Top whack Banner of Truth biography

Most of the Banner of Truth Trust’s biographies are worthwhile in at least one way – they show the mighty, saving works of the Holy Spirit in history. So they are encouraging to faith, and they lead us to pray for God to work today; they dissuade us from thinking that just doing church work “right” in one way or another is enough, they put us off thinking that even something really good like “teaching the Bible” is some sort of magic or leads to automatic blessing. OK so far.

Yet, many of their titles are limited or even marred by flaws – surprise surprise, they are written by fallible people! They are sometimes limited by being very broad brush, not granular enough; and though one is led to believe that in a short space of time in some village a long time ago suddenly 20 were converted, one is left wanting more detail, partly just to be fully convinced it was as great a work as the writer makes out. Other times there is some granularity and yet one hears virtually nothing of the flaws and sins in the lives of the heroes; it’s hagiography, and there is even on occasion the idea behind the scenes that we can’t let the innocent Christian public of today know some of the dreadful stuff in the lives of folk greatly used by God. Of course, this is a wrong and unbiblical notion. And thirdly, occasionally, when reading a Banner biography or chunk of church history, especially one written these days, I am led to think, “What I’m getting here are one or two burdens, even hobby horses of the modern author, who is selecting facts from the past to bolster their case; I’d rather read unedited stuff from the past, please.”

Well, the recently published memoir of Alexander Moody Stuart, a fresh edition of something written by his son Kenneth in 1899, falls into none of these disappointing categories; and so I highly recommend it, having been persuaded by Sinclair Ferguson on the BOTT’s podcast to buy it. I’m not asking him for my money back.

Moody Stuart lived and ministered in times of great blessing from the Spirit in Scotland – the 19th century. So there are plenty of the wonderful works of the Lord to wonder at and be encouraged by. And this account goes into lots of detail, including details of what was going on in the mind and soul of Moody Stuart, as well as details of how many were brought to faith or changed by the Spirit. It’s a thoroughly granular account of things, so one is not only encouraged by being convinced that the Spirit did mighty things in our world, but we also learn lots of lessons about piety, repentance, sin, temptation, the work of the devil, preaching, pastoring, you name it; it’s a feast of practical theology for the mind, as well as encouragement for the heart.

In addition the weaknesses and sins of the main character are not hidden; he has good self-knowledge, and this is not hagiography. Go buy it, read it, and benefit.

Herman Bavinck’s Our Reasonable Faith=The Wonderful Works of God – corrections to the translation

This is a truly wonderful book, written in Dutch in 1908 with the title Magnalia Dei, translated in the 1950s and called Our Reasonable Faith, and now reissued in the same translation as The wonderful works of God. I have contacted the publishers but they have not been permitted to correct mistranslations; but I have found a number which I have checked with native Dutch speakers as well as with my own copy of the Dutch. Here they are, free to all on the internet!

Magnalia Dei mistranslations, suspected mistranslations and suggested emendations by Chris Bennett, 26rd Jan 2021

Page numbers not in brackets are in the old English translation, called Our Reasonable Faith. Square brackets contain references to the new WWG edition.

P19, line 1: the world should read eternity.  (P9, line 11 in the Dutch) [WWG: page 41-ish, first sentence of paragraph starting “Now we learn from…”]

P86-7, the sentence from one page to the next:  do not annul the promise and do not achieve it   should read   do not annul the promise and do not earn it (or secure it?)   “Achieve” is not quite right.     (P86, seven lines from the bottom, in the Dutch) [WWG: p132, sentence starting “And these three measures…”]

P92, third last line: might should read power or dominion.   (P93 line 21 in the Dutch) [WWG: page 140-ish, sentence starting “It passed from one….” in the para starting “After the captivity..”]

P96, second last line and last line:  reported should read recorded, and on the next line Num. 32:2 should read Num. 33:2.           (P98 near the top, in the Dutch) [WWG: page 146, sentence starting “And when Israel has come…” in the paragraph starting “First, God frequently charges…”]

P135, second paragraph, 7th line:  all of His incommunicable attributes should read all of his communicable attributes.  This is a howler!   (P141, eighth line from the bottom, in the Dutch)

P185, line 10:  Him (referring to God) should read him, referring to man.

