7:00 – 9:30pm, Laidlaw College – Auckland Campus,

80 Central Park Drive, Henderson, Waitakere

Heaven and Earth: Where are we going? Does it matter?

We are excited by the opportunity we have to introduce you to some of the new faces at College. This group includes Dr Martin Sutherland (Vice Principal Academic) . . . → Read More: wineskins at laidlaw]]> Monday nights, 1, 8, 15, 22 September 2008

7:00 – 9:30pm, Laidlaw College – Auckland Campus,

80 Central Park Drive, Henderson, Waitakere

Heaven and Earth: Where are we going? Does it matter?

We are excited by the opportunity we have to introduce you to some of the new faces at College. This group includes Dr Martin Sutherland (Vice Principal Academic) and the Heads of School Dr David Williams (Counselling), Dr Rod Thompson (Theology), and Dr Meredith Wheeler (Mission and Ministry). They will all be taking part in the series alongside Mark Strom.

Hopefully, there will be discussion over the talks over at http://wineskinreview.blogspot.com

The author/composer/poet/community which produced the text we know of as Genesis 1 observed many things. Just one of these is the uniqueness of humans in relation to our environment.

Day and night, earth and sky, sea and land, vegetation, and fruits, creatures great and tiny, both in the sea and on land…

I think we both left having heard little or nothing we hadn’t heard before, but nonetheless having enjoyed watching it all unfold.

What follows is not a full, detailed review . . . → Read More: craig cooke debate: impressions]]> With expectations low (but not low enough to keep us away!), Damian and I headed to the debate  (link to series here) tonight between William Lane Craig and Bill Cooke.

I think we both left having heard little or nothing we hadn’t heard before, but nonetheless having enjoyed watching it all unfold.

What follows is not a full, detailed review of the debate, but (in all truthfulness) rather various impressions I’ll share (on my way to bed)…

-Damian and I both were disappointed that Cooke did not engage (he honestly did not engage at all) with Craig’s points for the existence of God (which were anything but new or original). Regardless of how strong one feels these points were (or are), a significant expectation of the debate was engagement regarding the existence of God. The lack of such engagement was a surprise to say the least. Craig hammered away (the repetition was… well… repetitive) on his 5 points, while Cooke mainly attacked what he perceived to be Craig’s version of evangelical Christian faith.

-The debate was well attended. The original room was changed to another one, which filled quickly (we ‘estimated’ 400-ish capacity), and then two (or was it three?) subsequent rooms were opened and linked via video. I don’t know if that says much about the reputation/popularity of the debaters, the topic, or something else…

-The moderator was good. He had a generous, but practical style. He summarised the after-questions nicely; and let’s not forget that wonderful ‘mouse/rat’ squeaky thing he used as a time warning…

-Good on the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists for promising to put it on YouTube. (link here)

-Just a tip to zealous, eager evangelical Christians: Don’t use the after-question time at a debate to offer an atheist debater the chance to accept Jesus into his heart…

-off to bed now… impressions from other attendees???

People are scared about the growth of Christianity because they . . . → Read More: good news for all the people]]> If only people in general –and Christians in particular– could grasp just a few key things that makes Jesus who He is… then I’m convinced not only that Christianity would have a better reputation, but –even further– those who aren’t Christians might be far less against the growth of Christianity…

People are scared about the growth of Christianity because they (often) think (and not without reason to) that this could eventually lead to a Christian state. All those voting Christians, voting in all those ‘religious’ laws, taking away our freedom, taking away our shopping on Sunday, etc. Many Christians are not at all hesitant to affirm that this is, in fact, precisely what they are working toward…

Now, this post is not directly about how Christians should relate to politics, but it does relate. I am convinced that the Christian faith is to be lived out in the public world, and not simply in private. However, the question is: “What does this look like?”

For many Christians, the technique seems to be to work for change by attempting to secure a place of influence and power and then use that to implement the changes they want – in a kind of ‘top-down’ way. Whether it be in a school, a community, a marriage, a work-place, a state or even a nation, they seek to play the ‘power game’ and ‘win’ for Jesus. The more power and influence, the better. This is their way of working to bring the Kingdom ‘on earth as it is in heaven’, and it makes many people nervous (including me at times!)…

Other times, the approach is to work for change by withdrawing from all things you think are wrong, and build your own version of them. Whether it be in music, bookstores, political parties, schools, greeting cards (or other places where the word ‘christian’ become an adjective), the strategy is: withdraw and build a ‘christian’ version. If you can’t secure the world’s places of power, and bring the Kingdom here, build your own ‘Christian’ thing and make it powerful somewhere else (and then try to attract others to it)… This approach also makes people nervous (including me)…

So how is it supposed to be done?

