Fundraising for a UCCF Staff Worker in Cumbria

I'm up at the Keswick Convention this week, fund-raising for a UCCF Staff Worker to be placed in Cumbria from 2008. This is the latest stage in a wider project to fund the following worthy cause....


60,000 Higher Education and Further Education Students in Cumbria

The University of Cumbria will be formed in August 2007 from an amalgamation of St Martin’s College, Cumbria Institute of the Arts, and the Cumbrian campuses of the University of Central Lancashire. The university will have campuses in Carlisle, Penrith, Whitehaven, Ambleside and Lancaster as well as a specialist teacher-training centre in London.

The university will also have strong links with the four FE Colleges in Cumbria (Lakes College in Workington, Furness College, Carlisle College and Kendal College) and is working towards HE courses being delivered locally across the county.

Many of the young people set to study at the University of Cumbria will know little of Jesus. With the help and support of local churches, UCCF is committed to supporting the existing Christian Unions in Cumbria, whilst also working to establish a Christian witness on every campus of the University of Cumbria.

The vision

Carlisle. Carlisle already has a vibrant Christian Union, comprised of students from Cumbria Institute of the Arts and St Martin’s College (Carlisle campus). There are also many churches in Carlisle who are already supportive of the Christian Union. UCCF will continue to provide resources and support for the CU in Carlisle, and in May we appointed Ruth Craven as an Associate Staff Worker (part-time and unpaid) to give support to students in Carlisle, where needed.

Pray that once the University of Cumbria has been formed, the CU will continue to grow. Pray particularly that the CU will be able to better reach the Carlisle campus of the University of Central Lancashire. Pray too for Carlisle College that, with time, there could be a Christian witness on the FE campus, supported by the CU members from the university. CUs in other UK cities are using a ‘big brother little brother’ model, where larger CUs offer help and support to a small FE college CU in their locality.

Ambleside. There is already a thriving Christian Union in Ambleside, made up of about 18 students from the 850 strong campus of St Martin’s College. This CU has had another really encouraging year, with all the students showing a willingness to be involved with the CU activities and focused in their evangelism. They were able to hold a week-long mission last term, the highlight of which was a curry night that included a talk on John 3. Almost forty students came and many of the non-Christians were asking insightful questions afterwards. The CU has recently started a Monday night ‘Smoothie Bar’ and this has encouraged many non-Christian students to look into Jesus’ claims.

Pray that going forward, the CU members will continue to witness clearly and boldly to students at the Ambleside campus, and that UCCF staff will be able to continue supporting them.

Penrith. We'd love to see student-led CUs on all of the Cumbria campuses, including the University of Central Lancashire’s Newton Rigg campus in Penrith.

Pray that, as the Penrith campus is relatively large and currently has no known Christian witness, we will be able to work together to unite Christian students here, and that a Christian Union will be quickly established.

Workington, Whitehaven, Kendal and Barrow-in-Furness. We would love to pioneer FE College Christian Unions in these towns.

Please pray with us that God will be placing Christian students in the colleges, so that when a UCCF Staff Worker for Cumbria has been appointed they can help these Christians to form CUs.

How to realise the vision…

Staff Worker for Lancashire and Cumbria, Peter Dray, currently has six CUs to support, which means that he is not able to visit the two existing CUs in Cumbria frequently, and cannot even consider pioneering new CUs on Cumbrian campuses due to his large workload and the geographical spread of the area he covers.

Whilst we are grateful that Ruth Craven is able to spend the equivalent of a day per week supporting the CU in Carlisle, we feel that there is an urgent need to appoint a full-time Staff Worker for Cumbria from September 2008 (at the latest), who can work towards pioneering CUs on Cumbrian campuses, whilst also supporting the existing CUs in Carlisle and Ambleside.

To achieve this vision we need individuals and churches in Cumbria, especially those who are located near to the campuses, to commit to supporting the students in their area, helping them to live and speak for Jesus. We also need the right person to appoint as Staff Worker. Please do pray for these things.

If you would like further information, please contact Jema who would be happy to send you a brochure outlining in more detail the opportunities for gospel work amongst students in Cumbria.

Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered

Following a recommendation by a former church pastor, Stuart, I've been reading Athanasius' wonderful On the Incarnation, written in about 318AD and available in full online here.

