• His martyrology is full of deeply moving accounts of men and women who laid their lives down for the Gospel.
• He was flexible in his approach to church building.  When he was the pastor of the Antwerp congregation when it was first planted in mid 1550s he encountered opposition from some in the church who resented the time he gave to wealthy people on the fringe of the community who were nervous of full blown membership because of the potential cost involved.  A division grew up between ‘binnen’ and ‘buyten’ (insiders and outsiders) but Van Haemstede as a gifted pastor evangelist was able to minister to both communities.
• He showed a generosity of spirit to the Anabaptists without compromising theologically.  His mildness towards them meant that his name as author of his martyrology was omitted from the title page of all editions from 1566 onwards because his approach was disapproved of by certain people in the Reformed community.  He was generous-spirited enough to even include some arguably Anabaptist executions in his accounts of martyrs and he later on in his ministry petitioned the Bishop of London for toleration of the Anabaptists not because he agreed with them theologically but because they were ‘weaker members of Christ’ (ie still part of the universal church).  Van Haemstede paid a heavy price for his generosity of spirit and was eventually suspended from preaching, excommunicated and expelled from England.
 
The two turning points in the history of the Reformed churches occurred in 1566 and 1572. 1566 is known as the ‘Wonder Year’ in the history of the Netherlands.  After years of smallness, a combination of economic crisis in the country, collapse in the authority of central government and boldness in preaching (even though it was technically illegal) meant that the seemingly impossible became possible. The Calvinists for the first time were able to worship openly.  Iconoclasm – the tearing down of Catholic statues and images – became common place all over the Netherlands. Repression came swiftly the following year but in 1572 Reformed Churches were established legally for the very first time.
 
Legal recognition did not mean the Calvinists had everything their own way from 1572 onwards.  Compromises on a whole range of issues (e.g. poor relief, appointment of ministers, control of access to the sacraments), now had to be made with magistrates and town councils.  In many cases ministers were forced to give ground to maintain the support of the state for their newly privileged position.
 
Two unfortunate traits are discernible in this period of Dutch Calvinism.
 
• A narrow and mean-spirited theological approach.  Casper Coolhaes, a minister in Leiden who was a moderate undogmatic theologian of a broadly reformed perspective, for example, was accused of ‘daily vomiting forth poison’ by his hard line opponent Polyander. The Leiden Academy (the future University of Leiden, created in 1575), meanwhile was accused of ‘spreading errors and hiding the truth rather than spreading it’.
• Legalism.  Efforts to establish and build the church did not produce improvement in the morality and conduct of daily living.  This produced a frustration in Calvinism that was manifested in attempts at mere outward conformity.  Drunkenness, non-attendance at church and general disregard for the ‘Sabbath’ and other forms of ‘licentious’ behaviour were met with behaviour control.  Hostility to dancing and the theatre, for example, were not universal amongst the Reformed but steadily increased as the sixteenth century wore on.
 
In this short series of blogs I, as a moderate Calvinist (I described myself in an earlier blog as a 1536 Calvinist) have touched on some of the less attractive facets of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Calvinism.  This is not just an academic exercise.  On balance, I would lean more towards the Counter Remonstrant than the Remonstrant position.  However, there is much in the spirit and tone of seventeenth century Calvinism that I find distinctly unpleasant.  It is possible to be right theologically on an issue and be wrong on so many other levels. Isn’t this at least part of what Jesus was driving at when he rebuked the Pharisees quoting Hosea 6:6 ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’ (Matt 9:13)?
 
Many years ago my wife and I were leading a small group meeting where we were looking at 1 Peter 3 – we had been working through 1 Peter systematically and had got up to a potentially controversial chapter.  The lady leading the study took a strong egalitarian line.  Before my wife or I could offer an alternative complementarian perspective (which I am genuinely committed to), the poor woman was rounded on by an obnoxious, opinionated and unpleasant man.  As far as the theology was concerned, he won the argument hands down but at every other possible level he lost – he lost in any ability to show grace, to maintain relationship even when we disagree and he lost respect. 
 
I love much that Reformed Protestantism/Calvinism offers but I utterly reject and intensely dislike the legalism, pride and arrogance that Reformed Protestantism has far too frequently exhibited. Let’s make sure as second generation people that we model something different in our spirit to second generation Calvinism. Let’s continue to enjoy God’s grace in a spirit of humility and openness to the wider body of Christ.

Andrew and I had an exchange of emails about a recent Wilson post (yes, two Wilsons in the mix can be confusing, but ours is a leftie pacifist while the other is a righty gunslinger so it should be easy to work out which is which) and thought this worth quoting:

If the Spirit is poured out in power, then we will have what future generations will call a great reformation and revival. If He is not poured out, then we are toast. Our situation is desperate.
 
But, some ask, if He is not poured out, what should we do in the meantime? That is a reasonable question, and we do have to do something. But everything we do should be in the spirit of Elijah arranging wood on the altar, waiting for the fire to fall, and which recognizes the absolute need for the fire to fall. And when you get to the point of that showdown on Mt. Carmel, there is no plan B.
 
