random | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

A Fresh Look At Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Last night, Roy and I watched a PBS DVD on Martin Luther. Excellent.

I don’t know when we have last had to pause a documentary because we were laughing so hard. We found the comments of the scholars hilarious.

The documentary goes through Luther’s childhood with unloving, lower middle class, but ambitious upwardly mobile parents who wanted him to become a lawyer to fulfil their dreams for him.

Portrait of Martin Luther’s parents of Lucas Cranach

After a dramatic conversion, during a lightning storm, he commits his life to God. (Good move!) “My father raged and acted like a fool. How was he to know that one monk in the family would bring him more fame and shame than a thousand advocates.” Luther writes.

Luther then joins one of the strictest monastic orders in Europe, the Eremite Augustinians of Strict Observance

Luther did whatever he did 110%. (That must be the secret of the people who accomplish several lifetimes’ work in one.)

And so he throws himself in a regimen of praying, fasting, confessions, whippings, watchings. He says, “If ever a man could be saved by monkery, it would have been I. If I had continued any longer, I would have killed myself” He later blamed his ascetic practices for permanently ruining his health.

He is disgusted by the worldliness, extravagance and cynicism, he sees on a trip to Rome as a young monk, and for the first time starts doubting Catholic teachings–in particular, the buying of indulgences to rescue a soul from purgatory.

The floodgates of doubt open. “Who knows if it is really so,” he wonders.
* * *

Excessive introspection and obsession with his own sinfulness was ruining his mental, spiritual and physical health. He heart-breakingly writes, “I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailor and hangman of my poor soul.”

Luther went to confession to his superior, Von Staupitz as many as twenty times a day, spending up to six hours a day on the practice. He wrote, “I was myself more than once driven to the very depths of despair so that I wished I had never been created. Love God? I hated him!”

Von Staupitz appointed the young monk Professor of Bible Studies in the new university of Wittenberg, hoping it would provide a distraction from Luther’s recurrent theological brooding and devastating introspection.

Johann Von Staupitz

Luther horrified declared that so much work would kill him. To which Von Staupitz replied, “Quite all right, God has plenty of work for clever men in heaven.”

Von Staupitz’s plan, modern scholars say, was that Luther would be so shattered that he would no more time for guilt and introspected, and would collapse and sleep soundly.

Work always operated on Luther as Prozac.

In this case, studying scripture shows Luther that the Catholic church taught much that simply wasn’t so.

* * *

He realized: This whole thing is not about you and the church. It’s about you and God.

Salvation is a gift from God, a gift received through faith. The church has no right to intervene or interfere.

To receive salvation, you simply put out your empty, open hands and receive this gift which God wants you to receive.

Once Luther realized that the spiritual life and salvation is a matter between God and the individual he said, “I felt myself to have been born again, and to have passed through open doors to heaven already.”

We all need to come to this realization, and when we come to it, there is a great revitalization of our spiritual lives, and fresh joy and peace.

The church should never take the place of Christ as the protagonist of the central drama of our spiritual lives. If/when it does, our faith is fair on the way to becoming toxic.

* * *

And so, in accessible language, Luther writes the 95 Theses, the blog posts of the day. He attacks the Church’s excesses, in particular, its greed in the sale of indulgences.

If he had attacked their theology, they may well have ignored him. But he got them where it hurt–he encouraged people not to give it their money.

Big business! A typical market day scene in Germany before the Reformation.

Big Business–The Catholic Church of Luther’s Day.

Rome, predictably, was infuriated.

“I never thought that such a story would rise from Rome over one little scrap of paper! ” Luther wrote.
* * *

For Martin Luther, the mounting fury of the Catholic church inspired not doubt and fear, but an extraordinary courage that would only grow stronger with every attack he faced.

He had the strong idea that if the Christian life was lived authentically, then you must expect to suffer.

Luther seized the criticism of him almost as a confirmation of his vocation as a reformer. The more the church tried to silence Luther, the more he became convinced that he had a vocation which needed to be seen through.

Despite the Papal Bull of excommunication, despite the fact that his life would be in danger if he fell into the hands of the Catholic Church, Luther continued with his attacks on it.

“I decided to believe freely and to slave to the authority of no one , whether council, university or pope. I was bound not only to assert the truth but to defend it with my blood and death,” he wrote.

