the care and concern for the life of the church that Mark and the other elders display pays off in a church that is committed to loving one another and that seeks to display the transformative power of the Gospel. It's easy to be cynical about churches, it's easy to want to downplay the church in evangelism because so many churches have disgraced the name of Christ in the past. But when a church works, when it takes its cue from the Bible about structure and discipline, when it's founded on Biblical preaching and when it's led by qualified, spirit-filled elders it should be a beautiful thing. It should lead us to agree with Charles Bridges who wrote: 'The Church is the mirror, that reflects the whole effulgence of the Divine character. It is the grand scene, in which the perfections of Jehovah are displayed to the universe.' Now, here's some pictures of a cute baby, Anna Maria Lohmann, daughter of one of my fellow interns.

Evangelism

2007-08-27T15:23:00.000-04:00

What does the Bible command about the individual Christians role in evangelism? Is it: 1) To do everything they can to evangelise - if they don't have Gospel conversations with their friends or invite them to Christian events then they may well be in sin. 2) To live as holy a life as possible in order to provoke questions? 3) To be a part of a local church and support the evangelism that the corporate body does? or 4) Depends whether they're an elder - the commands to preach the Gospel apply to elders only. What do you think? Obviously these are not mutually exclusive. Please leave a comment!

Conversations

2007-08-24T23:19:00.000-04:00

I just had one of those conversations with Kevin McKay (a guy on the staff at CHBC) that go in all sorts of different directions - it started with social action and the Gospel, went through Gospel work in England and Scotland, proceeded through where the name McKay comes from and the different cultural and social connotations of sports and finished up with him explaining the outside veer. Very enjoyable. What I wanted to say, though, was that my job at the moment is basically writing a lot; I'm writing about 18 pages a week so I'm spending a lot of time on my laptop and I'm always, always, always happy to receive an email, facebook message, a comment on this blog or even a phone call. That's right, you can phone me for the price of a local call. Email me and I'll give you the number. Don't interpret this as some kind of cry for help because I'm lonely. No, it's because I have an attention span of about seven and half minutes and I need something to distract me from it every now and again. So email away!

My Day

2007-08-24T17:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I had a quite remarkable day. I visited the Capitol Building (pictured left) for the very first time. I was helping Mike Gilbart-Smith out at the lunchtime talks. What this meant was picking up a load of chicken sandwiches from Chick-fil-A (a kind of posh KFC) and take them on a trolley into the Capitol building accompanied by some Congressional staffers. I don't know how I imagined I would visit the most powerful legislative body in the world but pushing four boxes of fried chicken through the door probably wasn't my first thought. Of course, what with this being the post-9/11 world an' all we had to get through security. I have to say I felt faintly ridiculous as I loaded the fried chicken to go through the magnetic scanner. Thankfully, Chick-fil-A hadn't put anything suspicious in the food and we were let in. Mike gave an excellent talk on the cross and I had a chicken sandwich.

That evening I attended my first elders meeting at CHBC as an intern. The meeting lasted until 11.30 and reminded me, in lots of other ways, of a CICCU exec meeting. Except I did less talking; in fact I did no talking. It was wonderful to see what care and attention these men gave to the flock that God has put them over. The diligence and wisdom they displayed was an example and a challenge to me. We must pray that God will raise up men like that across the world!

Some thoughts on a sermon

2007-08-22T22:41:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday Mike Gilbart-Smith preached an excellent, excellent sermon on Deuteronomy 7 at CHBC. That's a whole lot of links! If you read Deuteronomy 7 you'll see that it's a pretty uncompromising passage -God commands his people to utterly destroy the Canaanite people. If you have questions about that then I would recommend you listen to the sermon. Mike applied the passage to the Christian's battle, not against people, but against sin. We are to fight a spiritual battle against sin which is to be equally comprehensive. It was a powerful sermon that I highly recommend listening to. What the sermon got me thinking about was further on in Israel's history when we find out whether they obeyed God's command: the book of Judges.

If you know Judges then you'll know that early on it we find that far from exterminating the Canaanites they reached accommodation with them. We read in Judges 1:27-33

"Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages, for the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely.

And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.

Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol, so the Canaanites lived among them, but became subject to forced labor.

Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob, so the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.

Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, so they lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them."