P263, line 8: a whole of ideas about God and the world should read a whole set of ideas about God and the world.      (P292, paragraph 3, lines 3-4 in the Dutch)

P267, last line: than does that of creation and redemption should read than does that of creation and providence.      (P298, first 2 lines in the Dutch)

P273, first line:  that is the religion should read  that it is the religion            (Dutch ref not needed)

P282, top line:  that Christ began to exist, unlike us, at His conception and birth should read that Christ began to exist – unlike us – not at His conception and birth.  Or recast it:  that Christ did not – as we do – begin to exist at His conception and birth.                   (P313, lines 4-5)

And second error on p282:  second last line:  was exalted to the Lord should read was exalted to be the Lord.     (Dutch ref not needed)

P284, fourth last line:  an always closer approximation of God to His people should read an always closer approach of God to his people.                (P316 last sentence of paragraph one, in the Dutch)

P285, last sentence of first paragraph, one suggested emendation, one mistake:  They all walk on the same way, be it that the light which falls   should read   They all walk along the same road, albeit that the light which falls.      (P317, last sentence of second paragraph in the Dutch)

P325, second paragraph, line 4:  a constantly closer approximation of God to man should read a constantly closer approach of God to man – same point as in comment on p284.    (P362 line 3 in the Dutch)

P327:  Zylstra has omitted the section break (gap with 5 stars) after the first paragraph here – he normally heeds them so I think it’s just a mistake, not deliberate or logical.       (P364 in the Dutch)

P362, near the bottom of the page, after the Isa. 53:10 reference there is a section break in the Dutch, with 5 stars normally in the English.   (P406 in the Dutch)

P368, paragraph two, line 7-8:  a spiritual resurrection, that is, regeneration and renewal, could take place in Christ   should read   a spiritual resurrection, that is, regeneration and renewal, could not take place in Christ.  Another bad one: Bavinck means a spiritual renewal can’t take place in Christ, who never died spiritually, he was always holy; so it must be a physical rather than a spiritual resurrection.   And the Dutch is very clear – niet.              (P413, 9th line from the bottom in the Dutch)

P369, second paragraph, line 2:   He who made God to be sin for us    should read   He who was made by God to be sin for us.                                     (Dutch not deeded; it’s 2 Cor 5:21)

P383, second paragraph, the last sentence of the paragraph is a mistaken duplication of part of the first sentence of paragraph 3.    So the first occurrence of   Every local church is a body of Christ, and the members of the church.       should be omitted.                 (Dutch not needed; but it’s top of P432)

P396, second paragraph, second last sentence:  communion between the Father and the Son, on the one hand, and between the disciples, on the other  should read   communion between the Father and the Son, on the one hand, and the disciples, on the other.      (P447 last sentence of first paragraph in the Dutch)

P453, second line from the bottom: from piece or fragments should read   from pieces or fragments.                      (Dutch not needed)

P466, second paragraph, third last line:   defeated by the sense of guilt, drives to Christ himself    should read   defeated by the sense of guilt, to Christ himself.      (Dutch not needed)

P468, just over halfway through the big paragraph:   where thieves do not break through nor steal (Matt. 6:19-20)   should read        where thieves do not break through and steal (Matt. 6:19-20).           (Dutch not needed)

P481,  second paragraph, the two sentences from lines 4-13.  A couple of errors here, based it seems on Bavinck saying something about the centrality of faith in sanctification that doesn’t sound terribly Reformed in the traditional sense (but there is no doubt that he generally takes a view of this that is at the margin of the 17th century view, across the piece, in this book and in his Dogmatics). 