In the meantime, we do not need for the bishop to process up the central aisle, like the biggest crow in the gutter. We do not need another message from Doctrine Man,  with ten rivets in each subpoint. We do not need the worship leader to take us through yet one more orgasmic chord progression. We don’t need a doctrine of responsible stewardship and sustainability that worries more about how many times we flush than how many babies we kill. We do not need any more cardboard cut-out celebrity pastors, grinning at us, as smug as all dammit. In short, we don’t need any more of what we currently have. A.W. Tozer once cuttingly observed that if revival means more of what we have now, we most emphatically do not need a revival.
 
In short, we need the Spirit to be poured out upon us. And when God is pleased to make this happen, the Spirit will do the work He always does, which is that of making men new. He will make them new in the middle of some metrosexual posedown in front of the mirror. He will make them new in the middle of some stupid sermon they are busy preaching, with puffs of dust arising every time a page is turned. He will make them new in the middle of an academic conference on feminist counter-narratives. He will make them new in the middle of renting one more skeezefest on Netflix. He will make them new in the middle of their very last angry outburst against their wives. He will make them new while they are in the middle of yet another eggy Facebook post directed at what little faithfulness we have left. The Spirit will interrupt us, and He will make us new. That’s what He does.

 
I’m not sure I know what either a ‘skeezefest’ or an ‘eggy post’ are, but I know I like this quote! It has also prompted Wilson (our one) and me to suggest we run some posts on the person and activity of the Spirit later in the year. We’ll let Andrew get through his creation series first (now that is going to be fun!) and then see how we do.

The closest equivalent to ‘Abba’ in English, we are told, is ‘Daddy’, though since generations of translators have eschewed it in favour of the original, it’s presumably not really close enough to be considered equivalent. Nevertheless, many a preacher will draw the comparison in an attempt to encapsulate the sense of intimacy and acceptance we have with the Father; the image painted is usually something like that of Jenny Agutter’s Bobbie flying down a station platform crying ‘Daddy, my daddy!’ at the end of The Railway Children. If you can watch that sequence without a tear springing to your eye, you’re made of sterner stuff than I am – I’m welling up just writing the phrase!
 
The message is that God is not merely ‘Father’, that stiff, remote, Victorian patriarch to whom we are presented only when we’ve been suitably cleaned up, brushed down and smartly turned out. He’s ‘Daddy’, waiting with arms open wide, longing to be reunited with us after an absence.
 
It wasn’t until I visited Israel earlier this year, however, that I realised the full strength of the word and its many layers of meaning. I heard a child use it, not in the context of a gleeful reunion, but in the pleading whinge of request: ‘Ab-baaaaa?’
 
How many times did you hear that this summer? ‘Daaaaad, can I have an ice cream? Daaaad, will you play football with me? Daaaad…?’
 
Or how about the angry, foot-stomping scream? ‘Dad-dyyyy! I don’t want to go! It’s not fair!’
 
Then there is the cry in the midst of the nightmare, the beckoning summons to see an interesting seashell or watch a new trick, or the matter-of-fact seeking of advice or information.

With tiny variations of emphasis and tone, that one simple word – the first word most children learn – can convey a host of meanings, none of which is achievable with ‘father’.

Although biologically ‘father’ and ‘dad’ are the same person, linguistically ‘father’ is a name which often creates and bespeaks distance, while ‘dad’ speaks of a far closer relationship. You can be a father without ever seeing your child. These days you can be a father multiple times over and never know it. You can’t be a dad without knowing it.

It is important to hold these names of God – and the resultant attitudes they conjure up – in tension. Discussing it in my Life Group recently, we acknowledged that it is dangerously easy for ‘our kind of churches’ to err too much towards the (over?)familiar and neglect the awe and wonder which God is also due. That said, though, it has refreshed my prayer life greatly to recall that God is ‘Dad’; he’s not just progenitor and provider, but someone who’s interested in the cool seashell I just saw, proud of the new skill I’ve learned and always available to give the very best possible advice and guidance. He’s also willing and able to cope with my whines and whinges, delights in giving me good gifts, and rushes to comfort me when I cry out in the darkest nights. Knowing – feeling – that he is these things reminds and inspires me to pray to him in these different ways.

This won’t be true for everyone, of course. If your connotations of ‘daddy’ are of someone distant, capricious or abusive, employing that term in your prayer life may not be helpful; using the less emotionally-freighted term ‘Father’ may well be a more useful intellectual exercise as you come to understand and experience the true father-child relationship. I have found it a helpful image, though, and if it helps me move to a more mature, steady, constant relationship to my holy, awesome, heavenly Father, that can only be good. Better by far than the cycle of drift and re-discovery that I’ve often gone though in the past – as I’m sure Bobbie would agree.

Anyway, a survey this week revealed that most people consider middle-age to only begin at the age of 55 and continue until age 70. The survey was conducted among people in their 50’s and so suggests to me a denial of reality. “Middle-age is a state of mind” was a frequent survey response; so is self-delusion.

This is all very interesting from an anthropological, sociological and theological perspective. One observation is almost too obvious to state – people don’t like the idea of growing old, and that implies a fear of death, and the answer to that fear is hope in a redeemer who has destroyed death.
 