I'll probably write more about Athanasius of Alexandria in days to come. However, I wanted to immediately share a fantastic extended quote. Here he is arguing for the destruction of death (in Chapter 5 Sections 29-31):

If you see with your own eyes men and women and children, even, welcoming death for the sake of Christ's religion, how can you be so utterly incredulous and maimed in your mind as not to realise that Christ, to Whom these all bear witness, Himself gives the victory to each, making death completely powerless for those who hold His faith and bear the sign of the cross? No one in his sense doubts that a snake is dead when he sees it trampled underfoot, especially when he knows how savage it used to be; nor, if he sees boys making fun of a lion, does he doubt that the brute is either dead or completely bereft of strength. These things can be seen with our own eyes, and it is the same with the conquest of death. Doubt no longer, then, when you see death mocked and scorned by those who believe in Christ, that by Christ death was destroyed, and the corruption that goes with it resolved and brought to an end.

[...]

If, as we have shown, death was destroyed and everybody tramples on it because of Christ, how much more did He Himself first trample and destroy it in His own body! Death having been slain by Him, then, what other issue could there be than the resurrection of His body and its open demonstration as the monument of His victory? How could the destruction of death have been manifested at all, had not the Lord's body been raised?

But if anyone finds even this insufficient, let him find proof of what has been said in present facts. Dead men cannot take effective action; their power of influence on others lasts only till the grave. Deeds and actions that energize others belong only to the living. Well, then, look at the facts in this case. The Saviour is working mightily among men, every day He is invisibly persuading numbers of people all over the world, both within and beyond the Greek-speaking world, to accept His faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face of this, still doubt that He has risen and lives, or rather that He is Himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences of men, so that they throw all the traditions of their fathers to the winds and bow down before the teaching of Christ? If He is no longer active in the world, as He must needs be if He is dead, how is it that He makes the living to cease from their activities, the adulterer from his adultery, the murderer from murdering, the unjust from avarice, while the profane and godless man becomes religious? If He did not rise, but is still dead, how is it that He routs and persecutes and overthrows the false gods, whom unbelievers think to be alive, and the evil spirits whom they worship? For where Christ is named, idolatry is destroyed and the fraud of evil spirits is exposed; indeed, no such spirit can endure that Name, but takes to flight on sound of it.

This is the work of One Who lives, not of one dead; and, more than that, it is the work of God. It would be absurd to say that the evil spirits whom He drives out and the idols which He destroys are alive, but that He Who drives out and destroys, and Whom they themselves acknowledge to be Son of God, is dead.

Like Peter in Acts 3-4, Athanasius could see that the acts of the risen Lord Jesus were proof of his victory. Oh that, like the believers that Athanasius wrote about, Christians today would grasp the extent and the magnitude of Jesus' victory! I was reminded as I read of Richard Dawkins' claim in The God Delusion that he couldn't really see heavenly-mindedness in the lives of Christians. Perhaps an exaggeration on his part but, oh, that we would be more heavenly-minded! Oh that we would know and live in the light of the fact that the last enemy, death, has been defeated by Christ!

I pray that my life might be an apologetic that could have been used by Athanasius to prove that Jesus is alive and active in his world.

Grace unmeasured

Had a great time at church this morning. There's one guy at church called Ken that I find it particularly stimulating to chat with.

This morning we had one of those meandering theological conversations - enjoying Jesus, enjoying the gospel. As part of our conversation, we were speaking on how grateful we are that John's Gospel contains Chapter 21, when Peter is reinstated by Jesus. The Gospel could have so easily finished without that final epilogue - yet it's presence illustrates so clearly that the Christian life and Christian leadership is built all upon grace.

Ken and I went on to chat about how the apostle John was evidently bowled over by grace. It shows in his Gospel and in his letters.

This ties in very closely with something I noticed as I've been working through the early chapters of Acts. I love Acts 8, where Peter and John go to see the new Samaritan believers. Only a few years earlier (Luke 9), John and James ask Jesus to call down fire on the Samaritans when he is rejected in a Samaritan town. But now, following Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension John is in Samaria, humbly welcoming in his former enemies as brothers. So sure is he that the gospel is for the Samaritans that he avoids returning to Jerusalem immediately but spends more time preaching the gospel throughout Samaria (Acts 8:25).