He had an extraordinary combination of high idealism, resolve in the single-minded pursuit of an ideal, and naivete!!
* * *

Luther squared up to the church with a style of opposition it had never encountered before, a surprisingly modern style of opposition.

He discovered a new and powerful weapon on his side–the printing press. For movements to spead, their ideas needed to spread.

The printing press invented in Germany by Gutenberg 30 years before the birth of Luther was to Luther’s day what the internet is to our day. It meant that ideas could travel. They could not be stopped.

As the presses spread his 95 Theses throughout Germany, Luther watched and realized that they could provide him with a vast new audience.

He next wrote, “An Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,” a devastating attack on the pope and the church.

“German money in violation of nature flies across the Alps.”

He attacked the number of secretaries the pope had provided by German tithes (a criticism which could be levelled at some of the princelings of our modern churches).

Luther wrote, “I was not trying to get praise and fame through my writings and little books for almost everyone I knew condemned my harsh and stinging tone.”
* * *

Alistair Macgrath—”He wrote very well, he wrote very wittily, he wrote very rudely. Many people found themselves fascinated with this man who would use such crude language when arguing with the Pope and with the church.

Luther says, “If Rome is not a brothel above all brothels one can imagine, then I do not know what brothel means.”

“The pope should stand up like the stinking sinner he is.”

“The pope should restrain himself and get his fingers out of the pie.”

The scholars on the programme comment “He’s savvy; he’s grown up among books and writing from a young age; he’s good at instinctively sensing what words and arguments will work best for whom.”

“He is an incredible writer. He uses earthy ordinary language; he’s just fun to read out loud; he’s sarcastic, he’s witty, he’s profound. If you get attacked by Luther, you are just torn up one side, and down the other.”

Luther next writes, “On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” an attack on Catholic sacraments. If you are going to build, you sometimes have to demolish and this was a work of considerable destructive harshnbess

Luther started something that snowballed throughout Germany.
* * *

Luther was summoned before the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V at the famous Diet of Worms. Cardinal Aleander, representing the Pope, showed Luther a pile of his books, and asked him if he wrote them, and was willing to recant. Interestingly, for he was just a human being after all, and one potentially facing death at the hands of an unjust institution, he asks for 24 hours to consider his response. Which is famous.

Luther at the Diet of Worms

“I do not accept the authority of Popes and councils for they have often erred and contradicted themselves. I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive only to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything for to go against my conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”

One of history’s greatest declarations of exhausted defiance!!

Luther’s statement marks the dawn of a new era, the ordinary person standing up against authority.

It’s a grand moment when an individual ends up standing for something much larger than himself.

He fully expects that the Church will sentence him to death as a heretic, as it did the Czech reformer, Jan Hus (who also appeared at a Council under a guarantee of safe conduct). However, the vote is inconclusive. Luther is free, though his life is in danger from the Catholic church, which combined spiritual, administrative and judicial authority (a dangerous situation).

Luther’s patron, Elector Friedrich the Wise now “kidnaps” Luther–using masked horseman– and spirits him away to Wartburg Castle, where he lives anonymously and quietly, hidden away from the world.

Going from the peaks of glory, attention and notoriety to anonymity and invisibility is a frequent Christian experience.

So Luther goes from the drama and intense experience, the elation and energy of the Diet of Worms to a solitary existence hidden in the Wartburg Castle. He regresses into depression, despair and anguish, introspection and melancholy, and had a strong sense that the devil was tormenting him.

And yet again, he snapped out of depression by using the Prozac which had worked in the past: Work.

He threw himself into one of his greatest enterprises yet–a translation of the Bible into German, thus making scripture accessible to the common man.
* * *

And while he was in the Wartburg, Germany’s Peasant Revolts commenced, sparked by Luther’s ideas and writings. Luther was horrified as he saw the destruction the reformation entailed. His ideas turned out to be more radical than he had realized.

Disappointly, he does not support the revolting peasants, but attacks them in vicious prose.

“I simply taught, preached and wrote God’s word. I opposed indulgences and papists, but never with force,” he wrote.
* * *

Concluding comments from the scholars on the program:

Luther’s story reminds us of the power of individual charisma, charisma which can travel on the written page.

Luther is an elementary force, embodied in language, offering a vision of salvation which is liberating, which resonates, which seems real to so many people. Once you see it that way, you can’t see the world differently.

Luther is irrepressible, he is outrageous, he is witty, and very funny.