First:  But when they discuss sanctification, they maintain that faith alone is adequate   should read   But when they discuss sanctification, they maintain that faith alone is inadequate.   The Dutch word is ongenoegzaam!   And Bavinck is about to disagree with “them” – yes, he is maintaining that from our end faith is the key to sanctification.  He does that at length in Reformed Dogmatics vol 4, in the chapter on sanctification. 

Second: the next sentence should start not with           And even though it is altogether true   but it should start  Even though it is altogether true  –  the addition of And, which is not in the Dutch, confuses the argument and the relationship between the sentences; if one were to add anything there, it would be But not And.                            (P546 paragraph from the second line of the paragraph in the Dutch)

This is a very serious mistranslation and undermines Bavinck’s line on sanctification, which is closer to Luther and Calvin and the late Puritan Walter Marshall than to the mainline 17th century writers.

P501, fourth last line and the line after:   the blessing which has accrued, not only to the public preaching, but also to the reading, study, and meditation of the word   should read   the blessing which has accrued, not only from the public preaching, but also from the reading, study, and meditation of the word.     This is another howler:    uit has been translated to instead of from, and in a way that doesn’t fit the flow of the argument; I guess Zylstra may have thought Bavinck was talking about the blessing of the Spirit on the word as means, but the sentence as a whole does not justify that thought; it’s clearly meant to be uit, from.           (P570,  sentence starts at 6th line of second paragraph in the Dutch)

P510, fourth line from the bottom:  (faith) is not in its inner nature certainty  should read  (faith) is in its inner nature certainty.    Another real howler; I guess Bavinck is not as close to the details of 17th century teaching as Zylstra would like him to be!  But Bavinck very clearly, time and again, sides with Calvin against the 17th century on faith having assurance in it.     (P581 lines 3-5 in the Dutch)

P563, eighth line from the bottom:    It is not a natural, but a physical body    should read   It is not a natural, but a spiritual body         Yes, another howler.  The Dutch is very clear and it sounded from the English as if something was wrong.                         (P641 line 11 in the Dutch)

A possible explanation of some modern Reformed heaviness

I was rereading The Apostle of the North – the biography of John MacDonald of Ferintosh (1779-1849) – and amidst many fascinating and edifying things, as well as annoying and unbalanced things of course, found this:  

“I addressed them from Ps 84:11, ‘The Lord will give grace and glory.’  No subjects touch them [he refers to the people on St Kilda] like those of grace.  They seem to melt under such topics.  What an argument to ministers for holding out the doctrines of grace continually to the view of their hearers!  It is such doctrines alone that are calculated to win the heart of the sinner; and to such doctrines alone will God append the seal and sanction of his power.”  (John MacDonald of Ferintosh, in John Kennedy, The Apostle of the North, p114-5)

It got me reflecting on the fact that for a number of years after I got involved with the modern Reformed movement (which was 1977) I didn’t hear anything like that, especially at conferences but also in the contemporary (as distinct from older) writings of the movement.  Why so?  Things are better now, by the way, at least on the whole.  I think some history may help.

There was depth and seriousness about God, as well as many wonderful works of conversion, church building and huge impacts on societies, in the 200 years or so after the Reformation in 1517.  But the seeds of decline were always there, of course, as they always are in this fallen world.  Melancthon went synergistic after Luther’s death; there were the Remonstrants in Holland in the early 1600s.  There was Neonomianism in Britain in the mid and late 17th century – Baxter, parts of the Scottish church, et al.

After a deadening of spiritual life in England and Wales, there came the wonderful Methodist revival through the Wesleys, G Whitefield, and, in Wales, Hywel Harris, Daniel Rowland et al.  We are now mid-1700s.  John Wesley was gifted with an extraordinary pragmatism, a good thing – an ability to know how to do things so that they work.  Methodism is a wonder of history.  At the same time the Americans were very pragmatic – they had to be, especially those on the frontier.  At the same time Wesley and his movement put undue emphasis on the human will, or rather, made it instead of God’s grace and election determinative.  Out of this mix came in the end Decisionism, as it came to be called – the notion that the point of evangelism and preaching is to get people to make a conscious decision for Christ, and once they’ve done that, you’ve made it, they are born again.  This is Charles Finney in the 1830s and onwards.