John's grasp of the grace he had been shown evidently saw him see the need to show grace to others. Perhaps John had the Samaritans in mind as he wrote this: 'This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.' (1 John 3:16)

Can we be certain about anything at all? (1)

I'm currently reworking a lunchbar I wrote a couple of years ago with the above title. As I've worked on it again, I've realised I need to do a bit more thinking in some areas. I want to write a mini-series of posts with my understanding of things so far, and I'd be happy to engage with what others think too.

In this first post, I want to briefly introduce the philosophical background to the question of certainty, and the recent increase in scepticism.

Whilst I think it's over-simplifying things to say that modern philosophy was more comfortable with the idea of certainty, it did have a more comfortable relationship with the idea of being certain than we do today. John Stuart Mill, for instance, wrote that, 'There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for purposes of human life.' The modern view of 'truth' was correlative to this position on certainty: it was generally assumed that truth existed and could be known.

This view of truth and certainty was eroded during the 20th Century, as continental postmodern philosophy increasingly developed. Ludwig Wittgenstein's book On Certainty, written shortly after the Second World war, was founded upon the premise that the way that we understand things depends on the context from which we see them. Each person is restricted in our view of the world by their embodied perspective. One postmodern theorist asked the question: what shape is a piece of A4 paper? His reply was: if you look at it one way, it is a very thin, straight line. Look at it from a different angle and it is a rectangle. It is your perspective that tells you what shape a piece of A4 paper is.

And it's not only that we can only be in any one place at any one time. Feminist and post-colonial writings have woken us up to the fact that the way in which we diagnose and understand any given thing or situation depends upon a whole series of elements and characteristics: one's period in history, thought world, personality, childhood, and so on. The way in which a humans understand things - even objects - are affected by whether, for instance, they are from Birmingham or Baghdad (see here for a posting on Jacques Derrida's work in this area). In other words, when you look at the world around you, you see it from within the horizons of your own world, and so do I, whether those horizons are linguistic, emotional, social, artistic, linguistic or whatever. Actually our perception of things are, at best, a limited or partial view of the truth.

Once we begin to grapple with these ideas, we see whether the postmodern attack on 'truth' is rooted. Indeed, theorist Jean Baudrillard said that it’s wrong to speak of 'truth' or 'facts' any more, but instead we should speak of ‘models of reality’. In addition, Foucault's work on power and knowledge led him to speak about a 'hermeneutic of suspicion': he argued that whenever someone is claiming to tell 'the truth' that they are trying to wield power over others. We're suspicious of the folks that phone us up to tell us 'the truth' about how they can cut our phone bills (often rightly, as we know there is a hidden agenda). Foucault calls us to be sceptical of all truth claims, because there is most likely more going on than just simple communication.

When we add the media to the mix, things get even more confusing! Baudrillardwrote extensively on the media. He argued that the modern media – including films, papers, TV and the internet – mediate the world to us in very powerful ways. It starts to become difficult to work our whether what is being presented is the real world, or merely someone else’s view of the world. In fact, Baudrillard famously claimed that we cannot possibly know whether world events such as the Gulf War actually ever occurred, because the only access we have to the events is mediated. Media inevitably give a partial and manipulated version of events. It’s impossible to know whether we are reacting on the basis of the real and [fairly] unmediated facts, or someone else’s version or manipulation of things. Again, we become our most sceptical when we think there’s power involved: “The government, or society [or whoever] wants me to believe this so that I will act in a certain way.” And we don’t like to think that we’re being manipulated in this way. We have lots and lots of information – but 'the truth' is obscured and considered by many to be unknowable. A number of books and films have picked up on these themes – books like Neuromancer by William Gibson, and films like The Matrix and Wag the Dog blur the boundaries between the real world and virtual reality. Perhaps the best recent example is The Truman Show – where the main character, Truman, lives in a totally artificial world - but has been unable to tell the difference for most of his life.

This view of the truth and spirit of scepticism has big implications: including for Christianity, our understanding of the Bible and for evangelism. In future posts, I'll pursue some of these areas.

Preaching penal substitution to abused people

Having read an entry on the Scripture coherence of the theories of the atonement, where I cited a recent article by Don Carson, I received an email from a friend of mine.