He held onto his sense of rage, and his ear for a good phrase. He remained devoted to his principles, and to speaking out.

“When I die, I want to be a ghost, so that I continue to pester the bishops, priests and godless monks so that they can have more trouble with a dead Luther than they had before with a thousand living ones,” Luther wrote.

(An archive post)

Training for a race. The Paradox Project #3

By Anita Mathias

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Okay, I had decided to get fit, and then relaxed on holiday, and was ill with a bad cough all week.

I think I need an inciting event, in Don Miller’s language to keep focused on strength and fitness, so have decided to sign up for a run with my family.

And I am doing the Couch to 5K program, and Roy has decided to run with me.

We are using this iPhone app http://splendid-things.co.uk/getrunning/.

Today was our first run, and, actually, it was strenuous for me, and easy-peasy for Roy.

The next run is on Sunday, and we are going to run as a family.

I actually love running, once I get going, as I love swimming, tennis, yoga, dance,and weight-lifting.

The operative word is get going. I prefer lolling around and thinking, reading or writing to be honest!

But running should help me build some muscle which will be great!!

The Very Worst Part of Christian or Spiritual Blogging

By Anita Mathias

The Very Worst Part of Christian or Spiritual Blogging

It’s when you mess up in real life. And you’re cross with your husband. And you feel you should be doing something about your 12 year old’s room. Though she is 12. And your 17 year old’s room, and her maelstrom of barely made or just missed deadlines. And the house…the house could always do with more sorting and decluttering, and other holy but actually mind-numbing, spirit-crushing activity. At least that what those things feel like today.

· * *

Okay, duties, responsibilities. And what are you going to do about them?

You are going to fulfil commitment to blog daily?

Really, oh Christian mum?

* * *

And you feel a failure as a Christian, and you are going to write your Christian blog? Really?

* * *

So what am I to write about, when I acutely feel the gap between what I should be, and what I am?

* * *

Grace, that is all I can write about.

That God loves me anyway. That this love is not dependent on the unfolded clothes (which I had Roy dump off the armchair onto the rug so that I could not see them as I type). It’s not dependent on being a sweet mama or a lunch fixing mama, though there is nothing wrong with those either.

It’s a love whose hugeness and enormity I am just realizing. And when I do, it staggers me.

A just-because love.

Just because I make him smile.

Just because he likes me.

Just because I love him. Though he loved me before I did, and loves me on the days when I run on my own little Triple A batteries, rather than on the nuclear energy of his power.

God smiles when he sees me, and that makes me smile too.

God loves me.

That is all when can write about on how can a wretch like me blog? days.

* * *

And here’s a little vignette from my day. I get the girls to school, less motivated than they are because their school starts at 8.40, and my Bible study, on the same road as their school, is at 9 a.m.

“We’re going to be late,” the younger one chirps up, predictably, every five minutes. And then we near Oxford High School, where the girls, even in uniform, dress like models. Long, loose, silky, beautifully styled hair, which tells of lengthy encounters with blowdriers, mousse, sprays.

And my girls? Well, they are tomboys, as I was. They read or are on the computer until Roy says, “Girls, to the car.” They begin to comb their short hair when school is in sight.

I glance back. Sure enough, neither girl has begun to comb her hair.

“Children,” I say, “Look at all these beautifully and immaculately presented girls. It makes me sad that you never comb your hair until you’re at the school gates.”

And we see super-mums lean out of their super-vans, and hand super lunches to their super kids.

“Mum,” says Zoe, 17. “It makes me sad that you never pack my lunch.”

Lunch? Lunch? “What have you taken, Zoe?”

She shows us two gigantic carrots, one tub of hummus, and two apples.

“That’s not enough, Zoe.” We pass her money. “Why didn’t you take more?”

“Couldn’t be bothered,” she says.

* * *

So my mind plays on that over the Bible study. Have we been well and truly negligent? Was there really no food in the refrigerator?

I come back and look. We’d had a bunch of Zoe’s classmates over for dinner on Sunday, had over-catered. Roy had frozen the food, and now it was all defrosted and ready for a second banquet. Pullao rice, and naan bread, and chicken tikka masala, and chicken korma, and lamb pasanda and beef balti and a chickpea curry.

And yet, even with a microwave in her sixth form common-room, she chose to go to school with two large carrots, 2 apples and a tub of hummus.