Over time this great desire to gain converts, and the idea that we can make it happen to some extent, led also to a downplaying of certain parts of the Bible that are less palatable to the sinful heart of man – his holiness, the sinfulness of our motives, coming judgement, and the true nature of repentance from the heart; and of course our dependence on the sovereign work of the Spirit for new birth.  And once Dispensationalism had arrived in the mid-1800s, the law of God through Moses was sidelined, at least in terms of it searching us now.

So by the time Billy Sunday, Gipsy Smith and later Billy Graham came along, evangelicalism had become somewhat superficial and mechanistic, and many who professed faith ended up not displaying changed lives.  Yes, the Lord had always warned that a number who accepted the word outwardly would not in fact bear fruit and thereby demonstrate that they were truly born again (see the parable of the sower), but by the 20th century the percentage doing this was far greater than necessary.

Was God going to leave evangelicalism just to get more and more superficial, and perish?  1945 onwards says:  No, he was first going to lead a number of “scribes who became disciples of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 13:52) to dig deeper into Scripture, initially mainly the New Testament, and use the best nuggets from 200 years of modernist, skeptical theology to improve the quality of exegesis humongously – first in Britain and then in the US and elsewhere.  Then about 10 years later another movement began, in the area of systematics and the theology of piety: the Banner of Truth Trust in Britain and the US started republishing some of the best of the older Reformed writers, and through them and some other publishers, a deepening began.  It was greatly aided by the preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones in London.  The older teaching could live again and convert people and change lives.  The modern Reformed movement had begun.  Soon there were many strands to it, of course – for example Francis Schaeffer led a strand that was somewhat dependent on the Dutch Neo-Calvinists (A Kuyper, H Bavinck et al) and yet understood the narrowness of American Fundamentalism and the general legalism of much evangelicalism (yes, evangelicalism had become legalistic while often rejecting the law of Moses as even relevant to life now – new rules were invented!).

And what in particular did this Reformed movement emphasise?  God’s sovereignty in salvation and providence, his holiness, his law (yes, the Mosaic law as of continuing relevance and authority for the NT believer), and the deep, heart nature of repentance.  Rightly so.

However, even the people who were being blessed by the Spirit in this movement from 1955 on were just sinners saved by grace.  So the inevitable happened and to some extent the pendulum went from one extreme to the other:  the real centralities of Scripture and of the gospel got slightly hidden – they, after all, were not the things that wider, superficial evangelicalism had forgotten: John 3:16; 1 Tim 1:15, and the fact that the main thing is that God sent his Son on a mission of love and salvation, and that coming to be right with God through Christ happens simply by means of faith.  

The other unfortunate and almost inevitable thing in the modern Reformed movement was that to some extent we gloried not in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:3) but in our grasp of him, in our theology, our depth, our “being truly Reformed” – a subtle form of idolatry.  Religious idolatries are always the most subtle and therefore favourites with the Enemy.  Reformed theology and true orthodoxy as an idol – a masterstroke.  Very difficult to see when you are doing it.

Our Reformed forefathers were not always above such things, of course, but they were often caught up in mighty revivals of the Spirit where not only were their intellects being enlightened but their hearts, emotions and practical lives were being galvanised into great deeds for the gospel; so they were usually less prone to worship their own views.

So when you read the older books – yes, they really are worth reading – don’t fail to notice and enjoy the parts where they highlight grace alone, Christ alone, and by faith alone; and don’t just notice the word “alone” but the wonders of grace in Christ by faith.