A wider issue it reveals is the extent to which modern western society differs from traditional societies where the old are revered. Our cult of youth makes us fearful of ageing. Old age represents the opposite of everything we value as a culture – sexual vigour, physical attractiveness, being cool. We don’t really know what to do with the elderly, because they are an affront to our core values, so we pretend to be younger than we actually are, and hide away those who are genuinely old in nursing homes, rather as previous generations did with the disabled.

A challenge for Christians, and the churches we make up, is to resist the pressure of our culture and offer a better appraisal of ageing and a greater appreciation of the old. Those of us in churches that (rightly) focus on mission, church planting, and so on, easily fall prey to the cult of youth as we imagine it is young people we need to be reaching, and who will then have the energy to do the work we think we should be doing. In part this is correct. Any church that neglects to reach the young is signing its own ‘do not resuscitate’ order. But in a nation where there are more people aged over 65 than there are under 16 we are missiologically crazy to ignore the old. And there is also the rather inconvenient gospel fact of the “first being last” to consider. This tends to turn everything upside down and require of us that attention be given to the weak and sick and poor in preference to the strong and healthy and rich.

Another gospel challenge is for us to think about how we get a self-delusional people to face the realities of life, to see that acting like an 18 year-old when you are 45 is undignified and silly, and that clinging to youth cannot save us.

Next week we have the funerals of two elderly people from my church. One was the last surviving ‘original’ who had been at the church when it was started in 1925. Her service has been long and faithful. In the four years I have been here she was certainly never cool, or strong, or productive in any measureable way. But she was a saint, and it was a privilege to know her. As the leader of our old people’s work (himself in his late 70’s) put it on Sunday, “When you’re looking at me, you’re looking at your future!” He was being funny and ironic, but you know what, being like him – old but faithful – isn’t such a bad destination.

And if I needed any further evidence that I am indisputably middle-aged it came yesterday when I went for a run with my not-quite-13-year-old and she took me to school. Yep, it was pretty obvious who was middle-aged in that little scenario.

Those who were to become the Counter-Remonstrants were in favour of the strict ‘Beza-ite’ theology, a ‘gathered’ church with a clearly identifiable membership, ministers and consistories that confirmed through the exercise of Church discipline who was part of the church community and who was not, a strictly controlled right to take Communion and the affairs of the church firmly in the hands of its ministers. The Remonstrants took a pretty much opposite stance at every turn. Their theological practice was more relaxed, they saw the church as much more embracing of the local community, ministers mainly preaching and exercising pastoral care rather than exercising discipline through the Consistory and Communion over to all who called themselves believers.

1575 Some persons wished the Ministers would be contented to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments without excluding anybody from the Holy Table … The same persons… said the establishment of Consistories was a new sort of monkery and that the clergy would in time make use of them to encroach upon the Civil Government as they had done in the time of popery.

1578 Hubert (Duifhuis – Minister of an evangelical but not strongly Calvinistic church in Utrecht) had a conference with three Reformed Ministers: he was asked in that conference whether he had not read the small treatise of Beza, wherein he shows that the magistrate has a right to punish heretics with death.  ‘Ah! Gentlemen’, said Hubert, ‘is this the thing you are aiming at? Let not my soul partake of your counsels. I will have no correspondence with such people.’

1579 The magistrates of Leiden declared that no ministers should be chosen, but such as are able to comfort penitent people and reprove obstinate sinners, that the church ought to be governed by Christ alone, and not by minsters and Consistories, lest they should set up for heads of the church and rule over conscience; by which means, the yoke of a new papacy would be introduced to the church.

1580 Gaspar Coolhaes had another dispute with Luke Hespe his colleague.  The latter said, that ‘All those who come to the holy table with him, must be of the same opinion in everything; otherwise he would not give them Communion, nor even look upon them as his brethren.’ Coolhaes maintained on the contrary, that we ought to acknowledge for our brethren all those, who, agree fundamental points, and desire to live peacefully with us, otherwise… we must reject John Hus, Luther, Zwingli and many other excellent divines.

 
What should we make of all of this? There are a number of observations we can make:
 
A ‘gathered church’.
Our churches are very much ‘gathered’ groups of believers rather than churches that embrace the whole of our community. For the Dutch Reformed, however, their theology of a gathered church came less from Calvin and Beza and more from the pressure of co-existence alongside Anabaptist (Mennonite) churches who, through a strong emphasis on believers’ baptism and church discipline, had developed a strong concept of gathered communities of believers. Whatever else the theological shortcomings of the Anabaptists, they had a clear sense that they were called to be a ‘holy people’ and the Reformed communities knew it! There was a tension in the Reformed communities between a theology of infant baptism which predisposed them towards inclusivity and a doctrine of election plus pressure from the Anabaptists which pushed them towards exclusivity.
 
A strong emphasis on Church discipline.
For Calvin, discipline held three purposes – the glory and honour of Christ, to bring the sinner to repentance and to prevent sin from infecting the church. Discipline was enforced through the Consistory (a committee of pastors and elders which met on a weekly basis). Yet here again the Reformed were strongly influenced by the Mennonites though they never cared to admit it. Their emphasis on a ‘gathered’ church achieved through believers’ baptism and the ‘ban’ (church discipline) was something of a thorn in the side of the Calvinist churches in the Netherlands. Anabaptists were often more godly in their conduct than the Reformed and the ministers in the Reformed churches knew it if they only cared to look.
 
