Author: Jason Goroncy

Torture, Suicide and Imprisonment: A Look Back at Five Years of Guantanamo

Today is the fifth anniversary of the first prisoners being sent to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Since then, more than 750 men and boys from 40 countries have been imprisoned there. Not one of them has been put on trial. Hundreds have been released without charge and sent home. Three have committed suicide at least 40 others have tried to do so. Just as well we are winning the war … what a scandal it would be otherwise :-). To listen/watch/read more click here. All this on the same day that the new U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated his conviction that the Guantanamo Bay should be shut down. For more on this see here.

Feeding the lambs

Nigerian preacher to hang for fire

A Nigerian high court has sentenced a preacher in Lagos to death by hanging after setting alight members of his flock, killing one.

Emeka Ezeuko, better known as Reverend King, was found guilty of one murder of a member of his congregation and the attempted murder of five others.

In July last year he accused six members of his Christian Praying Assembly church of sinning.

He sprinkled petrol on them before setting them alight. (Taken from the BBC news site)

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” (Taken from John 21:15)

Hunting for stray sheep

‘What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.’ (Matthew 18:12-13)

A Brief Theology of Revelation

Recently, a mate of mine, Reno Lauro, wrote a punchy review of Gunton’s A Brief Theology of Revelation for Religious Studies Review. I thought it well worth repeating here:

Take a moment and consider this particular font; consider the format and layout of the page, or even this very sentence. What these elements all have in common is they mediate meaning. From cover to cover, Gunton’s A Brief Theology of Revelation reevaluates the doctrine of revelation in terms of mediation. Based on a 1993 Warfield lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary, Guntons book offers a surprisingly fresh critique of a neo-orthodox theology of revelation and post-liberal alternatives, which in some ways may seem much more relevant today than it did at the dawn of Clintons America. However, it is not Gunton’s critique that makes this book so important, but it is his systematic advancement of Trinitarian mediation. It is the Trinitarian formulation of a doctrine of creation which allows God to be God, the world to be the world, distinct beings he says, and yet personally related by personal mediation as creator and creation. Gunton’s lecture looks to exploit nuances in the debate previously ignored. Christian revelation is mediated, and at the most basic level all Truth, said Coleridge, is a species of Revelation. All knowledge is mediated, and only when we attend to reality through them does it disclose to us its secrets. A strong Trinitarian doctrine of creation and theology of nature is the answer to Barth’s oversimplified natural theology versus theology of revelation dichotomy. Pneumatology is thus the key to any adequate theology of revelation and of its mediation. I wish T & T Clark would have provided a forward to this new edition perhaps a retrospect of his work and what was lost in his sudden passing but this text should not be passed over lightly.

The Gospel According to the Beatles

In the latest CT, LaTonya Taylor reviews Steve Turner’s latest offering, The Gospel According to the Beatles. Here ’tis:

Veteran music journalist Steve Turner explores the spiritual paths of the Beatles—both collectively and as individuals—in this deftly and densely reported combination of cultural history, comparative religion, and biocritical insight. “The gospel of the Beatles is not found in their conformity to an orthodox creed,” he notes, “but in their hunger for transcendence.”

Turner begins by reporting the furor that erupted over John Lennon’s infamous (and widely misunderstood) 1966 comment that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus now,” then compares the Fab Four to magical, shamanistic storytellers who shared the insights they gained through their spiritual explorations with an audience enmeshed in political, cultural, philosophical, and religious upheaval.

Turner wisely avoids the temptation to force the Beatles’ hope for freedom, unity, and peace into a Christian mold. Indeed, Turner focuses heavily on their use of drugs and forays into Eastern religion and the occult in search of enlightenment and spiritual insight. Still, Turner thoughtfully demonstrates ways the Beatles’ search reflects the continuing influence of Christianity: “They were skeptical and even dismissive of the church, yet many of their core beliefs—love, peace, hope, truth, freedom, honesty, transcendence—were, in their case, secularized versions of Christian teachings.

Can anyone who has read this book tell me if it is worth reading?