The email had lots of threads of thought, but one section of it has been particularly thought provoking. Here, my correspondent wrote the following: 'The ex-addicts and alcoholics who ask me about the Christian faith will not get a talk on penal substitution. Many of these guys have grown up in abusive households, beaten and punished by their own fathers, or are struggling with addiction. How would you describe the gospel to them? I'll leave you to think on that one.'

It's quite a challenge, isn't it? The clear line of thought in the email is that penal substitution is an idea abhorrent to anyone that has experienced any kind of abuse.

I've given some thought to this over the past couple of days, and here is what I think. I'd love to hear what you have to say.

(1) There are many ways of explaining the same gospel. This is obvious when we read the New Testament. Whilst the central nucleus - the 'kergyma' - of the gospel is the same, the way in which this message is articulated varies tremendously. One of the things that I have been learning over the past few years is that the gospel is far from one-dimension. I love the description of the gospel being like a tapestry, with many threads that stretch all of the way from Genesis to Revelation, all through the central point of Jesus' death and resurrection. So there are plenty of things that could be said to one who had been abused - Jesus came to make you whole (yes!), Jesus came to set you free from sin (yes!) - all these things are true, but they are only true because Jesus died as a wrath-bearing sacrifice in our place. We cannot, for instance, be freed from sin, until the righteous demands of the law due to our sin have been met.

(2) The Bible writers obviously did not think that this was a reason to avoid teaching penal substitution. One example will suffice. In his first letter, Peter addresses slaves and tells them to submit to their masters, 'not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh' (2:18). Suffering and harsh abuse were evidently part of what these slaves were experiencing (see 2:20). Yet in the same section (2:21-25), Peter goes on to show how Jesus' suffering is an example for their own suffering. Jesus 'bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness' (2:24). In fact, one of the themes of the whole letter is that Jesus' sufferings help us make sense of the unjust sufferings that we often face.

(3) Fundamentally, I think that this is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of penal substitution which shows a shortcomings in trinitarian theology. My correspondent implies that penal substitution shows God the Father to be abusive in his punishment - something utterly abhorrent.

This is often a way in which penal substitution is caricatured: the Father abuses the Son. I addressed this objection in my recent talk on Isaiah 53. I think this misunderstanding boils down to a wrong view of the nature of the Trinity in the Godhead. For in Isaiah 53, like elsewhere, we see that the suffering endured by the Son or (in Isaiah 53 langauge) the Servant is voluntary. Additionally, both Father and Servant can look back and be satisfied (Isaiah 53:11) at what the cross achieves. It's not that the Son hates the Father for his actions in punishing him at the cross: 'for the joy set before him, he endured the cross' (Hebrews 12:2).

Perhaps most tellingly the Bible rules out any understanding of the atonement that minimises the suffering of the Father (and, by implication, the Spirit) at the cross. Romans 5:8, for instance, says, 'But God [the Father] demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were sinners, Christ died for us.' Or 'this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins' (1 John 4:10). The point that both Paul and John are making is that the giving of the Son was costly to the Father - that's how we know what love is. The Father did not enjoy seeing the Son made sin. So let us dismiss any idea that the Son alone suffered at the cross. Both the Father and the Son suffered at the cross.

I think to an abused person I would want to say this: Did you know that you were loved this much? Did you know that you had a Father like this, that would endure this agony for you?

(4) We need to be careful in the language and the analogies that we use in explaining the gospel. I'm currently reading Pierced for our Trangressions, a great book (thus far) looking to 'rediscover the glory of penal substitution'. One of the appendices is entitled 'A personal note to preachers' and warns of the danger of caricaturing the Bible's teaching on atonement. Several talk illustrations make Jesus out to be 'the fall guy'. May we never use such illustrations.

I'd be interested to hear what others think on this. How would you address my friend's questions?

Book Review: 'The Living Church' (John Stott)

I think of all Christian leaders, teachers and theologians of the last 100 hundred years, John Stott has had more impact upon me as a Christian than any other.

This ministry to me has been both direct, through his books, through hearing him speak three times when I was a student in Bristol nearly six years ago and once through meeting him and getting to chat (when he tolerated a pasta bake we had made him for dinner!). Indirectly, I know I have benefited from his ministry too, as teachers and preachers who have been taught by Stott have in turn taught me.

