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Krister Stendahl

I have embarked on a self-imposed project to explore the links between the New Perspective and a new apologia.

It seemed good to begin with Krister Stendahl’s 1963 classic article, The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.  It’s a short piece that is a good insight into the beginnings of the New Pespectives movement.  It raises the basic questions pertaining to the disparities between the Pauline, Reformation and modern milieux and chases these down some hermeneutical rabbit holes.

Not that Stendahl goes too deep.  It’s a pleasant read which gives the broad brushstrokes and only glimpses of the obvious academic rigour that lies underneath.

It suits my purposes to summarise and condense his argument, codifying and storing away the framework as I continue my wider exploration.

Point #1 – The modern world wrestles with matters of introspection and individual conscience.  This is not what Paul-the-fomer-Pharisee wrestles with.

Stendahl uses the psycho-social term “introspection” and “introspective conscience.”  It is crucial but short-hand language and he never unpacks exactly what he means by it.  Here is a connection point between Pauline hermeneutic and the modern world which is at the heart of my project.  The hermeneutical end of this connection is Stendahl’s phrase “Pauline awareness of sin” for which, Stendahl suggests, we have a primarily Lutheran and Augustinian lens that is not entirely aligned with Paul’s concerns.

Stendahl’s insistence is that Paul has had no real problem with law keeping; after all, the Law includes elements of grace despite the Lutheran law-grace dichotomy.  Paul’s concern is with the Law itself, not with the keeping of it.

It was not to him a restoration of a plagued conscience; when he says that he now forgets what is behind him (Phil 3:13), he does not think about the shortcoming of his obedience to the Law, but about his glorious achievements as a righteous Jew, achievements which he nevertheless has now learned to consider as “refuse” in the light of his faith in Jesus as the Messiah. (200-201)

Yes, there is an impossibility about keeping the law.  But the real issue is that even when Paul is righteous ‘according to the Law’ it is nothing to the grace now revealed in Jesus.

The communal & convenantal emphases of the New Perspective is apparent here.  For Stendahl, Paul’s concern is not to assuage individual conscience but to demonstrate that the two communities – those who have lived under the old covenant of Law, and those who have been a Law unto themselves – now must approach God in the same way, through Christ.

Point #2 – Paul-the-Christian’s introspection is not shaped around a personal wrestle with sin.

A comparison is made here between the Pauline world and the world of the Reformation in which Luther stood firmly on the legacy of Augustine, who was the “first modern man” (205) who “may well have been one of the first to express the dilemma of the introspective conscience” (203).

“It is in response to their [the Augustine/Lutheran milieu] question, “How can I find a gracious God?” that Paul’s words about a justification in Christ by faith, and without the works of the Law, appears as the liberating and saving answer… (203)

Augustine and the Church was by and large under the impression that Paul dealt with those issues with which he actually deals: 1) What happens to the Law (the Torah, the actual Law of Moses, not the principle of legalism) when the Messiah has come? – 2) What are the ramifications of the Messiah’s arrival for the relation between Jews and Gentiles? For Paul had not arrived at his view of the Law by testing and pondering its effect upon his conscience; it was his grappling with the question about the place of the Gentiles in the Church and in the plan of God… (204)

Paul’s chief concern was about the inclusion of the Gentiles into Christ-centred grace, not the exclusion of sin-wracked Jews from grace because of their Law.  Paul’s own “conversion” is not so much an individual relief of conscience, but a prophetic (and very Jewish) call to be the Apostle to the Gentiles to gather those who are now included.

To break into commentary for a second – this is a useful consideration.  I recognised many years ago that the great evangelistic sermons of Acts do not accord with the evangelistic shape of the modern age.  Here I see in Stendahl an exploration of why this is so.

Point #3 – The Introspective Conscience framework gives rise to hermeneutical difficulties.

This section is the most valuable part of the article.  Stendahl unpacks some considerable implications.  The launching point is this:

Where Paul was concerned about the possibility for Gentiles to be included in the messianic community, his statements are now read as answers to the quest for assurance about man’s salvation out of a common human predicament. (206)

Paul’s concern is to demonstrate that

Once the Messiah had come, and once the faith in Him – not “faith” as a general religious attitude – was available as the decisive ground for salvation, the Law had done its duty as a custodian for the Jews. (206)

But

In the common interpretation of Western Christianity, the matter looks very different.  Once could even say that Paul’s argument has been reversed into saying the opposite to his original intention. (206)

The Law, which was for Paul an obsoleted custodian for the Jews until the coming of Christ (in which Christ himself is prefigured in the gracious aspects of the Law), has become the tool of introspection – a custodian that takes each of us individually to Christ by crushing us with its righteousness.

There is a true disparity here and Stendahl helps us know what is at stake.  It is the shape of the gospel of itself, and certainly the defining points of an effective kerygma.

Paul’s argument that the Gentiles must not, and should not come to Christ via the Law, i.e., via circumcision etc., has turned into a statement according to which all men must come to Christ with consciences properly convicted by the Law and its insatiable requirements for righteousness. (207)

Point #4 – Modern introspective exegesis can be rebutted.