· * *

There’s a moral in there, somewhere… It’s not just that I am letting myself off the hook of bad mother guilt.

Isaiah 55: 1Ho, every one that thirsteth,

come ye to the waters,

and he that hath no money;

come ye, buy, and eat;

yea, come, buy wine and milk

without money and without price.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

or “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Jeremiah 2:13.

Spring of living water. That’s indeed what my thirsty soul wants. Free, and for the asking. Thank you!

The Most Important Insight of the Most Important Theologian of the Twentieth Century

By Anita Mathias

When Karl Barth visited America for the first and only time in 1962, he was asked how he would summarise the millions of words he had published. He thought for a moment, and replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.”

* * *

More on Karl Barth from Christian History

“The gospel is not a truth among other truths. Rather, it sets a question mark against all truths.” Karl Barth.

Barth, dismayed with the moral weakness of liberal theology, plunged into a study of the Bible, especially Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. He also visited Moravian preacher Christoph Frederick Blumhardt and came away with an overwhelming conviction about the victorious reality of Christ’s resurrection—which deeply influenced his theology.

Out of this emerged his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (1919). He sounded themes that had been muted in liberal theology. Liberal theology had domesticated God into the patron saint of human institutions and values. Instead, Barth wrote of the “crisis,” that is, God’s judgment under which all the world stood; he pounded on the theme of God’s absolute sovereignty, of his complete freedom in initiating his revelation in Jesus Christ.

The first of six heavily revised editions followed in 1922. It rocked the theological community. Barth later wrote, “As I look back upon my course, I seem to myself as one who, ascending the dark staircase of a church tower and trying to steady himself, reached for the banister, but got hold of the bell rope instead. To his horror he had then to listen to what the great bell had sounded over him and not over him alone.

In 1931 he began the first book of his massive Church Dogmatics. It grew year by year out of his class lectures; though incomplete, it eventually filled four volumes in 12 parts, printed with 500 to 700 pages each. Many pastors in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, desperate for an antidote to liberalism, eagerly awaited the publication of each book.

Though Barth made it possible for theologians again to take the Bible seriously, American evangelicals have been skeptical of Barth because he refused to consider the written Word “infallible” (he believed only Jesus was). Nonetheless, he remains the most important theologian of the twentieth century.

Streams of Living Water

By Anita Mathias

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I read this in the blog of a new blogger yesterday, who has two blog followers, one of whom is me.

“I also received an image of the floodgates being opened and an outpouring of waters. A really big outpouring of water, almost a welling up of water . I have never had an image before. I hope to offer it to those for whom it may have meaning.”

And, as this was what I was praying for in Devon, guess whom I thought it was meant for?

Sorry, will try not to go all mystical on you, but this morning, this lovely passage from Scripture came to me. I knew it by heart, having memorised it as a novice at Mother Teresa’s Convent when I was 17.

1Ho, every one that thirsteth,

come ye to the waters,

and he that hath no money;

come ye, buy, and eat;

yea, come, buy wine and milk

without money and without price.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

I meditating on this passage this morning, and then looked at my watch and was horrified. I had been doing so for 2 hours and 15 minutes! Very happy hours and minutes, but it just did not feel that long. And it was like an encounter with an old friend, as I felt waves of the Holy Spirit filling me again, making me laugh with joy.

And why did God pour out his goodness today? For no reason, just as the passage said. Just because. Just because I came. And he gave a sense of joy and waves of his Spirit, indeed “delighting my soul as with the richest of fare.” So much so that I could just laugh with happiness, and did (since I was alone).

I love these metaphors of streams of living water in Scripture, and I guess they had even more meaning to those who dwelt in a hot and thirsty land.

And here are a few of my favourite passages which have the same metaphor, and I joyously meditated on some of them this morning.

Ezekiel 47 Where the water from the sanctuary ” enters the Dead Sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. ⁹ Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish.¹² Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

John 4 ³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Isn’t that a lovely, lovely image?

John 7: 37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

Or this

^{John 6 :5} Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.

And finally

⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”

I really truly believe that our deepest, realest joy is found in God. It’s odd isn’t it that we go to him so infrequently to drink deep of these streams of living water.

Closing with two songs which I have been singing today.

(Sorry, this comes with a 30 sec ad. added by its creator, not me.)

ortega_music” target=”_blank”>Give Me Jesus by Fernando Ortega by Elqayam

Ho, Everyone that thirsteth.