My answer would be: like Jesus and the Apostles did it…

First a quick summary of the setting: For centuries, the Jews had lived under the rule of one empire or another; Persian, Egyptian, Greek and finally Roman. This was –to put it lightly– not enjoyable. There was a reason Romans were good at crucifixion. It was their brutal answer to anyone who would resist their rule.

Now then, Jesus was a Jew, and he had several types to choose from in his day. For some Jews, the Essenes, (probably the community behind the texts found at Qumran – the Dead Sea Scrolls) the response to Roman oppression was to escape out to the hills and start an alternate community. Many other Jews before (and after) Jesus knew how to revolt. The Maccabean Revolt had won them freedom from the Persians, and many Jews of Jesus time (they were later called ‘Zealots’) were more than ready to do the same with the Romans. Matter of fact, Jewish hope for a ‘Messiah’ figure was precisely to do with a leader who would lead such a charge.

Jesus, however, was not that kind of a Messiah.

He wasn’t building that kind of kingdom.

Make no mistake, the kingdom was most certainly not some private thing to be lived out by private prayer rituals and scripture reading. It was indeed a public thing. And it also certainly wasn’t some compromise with the Roman way of life. The early Christians hailed Jesus as Lord (Greek – ‘kyrios’) instead of Caesar.

For the early Christians, the kingdom of God coming ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ meant being an alternative community which cared for those the Roman system neglected (the poor, the sick, slaves, abandoned pregnant women, etc.). A community in which –in the shadow of an Empire built on rank and status– all were equal, whether Jew or not (Gentile), slave or free-born, male or female.

It was not political maneuvering.

It was not power-grabbing attempts to take ‘control’.

It was the power of embodied love.

Most places in the world I know about, and most times I’ve heard of, that sounds like good news to most everyone I know…

For some, ‘heaven’ is simply a warm, fuzzy, good, old-fashioned or positive feeling they get when things happen to be going their way. Many others define ‘heaven’ in ways that are not unlike the Greek/Roman idea of the ‘after-life’ – in which your ghostly ‘soul’ floats away on a cloud.

Not only am . . . → Read More: the heavenly reality]]> “Heaven.” What a mis-understood word this is!

For some, ‘heaven’ is simply a warm, fuzzy, good, old-fashioned or positive feeling they get when things happen to be going their way. Many others define ‘heaven’ in ways that are not unlike the Greek/Roman idea of the ‘after-life’ – in which your ghostly ‘soul’ floats away on a cloud.

Not only am I nervous about several overly definitive Christian definitions of ‘heaven’, (as if we could know exactly what it is like!) I’m also nervous that we may often mix one or both of the above ideas with the ideas we get from the Bible.

The promise of eternal life for God’s people is clear, but the Bible was not written to give us a encyclopedic definition of it. Rather than that, we are given pictures, glimpses and/or images of what it is. The biblical ‘heaven’ is more lasting than a fleeting ‘shot in the arm’ of cheerful glee, and infinitely more real than your soul flying around in a dis-embodied realm of clouds.

Heaven is the place where God is. It is not sitting at the far corner of the universe, but rather, a completely different dimension altogether. What seems to separate heaven and earth is not light-years of distance in space (or whatever), but rather the current condition of earth and it’s inhabitants. Even still, God’s dimension ‘breaks out’ onto ours in various ways. Heaven breaking out onto earth, is like God’s space ‘overlapping’ with ours. Dwelling with His people in the tabernacle, behind the veil in the Temple and now in our ‘hearts’ by His Spirit are all examples of this.

Now, God’s space wasn’t intended to merely overlap with ours. God’s intention was to ‘share’ His ‘space’ with His image-bearing creatures – us (think Garden of Eden). Human rebellion and degradation has distorted the image of God, and has left us (along with the entire universe) in dire need of restoration of that image.

This is where it get’s exciting…

Christ came (Himself a perfect expression of heaven and earth – God and man) and fulfilled what it meant to be the Image of God. His death defeated the power of evil, and His resurrected body is the ‘first-fruits’ of God’s restored order of being! God’s New Creation has begun! The reality of heaven has burst onto the scene, and it looks, feels and sounds like Jesus!

Indeed, the Christian hope of Heaven is not having spots of ecstatic bliss, and not soul-soaring in the sky. It is sharing God’s life in a New Heaven and New Earth that has been resurrected, re-made, re-built and restored to God’s intention.

That day is sure to come, but we don’t have to sit on our bums and wait for it to come. Jesus begs us to pray that Day (even just a grain of it!) into Today. “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.“ Every good deed we do in Jesus name and in the power of the Spirit (and only by His Spirit, thank you very much) is a fresh work of New Creation that is not in vain (1 Cor. 15 – end of chapter).