Stendahl finally gets to his positive consideration of the matter and gives a quick rendition of the New Perspective lens (and, yes, he does use the term “new perspective” in passing (214)).  My summation is this:

1) Sin is real. “Rom 1-3 sets out to show that all – both Jews and Gentiles – have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” This is properly conceived as covenantal sin of peoples, not the travailing conscience of individuals. (208)

2) Paul’s personal awareness of sin is not a present wrestle of conscience, but a past fact of his persecuting actions against the people of God.  Paul uses this to speak of the covenantal inclusion of the godless – as a rhetorical device, not a conclusion.  If “Paul’s enmity to Jesus Christ and the church” can be “gloriously and gracefully blotted out”, how much more can God justify the “weak and sinful and rebellious” (209)

3) Paul’s consideration of present troubles is one of “weakness” and attack from the enemy.  When it comes to matters of conscience he more readily speaks of victory in Christ and “his good conscience before men and God.” (210)

4) Romans 7, which is meant to be the epitome of introspection is actually an “acquittal” of the Christ-focussed ego, “not one of utter contrition.”  This is because Romans 7 is an argument in which good (but ineffective and obsoleted) Law can be made distinct from “bad Sin.”

“If I do what I do not want, then it is not I who do it, but the sin which dwells in me.”… This distinction makes it possible for Paul to blame Sin and Flesh, and to rescue the Law as a good gift of God.” (212)

We should not read a trembling and introspective conscience into a text which is so anxious to put the blame on Sin, and that in such a way that not only the Law but the will and mind of man are declared good and are found to be on the side of God. (214)

Stendahl’s considerations are not without difficulty, both exegetically and practically.  I am driven to read Romans in particular and to weigh Stendahl up against Scripture.  I am concerned practically in the downplaying of present sin in terms of weakness and enemy attack; it seems but a variation on “the devil made me do it.”

Nevertheless, this has been an intriguing and enjoyable beginning to my little project.  I will move from here either backwards to Augustine, or forwards to Dunn and Wright and others who have progressed the New Perspective.  I’ll probably do both.

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N.T. MartyrIn my current role I get to spend a lot of time at the interaction between public discourse, the thought-life and momenta of culture, and the application of Christian theology and devotion.  It’s a muddled space to play with a lot of speaking at cross purposes and a fast reducing amount of common ground.

I’ve reached a point of both frustration and passion.

The frustration comes from the level of misunderstanding and presumption that exists, particularly about how others view Christians and Christian thought.  Our philosophical framework is ignored, our motivations are questioned, and our ambitions rejected.  This is very understandable.  As a friend of mine articulated to me recently “We Christians are like bad students.  The world is asking the same questions, and being frustrated by its same lack of answers, and we come along and say ‘The answer is JAY-sus.’  And we don’t bother to show our working.”

“We don’t bother to show our working.”  Yep.  And ouch.

Over the ages there have been those that seek to show our “working out.”  These are the apologists (from the word apologia which means ‘a formal written defense of one’s opinions or conduct’ which is synonymous with apology but you can’t use that because it sounds like you’re sorry for something…)  And so the “first” apologist, Justin Martyr, showed his “working out” of the reasonableness (in both the moral and logical sense) Christianity in a context while defending against some common misunderstandings of Christians.  Many centuries later on we have those that defend against the rationalism and modernist experiment of the Enlightenment.  And more recently some engagement with postmodernity (although I find many of these are delivering an apology for modernity, not Christianity, but that’s another topic…)

I am simply not satisfied with the depths of our current apologia.  A defense is a responsive exercise that is necessarily shaped by the context and the audience.  We either ignore that context and audience and do the stereotypical bible bash; or we misunderstand our context and audience to the point of being rendered irrelevant.

So I am thirsty to understand our context.  I’ve been reading some books that have engaged with philosophical theories that were fomenting in the mid 20th Century.  The little I could quickly grasp gave me that “aha” moment: “This is where they are coming form, this is why they are saying, doing, teaching this and that.  This is how they hear us when we say…” etc. etc.

So my resolution is this: To learn more.  I want to join in with the unpacking of the Western World philosophically (and perhaps sociologically).  I want to read a book a week from the top ten primary sources that have shaped or describe the Western World.

Any recommendations?

Similarly, the passion, derives from an utter commitment that the gospel is, well, good news.  And remains so.  I have always aspired to be as kerygmatic (from the word kerygma which means ‘proclamation’) as possible.  The gospel is gospel only when it is proclaimed.  The gospel demands kerygma.

Effective kerygma is thus a combination of hermeneutic, homiletic, and applied ethics in which the gospel connects and enlivens the surrounding context.

In recent times the best kerygma I have witnessed (in my slight reading) has come from the school of thought that has been tagged as the “New Perspectives on Paul.”  This is the stuff of Krister Stendahl and N.T. Wright and in my mind speaks to a framework that is high levels of realism.  It emphasises community and activity, not simply as conceptual responses to revelational truth, but as innate fundamentals of divine historical interaction with the world.

My hunch is that there is an apologetic connection between New Perspectives and the currents of Western thinking which has not yet been fully explored – but could bear fruit if it was.

I want to see if this is true.  I want to learn more.  I want to read a book a week from the top ten expositions New Perspectives commentary.

Any recommendations?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Posted on Posted in Politics, Australian Politics, Marriage & Sexuality, Q&A No Comments

Q&AClara asks (on my facebook wall): I read an interesting article today titled, ‘Ministers take aim at religious extremists: we accept equality’. Wondered your thoughts on this issue.

