The Best of Belief

China’s ‘Human Rights’ Great Escapist

Posted on 7 May 2012 by Islwyn

“The story of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng is the stuff of which movies are made: illiterate until he was in his 20s, he not only taught himself how to read, he taught himself the intricacies of Chinese law.

“He used his legal skills to defend the victims of government oppression: disenfranchised peasants, the disabled, and women forced to have abortions as a result of China’s infamous “one-child” policy. This last effort officially made him an enemy of the state. He was arrested and convicted on what most observers consider to be trumped-up charges.

“After serving 51 months in jail, he was placed under house arrest. In an effort to silence him, officials surrounded his home with guards, surveillance cameras and even installed a jamming device to prevent him from communicating with the outside.”

To be blind and to escape must make him ‘the great escapist’. The Washington Post register’s its concern for possible retribution on Chen Guangcheng’s family, but it doesn’t tell all the story to include the driving force of Chen’s Christian faith behind his ‘human rights’ battle against China’s communist regime as told here:

Posted in Biographies, Christian Mission, Injustice | Comments Off

Palm Sunday Sermon – Great Expectations

Posted on 17 April 2012 by Islwyn

I know we are post-Easter but Dr. Ben Witheington’s sermon on ‘Holy Week’ (preached April 1 at the Woodlands UMC in the Woodlands Texas), could well apply to the UK as well as to the USA.

“Our land needs a revival of the heart desperately, it needs to embrace the prince of peace, not the dogs of wars. There has been a coarsening of our culture in my lifetime. We have become a less civil, a less civilized, a less Christian nation in my lifetime. Indeed, we have even become a nation that wants not merely a separation of church and state, but a separation of God from country! This does not bode well, and no amount of shock jocks on the radio ranting and raving about our demise will fix it,” says Dr. Ben Witherington.

Posted in Easter, Gospel, Salvation | Comments Off

I Am The Bread Of Life

Posted on 30 March 2012 by Islwyn

Thinking back to the previous post of the confusion over the identity of Jesus today, what to make of Jesus was the dilemma that the chosen people of Israel had when Jesus lived with them 2000 years ago. Both Matthew and Luke make it clear that Jesus was born of a Virgin through the Holy Spirit. Luke said he was to be called, “Christ the Lord”. Matthew said he would be called “Emmanuel – God with us”. And in Matthew chapter 1:21 we are told his mission is, that “he will save his people from their sins.”

If Jesus had been of ordinary birth, the son of two human parents, he would have been the same as anyone else, born, fallen, sinful humanity. But in Luke 1:35 we are told that the angel told Mary that Jesus was to be a unique child, a miracle child. The angel told Mary that “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” That is the understanding the Gospel writers have of Jesus.

But what about Jesus’ own understanding of himself? And what was his understanding of his mission? For me, the one Gospel that stands out among the four Gospels for Jesus’ declaration of who he thought himself to be, is in the Gospel of John.

There are several places we could turn to but as we are approaching Easter I have chosen the “I am the Bread of Life” theme from John 6:35. John doesn’t repeat the story of the Passover found in the other Gospels or give us the introduction of the Lord’s Supper. But it is difficult to escape the idea of the Eucharist in the words of Jesus in John chapter 6:35: “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

Previously in the chapter Jesus had just performed the miracle of feeding the 5000 from five small barley loaves and two small fish. The crowds were wonder struck. Verse 2 tells us that the great crowd of people that followed him followed him because they had witnessed the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Now he had fed this great crowd of 5,000 men, plus women and children, with one boy’s lunch! So what were they to think of Jesus? Surely, he had to be the expected Messiah.

Verse 15 tells us they intended to take him by force to make him their king! But their understanding of the Messiah was all wrong. He had not come to be the new political leader who would rid Israel of its Roman overlords. He had come to show them, and us, what God was like, and to give his own life for ours. Then he tried to tell them that just as he had fed them miraculously with the physical bread so he could give them eternal life if they fed on him as the spiritual bread who had come down from heaven.