In our commitment to a ‘gathered church’ today baptism and church discipline play crucial roles. In New Testament terms it is baptism which surely defines membership of the body of Christ (even if we also happen to use joining courses to undergird vision and values). Let’s also be aware that church discipline used wisely is a vital tool in maintaining the health of the local church. In all of this, however, let’s be aware that our debt lies at least equally with Anabaptism and with Calvinism.

For those of us who are charismatics this is a warning worth heeding. I understand the emotion, and don’t question the integrity, of those who fervently pray before every Sunday meeting or conference gathering, “Change us O God! May we never be the same again!” Yet I find myself reluctant to join in full fervour with them. Instead, I choose to focus more on the change that Christ has already wrought through his death and resurrection. As Stanley Hauerwas writes, “Paul does not think that the church has to make a difference. Rather, for Paul, Christians must learn how to live in the light of the difference Jesus has made.” Now, there is plenty that Hauerwas writes I disagree with, but on this point he is spot on. The apostolic message is consistent and clear: “This is what Christ has done, therefore everything is changed, live in the light of that.”
 
The dangers of constantly looking for ‘encounter’ with God is that it makes our faith contingent on the latest experience. It can actually discourage discipleship. Like the drunk who gets in a fight and says, “It wasn’t my fault – it was the booze,” we can say, “God didn’t meet with me in that meeting, so it’s his fault I’m not being obedient today.”
 
I believe in encounter with God. I am a charismatic after all! But my defining encounter with God was the day he caused me to born again. From that moment on I have been definitively changed, and the response required of me has been to live in the light of that transformation, confident of what it has accomplished now, and will accomplish eternally.
 
An obsession with the latest experience of transcendence reflects our cultural approach to relationships generally. Rather than faithful marriage that lives sacrificially in response to promises once made, the more normal expectation now is, “Are my needs being met? Is my sex life hot enough? Do I feel in love?” If the answer to such questions is “no” then it is typical to pack up and move on.
 
There was a day on which I got married. It was a good day, but to be honest Grace and I have enjoyed days since which have been much better; we have also endured much worse days. But that day is the defining day. Before it I wasn’t married; after it I was. This is analogous to my relationship with Christ – there are days when I feel much more aware of his presence in my life than others, but the way I feel on any particular day is not nearly so relevant as the fact that there was a day when he changed me. Discipleship, like marriage, is about working out that change, day by day rather than continually seeking another change.
 
If our Christology is too small we will keep running after the latest fad, and will give way to the kind of spiritual passivity that keeps us from active discipleship. A large Christology daily rejoices in what Christ has done, and the certainties that means for us. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” Christians are changed people who are being changed into the likeness of Christ. Think about the implications of that next time you are headed to church!

These two theological statements are, in many ways, the book-ends of Dutch Calvinism, the first implying theological consensus and the second underlining a theological chasm which had grown up. The more we look, however, the more we see an underlying tension growing within Dutch Reformed circles between those who adhered to a strong Beza-style Calvinism which eclipsed Calvin in many ways and those who did not. What follows is a series of quotations from Gerard Brandt’s History of the Reformation in the Netherlands (1668-74) which all serve to illustrate this time bomb that eventually exploded at Dort.

1573 - There was some difference of opinions among the Reformed.  John Isbrandtson, Minister of Rotterdam, preached against the doctrines of predestination, such as Calvin taught it; and Clement Martenson, the first minister of the Reformed at Horn, declared frequently that he had never believed, nor preached predestination, but in the sense of Melanchthon’.  Most of the ministers in Holland followed Calvin’s opinion about that doctrine but some…did not approve of it.  That doctrine…could hardly be relished by everybody, since the works of Erasmus and Melanchthon, the book of Bullinger for the use of families and the Guide of the Laity written by Veluanus, were highly esteemed.

8 Feb 1575 a University was founded at Leiden as a reward for the bravery of its inhabitants.  John Holman was one of the first Professors of Divinity in that town: his doctrine concerning predestination was the same as that of Melanchthon. It was this Professor that was recommend by the famous Beza, who believed that Melancthon’s theology was more proper for the Dutch, and that it would appear to them more edifying…

14 Oct (1574) died Frederick III Elector Palatin.  He was a Prince endowed with great virtues; he introduced into Germany the Confession of Faith of the Helvetic Churches, and ordered some of his Divines to compose the Heidelberg Catechism. He assisted the Protestants of France and the Low Countries. That Prince in his last will, exhorted his children in a very pathetical manner to avoid quarrelsome and violent clergyman. But above all things, said he, let my children beware of turbulent ministers and professors, who undertake here and elsewhere to raise disputes about words and scandalous contentions, and to thunder out anathemas in churches against those who nevertheless agree with us about the main articles of our religion, and ground the hopes of their salvation as we do, upon the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

 
Any lessons here? I don’t think for a moment that we as a family of churches are sitting on major theological time bombs. However, we would be naïve if we imagined that there was perfect 100% agreement amongst us across the board. As I have said earlier, it has never been our style to underpin the unity we have with tightly defined theological statements. Rather, our relational unity has been expressed by doing things – by being on mission together. In a “brave new world” where we have multiplied apostolic ministry across the world and also in the UK we must be aware of the potential for theological fracture. We need to be big-hearted and generous-spirited with what appear to be polar opposites but, happily, in the economy of God, can co-exist. The moment, like the Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants, we take pot-shots to demonstrate that our “system” is the only lens through which to view Scripture is the moment we lose something very precious amongst us. Unity with diversity is something to be valued not to be feared.