The article that Clara refers to is this: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/federal-election/ministers-take-aim-at-religious-extremists-we-accept-equality/story-fnho52ip-1226676430143

The signatories to the letter referred to in the article can be found here: http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/wp/2012/04/04/42-multi-faith-clergy-call-for-marriage-equality/

The letter is actually quite old (April 2012).  The fact that it is being raised in July 2013 as a rhetorical riposte to ACL attacks on Kevin Rudd is symptomatic of how these things get used as political footballs:  “Christians talking against gay marriage? Well, here’s our Christians talking about gay marriage and they support us!”  There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, that’s one of the reasons the letter was written in the first place I’m sure.

So what are my thoughts? Nothing profound really.

This not a surprise.  The signatories to the letter are mostly your left-leaning Anglicans and Unitings with the odd Baptist and so forth.  Nothing unexpected.  We could talk about how representative these leaders are of the Christian populace and the fact that they generally belong to the parts of the church that are in decline, but whatever, that isn’t the point.

For me the two interesting things are this:

1) Firstly: Christians must demonstrate that their views are Christian.

I’m not saying that these leaders aren’t Christian.  What I am saying is that it is not enough to say “I’m a Christian and I support SSM.”  They need to articulate and demonstrate the connections between the Christian philosophy and the SSM agenda and why they are congruous and supportive of one another.  This is how you give your support substance and weight.

It is particularly so when you have signatories from a wide range of faith positions (including non-Christian) – what philosophical ground, that is common and not antagonistic to the positions held, is being used to espouse the opinion?  Without that it’s not much more than a rather small petition.

From what I can see of the text of the letter (not easily accessible as far as I can see, even through the AME website) this hasn’t been done.  The two texts I do have are this excerpt:

“As clergy from various different faiths and denominations in Australia, we believe marriage is a fundamental institution in our society. It fosters greater commitment between partners, provides children with a sense of security and stability, and strengthens ties with families and communities. Marriage is a blessing to be shared, so we encourage people of faith who support marriage equality to voice their support for the reform by responding to the  House of Representatives inquiry on same-sex marriage today.”

This isn’t much more than the “marriage is a blessing” and “blessing should be shared” argument.  Which says nothing at all really.  None of us will disagree on the blessing of marriage.  What we do disagree on is the characteristics of marriage which inform and construct and advance that blessing.

Rowland Croucher (say it ain’t so Rowland!) is the other text which does inform this a bit:

“How can I, a heterosexual who’s been very happily married for 50 years, tell anyone else they don’t have the right to form a loving, committed, lifelong union and enjoy the fruits of marriage as I have done?” wrote Reverend Dr Rowland Croucher, from John Mark Ministries, Victoria. “Marriage is not a club to be restricted to some. Like the Gospel, it is a blessing to be shared.”

And at least he gives some reasoning, albeit thin.  Here Dr. Croucher connects “marriage” to the inclusivity of the gospel.  Which has some merit, because the gospel is inclusive.

(The “how can I tell anyone else line” is rhetorical fluff because it doesn’t speak to the core issue of what marriage actually is, just to the fact that whatever it is it cannot be arbitrarily restricted – we all agree with that.)

Now this is all great, but as Christian leaders, these people need to present a clear and coherent connection between a Christian framework and their position.  I won’t reiterate all that here, but the sorts of questions that go unanswered by Croucher et al. include clear rebuttals “OK, Rowland, but the Gospel is also exclusive (Christ alone) and calls for a surrender of one’s whole life (including sexual activity, both hetereosexual and homosexual), how do you coincide these Christian truths with your statement about marriage?”  And also fundamental questions of epistemology, Scriptural affirmations of the connection of marriage with the created order and so on.

In other words (and this speaks to why marriage is so contentious), our understanding of marriage derives from the full sweep of Christian philosophy.  If you’re going to talk about this you need to demonstrate coherence across the whole. These signatories haven’t done this.

2) Secondly:  “Christian” is not a badge.  It’s used that way by revisionists all the time who think in terms of “attributes” and “minorities.

Religion has become an “attribute” of a person, not a voluntary and adopted wholistic framework for life.  Therefore if you can demonstrate that one “Christian” agrees with you, you can assert that there is no reason why someone else wearing that badge shouldn’t also.

This is an insipid and patronising understanding of how religion and worldviews work.  The badges don’t matter, it’s the substance that counts.  The people that don’t support SSM have good reasons for not doing so.  It’s not enough to throw their badge back at them, you actually have to deal with their reasonings and demonstrate their unreasonableness.

To conclude.  What are my thoughts? Nothing unexpected, just another demonstration of the insipidness that tends to dominate this debate.

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Posted on Posted in Doxology, General 2 Comments

Gill Briggs

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
(Psalm 146:1-2)

This is Gillian Briggs.  It’s her facebook profile pic so I’m sure she won’t mind me posting it here.

Today Gill turns 40.  She enters her fifth decade.  And judging by the sunrise this morning it is going to be an awesome one.  She married me 18 years ago almost-to-the-day. I win 🙂

The thing is, we almost didn’t get married.  Not because of anything relational, but because we almost didn’t meet. Gill almost didn’t reach decade number three.  Twenty years ago complications with surgery almost took her from us.