On Art Theory and Atonement Fact

Jacques Barzun, in his book, The Culture We Deserve, writes that ‘In the arts, theory comes after the fact of original creation and, far from improving future work, usually spoils it by making the artist a self-conscious intellectual, crippled or mislead by ideas. Not everything that is good can be engineered into existence’ (p. 19). Unlike this all-too-often truth, the work of Christ creates our response of repentance and faith in its very action. Thus is the creative power of grace. By the Spirit of grace, Christ creates the response to grace in us. In Forsyth’s words, ‘Christ’s was a death on behalf of people within whom the power of responding had to be created’. Interestingly, Forsyth equates this with the artist who must create their own positive reception of their work – create a taste for it – and the power to be understood by the public, or by the art critic or theorist. That so few manage to do this is testimony (in some cases) to their brilliance and significance. Christ, however, did not come to impress us, or to be the object of human understanding. He came to redeem. He had to save us ‘from what we were too far gone to feel’.

Holy Love conquers all things

Michael Jenson is experimenting with a new book idea here. It’s called YOU and aims to be a a popular level book that carefully and sensitively addresses questions and contributes a Christian theological voice into the discussion. His latest post is on Leviticus 15 and is entitled ‘The Ooze’. It invited a lengthy response from me that I’ll reproduce here for the sake of my blog readers but moreso to encourage you to go on to read and contribute to Michael’s project. I wrote:

It seems to me that Leviticus 15 serves, among other things, to remind us that because God is love, and because his love is holy love, when he sees anything that defiles his creation he must do something about it. It must be judged and ultimately either sanctified or destroyed. And when he sees evil in us it is no different. God is not squeamish.

The problem is that we don’t see our own evil to be as evil as he does. It’s only when we see ourselves at the cross that we see the enormous horror and hideous, deceitful, evil of our own hearts. Karl Barth once said, ‘God’s attitude in (his fellowship with us) is characterised by holiness, exclusiveness, the condemnation and annihilation of sin. The holiness of God thus involves peril to the man with whom he has fellowship…. As sinful man he cannot stand before God. He must perish’ (Church Dogmatics II/I, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1985, 364).

In Mark 7, the Pharisees criticise Jesus’ disciples for eating without going through the proper hand-washing rituals. They seem to have forgotten what purpose these laws served, and turned them into a system of trying to get right and then stay right with God. And so Jesus lets rip. He calls them hypocrites and accuses them of nullifying the word of God for the sake of their traditions. And then Jesus redefines uncleanness (Mk. 7:20-23). Isn’t that a great thing … that Jesus knows exactly what our hearts are like! So how can unclean people like that, people like us, people under the wrath of God, approach a Holy God not only without being struck down on the spot but approach the throne of grace with confidence?

Mark 5:24b-34 recalls the story of a woman. This woman dashes onto the NT stage for 10 verses. She’s got no name. She’s got no idea of who Jesus really is. He represents for her the last straw in a long line of doctors and miracle workers that she has spent all of her money on and over a decade seeing. She has been treated like a leper in her community for 12 years. She has been tormented by guilt and anxiety. She has been untouched … and untouchable. She has been unable to hug her kids. She has been unable to make a cup of tea for a friend. No one has invited her to their home in 12 years. Now she doesn’t want to know Jesus. She’s not seeking a relationship with him, but she wants to be healed. She wants to be restored to her community. She wants to be able to go to her kids’ birthday party and make love with her husband. She wants to be able to prepare a meal for her family and enjoy a day out with her friends. And she hears reports of this guy in town who heals people and so she goes along to check it out, and she moves in on Jesus from behind … anonymously in a crowd. This is the man who deliberately touched unclean lepers and corpses. This is the man who made a point of eating with prostitutes and calling ‘sinners’ his friends. This is the man who deliberately went out of his way to do almost everything that the OT prohibits us, and especially priests, from doing. But would he allow this woman to touch him (remember Lev. 12), to pollute him, to make him unclean? Would he allow this woman to place him under the wrath and judgement of God?

C.S. Lewis said, ‘Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger’ (Quoted in Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995, 152). To hear the Word of God takes a miracle. It takes God! It takes the gift of a new heart! And so if we’re proud, if we’re self-righteous, if we can look at our life and see ourself as someone who is not only bleeding but dead, then we are going to find it very hard to know that God has touched us and healed us and indeed made us alive in Christ.