And it is here in this chapter that we see Jesus’ understanding of himself, of who he was and where he came from. In John 6 we see Jesus’ claiming to be “The Bread of Life”, and the implication in these statements. In John 6:33 he says, “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” There he claims he existed before he came to this world. In John 6:38 he says, “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.” In John 6:41 we find the Jews are quite aware of what Jesus is claiming: “At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’” In verse 52 John recalls that, “the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Keep in mind this would be in a packed synagogue with plenty of his followers on the outside wanting to get in! (John 6:59).

But again in John 6:50 Jesus declares, “But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.” Despite the miracles he had done, the healing of the sick and the feeding of the 5000, in John 6:30 his followers asked Jesus for a greater sign than that provided by Moses in their ancestors’ wilderness wanderings. “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Then Jesus replies in John 6:32 and 33: “I tell you the truth, it was not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (Cf., Exodus 16:4; Nehemiah 9:15; Psalm 78:24-25).

Further on in John 6:58 Jesus presses home the point he is making, “This is the bread that comes down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live for ever.”

And again a few verses on in John 6:62 Jesus asks, “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before?” Which Luke records Jesus’ followers witnessing in Acts 1:9-11.

In verse 63 we see Jesus letting up on the metaphor and explaining what his words meant. Said Jesus, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”

At the beginning of the chapter in verse 4 it tells us it was coming up to Passover. The Passover carried the message of what God was doing and would do for his people. The blood of lambs and goats never saved anyone. They were merely symbols that pointed to the one who would die for the sins of the world. It would be Jesus who would save those who put their trust in him.

A year later from the events recorded in chapter 6 of John the Passover Lamb would be Jesus himself; the sinless one would become sin for us that all who believe in him would have eternal life (John 3:16). 700 years before Jesus was born it had been predicted in Isaiah 53

“Surely he took up our infirmities

and carried our sorrows,

yet we considered him stricken by God,

smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.”

Jesus knew from Scripture and from communion with his Father in heaven who he was and what his mission was. And as much as he gave of himself completely to his people, they rejected him. It’s a sad comment that is made towards the end of the chapter. In verse 66 it says, “And from this time many of his disciples turned back and walked no more with him.” We see it summarised in the prologue in John 1: 10-11; “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”

But not everyone rejected him. And not everyone rejects Jesus today. That text is followed with an encouraging comment. In John 1: 12-13 we read, “Yet all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

What happened back then 2000 years ago we see being repeated today. 71% of the population claimed to be Christian in the 2001 Census, but how many fail to see who Jesus really is and what his mission is. Before I became a Christian I gave God a wide berth – he wasn’t Someone I wanted anything to do with. If he existed then I saw him as a spoilsport who had rules and regulations for me to follow – which didn’t fit into my natural inclinations and lifestyle. If there was a God then he was there to restrict my freedoms!

It took me a while with honest enquiry to get to know that Jesus came here to this world to put us right with God and to give every generation eternal life, and he can do that because of who he is. Through the power of the Holy Spirit I am now part of the wider Christian community that has acknowledged the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He is both Lord and Saviour for all who accept him as such. And that claim he made for himself as the giver of eternal life is well put in John’s Gospel. This life is not all that is to be. If we just take look at verse 35 through to 40 we see what it is Jesus promises.

“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

We know life in this world is only temporary. If we manage to live long enough to join the ‘centenarian club’, it is still a short time against the history of this world. And it’s no time at all when placed against the promise of eternal life.

We can join those who say we don’t have to believe in the Virgin Birth, that we don’t have to believe in the miracle of the incarnation, of God becoming a man so he could die for the sins of the world (John 3:16). We can join those who want to deny the resurrection. But as Jesus says in verse 40, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

There is to be a last day. There is to be the resurrection to eternal life for those who put their trust in Jesus. It was gained at great cost for us. A year on from chapter 6 the next Passover would see Jesus lifted up on the cross. He would take our sin and guilt upon himself that we might enjoy eternity in a world made new with all that God has prepared for our enjoyment with him. It’s what people are challenged to think about coming up to Easter.

All that Jesus has promised is all ours if we accept him for what he claimed to be, ‘The Bread of Life who came down from heaven to give life to the world.’