There’s a story she tells from that period of her life in which she was starkly faced with only having a finite number of breaths left.  She tells of the resolve that Psalm 146 brought to her: I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.  And Psalm 150 says it too: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!

I have had the privilege of walking next to Gill and having her walk next to me for many years now.  I have heard her troubled breaths, pain-filled breaths, laugh-filled breaths, weeping breaths, contented and relaxed breaths and downright frustrated breaths!  But I listen to them, and I learn from them (when I’m not being a fool).  Because each one of them has something that points me to divine truth and God’s heart and therefore to life itself.

If you know me you will have heard me say that I admire Gill, and when asked to sum up that admiration I give two inadequate but accurate words: tenacity and vivacity.  Gill is tenacious and vivacious.  It’s what happens when you have praise-filled breaths.

The tenacity is strength.  Yes, sometimes it’s stubbornness and immovability.  But mostly it’s just-keep-going-ness.  It’s more aware than blind perseverance; it’s an unwillingness to close the eyes and descend into darkness, and to be able to respond when the heartbeat of God and hope break in when darkness does envelope.  It’s that sense of “this isn’t good enough” that refuses to be content with injustice and half-heartedness and looks for gold when others think they have it right with lumps of lead.

The vivacity is beauty and life.  Yes, sometimes it flashes with passionate anger.  But mostly its a glow that fills the home, lightens hearts, and wakes people up.  It can be fierce – what I see and hear when I wake up to hear music or singing, and I know that she is kicking down some darkness inside her or around her.  But it’s also warm, a cloud of  understanding and discernment, and place of rest and connection for others, with someone who just “get’s it” and knows how to speak life.

I would like to bear witness to Gill’s strength.  These last four decades have not been easy.  Many are yet to see the fullness of the gift God has given to us all in her.  I’m sure there is more adversity and difficulty to come – although I long for a season of release when she, and I, get to rise up on some wings together.  But I also know that Gill is finding her voice, or perhaps finding a renewed voice (because she has always had one), and through it we will all be blessed by her tenacity and vivacity.

Today, on her birthday, Gill is singing with the Southern Gospel Choir in a combined performance with world-acclaimed grammy-award-winning acapella group Take 6.

Today, on her birthday, with every breath, Gill is praising the Lord.

It is very very right.

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980736_91728200Anonymous asks: I have been struggling with how to believe and have faith in the God I know who is the God of the every day things and the God who is also supernatural. How do you approach it? Reconciling the belief that God moves supernaturally as well as through the ordinary?

Thank you for a very interesting question.  It has given me pause for thought.

My first pause has been to cogitate about the dichotomy in the premise of your question: On the one hand we have “supernatural” acts of God, and on the other hand we have “natural” acts of God.  I wonder if it is a false dichotomy?

Scripture affirms, and we can clearly see by rational observation, that natural processes are at work in this world.  The sun rises and sets, electricity flows predictably, biological occurrences are explainable etc. etc.  None of this is surprising.

How, then does God “move” in these “ordinary” things.  He certainly does this by creating the ordinariness to begin with.  The ordinary creation thus speaks of his design, goodness and purpose. It is not wrong to consider the fruit of the harvest as a providential gift from God – how wonderful that he has so moved in creation as to set up this system of providence!  And so we can look at the sunset, or the spider’s web, or the intricacy of a flower, or the magnificence of the rolling spheres, and grow in our awareness of the potentate of time.  This I think is what we are talking about, precisely, when we talk about God moving “in” the natural.

And Scripture also affirms “supernatural” moves of God – various miracles involving matters of physical health, the suspension or occurrence of phenomena where they would or wouldn’t otherwise occur, the receipt of information or understanding through some form of direct revelation rather than “natural” observation and conversation.  The Scriptural narrative reveals that God does directly intervene in the created order of things.

Clearly these are conceptually distinct, but they are not incompatible, and in fact I don’t think they can be separated.

After all, the “supernatural” acts of God, apart from creation itself, are not ex nihilo – they are acts within the created order.  Yes, it’s a miracle when God parts the waters of the red sea, but he is not doing something that is conceptually absurd, or impossible to understand: he is moving water out of the way, he is acting within the natural, it is understandable.  He does the impossible but graspable (the feasible impossible?).  When Jesus heals it is not some weird and wacky thing whereby the recipient is enveloped by a spiritual dimension outside of creation, it is simply that the broken thing is fixed, the disordered thing is reordered and so on.

And similarly, when God speaks “supernaturally” – be it in a dream, a vision, or the various other forms of communication that we see in Scripture – he does so using language (an aspect of creation) and ideas and concepts that are not incompatible with the created order, but are integral to it and connect to it.

So without God moving supernaturally in the first place there would be no natural, and without the natural the supernatural acts would have no context, no mechanism, and no application.  They cannot be separated.

So what’s to reconcile?

I think the difficulty comes when we consider our own personal journey through life.  That journey is a natural journey –  we were born, we grow, we experience the good and bad of every day as the rain falls on the righteous and the evil alike.  On that journey we face decisions and predicaments and problems.  We search out frameworks and information in order to make those decisions, we look for solutions to the predicaments and problems.