I hope to offer it to those for whom it may have meaning.

Inerrancy and Me

By Anita Mathias

I was born into a Catholic family, and so was a Catholic for a couple of decades, including 8 years in a strict boarding school, St. Mary’s Convent, Nainital, run by German and Irish nuns in the Himalayas. And 14 months as a novice at Mother Teresa’s Convent.

And Catholics believed in Biblical inerrancy, and, well, so did I.

* * *

Faith faded out of my life for about 5 years as a undergraduate in Oxford, and Creative Writing Masters and Ph.D student in America.

When it made its joyful re-entry, Roy and I attended John Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where we lived.

Southern Baptists believe in Biblical inerrancy, and well, so did I.

Trouble is, they didn’t believe quite the same things as the Catholics did.

* * *

Well, then we moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, and attended the massive, wonderful and non-denominational Williamsburg Community Chapel. It welcomed Christians from all denominations and none. They had a theological position on millenarianism. They were pan-millenarist. They believed it would all pan out. (No, I am not joking, though they of course, were joking in earnest.)

They did, however, believe in Biblical inerrancy. And, well, so did I.

Trouble is, they didn’t believe quite the same thing as the Catholics or the Baptists.

* * *

And then, we moved to England in 2004, and I attended St. Aldate’s Church, Oxford. Not a happy church experience for me, but it taught me to wade in the vast deeps of the Holy Spirit, and for that I am grateful.

St. Aldate’s is an Anglican, Evangelical, Charismatic Church. It believed in Biblical inerrancy. And well, so did I.

Trouble is, it didn’t believe quite the same thing as the Catholics, Baptists, and Non-denominational Christians.

* * *

After 6.5 years at Aldate’s, I made the brilliant and fortunate decision to leave. We are now at St. Andrew’s, Oxford, an Anglican, Evangelical church which has excellent, serious, meaty small group Bible studies.

As far as I can gather, St. Andrew’s permits a “free vote” on the Holy Spirit. In one of the two wonderful small groups, I attend, people talk about speaking in tongues. But we recently lunched with a brilliant, theologically minded friend from Andrew’s. “Have you been baptised in the Holy Spirit?” I asked. (You know, the kind of polite lunch time conversation well-bred English people indulge in… Not!). He looked hard at me. “I received the Holy Spirit when I was baptised,” he said. Okaaaaaay.

But St. Andrew’s believes in Biblical inerrancy. And well, so do I.

The trouble is…. Well, you get the idea.

* * *

And then, I became a blogger, and met liberal Christians who did not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.

Not at all.

Heavens! So what’s a poor girl who is theologically self-taught to do?

* * *

Should I pick and choose, and decide what was inspired by God, and which statements were, so to say, garbled in the transmission, the writer getting the word and intention of God all wrong?

Become a one-woman Jesus seminar, so to say?

* * *

Roy and I have planted a massive, massive vegetable garden (yeah, we don’t do anything by half-measures) and digging in it gives me great time and space for theological thinking. I highly recommend it. (Actually, I highly recommend digging in mine, if you have time, since we’ve bitten off more than we can chew:)

And so, I dug and weeded and watered and pondered inerrancy.

And I thought of the Christians I’ve met, who appeared to be happy, joyous, assured, and inspiring. I thought of John Piper, whose church we had worshipped in when we lived in Minneapolis; Dick Woodward, whose church we had worshipped in when we lived in Virginia; and my good friend, Paul Miller, founder of seeJesus.net and World Harvest Mission.

And I thought of Billy Graham.

Then I thought of Christians I knew who did not believe in inerrancy. And I decided whom I wanted to be like when I grew up.

* * *

A leap of faith. That is what putting your faith in the Word is.

For Billy Graham, it was life-changing. As it will be for anyone.

Here Billy tells the remarkable story of how settling this point changed his life.

In the summer of 1949, my team and I were preparing for the most intensive evangelistic mission we had ever attempted, a citywide outreach in Los Angeles, California.

Just weeks before the mission was to start, however, I experienced a major crisis of faith—the most intense of my life. Some months before, Charles Templeton, a fellow evangelist whom I respected greatly had begun to express doubts about the Bible, urging me to “face facts” and change my belief that the Bible was the inspired Word of God. “Billy,” he said, “you’re fifty years out-of-date. People no longer accept the Bible as being inspired the way you do. Your faith is too simple.” I knew from my own reading that some modern theologians shared his views.