From this point on in Judges we enter a cycle: the Israelites defeat the Canaanites but don't destroy them; the Canaanites begin to oppress the Israelites; the Israelites cry out to God and God sends a saviour, a Judge, who defeats the Canaanites but does not destroy them and the cycle begins again. The cycles go round and round, getting worse and worse until the nation is left divided, defeated and in tatters.

Applying this in the same way that Mike applied Deut 7 I note three things:

First, many of my problems are because I dominate sin but I don't exterminate sin. That is, I often see a sin in my life that begins to oppress me as I see the consequences of the behaviour it produces. So, I cry out to God and ask for relief and victory over this sin. So, God, in his grace, gives me some victory over this sin - I start to be able to resist the temptation to this sin and I the things that pricked my conscience before, now oppress me less. But, here is where I go wrong. Instead of seeking to eliminate thought patterns, the attitudes, the weaknesses that led to that sin and fed that sin, I come to an accommodation with it; just as the Israelites did with the Canaanites. I indulge in dilute versions of the sin, I tolerate thought patterns surrounding it, and I do this because I think that I have now defeated the fullest expression of the sin and that I can play around with the smaller, less significant aspects of sin and still keep a lid on the things that I was so concerned about earlier. What happens? Well, of course, soon enough that sin has begun to oppress me as before and I'm back on my knees crying for help; no further along in my conquest of sin.

What I should do is obey the command of the Lord in Deuteronomy 7:16 - Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.

I must not show pity to sin by accommodating any of its aspects, rather I must root it out totally. I need to see the radical problem of sin, that any sin, no matter how slight, or small it may appear to me is a clear and present danger to my spiritual health. Pray for me that I'll fight mercilessly against sin and seek to bring everything under the authority of Christ.

Second, I notice the liberty of fighting sin. Sin always presents itself as an expression of freedom. 'You don't need to follow those rules God has laid down, be independent, be free, do what you want.' This kind of thinking is perennially attractive to sinners like me with a natural propensity to reject God's authority. But in Judges we see the reality. We see the reality that sin leads to division, it leads to pain, to disorder and chaos. It leads to anything but freedom. By the end of Judges the tribes of Israel are at war with one another and women are being gang-raped in Israelite towns. You would not have wanted to live in Israel during the time of Judges.

This, of course, is true of sin. It may feel that gossip, sexual immorality, lying, or whatever is an exercise of freedom but soon, very soon, they become controlling and oppressive. One lie leads to another lie which leads to a bigger lie and before long virtually every statement I make is a lie. This is not freedom, this is slavery. Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter in John 8 when he says 'Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin'. This, then, is one of the motivations to fight sin because it is glorious that as a Christian I no longer have to do what my sinful desires tell me. Before I was in Christ I was controlled, ultimately, by my desire for power, sex, money or popularity; but now I have the liberty to reject those things for something better, the loving service of my majestic saviour. Therefore, I should fight sin wholeheartedly knowing that it will lead me to something better, it will lead me to the liberty of a clear conscience and an inheritance that will last forever. Jesus says 'The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.'

Third, and finally, unlike in Judges, I have a King to fight for me. The problem in Judges is really the judges themselves. The are raised up by God, they win the battle but then they fail, they fail either by their personal follies like Samson or Gideon or they fail because they die and there is no one to come after them. The book ends with what has become a refrain - 'In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.' If Israel is to defeat the Canaanites then it will need a king. And, of course, Israel's greatest success against the Canaanites was when it was led by a king after God's own heart: David.

We, too, in our fight against sin are naturally helpless. We require a king to fight for us. God has provided a king for us - a king who won the victory over sin by presenting his body as a sacrifice to absorb God's righteous anger at us. What is the effect of this for us in our battle against sin? It means that Paul can say, 'For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.' Because sin has been defeated by Christ it has no dominion over me and one day I will be presented pure and spotless before Christ, completely liberated from my sin. Sin has been defeated and the banner of Christ flies above me - I have been won by Him and He will destroy all rebellion against Him. Unlike the Israelites in the time of the judges I am not condemned to a spiral of increasing destruction, oppression and misery. Instead, I can fight sin with a clear victory day in sight, know that my final destination is to be made perfect in God's sight. Pray that God would bring Christ's victory to mind as I fight sin today.

Baptism and church membership

2007-08-21T23:50:00.000-04:00

If you've been following the stuff on Baptism and Church membership then watch out for Lig Duncan's posts on the T4G blog. I think his contribution is excellent and I'm sure what's to come will be too. If you're not sure what this is about then Justin Taylor has a nice summary here.