The “natural” aspect of that framework is to engage with those aspects that are universal or common to all (so-called common grace and common sense play their part).  And so when someone is sick we make the decision to go to the doctor – that is common sense, and the fact that there is a doctor to go to is a providential common grace.  But we might also ask God for the person to be healed “supernaturally” and that may or may not happen.  And I’m not even sure if we could tell most of the time.  Perhaps if the person is suddenly well without any “natural” intervention we would easily call that a miracle.  But what if the person simply recovered quicker-than-most after treatment, or avoided a worst case scenario, or was discovered to have some more minor problem than the major disease that was feared, or didn’t respond to treatment at all but suffered and died… at what point has the miracle stopped and the “natural” taken over?  I don’t think you can draw that line.  But it doesn’t stop me exercising common sense, and drawing on the common grace provided through the doctor, as well as praying for a specific extraordinary grace for the moment.

Similarly, if I need to make a decision I might ask God for guidance.  That may or may not (usually not!) involve a flash of lightning, a vision, a dream, or even an immediate sense of assurance.  It will involve the weighing of things both intellectually and emotionally, a cogitation, an investigation, a playing out of hypotheticals and a weighing of the possible results.  Where is the line which on one side I say “God told me” and on the other side I say “I decided”?  I don’t think it can be drawn.  “It seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit” is a perceptive remark methinks.

So what’s to reconcile? The natural and the supernatural work together.  I pray. I decide. I rejoice in God’s providential blessings, both the natural and supernatural and the usual conglomeration of the two that makes up our interaction with the divine.  My worship may involve being lifted up on angel’s wings, but just as readily be a simple “being,” thankfully responding to the basking sunlight and the turning of the seasons.  All of it is still worship.

Even the act of the cross is a mixture of both “natural” and “supernatural.”  Jesus dies as any human person who is crucified would die.  His resurrection is nothing short of a miracle.  But they are not at odds with one another.  The resurrection understood is not a rejection of reality it is the beginning of a new creation, a new “natural” – or perhaps the “natural” as it is intended to operate for eternity.  Jesus  is the firstfruits of this new creation.

Our calling as Christians is not a calling to the “supernatural” as such, but a calling to the new “natural” that is in Jesus.  We are to put off the old ways and clothe ourselves with the things that naturally pertain to eternal resurrected life.  These are not strange things, they are matters of faith and understanding and virtue that are understandable and graspable.  Whether or not that is played out in this life through miraculous interventions or ordinary obedience, I don’t particularly care and I can’t particularly distinguish.  All I know that however it looks, those who are living according to their new nature are doing so because the Holy Spirit is at work in them and I trust for the day when that is the most natural thing in the world.

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Posted on Posted in Q&A 1 Comment

Reverend Mother asks: Tim 1,ch 4, v 10 says “….who is the Saviour of all men and especially of those who believe…” Is this the verse to quote to people who have lost a non-believer… or perhaps an escape clause for humanists?

Thanks for the question.  The text of 1 Tim 4:10 in its most immediate context is (ESV):

8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. 10 That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Saviour of all people, and especially of those who believe.

But to begin with, some basic principles:  Your question is an exegetical one.  That is to say, it is asking for an interpretation, an “get-meaning-out” question.  Good exegesis attempts to disrobe the reader of current frameworks and asks the question “What did this mean for the person to whom it was originally communicated?”  Once that question has been considered the question of “so what does it mean for me (or for a humanist etc.)” can be asked, and hopefully answered, to some extent.

We must give attention to semantical range of words.  We know what we mean by, for instance, the word “Saviour”  but is that the meaning that is intended?  Paul, who wrote the original letter, knew nothing of modern day humanism.  And before we collide a passage with a specific question such as “Does this comfort those who have lost a person of no faith?” we have to consider whether or not the text is actually relevant to that question at all.

In my mind the sticking point is the phrase “Saviour of all people?”  What does this mean? Do the applications you suggest apply?

The word “Saviour” is in the original Greek σωτὴρ which certainly means “saviour” or “deliverer” but also “preserver.”  It is a word that applies to the general sense of divine preservation of human life and the providential giving of all that is required for sustenance.  It is telling that the word references the sense of God’s preservation in the OT, but it is not a word that applies to the messianic figures of David (and others) where the more specific sense of “salvation” in terms of rescue or vicarious victory is present.  Jesus is the first “Messiah” to also be “Saviour.”

The word “Saviour” implies an object – who or what is actually saved?  The natural object is “the world.”  When we talk about “the Saviour of the World” we do not intend some sort of exhaustive/universalist scope (in terms of individuals) the scope of the meaning is two-fold: this person has the capacity to save the world; this world has a Saviour, it is this person.

Therefore, based on this lexical analysis, my conclusion would be that the phrase “Saviour of all people” does not imply a universalism.  It implies that Jesus has the divine attributes of being “saviour/preserver/benefactor” of all people.

This conclusion is supported by looking at the immediate context.  What is the purpose of this passage? Well, in verse 8, the direct point is to encourage godliness.  This godliness is like “physical training” which has benefit both for the “present life” and the “life to come.”  In fact, through godliness, we could say we are saved/preserved for this life and the next.  The argument that is being made is that the godliness is worth pursuing (for salvation/preservation) because it is shaped around the character, nature and demonstration of the one who saves and preserves.  We strive for godliness because we hope/trust in this Saviour, even to the extent of recognise the preserving benefit of following Christ’s example in this life.