For months doubts about the Bible swirled through my mind, finally coming to a boil during a conference at which I was speaking in the mountains east of Los Angeles. One night, alone in my cabin at the conference, I studied carefully what the Bible said about its divine origin. I recalled that the prophets clearly believed they were speaking God’s Word; they used the phrase “Thus says the Lord” (or similar words) hundreds of times. I also knew that archaeological discoveries had repeatedly confirmed the Bible’s historical accuracy.

Especially significant to me, however, was Jesus’ own view of Scripture. He not only quoted it frequently, but also accepted it as the Word of God. While praying for His disciples, He said, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). He also told them, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law” (Matthew 5:18). Shouldn’t I have the same view of Scripture as my Lord?

Finally I went for a walk in the moonlit forest. I knelt down with my Bible on a tree stump in front of me and began praying. I don’t recall my exact words, but my prayer went something like this: “O Lord, there are many things in this book I don’t understand. There are many problems in it for which I have no solution. … But, Father, by faith, I am going to accept this as Thy Word. From this moment on I am going to trust the Bible as the Word of God.”

When I got up from my knees, I sensed God’s presence in a way that I hadn’t felt for months. Not all my questions were answered, but I knew a major spiritual battle had been fought—and won. I never doubted the Bible’s divine inspiration again, and immediately my preaching took on a new confidence. This was, I believe, one reason why our Los Angeles meetings had to be extended from three weeks to eight.

Don’t let anyone shake your confidence in the Bible as God’s Word. Face your doubts and seek answers; you aren’t the first person to ask them. In addition, read the Bible for yourself with an open heart and mind. Ask God to show you if it truly is His Word—and He will.

Your life will never be the same once you trust the Bible as God’s Word. God will begin to use it to change your life.

* * *

However, you can believe in the divine inspiration of Scripture, and grow into a more nuanced view as Graham himself did. Some fundamentalists were shocked by his famous Pilgrim’s Progress interview with Newsweek.

I quote, He does not believe that Christians need to take every verse of the Bible literally; “sincere Christians,” he says, “can disagree about the details of Scripture and theology–absolutely.”

Graham spends hours now with his Bible, at once savoring and reconsidering old stories and old lessons. While he believes Scripture is the inspired, authoritative word of God, he does not read the Bible as though it were a collection of Associated Press bulletins straightforwardly reporting on events in the ancient Middle East. “I’m not a literalist in the sense that every single jot and tittle is from the Lord,” Graham says. “This is a little difference in my thinking through the years.” He has, then, moved from seeing every word of Scripture as literally accurate to believing that parts of the Bible are figurative–a journey that began in 1949, when a friend challenged his belief in inerrancy during a conference in southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains. Troubled, Graham wandered into the woods one night, put his Bible on a stump and said, “Lord, I don’t understand all that is in this book, I can’t explain it all, but I accept it by faith as your divine word.”

Now, more than half a century later, he is far from questioning the fundamentals of the faith. He is not saying Jesus is just another lifestyle choice, nor is he backtracking on essentials such as the Incarnation or the Atonement.

But he is arguing that the Bible is open to interpretation, and fair-minded Christians may disagree or come to different conclusions about specific points. Like Saint Paul, he believes human beings on this side of paradise can grasp only so much. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror,” Paul wrote, “then we shall see face to face.” Then believers shall see : not now, but then .

Debates over the exact meaning of the word “day” in Genesis (Graham says it is figurative; on the other hand, he thinks Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale) or whether the “Red Sea” is better translated as “sea of reeds”–which takes Moses’ miracle out of the realm of Cecil B. DeMille–or the actual size of ancient armies in a given battle may seem picayune to some. For many conservative believers, however, questioning any word of the Bible can cast doubt on all Scripture. Graham’s position, then, while hardly liberal, is more moderate than that of his strictest fellow Christians.

· * *

I loved this interview. We can be a faithful Christian, but not be afraid to think. Once, when I lived in America, I told my pastor, a good, honest man, that I did not believe that relatively good people were condemned to hell because they had never heard of Jesus, or heard of him in a winsome way. Jesus himself said that he would say “I never knew you,” to those who made public professions of their faith in him, but whose lives and hearts belied it.