A note to my twenty-year-old self

These are four of the main pieces of advice I wish I had known and heeded the past 44 years:

1. The grace of God in Christ is the centre of Christianity; faith in him and in free justification and adoption is the foundation of daily life in the Lord, not what I do for him or my obedience or my correct understanding of his will.  “Not law but gospel, not demands but promise – that is the core of revelation” ie. of the Bible. Words from Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith p76.
2. Being saved by Christ is about becoming more and more human, not more and more religious.  The Pharisees were much more religious than Jesus.
3. People are different – yes, there are some things common to all, but natural temperament or wiring, childhood experiences, background, influences, times of trauma, how people react to life and the decisions they make – all of this makes us different; don’t assume that on the inside this other person feels, thinks, functions or relates just as you do.  Psychology is important, despite not being as important as theology.

4. It is exceedingly helpful, even for a naturally lazy person or late bird rather than early bird (ie. someone who 99.5% of the time hates getting out of bed, and never wants to go to bed, who takes ages to wake up fully and to be in a position of wanting to talk to another human being) even for folk like me, it is really helpful to go to bed early enough to get up at 6.30 am or soon after, so that I can have an hour or hour and a half of leisurely time, before the day and obligations and communications from others come along, to sit down, read a bit of a good Christian book, read the Bible unhurriedly, talk to God, think about big and important non-urgent things, pray for some folk and issues, sing a Psalm, maybe write some notes about what God is saying or write out a great quote from the book I’m reading, maybe memorise a verse or two of Scripture, that kind of thing.  This practice has gone much better for me (in a bumpy, inconsistent way) the past 10 years or so and is making a ginormous difference to my life.

Loving people – not just not harming them, or evangelising!

Be warm in greeting, show you are glad to see them, in whatever way is appropriate in the moment;    have time for them, don’t be in a hurry unless there is a burning building or some other seriously important crisis – do not be in a hurry with people just because you want to achieve a lot more today;    give away something of yourself, let them know some of your thoughts and feelings and recent experiences – obviously to varying extents – let yourself be enjoyed;     enjoy them, there is indeed something of God’s image in them whoever they are, so this is possible;     listen to them, be interested, care about them and what bugs or delights them;    have the humility (and the belief that all are in God’s image, though it’s marred) to think that whoever they are and whatever may be wrong with their morals or their outlook, you can learn from them;    help them and encourage them practically and emotionally if you can, because you care;    share the good news of Jesus with them if there is a real opportunity, but don’t do so because you want to feel less guilty of not evangelising or in order to add them as a scalp to your tally or your church’s; regard every person as an end in themselves, not chiefly as a means to ends (however good) that you are pursuing. And pray for them and their good in every way, physical, psychological and spiritual, asking God to give you his heart for them, his vision for their future and a clear yet at the same time generous discernment. 

May his Spirit help us, that it may be so increasingly.

On not being a boiled frog

Psalm 74:22 says,  Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;
remember how fools mock you all day long.  (NIV)

Yes, in our society too, 3000 years later, fools – people who think they are clever and smart and have life worked out, but who are actually deluded on some important stuff because their motives are wrong – are mocking the true God all the time; it’s like water around those who believe, water that’s getting hotter, as it were.  If we aren’t aware of this hot water, it will kill our faith, our love for God; it will certainly neutralise our prayers and we won’t be asking him to rise up and defend his cause!

What kind of mockery?  Overt sometimes –  scorn is poured on Christianity or the Bible or the people who take Jesus and salvation seriously, or who believe the Bible’s morality (for example in the area of relationships).  Quite often the mockery is quiet and hidden – just missing God out of the reckoning when practical decisions are made about life or when public policy is formed (he may exist but is irrelevant), or it takes the form of believing and asserting that there is no God, or else teaching that there is a God of some kind but he is very different from the God of Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus.

Let those of us who know this God (simply by his grace not our cleverness!) and that he is true never lose our awareness and our distaste, our disgust at the mockery he gets in this fallen world, and keep on praying that he will rise up yet again – as he has done many times; just study the history of Lowland Scotland from 1835-45, for example – and show very many people just who he is.

Pentes and Presbies united?

Psalm 33:3 says “Play your instruments in worship skilfully, with joyful shouting.”  It’s talking about how we worship God, and I would suggest that some branches of the church tend to keep the first half of the statement and other branches the second; but most of us struggle to do what God is calling for through this Scripture.