However, for those whose hope in Christ extends to the eschatological hope of belonging to the age to come (the more specific sense of “salvation”) there is even more reason to pursue the path of godliness because it is the path that pertains to the preservation of eternal life.  Thus, in my opinion, the original audience of 4:10 would have heard something like this: godliness is good for all people because it pertains to the preservation of all people in this world, and it is especially good for those who believe, because it especially pertains to the “life to come.”

How, then, does this apply to the applications you suggest?

a) Escape clause for humanists?  Well, yes and no.  It confirms the value of “godliness” for present-day preservation of human life.  I think the Pope said something similar recently about the value of “good works” even the “good works” of atheists.  Such good works are, well, good.  Does that give them an “escape” – well, perhaps.

b) Comfort those who have lost a person with no faith?  Perhaps, depending on the person.  I would think that passages that refer to the holiness and justice and compassion of God would be of more application.

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From DaveO:

The last two times I’ve had Communion… I’ve pondered a detail in the liturgy which to me looks like it is strongly based on the Luke account.

(Luke 22:19) And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 21 But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.

My Anglican heritage has me “hearing” the old (well old for me) liturgy as “for you, and for many”

(Matthew 26:26) Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

(Mark 14:22) And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

So a question of the Greek… rendered into English as “for you” in Luke. The other two gospels have “for many”. What does Luke actually say in the Greek? I like the community (across time and space) and the evangelistic impulse which “for you, and for many”’ has, and have been jarred by the intensely personal and private “for you”. And been adding an inside voice of “and for many”.

Thanks for the question DaveO,

As an aside, the other Last Supper account is, of course, in 1 Corinthians 11 where we read:

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Which also excludes the “for many” that Mark and Matthew apply as the indirect object of the pouring out of the blood of the new covenant. So it’s a 50% split between the “for many” usage and not!

Matthew and Mark both have the pouring out “τὸ περὶ πολλῶν” (Matthew, Mark has a different preposition) where “the many” is literally hoi polloi (which does not mean the upper crust classes) which has a sense of ‘the masses’, ‘the rest’, ‘the majority’.

Matthew has an additional phrase before the pouring out comment, in the imperative “Drink of it, all of you;” in which “all of you” is simply the word “all”, the “you” comes from the factor that the imperative “drink” (πίετε) is in the 2nd person.  In my mind this actually should lead us to de-emphasis the “you” pronoun and almost take the “all” as a vocative

Luke, however, simply has “τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν” where the indirect object is “you” (plural).

The distinction then, if there is any, is not between “private” (you singular) and “communal” (many) but between the specific participants in the last supper (you (plural) disciples) and the broader participants (the many who will come to faith) in the new covenant.

It seems there is a covenantal connotation of polloi with the word rendering the Hebrew rabbim which is associated with the non-Israelite peoples.  Therefore the distinction would be Luke’s emphasis of the application of the new covenant to the Jewish disciples, and Matthew and Mark’s would include application to the gentiles that would also enter that covenant.  Perhaps Jewish-focussed Matthew wishes to retain the emphasis on gentile inclusion, whereas for gentile-focussed Luke such a notion was less scandalous and needed less emphasis.  (Consider article in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology for ‘All, Many’)

In sum, both emphases are correct, and “for you, and for many” would seem to be a decent liturgical expression of it.

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Pilgrim Espresso ArtLast time I ranked the coffee experiences of Hobart I was very new in town, a lot less experienced in coffee, and some of the decent coffee shops in Hobart had only just opened.  Here is a long overdue update.

These are subjective rankings, based on varying combinations of flat white/short black/piccolo/macchiato.  I tend to choose single origin as it demonstrates both the taste of the barista and how much they care.  I look for flavour, texture, aesthetic and, to a lesser extent, the environment of the shop.

Feel the love people, no disparagement intended, just an articulation of appreciation.

This post may get updated as I remember things.

Tier Two

Tier two coffee shops are where I go for a decent drinkable coffee, when I am looking for a place that is convenient (nearby), comfortable, and conducive to conversation.

Coffee-wise, I expect a decent coffee on a par with what I can make at home.  A “high tier two” shop can provide an enjoyable flat white, but not anything black.  A “low tier two” may require resorting to a mocha.  If I have to add sugar the coffee has dipped into tier three.

In this tier:

Atlas is definitely high tier two, a good solid flat white on one of the busiest pedestrian corners in the city.  Staff friendly, welcoming and have a good memory for faces and names.  A little noisy at times.

YOLO in Macquarie is nearby to me and is a comfortable place to have a chat.  Flat whites are decent, but I enjoy the mocha more.  Nothing amazing, but if you’re with a group of friends that don’t care too much about coffee, this is a reasonable option.

[Update 11/5/13 – POP Cafe in Collins is conveniently located for my walk back from the gym on Thursday mornings and includes suitable brekky munchies. A pleasant coffee – staid standard beans but very well extracted.]

Tier One

Tier one coffee shops are basically the shops that are really worth going to.  Coffee is their reason for existence.  They know their coffee, will have a standard blend and one or two single origins and demonstrate significant skill in extracting each roast to maximise its characteristics.