Posted in Christ's Sacrifice, Easter, Incarnation, Jesus, The Gospel | Comments Off

Christianity Of The ‘Filleted’ Kind

Posted on 30 March 2012 by Islwyn

The journalist, Matthew Parris, wrote an insightful article on religion v secularism in a recent Spectator column. It was titled: “Beware – I would say to believers – the patronage of unbelievers”

Says Parris of the patronage of unbelievers,

“They want your religion as a social institution, filleted of true faith. It is the atheists, who think this God business matters, who are on your side.

“As an unbeliever my sympathies are with fundamentalists. They seem to me to represent the source, the roots, the essential energy of their faiths. They go back to basics. To those who truly believe, the implicit message beneath ‘never mind if it’s true, religion is good for people’ is insulting. To those who really believe, it is because and only because what they believe is true, that it is good.” . . . If a faith is true it must have the most profound consequences for a man and for mankind. If I seriously suspected a faith might be true, I would devote the rest of my life to finding out.

“As I get older the sharpness of my faculties begins to dull. But what I will not do is sink into a mellow blur of acceptance of the things I railed against in my youth. ‘Familiar’ be damned. ‘Comforting’ be damned. ‘Useful’ be damned. Is it true? — that is the question. It was the question when I was 12 and the question when I was 22. Forty years later it is still the question. It is the only question.”

This patronage of unbelievers towards believers reminds me of what I sometimes see on the BBC’s ‘The Big Questions’ presented by Nicky Campbell. On one occasion I heard him approving of Christianity as a ‘gentle religion’. Meaning I assume that it is very tolerant, and of course it is a soft target for opponents.

The Big Questions is not a programme I would volunteer for having part, but it does have value in reflecting or informing us of the mix of religious ideas that are ‘out there’. On 19th February the subject was, “Is Britain A Christian Country?” We were reminded that in the 2001 Census that 71% of the population claimed to be Christian while 78% said they believed in God. But those statistics are changing.

In the preamble to the debate between theist and atheist the presenter, Nicky Campbell, questioned some aspects of Christianity suggesting there were some things we didn’t have to believe in to be Christian, adding, for instance, ‘we don’t have to believe in the Virgin Birth, do we? When I read Matthew Parris, I thought, yes! For many, Christianity is a gentle religion, comfortable and comforting for those who refuse to be challenged by its Founder and his teachings.

Richard Dawkins was among the humanist/atheist line-up on that particular show. But there were no theologians in the theist line-up – and the theists who were there made no objection to that suggestion by Nicky Campbell, ‘we don’t have to believe in the Virgin Birth, do we?

Which raised the question for me, what do many of the 71% who claimed to be Christian in the 2001 Census know about Jesus or believe about him, about who he is and what his mission was while he was on earth? If Matthew Parris is right, that unbelievers want the Christian faith, the ‘filleted’ kind, then that may be what many of the 71% of ‘Christians’ have accepted – a Christianity of the filleted kind; a cultural Christianity, without a knowledge of its Founder or his teachings.

Posted in Bible, The Gospel | Comments Off

When Grace Wore A Badge

Posted on 18 March 2012 by Islwyn

It has been said about us drivers that the last thing to be converted is our ‘right foot’. How do we react when we are caught speeding? What are our instinctive reactions to the distinctive markings of the vehicle we see in our rear view mirror?

Says Pastor Jay Sampson, “In response to the mercy I had received, I was the picture of a law-abiding driver for the rest of my trip and beyond.”

“Like the speed limit that day in Texas, the law is no longer a burden because it is no longer a restraint on my will but an avenue through which I can express my great gratitude.”

Sounds a bit like Dr John Stott when he said, “Why do we serve? Not because the law is our master and we have to, but because Christ is our husband and we want to. Not because obedience to the law leads to salvation, but because salvation leads to obedience to the law. The law says, you live, so do this. The motive has changed.”

Read Pastor Jay Sampson’s experience of what happened when he was caught out by the law?