Playing skilfully means at the very least giving thought, care, attention and preparation to our corporate worship.  In the main Anglicans and Presbyterians have done this, with Psalters and hymnbooks and choirs and organs and structured, thought-out forms, and with many thoughtfully written prayers for recitation by the leader or by everyone.  It would seem to me that some Baptists, Brethren and particularly some Pentecostals and Charismatics could learn from this.  Freedom, being real and natural and “open to the Spirit” and willing to express things, show your emotions, be spontaneous, dance, clap, shout, hug… is not everything.

But to what extent have the services of the more traditional Presbyterians and Anglicans (and indeed the conservative Baptists and Reformed!) been characterised by joyful shouting – ie. by exuberance, the expression of joy in God (so that others present are helped to feel and see his greatness and the wonder of his love)?  Not a lot.  The trouble seems to be that in addition to the virtues of planning, thoughtfulness, reverence and structure, these brethren have often valued predictability, control, and freedom from emotional shock – they want psychological safety at nearly all costs.  Human control is being made something of an absolute.

The Lord would lead us through this Psalm to have enough reverence to plan properly using our minds, and enough faith in his ability to keep our hearts and minds that we are prepared to live dangerously when we meet in Jesus’ name, especially insofar as the Spirit pours out the love God in our hearts.  No wonder that charismatic churches with good teaching tend to do relatively well, as did William Still’s church in Aberdeen many years ago – much of it was the sober Presbyterianism of 50 years ago but the dear, Spirit-filled man would more or less dance his way through most of the service, moving around on tiptoe, waving his arms around, etc.

Sing a new song

Psalm 33:3 says “Sing to the LORD a new song.”  This cannot amount to a claim that some completely new stage in redemption has occurred every day or every time this verse is read.  It must mean “sing a fresh song – a song that may sometimes be old words with fresh life and will sometimes be a song with new words; but most importantly a song that is fresh because it comes from a fresh, and possibly completely new, realisation and appreciation of how wonderful the LORD and his mighty deeds are.”

God is infinitely great, loving and delightful; and his works are wonderful, both his work of creation and even more so his gracious work of redemption in his eternal Son.  We can never take all this in; and even when we do take in some of it, through his word and the inner work of his Spirit, it’s like an encounter with another person: your mind may change, you may come permanently to have new thoughts and views, but you also want to meet that person again (if they are good), you want a fresh encounter.  In urging us to sing a new song to the LORD, Psalm 33 is bidding us seek fresh encounters with the living God daily, some of which will also give us fresh insights; but even those that don’t change or expand our view of reality will be meetings with him that enable us to sing his praise with fresh reality and joy.

Such experiences of God are possible because God’s compassion is so vast and is new every morning; these experiences should be sought, and can then result in the outward expression of singing – let it be so!

Church leadership, one aspect

On the one hand, a point leader is essential – that is a pastor who is primus inter pares, or a senior pastor, someone who is the main leader or leader of the leaders; and this person must see the way ahead on major matters and be convinced, and then give a real lead.  Common sense, observation and experience, and also the Bible say this (eg. Peter was that leader, then James; Paul was, in the Gentile mission).  A point leader as merely the coordinator or facilitator of a team is not enough – it’s an overreaction to authoritarianism.

On the other, the point leader must have the humility not to try coming up with the strategy all on his own; he needs a team to test his ideas, but also to take the initiative and give him and the group new ones, and to gather data and help sift it, to work together on it all, etc etc.  So a strategy team is essential.  He also needs such a team to come with him and help enthuse everyone else about the strategy, and to implement it.  And the team plus members need to get on board because they can see it’s a good strategy and they believe in it, and they have been helped to see that it’s worth their while to get on board (not just because the leader says so and they must follow blindly).  The point leader needs to get them to follow, with God’s help.