Honourable mentions in this category include the newly found Zimmah in Murray Street.  The barista seems to be something of a long-standing barista mentor.  He clearly emphasises strength and depth in his extraction, to the point of risking bitterness but winning the bet.  This shop may be the first to replicate the Melbournian “unmarked excellence hidden down an alleyway” style.

A second honourable mention goes to Villino in Criterion Street.  Villino was an early standard-setter in the Hobart coffee scene and has not fallen off its pedestal.  A good range of beans ready to go with some decent nibblies.  They have recently expanded to include Ecru as a hole-in-the-wall takeway which I have not sampled. It did seem a little strange to expand in that direction as Villino itself is not particular spacious, in fact it can be quite cramped.  They lose some kudos from me for having a $10 minimum on the EFTPOS – grrrrr.

I have two number ones.  Both have been around for about 18 months – the same amount of time I have been in Hobart.  Both started strong and have improved over those months.  Each has its own strengths.

If you were to ask me, “what is the best coffee you’ve ever had in Hobart”, I would have to give it to Yellow Bernard.  YB is very close to my office.  Barista Scott is less scientist and more artful magician.  Standard is high and on occasions I have been handed a triple-shot single origin flat white that has simply blown me away – often with an emphasis on the fruity zing at the front and the chocolately body.

YB’s pretty much sells nothing but coffee and they are excelling at it.  They are working their brand well.

If you were to ask me “what is the best coffee shop in Hobart”, I would have to give it to Pilgrim.  The standard is exceptional and consistent.  Barista Will (and his colleagues) have won awards, and rightly so.  Will is more the precision engineer and has taught me about brew ratios and other extracting principles.  The latte art is extraordinary and award winning – for me good art is icing on the caffeinated cake.  The location is a nice 5-10 minutes walk for me, so it gets me off my butt.  The ambience, while often busy with medicos from the nearby hospital, is rarely overwhelming and it’s a great place for a conversation.

[Update: The extension, Property Of: Pilgrim is now open. And it’s awesome. Get the Caveman. Just do it.]

Pilgrim are expanding soon, it will be great to see where they take it.

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Posted on Posted in Book Reviews, Politics, Tasmanian Politics 3 Comments

Tasmania - The Tipping Point?The hardcopy sold out in Hobart, apparently.  Tasmania – The Tipping Point? an entire Griffith Review devoted to discussing the past and present character, and the consequential future of Australia’s small state.  My home state.

This Review edition is a mixture of academic essays, memoirs, historical narrative, and some fictional pieces.  They are of inconsistent quality and relevance but mostly good.

Jonathan West’s essay Obstacles to Progress: What’s wrong with Tasmania, really?  has been held up as the shiniest gem in this particular conglomerate.  I read it with interest.  It certainly has some value, but I did not come across any novel thought.  Tasmanians have an ingrained underachievement, West intones, and somehow we need to get over that.  The analysis has merit – the prevalence and power of interest groups for instance.  The topic that has gained most interest, however, is our so-called “bogan problem” – the significantly large welfare-dependent populace.  West wants to turn off welfare resource provision, to induce a starvation-induced productivity that will change the culture.  It might be an effective idea.  I don’t know if it’s a good one though.

If you are an outsider wanting an insight into the ills of Tasmania  just read Danielle Wood’s Hotel Royale on Liverpool, a personal account of her battles with the public health system.  I too know what this is like, having spent much time in the Royal Hobart Hospital (The “Hotel Royale”) sitting next to my wife’s bed.  Wood’s description is no exaggeration

At the Royal there is not enough of anything to go around: not enough doctors, not enough nurses, not enough supplies, not enough elective surgeries, not enough energy, not enough hours in the day

Wood wrote her piece before the 2011 health cuts and acknowledges this fact, wondering how it could get worse.  In 2012 my wife spent six months waiting for category one surgery.  Wood’s fears were founded.

There is a huge amount of reading in this Review.  I enjoyed the historical accounts and the anecdotal snippets of places with which I am familiar.  It made me feel, well, at home. In the more esoteric sense, however, it was the words of Rodney Croome who best distilled the Tasmania I know and love.

Tasmania is a fracture and polarised society with a weak middle ground.  It moves forward by the grinding of fault lines against each other.  Unfortunately this sometimes produces great heat and instability, but it offers far more to the world as a result.  Tasmania is neither entirely conservative nor predictably progressive.  If it were, it could not have made its great and original contribution to the nation and the world.  Tasmania is both the abominable Fatal Shore and the felicitous Apple Isle, together at the same time.  The fact that such a paradox can exist in the heart of a single people and place is not easy to grasp. But without at least attempting to grapple with Tasmania’s contradictions, the island remains impossible to explain.

Not that I agree with his definition of marriage, but then that’s a fault line, isn’t it?

The enigmatic, microcosmic, necessarily familial nature of Tasmanian society is alluded to throughout.  In Tasmania, when it comes to the principled things in life – politics, economics, and applied philosophy – there is no room to retreat to comfortable ground for the occasional sortie; Tasmania is where “opponents” meet at the shops and nod to each other in the mall.  Tasmanian society operates like one big awkward family dinner, in which disagreements find truces in awkward silences, after flurries of “you just don’t understand!”