The thing that gets me is that the use of the b word should cause this furore at all. Of course, it has echoes of “Bigotgate” when then Prime Minister Gordon Brown described Gillian Duffy as “some bigoted woman” – an incident that nailed fast shut his electoral coffin. I felt rather sorry for Brown on that occasion. After all, which of us has not said something in private that we would die a thousand deaths for if it were broadcast to a wide public? Also, while bigot is not the politest word, Brown was entitled to think that Duffy’s views on immigration displayed a certain narrowness of generosity. It seemed to me that he was being beaten with an unfair (even bigoted!) stick.

So, as an opponent of gay marriage, should I feel offended that Nick Clegg considers me a bigot? Because I don’t. Not one little bit. Instead, I think he should have every right to label as bigotry what he considers to be bigotry; just as I also think I should every right to express the views I hold about marriage. I think the Brighton Green Party have displayed bigoted behaviour in expelling Councillor Christina Summers for her opposition to gay marriage. They, in turn, consider her a bigot for these very views. Someone is right and someone wrong in their views here, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to express them.

The great thing about living in a democracy is that we do not have to vote for people whose views we disagree with. Nick Clegg’s views may be silly, ill-informed and wrong, but that doesn’t mean he should be condemned for expressing them. Indeed, the fact that he has expressed them should make it easier for his constituents to make a decision about the way they mark their ballot papers come the next general election.

When it comes to the culture wars we need to think carefully about which battles we choose to fight. I want to fight for marriage, but I’m not going to get up in arms about what people call me in the process.

Douglas Adams, with characteristic prescience, foresaw what this would be as long ago as 1980. “After cures had been found for all the major diseases, and instant repair systems had been invented for all physical injuries and disablements,” he wrote in an episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “the only doctors still in business were the psychiatrists - simply because no one had discovered a cure for the universe as a whole.”
 
Deaths from disease or disability might be falling, but it was sobering to learn yesterday that the global suicide rate is on the increase.
 
Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day, and the British Government marked it by unveiling a new £1.5m suicide prevention strategy. Reporting on the launch, The Guardian quoted care services minister Norman Lamb as saying:

One death to suicide is one too many – we want to make suicide prevention everyone’s business.
 
Over the last 10 years there has been real progress in reducing the suicide rate, but it is still the case that someone takes their own life every two hours in England.
 
We want to reduce suicides…

 
These comments are in line with the World Health Organisation’s Publication Public Health Action For The Prevention Of Suicide which states that “suicidal behaviours are a major public health problem” (p. 7) and that “suicide prevention is a collective responsibility, and must be spearheaded by governments and civil society throughout the world.” (p. 20)
 
What they’re not so clearly in line with, however, is Mr Lamb’s own position on assisted suicide, which he was asked about while promoting the suicide prevention strategy on Radio 4’s Today programme:

In these circumstances, where there is someone who is facing a terminal illness, there is a case for a debate. My personal view is that there is a case for reform.

 
Yes, you read that right – less than two minutes after saying “One suicide is a suicide too many”, he said that in certain circumstances suicide might be such a desirable option that it should be legal for someone to help you carry it out.
 
If that sounds like some kind of Orwellian double-think, well, that’s two very prescient writers I’ve referenced today. Orwell’s only mistake was in thinking that it would take an oppressive regime to engender double-think – today we do it all the time, and call it rationalism.
 
That someone can hold two such opposite views on the subject without noticing any conflict is due in part to a perceived category-difference between physical and mental illness. I imagine that, if pushed, Norman Lamb would say that those who seek assisted suicide have something genuinely physically wrong with them that cannot be cured, whereas those who seek to take their lives due to depression or because they can’t cope with their life-circumstances just need help to adjust their perception of reality or their circumstances. In other words, one is right to consider death as the only escape from his or her circumstances, but the other is wrong; one should be helped to die, the other helped to live.
 
Why should that be the case? Why is it reasonable for someone with a physical disease to want to end it all but not for someone with a mental or emotional one? Proponents of assisted suicide like to play the ‘pain’ card at this point. Knowing that none of us wants to see our fellow human beings in physical pain, they appeal to our compassionate natures, asking ‘isn’t it wrong to condemn a person to years of physical agony if they wish to escape that?’ Yet mention the UK’s outstanding palliative care provision and you soon find that the physical pain actually isn’t really the root issue; dignity is.
 