Helmut Thielicke once said, ‘There is no wilderness so desolate in our life that Jesus Christ will not and cannot encounter us there … There is no depth in which this Saviour will not become our brother … He comes for us wherever we are … For that is his majesty’ (How To Believe Again, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974, 60, 63). In Jesus Christ, God bore all our sins, all our uncleanness, and all the wrath of the holy God in his own body on the tree. Do we believe that? Do we believe that from the moment we’re born right up until the moment of our death, that on that Cross he entered into our history, into our mind, into our conscience, into our memory, into our acts, and he took into himself all the judgement, the pain, the shame, the loneliness, the burden, the confusion, the guilt, the fear, the darkness, the hypocrisy, the terror? Do we know that on that Cross he actually experienced our life, and that he left nothing undealt with? And that as God’s High Priest he sanctifies everything that he touches… and that he has touched us? Do we know that? Do we know that as far as the east is from the west he has removed our sins from us, and he will remember them no more because there is nothing for him to remember.

The decay of a real belief in baptism

‘The decay of a real belief in Baptism, the vogue of mere dedication services, and such-like decencies, which can be made family festivals, and are no part of a Church’s confession, is a chief reason why the Churches are listless in the care of the child, and why they leave it haphazard to those who are fond of that kind of thing.’ P. T. Forsyth, ‘The Church and the Children.’ Letter. British Weekly, 15 May 1913, 169.

Chomsky on Creating Another World
From Bolivia to Baghdad: Noam Chomsky on Creating Another World in a Time of War, Empire and Devastation

World-renowned scholar and linguist Noam Chomsky spoke recently at an event titled, “What’s Next? Creating Another World in a Time of War, Empire and Devastation.” Chomsky spoke about the Iraq Study Group report, recent elections in Latin America, the current situation with Iran and much more. To listen click here.

On Middle Earth

My copy of Tolkein’s The Silmarillion includes a copy of Ainulindalë, which he subtitles ‘The Music of the Ainur’ (literally, the ‘singing of the Holy’). This creation myth betrays Tolkien’s indebtedness to Norse/Germanic, Finnish, Greek and Roman myths, and is, I believe, critical to understanding Tolkein’s vision of Middle-Earth. Moreover, it is the most theologically significant creation story that I have ever read. Wikipedia offers a neat overview of the tale. All this is by way of saying that for any who may be interested, I noticed a flyer this week (while I was away in the Lakes District) of an up and coming short course on Tolkein and Middle Earth. More information can be found here. The blurb reads: ‘The fantasy world of Gollum, Gandalf and Frodo has been introduced to and absorbed a new generation, following the hugely successful trilogy of The Lord of the Rings films. On this highly enjoyable new course, you will find out more about the mythological world of Middle Earth, as we explore both the popular and lesser-known fictional works of JRR Tolkien. We shall place Tolkien in the context of the Oxford academic world of the 1940s and 50s, his participation with the Inklings and his friendship with fellow scholar and writer, CS Lewis. Among the themes we shall explore are the role of Christian fantasy, medieval influences and the moral centre of his work, including his portrayal of the machine as the modern form of magic. In addition to The Lord of the Rings, we shall consider the unfinished work The Silmarillion, as well as literary essays on fairy stories and Beowulf. This promises to be a fascinating and popular insight into one of the 20th century’s most influential writers on myth and fantasy.’ For those who can spare the time, it sounds most worthwhile.

European Journal of Theology

The latest edition of the European Jounal of Theology (15/2, 2006) is out. The contents are:

Philip G. Ziegler, ‘Christian Context for Conscience? Reading Kierkegaard’s Works of Love Beyond Hegel’s Critique of Conscience’, pp. 93-103.

Jason A. Goroncy, ‘Bitter Tonic for our Time – Why the Church Needs the World: Peter Taylor Forsyth on Henrik Ibsen’, pp. 105-118.

Thomas Gerold, ‘Ein Rezensionsartikel zu: Schmidt-Leukel, Perry, Gott ohne Grenzen. Eine christliche und pluralistische Theologie der Religionen’, pp. 119-123.

Christoph Stenschke, ‘Ursprünge und Gestalt der Evangelisation in den paulinischen Missionsgemeinden: Ein Rezensionsartikel zu Dickson, John P., Mission-Commitment in Ancient Juduism and in the Pauline Communities: The Shape, Extent and Background of Early Christian Mission‘, pp. 125-134.

Christian Union ban sparks debate

Here’s a copy of a piece from the BBC news website by Jon Silverman. For those of the praying kind, this is worthy of our God-centered and God-directed attention.

 


There has been employment litigation which has centred on alleged discrimination on religious grounds.

But the Exeter case is thought to be the first to go to law in the education world.

Given a number of acrimonious conflicts between Christian groups and their student bodies over exclusive membership policies, the outcome will be of some significance.