As I said, he was a good honest man, and he was troubled. But then he said, “If I agreed with you, Anita, there would be no point in us sending out missionaries.” He was a mild Calvinist, and accepting that virtuous pagans might go to heaven would leave his whole watertight theological system in tatters. So he didn’t. Recently, a friend gave me this reason for accepting a difficult doctrine: If we didn’t believe this, other doctrines would collapse, and there would be nothing left.

But we do not need to be afraid to think.

· * *

So, inerrancy and me. Where do I stand?

Since inerrant is a theological word not found in Scripture, I am not going to mess with it. I prefer to use the word inspired. I believe Scripture is divinely inspired.

(Interestingly, which books were Scripture and which weren’t was only decided by fourth century Councils and synods in Laodicea, Hippo and Carthage, all places with the Biblical and classical ring. I certainly hope they got things right, but we do need to realize that our current Bible was decided by human councils 1600 years ago. Luther disputed their choices in the 16^th century.)

I also say with the older Graham, I’m not a literalist in the sense that every single jot and tittle is from the Lord,” Fair-minded Christians may disagree or come to different conclusions about specific points.

Which explains why all those Catholics and Calvinists and pan-Christians and Anglicans and Charismatics who all believed in inerrancy taught me very different things.

* * *

So I think a Christian can believe in the Divine Inspiration of Scripture, and pray and rely on the Holy Spirit to interpret it for her, and will not go too far wrong, if her thinking and interpretations stays within the river of twenty-one centuries of Christians who have grappled with the same questions, and whose thinking is now available to us at the click of a cursor.

* * *

Scripture itself may be inerrant. But all the Catholics and Calvinists and Anglicans and Charismatics and non-denominational churches who believe in inerrancy are not themselves inerrant.

They’ve got some things right, and some things wrong.

Lord, give me the wisdom to know which ones!

Some Theological Jokes (Don’t Blame Me, Blame the Oxford Theologians!)

By Anita Mathias

Calvin, Luther and Barth all arrive at the pearly gates… Calvin is ushered in to have a chat with God and after 30 mins comes out saying “at last I understand predestination!”

Luther then goes in to have his chat with God… another 30 mins later he comes out saying “At last I know why James’ epistle was included in the canon!”

Karl Barth goes in for his chat with God…………… 2 hours later God walks out shaking His head saying “I STILL don’t get his Church Dogmatics!”

* * *

Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and James Cone find themselves all at the same time at Caesarea Philippi. Who should come along but Jesus, and he asks the four famous theologians the same Christological question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Karl Barth stands up and says: “You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.”

Not prepared for Barth’s brevity, Paul Tillich stumbles out: “You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.”

Reinhold Niebuhr gives a cough for effect and says, in one breath: “You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.”

Finally James Cone gets up, and raises his voice: “You are my Oppressed One, my soul’s shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.”

And Jesus writes in the sand, “Huh?”

* * *

What did the Calvinist say when he fell down the stairs?

A – Ughh! Sure glad I got that over with.

· * *

Jewish chap, Reuben, goes to see his friend Mordecai. He shares distraught: “You wont believe this but my son has become a Christian.”

Mordecai responds in amazement: “You wont believe this but my son has become a Christian too.” They decide to go to the Rabbi, and when they tell him what’s happened, the Rabbi says shaking his head “You wont believe this but my son also has become a Christian too.”

Reuben, Mordecai and the Rabbi kneel in prayer and tell Jehovah what has happened – suddenly an awesome voice booms from the heavens “you wont believe this, but my son…..”

This appeared in my Facebook newfeed from my RL and FB friends Luke Tarassenko and Simon Ponsonby. Too good not to share. Goodness or badness all theirs!

A Christian Blogging Dialogue: What do you think?

By Anita Mathias

Here are a few snippets from a interesting exchange i’ve had with Stuart over the last couple of days. Any thoughts? Specifically, do you think Christian blogging can advance the kingdom? If so how?

Here are snippets from Stuart’s post (blush).

WARNING: This is one of those self-indulgent blog posts on Christian blogging that’s a little random.

Anita Mathias is one of those lovely, reflective, spiritual bloggers, that I love to read, as you get a real shot in the arm of the stuff that’s really important.