If you're British...

2007-08-21T17:47:00.000-04:00

Never take for granted the privilege you have in being able to use these words:

Trousers.

Jug.

Toilet.

and pronouncing 'z' zed.

Now, I guess many of you will wonder what life inside a U.S. Baptist church office is like. Here's a taste:

Please pray...

2007-08-19T22:27:00.000-04:00

My Grandad has fallen ill. I'd be very grateful if you could pray for him. Thanks.

Privacy and Christian Accountability

2007-08-14T22:02:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now since my thinking was stimulated by an excellent article by Al Mohler, principle of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on church discipline (you'll have to excuse the pink background, don't let it put you off his argument!). In it Mohler discusses the shift from a situation in the nineteenth century where,

"No sphere of life was considered outside the congregation’s accountability. Members were to conduct their lives and witness in harmony with the Bible and with established moral principles. Depending on the denominational polity, discipline was codified in church covenants, books of discipline, congregational manuals, and confessions of faith. Discipline covered both doctrine and conduct. Members were disciplined for behavior that violated biblical principles or congregational covenants, but also for violations of doctrine and belief. Members were considered to be under the authority of the congregation and accountable to each other."

to the mid twentieth century when,

"the larger culture moved toward the adoption of autonomous moral individualism. The result was the abandonment of church discipline as ever larger portions of the church member’s life were considered off-limits to the congregation...Individuals now claim an enormous zone of personal privacy and moral autonomy. The congregation—redefined as a mere voluntary association—has no right to intrude into this space. Many congregations have forfeited any responsibility to confront even the most public sins of their members. Consumed with pragmatic methods of church growth and congregational engineering, most churches leave moral matters to the domain of the individual conscience."

Now, I wonder which of these scenarios we would prefer as Christians today. Don't you wince at the thought of being in a church where 'No sphere of life was considered outside the congregation’s accountability'? It seems like a licence for all the kind of legalism and judgmentalism that characterises our modern perception of Victorian, or indeed any religious, society.

We do, though, have to reckon with Christ's words in Matthew 18:15-20 that

""If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."

Here, Jesus is saying that eventually, when all is said and done, I am accountable to the church, the whole gathering of God's people for my sin and they will be called on to judge me if I do not repent of sinning against my brother and that that judgment will have resonance in heaven itself.

Likewise, in Galatians 6:1-2, Paul writes that,

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Here, the emphasis is that if my brother sins I have a responsibility to restore him, to be gentle with him, and that we are all to bear one another burdens. I could go on and speak of 1 Corinthians 5, which speaks of expelling an immoral brother, or Hebrews 3 and 10 which speak of our battle against unbelief corporately but the point is clear - the Bible does place upon me, and all Christians, responsibility for other Christians spiritual health.

So why is this post called 'Privacy and Christian Accountability'. Well, Dr Mohler's words struck me, 'Individuals now claim an enormous zone of personal privacy and moral autonomy. The congregation—redefined as a mere voluntary association—has no right to intrude into this space.' I know that this is true of me; I believe that I have the right to shield access into my life so that people only see or know what I choose to let them. This usually means that I hide from them my failures and faults, particularly my most grievous ones, as well and as long as I can, because I believe I have the right to personal privacy. Could it be that as modern Christians we are too private? Could it be that we are so private that in fact we deny ourselves one of the means God has given us to ensure our perseverance?

Now, at this stage, I should say that there are times and situations where the utmost discretion and privacy is needed and at all times and in all situations gossip is a terrible force that kills Christian love and community. We all know the hurt of hearing some piece of information about ourselves come back to us distorted and mangled by the malicious gossips tongue. And we all know that we've taken pleasure in, just quietly, sharing with someone something we know about a person in the church in order to subtly lower them in the other persons estimation. Gossip is a sin that Christian communities have been beset by, it's not for nothing that Rev. Lovejoy's wife Helen is portrayed in The Simpsons as an incurable gossip who once resolved to use 'gossip for good instead of evil'. The Bible condemns gossip and it also condemns the idea that I can blame my failings and faults on others. That passage in Galatians 6:4-5 goes on to say, 'But let each on test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.' Bearing each others burdens fulfills the law of Christ but in the end I have to bear my own load, take responsibility for my own life. Nothing that I'm saying should be seen to justify gossip or the kind of irresponsibility that seeks to blame my failings on others failure to act.