The Evangelical Christian Union (ECU) at Exeter University will almost certainly seek to use Section 13 of the Human Rights Act in its judicial review.

That section was inserted specifically to assuage concerns by religious organisations that their beliefs and practices would not be circumscribed by the act.

Barrister Schona Jolly, from the firm, Cloisters, said: “On the face of it, the decision by the student guild at Exeter to freeze the ECU’s bank account and suspend it from membership, is a breach of Section 13.

“However, this case is about a clash of competing equalities.

“The guild will probably argue that it is entitled to take financial measures because the law requires it to uphold the principle of equality of opportunity and that it is not obliged to fund a society which openly excludes some prospective members, whether on grounds of sexual orientation or religious belief.”

Assuming that the High Court accepts that a university is a “public authority” – which it almost certainly will – the first question to decide is whether the ECU can claim the protection of the Human Rights Act at all.

The European Court of Human Rights has taken a fairly narrow view of the freedom to “manifest” one’s religion.

‘Pressing social need’

In the Exeter case, the ECU’s requirement that members sign a statement of beliefs might be interpreted as a different matter from manifesting one’s religion and thus not protected by law.

Historically, it has been harder for churches and religious organisations than individuals to make such a case.

A number of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights are relevant to this case – those dealing with freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association and prohibition of discrimination.

But none is absolute and all may be qualified by a public authority so long as such action is lawful, necessary and proportionate.

The guild will need to show that there is a “pressing social need” for the action it has taken.

If there is a full judicial review, it could be a ground-breaking case.

Toleration

‘If errors must be tolerated, say some, then men may do what they please, without control. No means, it seems, must be used to reclaim them. But is gospel conviction no means? Hath the sword of discipline no edge? Is there no means of instruction in the New Testament established, but a prison and a halter?’ – John Owen, Of Toleration.

God was in Christ reconciling

– ‘The Christ that we trust all to is not one who died to witness for God, but one in whom God died for His own witness, and His own work on us. God was in Christ reconciling. The prime doer in Christ’s cross was God. Christ was God reconciling. He was God doing the very best for man, and
not man doing his very best before God. The former is evangelical Christianity, the latter is humanist Christianity. Christ’s history, His person, can only be understood by His work, and by a work that we apprehend in our moral experience even when we cannot comprehend it by our intelligence.’ – PT Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), 27.

Core

‘[The] cross will appear and remain the central issue of Christian doctrine only if it can be shown to be central to the ethic of the soul and of the race. It is only central to faith because’ it is central to conscience, and to the dramatic conscience of the race, nay, of God. What’ is the Atonement but the satisfaction of the conscience—God’s and man’s—the adjustment, ‘the pacification, of conscience, find especially God’s? It is the core of our religion, because it is the crisis of man’s moral drama and the solution of that moral tragedy which ‘is his collision with the holy.’ – PT Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910), 116.

Living in the midst of your enemies

‘The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing, who would ever have been spared?’ – Martin Luther

CS Lewis on Sex

‘Our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so ‘natural,’ so ‘healthy,’ and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth … that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy,’ and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness. For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing. Every sane and civilized man must have some set of principles by which he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit others. One man does this on Christian principles, another on hygienic principles, another on sociological principles. The real conflict is not between Christianity and ‘nature,’ but between Christian principles and other principles in the control of ‘nature,’ for ‘nature’ (in the sense of natural desire) will have to be controlled anyway, unless you are going to ruin your whole life.’ (CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, Chapter 5)

The Wreck of Western Culture – Humanism Revisited

Michael Jenson has recently posted a helpful review of John Carroll’s book The Wreck of Western Culture – Humanism Revisited on his blog. A fuller version of the review is also available here. The book, and the review, are well worth the read. Writing in 1917, Forsyth had this to say about Humanism: ‘Everything has come to turn on man’s welfare instead of God’s worship, on man with God to help him and not on God with man to wait upon Him. The fundamental heresy of the day, now deep in Christian belief itself, is humanist. It is the humanism and humanitarianism which events are now reducing to an absurdity as a religion … Elated by our modern mastery of nature and cult of genius, and ridden by the superstition of progress (now unseated), we came to start with that excellent creature, man, his wonderful resources, his broadening freedom, his widening heart, his conquest of creation, and his expanding career. And, as with man we begin, with man we really end. God is there but to promote and crown this development of man, if there be a God at all.’