Posted in Law of God, Saved By Grace, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Anglicans And The Second Coming Of Jesus Part IV

Posted on 7 March 2012 by Islwyn

Just continuing with The Big Questions debate on the end of the world and the Second Coming of Jesus. While there may be different interpretations or emphasis about what happens at the ‘end of time’ Seventh-day Adventists have no monopoly on the theme of the Second Coming of Jesus. There are Anglicans, as shown in previous posts, and many other Christians who share a belief in and a sense of longing for the Second Advent. So coming back to Bishop Lowe’s protest, can I persaude him about 1 Thessalonians, that the Second Advent (and the resurrection) theme in 1 Thessalonians is not couched in poetry, allegory or parable that is difficult to interpret. In this passage the Apostle Paul quite plainly offers believers a sure hope that transcends death, rather than a sense of resignation in the face of death. That is the message of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and The Coming of the Lord.

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

There are said to be over 1500 mentions of the Second Coming of Jesus in the Bible, and over 300 in the New Testament. Here are few passages that deal with or mention the second Coming of Jesus:

The Anglican author and broadcaster Anne Atkins has already given an exposition on Matthew 24, Cf. Mark 13 and Luke 21.

These are just a few of the many references in the Bible about the Second Coming of Jesus. There is no poetry, parables or allegory in these references, not that poetry, parable or allegory might not teach about the Second Coming of Jesus. But the references just reveal clear messages for the sincere seeker, all in simple prose (John 3:16).

Posted in Apologetics, Second Advent, The Resurrection | 1 Comment

Exploring The Secret Rapture And The Second Coming Of Jesus

Posted on 24 February 2012 by Islwyn

In the previous post the link to Fr. Jonathan includes his views on the ‘Secret Rapture’ as well as the Second Coming of Jesus. The best work discussing the Secret Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus that I have read from the point of explanation and being reader friendly is The Blessed Hope by highly esteemed New Testament scholar and author, George Eldon Ladd. First published in 1956 it continues to be republished to meet the interest in this subject.

Scroll down in the Amazon link to read reviews. A further review here.

Posted in Apologetics, Books & Book Reviews, Second Advent, Secret Rapture | Comments Off

Anglicans And The Second Advent – Part III

Posted on 17 February 2012 by Islwyn

Continuing the theme of the Second Coming of Jesus I once acquired four half hour sermons on two tapes by the late Dr. John Stott. I think that was back in the mid-1970s? They have long gone with ‘borrowing’. They were titled – and my memory may not serve me too well but the titles went something like, The Promise of His Coming, The Manner of His Coming, The Purpose of His Coming, and The Challenge of his Coming. I’ve not been successful in my search for these on the ‘All Souls’ website but I recall being very impressed by his very biblical presentations on the subject. I visited All Souls more than once to hear Stott preach as well as at other venues when it was convenient and not too distant. I have previously mentioned that while I have downsized in my personal library since retirement (although my wife would say she hadn’t noticed!), I’m reluctant to let go some of Stott’s commentaries that I find valuable for reference material or to reread. But Stott was as evangelical and biblical on the Second Coming of Jesus as anyone could get. His expositions would affirm the evangelical nature of the presentations of the ‘end time’ in the last two posts. And I would hope that it would be convincing for Bishop Lowe that any ‘modern’ interpretation of Scripture to adapt to our times, has not replaced the traditional interpretation that is still followed by so many biblical theologians.

But following on from my previous posts which are Low Church or evangelical traditions of the Anglican church here is an Anglican contribution to the Second Coming of Jesus from the ‘High’ or Classical tradition of Anglicanism.

The High Church and Low Church traditions within Anglicanism goes back to Elizabeth I who seemed to have successfully avoided the bloodshed which came from the 16th Century Reformation when anyone following a belief not represented by the reigning monarch would be considered a heretic, treasonable and worthy of death. Elizabeth combined both Catholic and Protestant within the one church – so ‘high’ leaning to catholic and ‘low’ leaning to Protestant and evangelical. Then today we have Thinking Anglicans, as well as what is considered the ‘Broad Church’. I imagine from his protests that Bishop Lowe belongs to the ‘Broad Church’. If not, I will take the rebuke. And then we can’t leave out ‘Anglican Mainstream’.

But this post on the Second Advent (which includes comment on ‘the rapture’ see the next post) is from ‘Classical’ or ‘High Church’ Anglicanism.