All that is by way of excursus, my main point is that instead of our danger being one of churches that are nosy and gossipy, where everybody knows everybody else's business and everyone is quick to judge and quick to condemn; rather, our danger is probably rootlessness and isolation. In modern cities it's the ability to remain anonymous, to remained cocooned in a life into which no-one is able to shine the light of truth upon the darkness of my sin that threatens my holiness and my salvation. We all know that city life makes knowing people well enough to be accountable to them very difficult but how much time do we give to building those relationships? And how accountable do we feel, not only to a few handpicked and like-minded individuals. but also to the whole church, the visible expression of the people of God to which I belong and that has final authority over my discipline? If we refuse to sacrifice our privacy to take advantage of one of God's means of grace then could it be we value privacy more than we value the promise of seeing the Lord Jesus face to face?

I write this under personal conviction at the way I've failed to open myself up to accountability and I've failed to take my responsibilities to my brothers and sisters seriously. It seems to me that we need to create Christian communities where people are humble enough not to judge quickly or gracelessly, where people are loving enough to hold each other accountable for their sin lest it deceive them into unbelief, holy enough not to tolerate the kind of sin in 1 Cor 5 but instead expel the immoral brother and forgiving enough that sin can be admitted and repented of and the community still continue. What we need is a community that reflects the patience, the justice, the holiness and the mercy of God. What we need, therefore, is the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts and in our churches. May he do so.

Things I miss...

2007-08-11T11:15:00.000-04:00

I've been in the States for about two weeks now and I'm really enjoying it here. There are, however, a few things I'm missing from good old Britain. The ones I've particularly noticed are:

1) Readily available vinegar to put on chips.
As the inventor of the 'precision vinegar' system, I really miss the fact that when you get chips here, or fries as they're known, it's hard to get hold of any vinegar to put on them. They do have vinegar but it's kept with the olive oil in the salad section. Weird.

2) Proper bitter.
I have gone to a place called 'the Brewhouse' that did real ale but like all American beer it was fizzy. Even the Old Speckled Hen was fizzy. You can't enjoy fizzy bitter. You can't.

3) British Sport
I was going to put cricket but I'm able to get hold of the radio coverage and given how England are performing it's probably a mercy that I'm out of the country. I am unable to listen to football commentary, at least on Five Live. Anyone know if this is possible anywhere else?

4) Winding roads.
America is a big place - no one has ever really had to be frugal with space. Therefore, there aren't any of those roads with big hedges on either side that turn at a 90 degree angle every 200 yards or so. I didn't really expect to miss these but there you go.

These aren't the only things I miss, I miss people too, probably you, in fact. Almost certainly.

It is good being in America though, here's a taste of the kind of training we get here at CHBC:

Demas

2007-08-08T22:43:00.000-04:00

I thought it might be helpful for me to write down a few thoughts from the recent teaching I've been hearing here at CHBC. Last Sunday, Michael Lawrence preached a sermon from 2 Timothy 4:6-22. The verse that struck me, and I think it always does from this passage, was verse 10 "for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica". I guess if you'd read the Gospels and Acts you wouldn't be surprised to find someone turning away from the Gospel. But if you like to follow the names at the end of NT epistles then you would be.

Demas is mentioned two other times in the NT - in Colossians 4:14 and Philemon 24. There he's one of Paul's fellow workers, in Philemon he's with Paul in prison for the Gospel - either incarcerated himself or supplying the Apostles needs while Paul was in prison. So, in that context it's suprising that we're told Demas has deserted Paul because he's in love with the world. It's also pretty scary. If Demas can fall away, Demas who would have suffered more hardship and made more sacrifices for the Gospel as he travelled with Paul than I have ever imagined; Demas who would have had heard the preaching of an apostle commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ himself; Demas who would have had seen the power of God move mightily as church after church was planted in each town they visited; Demas who would have had the godly and passionate example of the Apostle Paul before him each day, if this Demas can fall away then I can certainly fall away. Demas went so far, fought so hard, suffered so much, but in the end it wasn't enough, he didn't complete the race, he didn't get the crown of verse 8. Why? Because he loved the world.

I take two lessons from this: i) I must never be complacent about the state of my commitment to Christ and ii) I must always seek to love Christ more than I love the world or sin.