I do honestly wish that I were a little more spiritual full stop in my blogging. I know full well that I’m rough around the edges and a little aggressive combative forthright at times. But I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not. I’ve often not got my spiritual head on and this spills over into my blogging. Yes I am Worzel Gummidge.

Anyway – as usual – Anita has a few blog posts that have given me pause for thought.

The first was entitled: One Way To Get A Lot Done When You Are Very Busy and cited Martin Luther as saying that the busier he was, the more time he spent in prayer. I noted that I wish I were like that, to which Anita responded:

Me too. I am sure it works though. So much of what we do is unnecessary. Perhaps with practice, the unconscious tunes in to the mind of God, and we stumble upon clever ways to do things, things we can eliminate, and the Gordian knots which can be slashed rather than unravelled.

My confession was:

The truth is that in the parable in 1 Corinthians it says:

If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

At times (most of the time) I feel that I build on wood, hay or straw.

It’s not nice but that’s how I feel.

I wonder if any other Christians ever feel this way? Thinking specifically about blogging, I wonder if it furthers the cause of the Kingdom in any way. Truthfully, I don’t think it does, but I still feel compelled to blog. It was this sort of thinking that made me change my bio from a “Christian blog” to a “Christian that happens to blog”.

Today Anita blogged: Christian Blogging: Ministering Without Preaching and I had to laugh at point number 3:

The things which are glaringly obvious to everyone else, but which we are oblivious to. Bloggers, despite themselves, make these dreadful revelations about themselves—unwittingly revealing their emotional contours, their prejudices, their fears, their secret patches of pride, shame and sensitivity. Many personal blogs can be decoded by an alert reader. Anyone who chronicles the ongoing story of their personal or spiritual lives on the web makes these unconscious revelations, and must make peace with this.

I recently blogged that psychiatrists can determine our personality traits – or more accurately flaws – based on our social media interactions. I find that you often get a feel for a blogger that you follow; it’s like you get to know them to a certain extent.

I try to be honest here, but obviously there are some things I don’t divulge; although, having said that, I can’t think of anything I’ve not revealed one way or the other. Anyway, it makes me wonder how accurate the impression I give of myself really is. And how important is this for Christian blogging?

Doesn’t going honest just put people off Jesus? I mean, revealing that we are just as weak, biased and frail as anyone else, isn’t conducive to the Gospel is it?

To which I responded

I guess birds sing because they must, and it adds a little joy and beauty to our day, and their days. Writers write because that is how they are wired.

The point of revealing that “we are just as weak, biased and frail as anyone else,” is partly that readers sense it anyway. If we were to make out a character sketch of the bloggers we read regularly, we wouldn’t be far wrong, though, as in the paragraph you’ve quoted, we may observe blind spots the writer is oblivious to.

What’s encouraging–and part of the reason to embark on Christian and spiritual blogging in the first place–is to watch someone else’s Pilgrim’s Progress in action. The slough of despondency, Doubting Castle, Giant Despair, the precious lessons of the Valley of Humiliation. We identify with Christian precisely because he is “weak, biased and frail.” When he gets himself out of the Slough of Despondency, we are encouraged to believe that we can do likewise. When he escapes from Vanity Fair (or the blogger escapes from the temptation of our contemporary Vanity Fair) we too are motivated to live intentionally.

Does blogging serve the cause of the Kingdom? We are part of the body of Christ. And if our gift is to write, we try to write honestly, and as well as we can in the time given us, and then leave the results in God’s hands. Insofar, as we are better for the effort to think and write honestly about things which are really important, it advances the kingdom by at least one little starfish.

Just as listening to a good preacher every Sunday subtly changes one’s thinking—and hopefully one’s living—a blogger one reads every day also subtly changes one’s thinking. IF in the course of her journey, she finds herself thinking a little bit more like Jesus might–and thus subtly, and unconsciously, her readers’ thinking changes too–she is perhaps doing her mite to advance the Kingdom.

My blog is read by non-Christians as well, simply because I grew up and went to school in India, so have many Hindu, Muslim and Sikh friends. I try to refrain from blogging about Church traumas, as I don’t want to make the church a laughing stock to my readers.

But to reveal myself as someone who struggles to live a loving, disciplined, worthwhile life as much as anyone else, but who gradually (hopefully) finds a way, cannot undermine the Gospel. In fact, the Gospel is only good news for the weak and messed up who so need truth, beauty, and God’s incomprehensible love.

What do you think?

anita.mathias