And there we find the source of the perceived distinction between suicide and assisted suicide. From suicide notes and the testimony of suicide survivors, we know that many who take their own lives do so because they believe there is no other option. Their families would be better off without them; they can’t face the shame of people discovering the truth about them; life is just too hopeless; they simply don’t have the strength to go on. Those of us outside their heads and circumstances can identify that these are not true statements and seek to help them correct the untruths. When someone terminally ill says they want to commit suicide because their life has become ‘dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable’ as Locked-in Syndrome sufferer Tony Nicklinson put it, we are not sufficiently convinced of the essential dignity of the human being to enable us to counter this agonised cry. Lots of people find life dull, miserable, demeaning and intolerable, but we tell them that’s just the way life is. The WHO and the Government are going to work hard to make sure those people don’t resort to suicide as a solution to their misery, but no-one’s promising that everyone can be happy and fulfilled all the time. Throw in the word ‘undignified’, though, and that’s a different story. If you are unable to make what you consider to be a valid contribution to the world, if you are dependent on others to provide for your needs and take care of your most basic bodily functions, if your body is limiting the interaction you want to have with the world, and if you are able to express this lucidly and without coercion, our conception of freedom suggests that you ought to be able to choose death over that life.
 
It is a fine, fine line, and an issue which has troubled and divided philosophers – which circumstances do we accept as valid criteria for suicide? Can a person ever be said to be in his right mind if he is choosing death over life? Is it ever right to knowingly allow someone to commit suicide? Is it ever acceptable to help someone commit suicide? Is it ever acceptable to overrule someone’s freedom of choice and prevent him from committing suicide?
 
I am very pleased to hear that the Government is committing time and money to researching the issues surrounding suicide, and even more pleased that money and support will go to organisations working to identify those at risk of suicide and help them to find a way out of their pain and into life. I sincerely hope, though, that they will also think to include assisted suicide in their research, rather than treating it as an entirely separate question, because it is not. Our understandings of what it is to be human, and what it means to have dignity and value underpin both questions, and we would do well to pay this foundation some serious attention.

My dad was impressed by how well the JWs are equipped in their arguments.

(The example the JW gave was from John 9:17 where Jesus is described as “a prophet.” However, he was mistaken about this example as in this case there is no choice to be made about the subject/object being either “was prophet” or “a prophet” – the “a” is inserted simply to make the sentence read smoothly.)

My experience when speaking with JWs (and members of the other heretical ‘Christian’ sects) is that inevitably things end up in a very dry argument. Sometimes this can be quite fun, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a proselytizing member of one of these groups who has endeared themselves to me. I think they are wrong, and the certainty of their beliefs only hardens me in my rejection of those beliefs.

Sometimes I wonder if the arguments we Christians make about our faith to non-believers have the same effect.

In talking with JWs I’ve never got any sense that they delight in the God they proclaim. There are lots of ‘facts’ but precious little worship. Perhaps in our arguments we can end up sounding the same. Instead of this, the church is called to witness the truth about Jesus Christ through our worship of him. Tasting the grace of God that is ours in Christ should fill us with a delight that is a more powerful testimony than any other argument.

One of the most famous, and perhaps most profound examples of this is given to us by Augustine:

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new; late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.

Now, that sounds like a convincing argument to me!

The first confessional churches were established by the Anabaptists from 1530 onwards. They suffered severe setbacks after the collapse of their lunatic millennial kingdom at Munster in 1535 but regrouped thereafter under the leadership of a former Catholic priest, Menno Simons to become a much more Biblical community of believers. The Anabaptists were confessional almost from the outset. An Anabaptist theology was clearly defined which distinguished them from other evangelicals, believer’s baptism, the gathered church and use of the ban (excommunication) being the most essential ingredients. Pacifism, refusal to swear oaths, to do military service or to take any part in civil government also became defining characteristics of the movement.
 
Outside Anabaptist circles the whole process took much longer. No explicitly Lutheran churches were established until 1566. In the 1520s and 30s evangelicals would continue to go to Mass and then meet in the pub for Bible-based discussion after the service. Out of these groups grew regular Bible study and discussion groups which church historians call conventicles. Evangelicals who approached Luther for advice on forming a more coherent underground church were strongly discouraged from so doing. Other foreign reformers offered similar advice. In the early 1540s the Strasbourg reformer Wolfgang Capito advised against quitting the Roman church despite all her imperfections.
 
It was not until 1543-44 that evangelicals living in the Netherlands were counselled to abandon the Roman church. When Calvin heard that evangelicals were still going to Mass he was horrified. He wrote a pamphlet in which on the basis of Romans 10:10 he argued that genuine faith must find appropriate outward expression. If the Mass dishonours God, said Calvin, how then can an evangelical honour it with his presence? Many in the evangelical community thought that Calvin was being over harsh and complained of such and a spokesman for them made the somewhat unwise suggestion that Calvin write another tract to set their minds at rest. In his Excuse to the Nicodemites, Calvin condemned Nicodemism (secret discipleship) and called for commitment:

How long will you go on limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him, but if Baal, then follow him.

 
The impact of Calvin’s advice was highly significant for Dutch evangelicals. By the mid 1550s churches were beginning to be formed. The most significant was a thriving congregation established in Antwerp led by a gifted pastor by the name of Adriaen van Haemstede. There was also a distinct change in the pattern of evangelical publishing in this period. Non-confessional loosely evangelical pamphlets were largely replaced by catechisms, psalm-books, church orders and the like which were specifically designed for use within the Reformed community. Calvin’s anti-Nicodemite tracts which had appeared in French in the 1540s were now translated into Dutch alongside other books of a similar ilk.
 