It's easy to think that since I've held a number of public positions of Christian leadership and since I've read a few Christian books that I can be pretty confident about my future prospects. It's easy for me to think 5,10,20 years ahead and think of what I'll be doing for Jesus then. But passages like 2 Tim 4:10 and 1 Cor 10:12 pull me up short - Paul did not write "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" as a bit of pious claptrap. I need to be careful, I can't take it for granted that I'll be able to run the race set before me. That means I have to attend to the state of my soul today, and as it's now the evening, the next day. I need to make sure that I'm committed to Christ today to be sure I'll be committed to Christ tomorrow. Mark Dever has written powerfully about some of the dangers Christian leaders face here

Second, I need to make sure that I love Jesus more than I love the world. I like to think that what I need for the Christian life is a bit more training or a really good Christian book or even a wife! All of these things are useful - especially a wife! But they will not necessarily give me what I'll need to finish the race - a greater love of Christ than I have a love of the world. I need my heart to change and I need to make sure I don't fall in love with the world like Demas did. Michael Lawrence helpfully warned us to beware of flirtations with the world - lest they grow into a romance. I can so easily be seduced by what the world has to offer because it scratches where I itch - things I can touch, things I can feel, things other people can see. So, the fact it, I need to be praying for God to change me so that my heart doesn't respond to those things but instead warms to appeal of Christ, the crown of righteousness that will one day be mine if I persevere. Mark Howard preached a great sermon on this theme recently, follow the link and click on Ministry:Impossible.

If all that's a bit intense and you just came here for a Simpsons reference then here's a quote from Rev. Lovejoy: "And as we pass the collection plate, please give as if the person next to you was watching."

If you're Victoria Robinson or Will Dobbie...

2007-08-08T15:10:00.000-04:00

...or you're someone else who has read Doug Wilson's 'A Serrated Edge' then you should read a review by John Frame and a response by Doug Wilson. It reached 38 degrees today. That is warm. Here is a picture of the interns working in Mark Dever's office. That pile of books in the background is this afternoon's reading.

If you're a St Helen's Associate...

2007-08-07T23:40:00.000-04:00

and you're interested in the this world/next world debate, especially with its implications for Christian schooling then I think there's a series of blog posts by three guys one of whom is Carl Trueman. Start here and then read Carl Trueman's comments there's a couple of other posts on the Reformation 21 blog but I thought the two most interesting contributions were by a guy called Sean Michael Lucas here and here.

You might wonder, if you're a St Helen's Associate, why a discussion about U.S. Christian fundamentalism as represented by Bob Jones University and Westminster Theological Seminary Reformed theology would be interesting to a St Helen's Associate who is probably from neither of those streams. Well, I think the discussion about how far we should interact with the world on the basis of the antithesis between the world and Christ and how far we should emphasise the common grace of God to all mankind is an important one and it interacts with some of the big themes of the Associate Scheme like the this world/new world dichotomy. In fact, myself and ex-Associate Mark Howard were discussing this recently in terms of what impact a revival of the Christian faith in either New York or London would have on the world economic system. I don't really know what I think on the whole question - I'm swayed both ways like grass blowing in the wind but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. p.s. Read Carl Trueman on Reformation 21 - he's one of the most interesting observers of the church I know.

Still in DC

2007-08-07T18:20:00.000-04:00

I'm coming to the end of my second full day of the internship. For dinner tonight our house manager cooked ribs...and corn...and salad...and sweet little cakes...and asparagus...and spicy salmon. And then we had pudding. I wish that I'd taken a photo of it - American cooking at its finest. What I have taken a photo of is the view I'm looking at right now - the living room of the Bull Moose. Look carefully and you'll see the leopard skin chairs.

In D.C.

2007-08-04T12:56:00.001-04:00

I'm in D.C. now. I'm sitting at my lovely desk in the church office. I live in a converted B&B called the Bull Moose. It's decorated in a Teddy Roosevelt style apparently and this is why the chairs are leopard skin - not because they got them from Joan Collins' car boot sale. Seriously, though, it's a really nice house. It even has a dishwasher. My bed is on bricks though. If you want to send me post then my address is 101 5th Street, Washington, DC 20002. Photos to follow.