While not sharing Fr. Jonathan’s views on eternal punishment (Adventists are Conditionalists – explanation in a later post), Adventists would be more comfortable with Fr. Jonathan’s view of the end time than with that of Bishop Tom Wright on which he remarks in this post. I have read ‘Simply Jesus’ by Tom Wright but didn’t find it as simple or as well laid out and informative as John Stott’s ‘Basic Christianity’. But more on the Second Advent in ‘Part IV’.

Posted in Apologetics, Second Advent, Secret Rapture, The Resurrection | Comments Off

Anglicans & The Second Advent Part II

Posted on 12 February 2012 by Islwyn

The previous post arose out of the BBC’s ‘The Big Questions’ on 8th January and the ‘End of the World’ scenario. My question, following Bishop Lowe’s protestations, was what do Anglicans believe about the Second Coming of Jesus? Has a more modernist reading replaced a literal reading and interpretation of the Bible as Bishop Lowe suggested on The Big Questions debate? My previous post went back into the ‘newspaper archives’ to remind myself what Manchester’s senior Bishop, Nigel McCulloch, once shared on the Bible’s ‘end of the age’ proclamations.

I am back to the newspaper ‘archives’ with this post, back when there was all that millennium hype with predictions of all sorts of ‘end of the world’ scenarios. This is another Anglican contribution to the theme of the Second Advent of Jesus – this one from “The Mail on Sunday,” 19 December, 1999. Media experienced, Anne Atkins has been on The Big Questions and would have related more readily to the view held by the Adventist pastor who was met with protests from Bishop Lowe as well as the atheist line-up on the show of the 8th January.

Anne Atkins prefaced her article with the claim to be “a sane modern woman.” One could understand her doing that. Anyone talking about “the end of things” back then was bound to be under suspicion by the very nature of the subject, and no less today. That kind of language is associated with all that is symbolised by 9/11 and 7/7. But the Anglican in the previous post and this Anglican approached us through the newspapers, with editorial endorsement!

Said Anne Atkins in that article, all up-beat, “world-wide, Christianity is on the increase, currently claiming about a quarter of the population, so billions of otherwise normal, mentally robust individuals believe history will end as suddenly as it may have begun – for that is what the Second Coming must mean.” So if Anne Atkins is right there is a lot more people around who would come under Bishop Lowe’s indictment of being ‘fundamentalist’!

But admitting to a mental blankness on this subject she said, “I was an undergraduate before I realised that the service I attended early every December was about the Advent, not of a helpless baby in a bed of straw 2,000 years ago but a terrifying Judge on clouds of glory, still to come.” And then she went on to say, “And – believe it or not – it was only recently that I made the connection between the millennium and the hype.” Keep in mind this was published 12 years ago.

Then she sent her readers to the two prophecies Jesus gave in Matthew 24, one on the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in AD 70, and the other where Jesus said in Matthew 24:36 that no one knows the day or the hour of his coming. For the Christian who would take note, that would remove all credibility from impostors and time setters.

She reminded her readers that Jesus did specify that His coming would be when we least expect it. One thing would be for sure, she said, it would be unmistakable! She then made the point that while most people missed the first arrival of Jesus, no one will miss His second. (Bishop Lowe, this Anglican, and presumably her vicar husband, seem to me to see the Biblical description of the Second Advent of Jesus in literal terms).

And this is what struck me of Anne Atkins being so bold with the Scriptures rather than personal opinion. She said, Jesus likened His Second Coming to lightening, cracking the sky from East to West (Matthew 24:27). The foundations of Creation will shake, stars will fall, the sun will grow cold. We will not be sitting around watching theologians on Channel 5 debating whether or not it has happened. (Today she might replace ‘Channel 5’ with ‘The Big Questions’ debate!). For Anne Atkins, there is no secret rapture! For her, “the trumpet shall sound throughout the four corners of the earth” when the Lord comes (Matthew 24:30-31).

But more important for Anne Atkins than the “when” or the “how” – was the “why?” Look around you she said. Turn on the news. She then referred to the outrages in Chechnya and asked, who hasn’t responded to the outrage, and cried out in horror, ‘is this all?’ Today she would have to include 9/11 and 7/7 and “Bali” and Madrid and Moscow and Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria and more. And can we forget Rwanda and the former state of Yugoslavia, and what is happening on the African continent with AIDS – as well as the political and social upheaval in some of its countries such as Sudan. And that is without going back to the two world wars of the previous century! “What is God doing, for goodness sake?” she asked. “Is this what He intended? And how can He be satisfied with it?”