At the same time as an explicitly confessional Calvinist church was being established in the Netherlands, Calvinism was becoming the dominant variety of Protestantism all over Europe.  The model church Calvin had established in Geneva was rolled out in France, Scotland, Germany and beyond. Calvin’s Institutes (definitive edition 1559) made him the dominant theologian of the Protestant churches. Success brought its fair share of problems. In France civil war had begun to brew by the time of Calvin’s death and aspects of Calvin’s theology, particularly the doctrine of double predestination came under fire both from Catholic and Protestant theologians alike. Calvin himself was prepared to live with “loose ends” and never sought in doctrine to go beyond where Scripture was explicit. After Calvin’s death in 1564, however, his successors, notably Theodore Beza in an ironic canonization of their hero and mentor felt a need to defend every aspect of his theology to the nth degree. This led to an over-rigid over defined theology amongst the Calvinist churches by the start of the seventeenth century both in the Netherlands and in Europe as a whole.
 
Of what interest and significance is this for us? There are, I think, a couple of interesting parallels. First, like Calvin back in the 1550s we have established new churches both in the UK and elsewhere in the world. Newfrontiers as a family of churches traces its roots back to the “Restoration” movement in the 1970s. The Charismatic movement in the 1960s had seen an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in mainstream denominational churches. For some in those churches the end game was renewal and God has undoubtedly and wonderfully blessed churches such as Holy Trinity Brompton that have grown out of that experience. For us, there was a more radical approach. Without suggesting for a moment that British denominational churches were like the Church of Rome in the sixteenth century like Calvin, we adopted a more root and branch approach to applying what God was doing amongst us and, in our determination to see a New Testament pattern, new churches were birthed.
 
So far so good. The danger now is that like the Calvinists in the immediate post-Calvin period we over-confessionalize.  Back in 2009 when Mark Driscoll was with us at Brighton he encouraged a number of routes forward that, for various reasons we have chosen not to take. Terry Virgo has not handed over to one successor and we have chosen to go the way of multiplication. We have not dispatched the word “family” from our strapline believing that it is an apt and appropriate descriptor of how New Testament churches functioned and related together. Mark also encouraged us to write lots of theology. This could be both a good thing and potentially a bad thing. Clearly, gifted thinkers in our movement such as Andrew Wilson and Phil Moore should be writing all sorts of books – Bible commentaries, apologetics etc. But Mark, as I recall, was encouraging something more than this. He was encouraging us to define our theology more concretely as a movement, in other words, to confessionalize. This has never been our style as a movement. All sorts of people over the years have either encouraged us to have a statement of faith or have been amazed that we didn’t already have one! We have resisted and should continue to do so. Our identity as a family of churches, a movement, has never been defined by a theology we all need to sign up to (the nearest we ever got was 17 values that don’t say anything at all about many of the central doctrines of evangelical Christianity). That sounds slightly strange as it could imply we are not very serious about theology when, of course, the reverse is true. Terry Virgo always insisted that it was relationships that held us together. I would suggest that it is not so much relationships that have held us together, but doing things in a context of relationships. This is what Paul defines as fellowship, koinonia, partnership in the Gospel (Philippians 1:5). Let’s write great theology by all means, but let’s never try and come up with a confessional statement for Newfrontiers churches. It didn’t work for the Calvinists in the second generation and it won’t work for us.

Ironically, I was walking my dogs the other day when one of them had an encounter with another dog, as a result of which he has a hole in his shoulder that required 15 stitches, and there is a hole in my bank account thanks to the lack of an NHS equivalent for dogs. Even more ironically, the other dog owner was someone I know and was walking across the park to greet, in a very missional type way. His dog and mine have history and it was an accident waiting to happen. Clearly they were not feeling missional.
 
Anyway, I was reading Mark Dever’s latest book, The Church: The gospel made visible, and thought he gives a very good illustration for how Christians should understand their cultural role:

The Bible calls individual Christians to live lives of justice and generosity toward others. Organically, Christian disciples scatter and represent Christ powerfully and in ways the Bible does not call the institutional church to act. An analogy might be helpful here. A married man goes to work as a married man and goes to the store as a married man, and the fact that he’s married affects how he interacts with others at work and the store, but neither his work nor shopping are an intrinsic part of being married. In the same way, a member of a church follows Christ in all sorts of ways that are not tied to the work that God entrusts to the local church in any institutional fashion. But the individual’s membership should affect how he does everything outside the gathered church.

 
As I say, that is a good illustration. Practically, it means that as a dog owner I am responsible to get my dog to the vet when he is injured – being a Christian and church member does not have any bearing on that. As a Christian I have a responsibility to not hold any bitterness against the owner of the dog who damaged mine. As a member of the church I have a responsibility to do what the church is called to do and proclaim the good news of the gospel whenever and wherever I can; which isn’t always so easy, especially if the dogs are fighting.
 
What it most certainly does not mean is that the church should assume ownership of all the dogs in the park.