In New York

2007-08-04T12:48:00.000-04:00

On Thursday I went to New York. I went to Lower Manhattan, took the Staten Island ferry, went to Central Park, walked down Broadway to Times Square, went up the Rockefeller Tower and got so thirsty the waiter brought my two glasses of Coke to save him a journey. I had many observations, as you can imagine - why not email me to ask me what they were? - but I only had one I felt was worthy of this blog. It is this: in New York, people play chess in public in the outdoors. You can find the photos I took in New York here. I took a lot of photos of the Statue of Liberty.

Seeing the Yankees

2007-07-31T23:31:00.001-04:00

Tonight I went to see the New York Yankees play the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium. You can see the game report here. We had seats at the top of the stadium which was incredibly steep. The only thing I've seen that was similar was going to the Royal Tournament at Earl's Court. The view was better than you might think and you could get a decent idea of whether a pitch was a ball or strike. The game as a sporting contest ended in the third inning when the Yankees took five runs off Contreras and Haeger. Instead it became all about Alex Rodriguez getting his 500th home run and me enjoying a new cultural experience. The atmosphere in the stadium, especially when Rodriguez was at the plate, was extraordinary - as good as any football ground.

As well as the baseball, there was much to enjoy. One thing were the two New York natives that sat next to us. They were two girls, probably sisters in their twenties, both wearing Yankees t-shirts who chattered incessantly in a mildly confrontational way - 'shut your pie hole' was a phrase liberally sprinkled across the discourse. What I enjoyed most was when one sister explained to the other 'Your lifestyle choice is ruining my life... yeah, you're choice of a diabetic lifestyle is ruining my life. You've been milking it for years... all through high school at lunchtime, "Oh I need candy or I'm going to die"'. Unfortunately, they left in the sixth inning. There was too much else to mention in the rest of the game but what really caught my eye was walking out of the stadium and seeing the hot dog stand called 'Hebrew National' whose slogan was 'We answer to a higher authority.' At first I was flumoxed - a Jewish hot dog salesman? Did he sell his sausages at a Bar Mitzvah? How popular was he there? I say at first because I just checked their website and found that their hot dogs are beef hotdogs. So that's alright then.

Thanks to Clare and Holly for my first comment.

A big mall

2007-07-30T17:22:00.000-04:00

Today, Schmoward and I went to visit a big outlet mall. I bought a lot of cheap clothes and had a go on a massage chair. It reminded me of Homer's trip on the Spinemelter 2000 in the Simpsons edisode 'Brother, Can you spare two dimes?'. I can't find the clip of the chair but here's a clip from the episode.

Congregational Singing

2007-07-30T08:14:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday night a few of us went down to Redeemer Presbyterian Church, the home of Tim Keller who had recently spoken at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly. There was much to appreciate and enjoy about the service. Everything that was said was biblical, everything that was said was thought provoking and challenging. The church was clearly thinking carefully about how to present itself to the city in a culturally appropriate way. The thing that struck me most of all, however, was the music. It was excellent, quite outstanding. The band at the front consisted of a piano, bass, guitar, sax and drums and before the service they played some wonderful jazz. At one point in the service there was a solo where a woman sang a song called 'Give me Christ or I die'. Her voice was amazing and had I had to pay to listen I wouldn't have been disappointed.

I say all this to show that what I'm about to say is not because the music was not to my personal taste. I enjoyed all the songs and hymns that were chosen. The problem was that the music was not designed for congregational singing. The band, particularly the singer, was so loud that I couldn't hear anyone else singing, not deafeningly loud, but just loud enough to cover the sound of the people standing around me. Likewise, the way the music was arranged was quite musically complex which meant that the song was often hard to follow, even though the score was printed on the service sheet. I suspect, therefore, that even if the music had been turned down that the congregation would not have been singing very loud because there was no need for them to do so and it was difficult for them to do so.

Now, I know that the justification for this is that some people, especially in the city, feel most comfortable with the kind of professional level music that Redeemer provides. The argument is that some people are so artistically inclined that if the music is at all amateurish or poorly delivered then they will become frustrated. Therefore, in order for the church to attract these people to hear good gospel preaching it needs to have well-polished professional music. I'm sure this argument has weight, I have no evidence that it isn't true and many people I respect tell me its true. However, my problem is that my experience is that churches that provide this kind of music tend to lose one of the great joys of singing at church - hearing the rest of the congregation sing. The most moving singing I've ever been a part was at a Reformed Presbyterian church where all the singing was unaccompanied. I went expecting the singing to be awkward and tedious, something to get through till the preaching. In the end, though, it was beautiful; the tunes were simple and the sound of a hundred voices singing in unison was magnificent.