But if he’s just adopting a strategy that is a sort of compromise that everyone on the strategy team can live with, yet is not convinced it’s the best strategy, nor is he excited about it, he won’t be able to lead others to see it and buy in properly.  

Once he and the team have a good plan, they must get at least half the folks really on board, otherwise there will be big problems.  The solution to this challenge, however, is not to form and arrive at the strategy in a big committee of everyone, all church members, or indeed a strategy group of more than about 7 or 8 – you just can’t get good deliberation or decisions in a group much bigger than that.  The strategy must be decided by the group, usually at the instigation of the point leader who sees the way forward with clarity and then chooses the right moment to articulate it and push the group to go for it and decide. So most or all of the strategy group need to be genuinely on board, and then they can all act together to get as many others as possible intelligently on board.

Churches with bishops have often been too authoritarian, as have some independent churches with pastors who rule the roost and don’t have teams around them that they take seriously, as have also many charismatic churches where the leader claims special anointing, so that whatever he says is God’s word.  But I also think that a lot of Congregational churches, plus some Baptist and Independent ones have erred the other way and just had committee leadership without a strong point leader.  I also confess that I have, some of the time in my ministry as a pastor, been too passive in leading and have just gone with the flow of others, committees, general consensus etc.  No longer!  This worm is turning – or rather, I hope, repenting.

Expressive individualism or Jesus?

We are in a state of ferment and confusion in the areas of sex and gender at the moment – certainly we are if we live in the West and respect traditional Christian teaching and the Bible! What to do, what to think, which direction to go in, how to understand the reasons for the confusion?  I am talking about the rise in cohabitation as an acceptable lifestyle, gay marriage, the whole LGBTIQ movement, the transgender movement, etc etc, right down to the likely hoo-ha there is going to be about the Iranian women’s football team.

I propose that the main problem is that people are coming at all this from very different directions (philosophically, in terms of worldview), often without realising that they are doing so.  And I want to say that though not every Christian is meant to be a philosopher – and nor do I think it vital that all Christians agree on all the details of the morality that’s up in the air at the moment – worldview is important for everyone; if we claim to follow Jesus, part of that is to look at the whole of life, including issues of gender and sexuality, in the light of God, insofar as God has revealed his ways and will.

In terms of the issues raised, there are 3 main directions to come from: human authoritarianism, expressive individualism, or biblical Christianity.

Human authoritarianism:

The family or tribe or wider community such as the state, or a religious institution such as a church, mosque, temple or synagogue lays down rules and norms of behaviour, definitions of gender etc.  They may claim to be doing so on behalf of God or some god or higher power; but when you look carefully, it’s the human institution or powerful person within it who is in charge.

This approach is pretty out of vogue at the moment so I’m not staying long on it; we have had about 175 years of reaction against this in Britain, so it’s not very hip.  The 1960s and 1970s were a sort of extravaganza of reaction against it, in fact.

But watch out, you evangelical Protestants: it isn’t just some Catholics who are stuck in this, it’s many of you!  If we get our views on matters of sex and gender mainly from one or two of our favourite internet preachers or authors, or if, for the sake of peace of mind, we feel a need to have all our views in these tricky areas totally sorted out, or we like to feel that we are right and most others these days are wrong, then we are not much different from old-fashioned religious Pharisees; we are into a form of human authoritarianism.

Expressive individualism:

This is the dominant view at the moment – the phrase comes from sociologist Robert Bellah.  The ultimate value and reference point is the feelings, desires and subjective experience of the individual.  Of course as a decent person I should bear in mind the feelings of others, not just of myself (a piece of morality borrowed from Jesus, funnily enough: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”).  But the main thing is to be true to yourself, to find the real You.  Popular songs and movies have been articulating this for years:

“Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, till you find your dream” – The sound of music.  Here is Elsa singing her beautiful song in Frozen:  she has now decided to go with individualism and be true to her feelings: “Let it go, let it go; can’t hold it back any more; let it go, let it go; turn away and slam the door!”  and “It’s time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through; no right, no wrong, no rules for me; I’m free!”  And from Hercules (another lovely song!):  “… I would go most anywhere to feel like I belong…. I would go most anywhere to find where I belong.”  In fact The Bard put it in Polonius’ mouth a long time ago, in Hamlet; near the end of a whole load of proverbial advice he says:
“This above all – to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”  (Act 1, scene 3)

With this worldview, the main thing, when it comes to my gender and sex life (besides not harming other people, especially others who have not consented to take part), is my feelings and desires; and for anyone, any institution, any book, any god, to come along and say No is just repressive, unloving, destructive of human flourishing.  The conclusion follows as night follows day.

