Faith in Crisis - free ebook to download

I've recently put together some of the articles from this blog and my archives that seem relevant to the present times. They cover topics such as faith, trust, doubt, disasters and questions about God's goodness.

The result is 'Faith in Crisis', a small eBook in PDF format that's free to download from my website. I hope and pray that it will be an encouragement to you.




UPDATE

I've now added a second eBook, Hope in Sorrow, which is made up of longer articles on grief, depression, stress and death. You can download it free from my website.

The Evil That Men Do (review)

The Evil That Men Do, by Marcus K. Paul, (Sacristy Press, 2016) takes an unflinching look at some of the most shameful events in the history of the church, such as the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. It also examines periods in Christian history which are commonly held up to ridicule, such as 16th and 17th century Puritanism, and Victorian religiosity and "do-goodism".

The book is well written, being neither simplistic nor contentious. The author makes no effort to deny or excuse atrocities. The cover tellingly shows Thomas Cranmer being burned at the stake by fellow Christians in 1556.

Through his knowledgeable and widely-sourced descriptions of the political and philosophical background of each era, Paul sets events in context. He also points to some of the positive impacts of the church and individual Christians in each era which are often overlooked. As he says, "the evil that men don't do because of their beliefs is hardly susceptible to recording and measurement", whereas their evil deeds live on in memory.

I read the book while researching and thinking about the First World War. Chapter 10, "Global War and the Abridgement of Hope", deals with the horrors of the war and the widespread loss of faith and changed attitude towards the church that resulted from it, especially amongst soldiers. The author takes up Wilfred Owen's argument that it was often the experience of other's actions that destroyed, or occasionally preserved, faith. He compares this to the Victorian era, when disbelief was more likely to result from pondering and debating abstract ideas.

He deals sympathetically with those who lost their faith. After the war, he says, many people were so psychologically scarred by what they had been through that no amount of rational argument for God's existence, let alone goodness, could move them. This was especially the case if it was offered by clergy who had not seen the brutality firsthand. (Things were rather different in America, where the experience of the war years strengthened Christian certainty and uniformity.)

Surprisingly, Marcus K Paul has little to say about Christian opposition to the war. He speaks of Christians, such as members of the Salvation Army, who courageously worked alongside the troops in the trenches, bringing cups of tea and comfort. His chapter has more to do with people's attitude to the church rather than the church's attitude to the war.

As is well known, the established churches on both sides largely supported both the war and conscription. More than one historian has argued that the war was portrayed as a holy war. Yet there were a few Christian voices raised against the war, including the great German theologian, Karl Barth. It would be good to hear more of them.

The book doesn't cover the more recent issue of child sexual abuse by clergy and others associated with the church. Perhaps the full extent of that evil has not been fully exposed yet. Much of what the author says about other evils could well be applied. Overall, The Evils that Men Do provides a way of thinking about the unthinkable, not justifying it, but not being overwhelmed by it either.

Are you more like Timorous, or Mr Fearing?

Timorous and Mr Fearing are two of the characters described by John Bunyan in his allegorical story, The Pilgrim's Progress. Despite the similarity of their names, they have rather different personalities, and come to very different ends.

The Pilgrim, Christian, meets Timorous and his companion Mistrust at the top of the Hill of Difficulty. Unlike Christian who is heading for the Celestial City, Timorous and Mistrust are going the other way. Christian asks "why?" After all, they have already come some way in their journey and struggled up the Hill. Why not keep going? 

Timorous replies "The further we go, the more danger we meet with." He's seen the dangers ahead, he's had enough, and he's going back to the easy life he had in the world. He was never really committed to reaching the Celestial City.

Mr Fearing also falters at every danger and opposition he meets. But unlike Timorous, he stands his ground, quaking, until he finds the courage to go forward. His journey to the Celestial City is slow and painful, for his companions who have to bear with him as well as himself. Yet the Lord seems to take special care of him. And in the end he arrives at his goal.

Two things distinguish Mr Fearing from Timorous. The first is his determination to reach the Celestial City. No matter what lies ahead, he won't turn back, even if he fears going forward. The second is that his greatest fear is not danger or discomfort, but making mistakes. He often missed out on the joys of being a pilgrim because of his lack of assurance. Yet he sometimes showed remarkable courage and spiritual strength.

Bunyan was an astute and experienced pastor. He recognised that Mr Fearing's problem was not that he lacked the will to be a Christian, but that he carried with him a personal weakness. Bunyan also observed that the Lord seemed particularly gentle with such people.

None of us ought to be like Timorous, giving up too soon. No doubt we would all like to be like Great Heart, Faithful, or Valiant-for-Truth - Christians who do great things for the Lord and seem to fear nothing. Yet if we feel like Mr Fearing, we can be assured that God still has a place for us in the Celestial City and will see that we get there.