As I read her article she sounded just like a modern Abraham challenging God to be just. But then like Abraham she knows He is just because she went on to say, “The God of love and justice cannot stand by and do nothing. The only question is, why He waits so.” And the answer for Atkins comes from Scripture itself, it is to give us a chance before He puts the world to rights. She didn’t give us any Scriptures but you can find one in 2 Peter 3:9.

Then came the idea of judgement again. Before the Judgement she says, Jesus explained to His friends, every country in the world must have the opportunity of hearing about Him, so anyone who wants can be rescued (Matthew 24:14; 28:19,20). There was no copping out of the Gospel Commission given by Jesus for her! And then she puts in brackets “(We must be getting dangerously near, now).”

She went on to say, “Putting the world to rights is the other compelling reason for future dramatic intervention. If God exists at all, He must recreate it, so we see it as it always should have been. Of course, we cannot imagine it now. The nearest we can envisage is a land without death or mourning, without crying or pain. The reality, if the imagery is to be believed, will be a place of such joy and wonder that . . . well, suffice it to say,” she said, “I don’t think the millennium experience will get very near.” Reminders there of Nicky Campbell stressing that these end time predictions are there in Thessalonians and Revelation. Anne Atkins must also have been thinking of Scriptures like Revelation 21:1-5.

Then she said who the major influence was in her life that persuaded her to take these Biblical predictions seriously. It was her brother. Said Anne, he is used to weighing evidence and is now a physicist and an Oxford professor. But the odd thing is, she said, he still believes these events will happen, as surely as night follows day. And with a sense of humour that also had some seriousness about it she said about her brother, “To meet him, you would think he was as sane as you or I. Except that I believe it, too.”

It did surprise me to read such undiluted end-time teachings of the Bible in the newspaper as in this post and the previous post. I must give credit to Bishop Lowe who sent me digging into the newspaper ‘archives’ of 12 years ago.

There is so much about the Second Advent of Jesus and the “end time” event in the New Testament that no one can be uninformed about what the Bible says of the Second Advent. More on that in the next post.

Posted in Apologetics, Second Advent | Comments Off

Anglicans And The Second Advent Part I.

Posted on 8 February 2012 by Islwyn

“But that’s fundamentalist teaching! That is what causes so much trouble,” protested Bishop Stephen Lowe. In religious as well as atheist speak ‘fundamentalists’ who read the Bible literally, (as opposed to literalistic), are trouble-makers and the bishop was obviously very uncomfortable with his theist ally in the theist/atheist debate. The Adventist pastor had become too descriptive of the Second Coming of Jesus. OK in a congregational setting but not appropriate for The Big Questions with a professional line-up of atheists sitting opposite.

“But isn’t it in Thessalonians and in Revelation replied the presenter,” Nicky Campbell. “But we don’t read the Bible that way anymore,” protested Bishop Lowe. “We read the Bible with a more modern interpretation.” “But,” insisted Nicky Campbell, “it is in Thessalonians and in Revelation, isn’t it?” I think Campbell was relying on info he got from the Adventist Pastor. “But the Bible is written in poetry, and allegory and parables and we have to . . .” Not exact quotes but the gist of it. The bishop wasn’t allowed to finish before the attack came from the other side as well as someone trying to get a word in edgeways on the theist side. For Nicky Campbell the ‘end of the world’ stuff was reminiscent of the old-time preacher’s with their sandwich boards calling for the world to repent.

The bishop is right, of course. The Bible does contain poetry, parables and allegory, and much more in the way of literary devices. The Old Testament is said to be composed of 40% poetry. But because the prophets of the Old Testament couched their messages in poetic form doesn’t mean that those messages were not presented clearly or not understood; the same for allegory and parables and other literary devices used in the Bible. So what do Anglicans believe about the Bible when it speaks of the Second Coming of Jesus and the end of the world as we know it? Does Bishop Lowe speak on behalf of all Anglicans?