It’s true institutionally, and not just personally. When, forty years ago, churches like the one I belong to started to emerge, they were pushing left with gusto, and they were loving it. Lifeless hymn sandwiches? Let’s get some experience of God in our meetings! Legalistic lists of things we can and can’t do in church? We’re under grace now! Tradition? Yah, boo, sucks! (Or words to that effect.) And despite all the mockery and all the marginalisation they experienced, there was a sense of being part of something fresh, and revolutionary, which made it all worthwhile, and brought whoops of delight from the church (“we may be ridiculed for being happy clappy - but we’d rather be happy clappy than humpy grumpy!”)
 
These days, though, the boot is often on the other foot. The things that make me, and my church, the subject of ridicule now are not areas in which I’m pushing left, but areas in which I’m pushing right. The things I believe are the same as the things my Dad believed a generation ago, but the church landscape has changed, making me a reactionary rather than a revolutionary. Charismatic gifts are mainstream (at least in the UK); people across the spectrum fall over themselves to talk about how grace-filled they are; churches which preserve tradition at the expense of experience are dying slowly. So the things that make me and my church stand out are now the areas where we’re conservative: a high view of the gathered church, biblical authority, an orthodox view of hell, Reformed soteriology, complementarianism, and things like that. And for some reason, pushing right on these things doesn’t feel anything like as exhilarating as pushing left on the other things. It doesn’t draw the same whoops from the crowd, nor the same admiration for being courageous. (In fact, when I get called courageous at all, it’s usually for pushing left on something that most people approve of, even though this requires much less real courage than pushing right. It may just be me, but I think it requires far more bravery to say the things Al Mohler says than the things Brian McLaren says, even though the latter is far more likely to be admired for his courage.)
 
So I was wondering: why is that? I recognise sin in my own heart in this area; the temptation is to push left on something for the sake of it, just to feel creative and new and quirky and impish again, even if the real need is for someone to stand up and hold a line. But why does the spectrum work that way (if it does)? What factors make going left cooler than going right? Why is there so much more swagger in those who push left (“well, if I was going to be very controversial, ooh-er, I’d cheekily ask whether the Bible actually does mean that, as dangerous as it is to say so!”), even when it is normally far less dangerous to ask the question than to answer by reaffirming what the church has always said about something? Why does that generally hold true, even down to the comments on this very blog?
 
My guess is that there are at least three factors at work. The first is to do with the youth-centred spirit of the age, in which freshness is more fashionable than faithfulness, innovating inspires people more than imitating, technology trumps tradition, and novelty is confused with creativity. Many still think that the Dylanesque call to change everything your parents stood for is iconoclastic, without noticing that true iconoclasm is to be found when people challenge the deepest convictions of a culture, and (say) teach that children should obey their parents rather than tell them to move over because they don’t understand the world no more. When you add to that the modernist metanarrative of progress (which is not completely dead yet), and the wider social obsession with the possibilities brought by technology, it is easy to see why the view could creep into the church that changing things was Good and conserving things was Bad.
 
The second is equally obvious, in some ways, but it is worth saying anyway: contemporary secular culture is well to the left of the Bible on most things it teaches. Non-Christian Britain thinks the Scriptures are backward on all sorts of topics, including judgment, evolution, tradition, war, marriage, slavery, sexual ethics, holiness, gender roles, and the idea of teaching doctrine in the first place. So when we move to the left, we are almost without exception moving closer to what the culture around us thinks, and that makes the process much more comfortable for us. (I’m not saying, of course, that moving to the left is thereby wrong, merely that it is easy - and therefore that, if I know my own heart, the temptation to distort the Bible to get there is likely to be more acute.) Moving to the right, on the other hand, makes us more likely to be ridiculed by The Independent, Stephen Fry, the writers of sitcoms, our social network, and all the other cool-ade people we desperately want to like us. It shouldn’t, but that does make it harder.
 
The third factor, related to this, is that the victims of excessive rightishness are much easier to identify, and to feel sorry for, the victims of excessive leftishness. An anti-war protest is much easier to recruit for than a pro-war protest. It’s easy to make movies, or posters, about the victims of slavery and domestic abuse; not so much about the victims of abortion, since they don’t live long enough to be given names. When a couple splits up through unfaithfulness, causing massive pain to their children, the individualistic, morally leftish values that made it possible are not personified, and nobody blames the newspapers, TV shows or movies that make short-term romantic fulfilment life’s ultimate purpose. Being ostracised for challenging church dogma makes a great story, but being gradually dulled to the wonders of God because the gospel is not being preached clearly does not. Suffering under authoritarian leadership results in a narrative with clear goodies and baddies, replete with emotive terms like “spiritual abuse” and “cultish leadership”; the thousands who go nowhere under directionless leaders, with churches being endlessly hijacked by oddballs and dominated by the loudest voice there, have far less grotesque villains and do not lend themselves so compellingly to Oprah. In the modern world, if you’re going to make a public argument, you need a victim and a villain. And leftish victims and villains are just that bit more identifiable than rightish ones.
 
So there’s three reasons why I think pushing right is harder than pushing left. Practically, my guess is there’s some implications we should draw from that, affecting the way we lead, teach, and (yes) blog. But I’m done for now. I’d love to hear your thoughts.