My question is this - is it possible to combine the professional, polished music that Redeemer and other churches provide with the kind of moving congregational singing that a Reformed Presbyterian church has? I don't mean by this that the band stops playing during a verse sometimes but that every song is a congregational experience. Is this a trivial matter? Only to the extent that music in church is trivial. If it's worth thinking about music then it's worth thinking about how to encourage congregational singing. Why? Because when churches gather they gather as a people and when they sing they should sing as a people, enjoying and be encouraged by the sound of each other's voices. Musicians and singers definitely have a part to play in helping the congregation to sing but it seems to me that we throw the baby out with the bath water if in seeking after professional, polished music we make it harder to hear each other sing God's praises as a church. So, is it possible to combine professional-level music that will attract people who need that sort of thing and enjoy the sound of congregational singing?

A sermon I preached...

2007-07-30T08:05:00.000-04:00

Can be found here

The journey

2007-07-28T11:14:00.000-04:00

I'm now in my second full day in the U.S., staying with my good friend Mark Howard in Greenwich, Connecticut. The journey out here was not very eventful although there were a few things that caught my attention. One thing was that as we flew out of Heathrow westwards it was possible to see the extent of the flooding in the West of England. I was shocked to see so many fields and towns under water. At one point I was amazed to see an area that seemed to have been entirely flooded with water, nothing remained that spoke of any kind of civilisation. It was a bleak picture and I was genuinely moved by it, that was until I realised we were flying over the Irish sea.

This view was made possible by the fact I was sitting in a window seat which gave me beautiful views throughout the flight. However, it did come with its disadvantages. The first was that I sitting next to an Italian teenager with terrible B.O.. I smelt it as soon as I sat down and I immediately started to work out whether I could do anything about the problem. One idea that sprang to mind was to ask an air stewardess to put the boy in a shower or perhaps hose him down in some specially designated area. I considered that it was unlikely that such facility existed and more unlikely that the boy would be prepared to subject himself to the treatment no matter how politely I asked. Another idea was to ask if there was another seat I could move to on the pretext of wanting an aisle seat. This seemed more likely but my English fear of making a fuss overpowered the discomfort of being so close to the unpleasant odour and I decided to do nothing.

The second disadvantage of being in the window seat was that I was two seats away from the aisle and therefore the toilet. Sure enough, by the time I needed the loo Odour Boy and his sister were fast asleep. Neither of them seemed to speak English and so I'm not sure they immediately understood why it was that I had woken them and had started clambering over their bodies. Of course, the seat in front of the sister who was sitting in the aisle seat was pushed back and so in order to get past her I had to do a strange kind of limbo dance which she can't have found enjoyable. When I got back from the toilet they were both asleep again and so the whole process of waking them up, limboing, clambering and forfeiting any claim I had to dignity had to be repeated.

The advantage of the window seat was that it provided a view out onto the scene outside. Because of the time of the flight we were flying west just as the sun was setting across the North Atlantic. This meant that we enjoyed a sunset that last for about five hours until we began to turn South along the coast of Newfoundland. Mix of peachy oranges, darker pinker shades, through to crimson red cast across the top of the Atlantic clouds which looked like an Artic tundra from our altitude was a beautiful sight and provided some compensation to the smell of a urinal coming from my Italian neighbour.

I won't bother saying any more, I guess that it really was a pretty uneventful flight. I got stopped at immigration and thought I was going to spend a night in the cells but in the end I reached my destination safely.

Another blog

2007-07-06T06:15:00.000-04:00

This blog is intended to be a way for you to keep in touch with me while I am away in the U.S. I've been rather reluctant to start a blog given that many people I know believe that having one is the height of self-importance, a view with which I have some sympathy. Were this simply an opportunity for me give voice to my ill-formed opinions and half-baked theories then I think I would be guilty of that. I hope, though, that this blog is a good way for people who are interested to keep in touch with what's happening to me and so will serve a more utilitarian purpose than merely a medium for me to spew forth poorly considered rhetoric. It is likely, however, that my ill-formed opinions and half-baked theories may at times be given some kind of airing. At the moment I'm not actually in America, instead I'm preparing to go, which at this precise moment involves looking at baseball websites, valuable cultural research I'm sure. Please do leave comments or drop me an email, it will be good to hear from you. I'll try and keep this regularly updated with what I'm doing and what I'm learning.