Before his retirement and present appointment Bishop Stephen Lowe was suffragan bishop to Manchester’s Bishop, Nigel McCulloch. As you can read, Bishop McCulloch is a ‘media bishop’ and “has also been a regular religious columnist for The Times.” If Bishop Lowe doesn’t believe in ‘the end of time’ as described in the Bible, then he may not be in sync with Bishop McCulloch. Keeping in mind Bishop McCulloch is said have ‘been a regular religious columnist for The Times, that seems to answer my question, who wrote the religious editorial for The Times, dated 28th November 1999.

Coming up to the end of the old millennium to enter the new there was a lot of hype in the media with speculation on what disaster/s may befall the world. One was the concern for the Millennium Bug, which for some could be the instrument of global devastation and the end of civilisation.

Whatever the hype and whatever the source, by 2 January 2000 it had all fallen flat, nothing spectacular or dramatic happened. 9/11 and 7/7 and subsequent atrocities had not yet taken place. 1 January 2000 came and went. There was no Second Coming. There was no end of the world. We are still here.

But back to the Bishop of Manchester, Bishop McCulloch. On Saturday, 28 November 1999, the editorial provided a Christian message. The text used was from 1 Corinthians 15:24 from the A.V., “Then Cometh the End.” In the N.I.V. It reads, “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power” (NIV).

“Then cometh the end . . .” That King James version of the text seemed to me at the time to share the very ominous and very apocalyptic tones of more sensational warnings being spread about the end of the world. Whenever “End-Time” language is used in newspapers it is often associated with the extreme side of the religious spectrum, as Bishop Lowe was suggesting on The Big Questions show – the fundamentalist view of Scripture only creates trouble! But this was the editorial section of The Times!

While commercialism focussed on Christmas, “there are other and starker advent themes – the end of time, the day of Judgement, the Christian longing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ – a tension between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’, the urgent notes to ‘watch’ and ‘wake up’ and pray that God will not delay.” If that editorial was indeed by Bishop McCulloch he certainly had my full attention.

There was the longing for God to fulfil His promises to bring deliverance from all that is wrong in our world! There was “a longing for an end that makes sense of it all.” I was hooked on that last sentence, that “longing for an end that makes sense of it all.”

It was Bishop Lowe’s protests that sent me back to the archives, to this 12 year-old message. Not all Anglicans would agree with Bishop Lowe’s views on the re-interpretation of Scripture. This “End Time” message was an editorial in The Times! That is what made me sit up and take note at the time. We see this wonderful hope being expressed by the writers in the New Testament, but I had not expected to read it in The Times newspaper! But that is what is best in Christian belief. The Christian has a hope beyond what is. It is based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that is the basis of Christian belief. Because he was raised we will be raised too! It was from the context of 1 Corinthians 15:45-57 that the text for the editorial was taken.

The Genesis account of the ‘Fall’ of our first parents explains the need of Christ’s First Advent. As the Apostle Paul puts it in this passage of 1 Corinthians Bishop McCulloch uses, in verse 22, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive”. It is more fully expounded by the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12-21. After the birth of Jesus, the New Testament writers focussed on the Second Advent. Without the Second Advent the first would be incomplete.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us in chapter 9:28 that, “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”

Throughout the New Testament that is the expressed longing of the disciples of Jesus, to see Him come again to reign in power and glory as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16).

Nearer to Christmas, 18 December 1999, Nigel McCulloch shared his Christmas thoughts with readers of The Times in ’Credo’. He encouraged the church to “guide people in the way of the risen Jesus to love God and our neighbours.”

“In many places churches are, by God’s grace, doing that job well. If people choose not to respond, then, instead of going into defensive mode, the church must have the courage of the Old Testament prophets. . . . The sobering message of this Advent season”, said McCulloch, “is that Christ will return – as judge of the living and the dead. On that day each one of us will be called to account. That,” he said, “would be a more appropriate message for the church to be making.”

He may have very strong convictions that others might not share, but Bishop Lowe appears he might be generous enough to recognise that his theist Adventist ally on The Big Questions of 8th January relates more closely to Bishop McCulloch on the theme of the Second Advent than he does himself.

I’ll post another Second Advent ‘End Time’ message from an Anglican in the next post.

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