The Living Church is John Stott's fiftieth book - and given his recent retirement from formal and public Christian ministry at the age of 86, I guess it might well be his last. In it, Stott look back at more than fifty years of experience in pastoral ministry, reflects on what he has learned about the church and sets a vision for the future. He longs to see 'radical conservative' churches: as he puts it, ''conservative' in the sense that they conserve what Scripture plainly requires, but 'radical' in relation to that combination of tradition and convention that we call 'culture'. Scripture is unchangeable, culture is not.'

Albeit with caveats that the early church wasn't perfect, as we so often romanticise it, Stott sees the description of the Jerusalem church in Acts 2:42-47 as showing four marks of a Spirit-filled church with serves as a model for churches today. These marks learning through the Biblical teaching of the apostles, sharing in generous fellowship, worshipping together (both formally and informally) and evangelising: compassionately taking the gospel message to the world. The rest of the book unpacks these further, and also includes chapters on church leadership, preaching, giving and community involvement.

Before sitting down to read this book, I'd not read any Stott in quite some while. What I was immediately reminded of is the complete sharpness with which he writes, often conveying quite difficult ideas simply. The chapters are easy to follow and structured for memorability. And the other thing to strike me from this book is the pastoral and authentic heart that John Stott has. He will not, for instance, be drawn into silly arguments like the evangelism - social action dichotomy, but simply says that a church that loves after Jesus will seek to do both. Unlike many other writers (and particularly many of those who write on the subject of the church), love shines through each page as the principle characteristic of the church, on which all of the others are built. And I have to say I loved the way in which Stott mixes theology with reflections on his own experiences, and shares pitfalls and dangers he's experienced in his own leadership.

Much of what I read was neither new nor surprising. What Stott brings to the plethora of books on this issue is a wonderful godly-hearted emphasis, which will affirm many of its readers.

If I was to nit-pick, then I might note that much of the content of this book has evidently been 'recycled' from previous material. The chapter on giving has been published elsewhere, and the material on preaching is more widely available too. In addition, I think Stott is more comfortable operating in a 'modernist' mindset than the more 'postmodern' worldview that characterises much of society today (and why shouldn't he, as an octogenarian?!).

Yet this book is still valuable. It represents the wisdom of a man who has stood firm for the gospel, and sought to preach God's word, both in season and out of season. It deserves to be read by young church pastors and those, like me, who might one day find themselves in church leadership. Upon finishing the book, I decided to send it to a friend of mine who is just cutting his teeth in local church ministry. I don't think it will radically change his view on either church or his own ministry, but I hope that upon reading it, he might be inspired to keep going as a 'conservative radical'.

I'll close with one of my favourite quotes from the book, where following a section on 'shepherding the sheep' from Acts 20:18-27, Stott reminds church pastors that it is God's church that they are pastoring:

'We should refer to God's church to which we have been called to serve. This truth should not only humble us but also inspire us, and particularly motivate us to the loving care of God's people. We need this incentive, for sheep are not all the clean and cuddly creatures they look from a distance. On the contrary, they are dirty and subject to nasty pests. They need to be regularly dipped in strong chemical to rid them of lice, ticks and worms. They are also unintelligent and obstinate. I hesitate to apply the metaphor too literally, or describe the people of God as 'dirty, lousy and stupid'! But some church members can be a great trial to their pastors, and vice versa. So how shall we persevere in loving the unlovable? Only, I think, by remembering how previous they are. They are so valuable that the three persons of the Trinity are together in caring for them. I find it very challenging, when trying to help a difficult person, to say under my breath: 'How precious you are in God's sight! God the Father loves you. Christ died for you. The Holy Spirit has appointed me as your pastor. As the three persons of the Trinity are committed to your welfare, it is a privilege for me to serve you.''

48,855

The total number of undergraduates that will be studying at the campuses on which I work next term according to official figures.

I've been reflecting on this number over the past few days. I find it daunting. It's bigger than the whole population of Lancaster, and nearly twice the population of Kendal. It's more people than you could jam into Anfield. And many of them are very lost.

Most of those people I will never meet. Many might not even meet a Christian. Total CU attendance across the campuses is about 300. And yet for many of the forty eight thousand, possibly the best chance that they will get to hear the gospel in a way that is meaningful is during their time at university.

Do please pray for the CUs up here, particularly as they put the finishing touches to Freshers' Week outreach. Pray that they will be salt and light amongst the thousands.