As in The West Wing‘s New Hampshire, politics, and everything else in Tasmania is “retail.”  Weasel words don’t work down here in the long term because in Tasmania you can’t avert your gaze; you eventually have to look everyone in the eye.  Relationships matter more than ideas and the idealist who forgets that will find Tasmania a place of loneliness, rejection, and even injustice.

But all in all Tasmania – The Tipping Point? frustrated me.  Yes, I’m a bit proud of having had a whole edition devoted to Tasmania.  In reflection, however, it’s the sort of pride that’s akin to child delighting in a MacDonald’s happy meal toy.

Above all I was frustrated because this Review is a one sided thing.  It doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel very Tasmanian in the end.  All I get is a whiff of Salamanca wine-sipping holier-than-thou lefty pontification.  This isn’t the Tasmania that I know.  This is wordy wordsmiths, artisans wrapping themselves up in a Peter Dombrovski picture, tying it with a rainbow ribbon and dousing it with the perfume of Huon Pine trinkets.  I can almost hear the whistling toy birds of the Saturday market.  As I read I had flashes of  some oh-so-earnest sparkled eye’d gaze of the rebel-with-yet-another-cause ancient baby boomer at some bland tarkine-land-rights-climate-changing-equal-rights-for-gay-whales-saving-the-forests stall.  Sometimes I agreed with her.

I don’t see the Tasmania in which Fords and Holdens are things of utmost importance.  Where’s the miner, the farmer, the (former) pulp worker?  Where’s the story of the kids in Triabunna, or Scottsdale, or Smithton who don’t see their dad because the only trucking job is on the mainland?  Where’s the bloke who does his best to drain the oil in his own car because he can’t afford the service?  Where’s the kids excited about going 4WDing in the bush block, the girl who has spent more days in a jeans and ugg-boots than tye-die and dreds?  The boy who learns to skin a rabbit but isn’t allowed to learn to shoot the gun any more?  Where’s the Tasmania of Phil Maney pies, Boags beer on tap?  Where’s the single mum scraping vegemite onto a cracker for school lunch?  Or the kid who does it because the parents are stoned in bed?  Or the dad with his kids doing brekky at Maccas on “his” Saturday morning?

Even the half-normal David Walsh is only in there because he started MONA. D*mn bl**dy MONA! On every other page was some rambling ode to this wonderful MONA as if Tasmania has at last come into its own.  The Tasmanians I grew up with would appreciate MONA; but only because it was some punter getting around the tax department by buying a bunch of crap that involved naked chicks.

I appreciated Edition 39 of the Griffith Review.  It learned me a lot and it got me some thinking.  But its a bit of a wank really.  A bit like the State Government at the moment: Nostalgia mixed with spin coated with a thin film of supposed academic credibility.  Nice words, some good light entertainment.

But now we need to get on with life.

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Hearing Her VoiceIs there still a debate on whether, how and why women can, should be, and are in Christian ministry in Australian Anglicanism?  Clearly there is still disagreement.  Clearly there is still division on this topic.  There is regularly yet another regurgitation of either rabid complementarianism or apopletic egalitarianism.  But there hasn’t been much for a while that actually moves the debate on.  Nothing that throws a corollary or implication or foundational concept into the ring which has yet to be considered.

Perhaps John Dickson has done it with his recent short book Hearing Her voice: A Case for Women Giving Sermons.

Dickson has one, precise, thing to say in his book.  It is an interaction with that ever-perplexing verse from 1st Timothy (2:12) which states (to use the ESV)  “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”  His one point is this – that there is nothing in that verse that prohibits a woman delivering that part of Christian services that we commonly call “the sermon.”

That’s it.  He makes virtually no comment on issues such as headship, normative gender roles, or any other juicy parts of the topic.  He simply has the view that when Paul writes to Timothy he is not talking about sermons, and therefore women need not be excluded from the pulpit.

It’s a small point that will scandalise many for either being too liberal or not liberal enough.  Dickson seems to be aware of that, it is as if every second sentence is an appeal to “please listen to the one precise thing I am saying, not the things you think I might be saying.”

The value of the book, however, is in the methodology.  The methodology is, you might say, very “Sydney.”  It is deeply exegetical, using historical considerations to illuminate, not eradicate, semantic precision while articulately allowing “Scripture to interpret Scripture”, particularly within the Pauline corpus.

His argument is based on Paul’s precise semantics about “teaching”, “preaching”, “exhorting”, “evangelising”, “prophesying” and the like.  His assertion is that the only thing prohibited for women is “teaching.”  Moreover, he notes, that the “sermon” as we know it is most properly, in Paul’s terms, not teaching but exhorting, prophesying, or evangelising – activities that Paul not only allows for women but encourages for women.

For Dickson teaching is relegated to authoritive recollection and transmission of apostolic teaching – the oral canon that existed before the written one.

It’s an argument I haven’t seen much of before.  It’s a worthy addition to the ongoing debate.

And there is some debate to be had – Dickson’s credentials can not be lightly dismissed and his exegesis is thorough.  However, he refuses to further tread where angels have feared by not extrapolating or speculating further.  He only defines the permissibility that he finds in Paul, he does not explain the prohibition on (the very specific) “teaching” nor does he explain the implications of that prohibition in terms of a robust and conclusive theology of gender.

Perhaps he will keep (and make) some friends in this ongoing debate that way – a debate which now has one more piece of required reading for all involved.

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