Biblical Christianity:

Here the ultimate reference point is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – the true and living God who speaks in Scripture.  On major matters, at least, we can hear his voice.  We know he is good, wise, and holy, and that he’s not only made us but is our Owner, our Boss; we also know that he is our Lover in the sense that he loves us more than we can imagine and desires not only our good but also fellowship,  closeness, relationship, mutual enjoyment.

The “biblical” part here is important: it’s possible to pick up enough about Jesus of Nazareth to believe in him in some sincere way, and yet to regard the Bible as just the opinions of the early church community about God – and so a Christian can be to some extent an Expressive Individualist.  This is a way of hobbling rather than walking with the Lord.  So I am advocating the notion that God sent Jesus, and then Jesus sent his Spirit, and the Spirit guided the early believers in writing the New Testament (as well as affirming the Old Testament), such that it was the truth taught in the Bible that created the church in the first place (see events in Acts ch. 2 and following), not the church that created the Bible; and the church later simply recognised the voice of God speaking in these writings – it didn’t give them authority.

Unpacking biblical Christianity:

Four relevant things that God says in Scripture:

1. The good, eternal, absolute, loving Creator God made human beings in his image, in two forms or genders, and he continues to do so, assigning us our gender by means of biological sex from the womb – ordinarily.  Genesis 1:26-27.  And he gave us a physical and psychological capacity for sex and relationships as indicated in the second half of Genesis 2.  Thus our sex, gender and sexuality belong to God not to us.
2. Human beings have gone wrong, there has been a rebellion against God, so the whole race has been alienated from God, and this has resulted not only in certain physical problems but also and even more directly in moral and psychological problems.  We are all affected by this.  We are all messed up in every significant area of life, including sex.  We all have sexual sins (at least in the realm of thoughts and desires) and sexual problems.  We tend to desire too much or too little or at the wrong time or the wrong person, etc etc.
   This means that letting our feelings or desires determine our sexual practice is going to be a disaster quite a lot of the time.  Control, restraint, and abstinence is bound to be necessary, in a variety of ways, for everyone.  We don’t live in Paradise but in a fallen world, and for now we have “original sin.”
3. God has redeemed the world in Jesus Christ.  Believers in him are even now redeemed but it’s a process, and there will be continued tension, inner conflict and an ongoing need for restraint and repentance until we are in the perfect kingdom that’s coming.  The more we know and enjoy God’s love in Jesus now, the more we realise that sex and marriage now is not the big deal in life anyway.  It can be beautiful and wonderful, but it is mostly an anticipation of the eternal marriage of God’s people, the bride of Christ, with him, that will be consummated in the future.
4. God is good and trustworthy, yet we tend not to trust him but to think that the only really safe option, if we want true fulfilment, is to look after ourselves, to pursue individual autonomy.  This was the devil’s trick with the first humans in Genesis 3 – they fell into the mistake of thinking God was mean and did not desire their happiness.

Therefore, if it’s clear, for example, by an application of biblical teaching to my life, that God wants me to be celibate, I should trust God and know that’s good for me!  It was good enough for Jesus.

Putting some of this in terms of the vexed matter of identity: Our core identity doesn’t come from looking within or from our own feelings and desires (including our sexual orientation, so far as we can discern it at the moment), but from our relation to God as our Maker and Saviour; and once we are in Christ we have a fantastically positive identity in his secure love, as someone he is transforming from the inside out.