A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament (Reading the Old Testament part 5)

The temptation when reading the Bible is to jump straight into the application and ask "What does this mean for me today?" But reading the text this way you are likely to miss a great deal that might have been helpful, not just today, but in the future. Part of the purpose of reading the Bible should be to absorb more and more of the richness of it's message so that it becomes part of your life and your understanding. Jumping to the immediate application too soon can leave you vulnerable to making false assumptions and being misled by words taken out of context.

To read without expecting any application to your own life would, of course, be little more than an academic exercise. We should read asking and expecting the Holy Spirit to show us what the text has to say to us personally. Many Christians have had the experience of reading a passage and one or two verses immediately seem to have great significance for their own situation. It's as if God has highlighted them. But generally we should expect the benefit of reading scripture to come from a regular, intelligent reading of the text and an understanding what the authors were saying, followed by obedience to it's truth. 

Whether you're reading a short passage of scripture or a whole book, it's helpful to have a framework for approaching the text. Here's a simple set of questions that can help in understanding what you're reading. You shouldn't need more than the notes in a study Bible or a single-volume Bible handbook to answer them. Often the text itself will provide the answers.

WHO - who wrote the text? Sometimes there's a lot of debate about this, and it's not worth getting side tracked by the arguments (unless perhaps you're a theology student doing an assignment.) But if it's clear who wrote it, that may provide a clue to the author's view point. We'd expect King David, composing psalms in Israel's heyday, to have a different point of view than Ezra the prophet writing after the exile, for instance.

WHEN - when was it written? A related question. Again there is often a lot of debate, but where it's obvious, we need to take this into account in understanding what's being said. Don't, for example, read New Testament ideas into an Old Testament text without first getting to grips with what the text meant at the time it was written. Once you have grappled with the original meaning, there will undoubtedly be New Testament themes to explore, and a grasp of the original meaning will often help to expand and enrich these. 

WHERE - where does the passage fit into the book, where does the book fit into the Bible as a whole? In other words, what is its context? Reading a whole book (if time allows) before looking at a particular passage is often very helpful in keeping the overall context clear.

WHICH - which genre is it?  Poetry, narrative, prophecy, law, teaching? What type of writing, in other words. This will often affect how we are to understand it. 

HOW - how is the text written? Are there any patterns in the structure, or repeated words or phrases? These might provide a clue to what is important. Is there an introduction somewhere earlier that tells you what the text is about? 

WHY - why was the author writing? What is the purpose of the passage or book? Is it addressed to a particular person or group of people? Why did he write what he wrote in this particular way?

WHAT - what does the text say? Try not to bring in what you've heard or read in the past, or what the commentaries say, until you've read the text several times. If there are verses that are difficult to understand, work on getting a sense of the meaning of the whole, then ask yourself "what could they mean, in the context of what I'm reading? And what couldn't they mean?" 

Once you've answered these questions, then it's time to look at how the text relates to what you know of the rest of Old Testament scripture, and the New Testament. Only then ask how it applies in your own life.

This post is part 5 of a series on reading the Old Testament:

Reading the Old Testament part 7 - Is the Old Testament misogynistic?
Reading the Old Testament part 6 - Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament
Reading the Old Testament part 5 - A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament 
Reading the Old Testament part 4 - The Old Testament wasn't written in a day
Reading the Old Testament part 3 - Remember the Old Testament is old
Reading the Old Testament part 2 - Getting an overview
Reading the Old Testament part 1 - Know your history

Reading the Old Testament - 3. Remember the Old Testament is old

The Old Testament was written a long time ago. That's stating the obvious, but we don't always remember the obvious. We come to the text expecting it to be easy to read and immediately relevant to our daily lives. Why is that? Perhaps it's because we think of it as the 'living word of God' True, God is always up to date. He's as familiar with the Internet as he is with camels and the pyramids. The truth of his word is always new and relevant. But the actual text of the Old Testament is old - very old.

The last book in the Old Testament was written several hundred years before Jesus' birth. The earliest books were written at least eight centuries before Christ. (Much older dates are proposed by some scholars.) That would make them as old as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and hundreds of years older than books by Herodotus, Confucius, Plato and other 'ancient' authors. How many of us would pick up one of their books and expect to immediately understand everything we read?

Human nature hasn't changed. But human cultures change all the time. We see that happening in the Bible itself. Over the period covered by the Old Testament the culture of the Israelites and the people around them changed considerably. How much more have things changed since then.

We shouldn't expect the Old Testament to speak in a way that's in tune with our own culture, any more than we'd expect Homer's Iliad or Sophocles plays to be culturally familiar. That's not to say that the Old Testament has nothing relevant to say to us, but the cultural setting of any text needs to be remembered and wisdom used in understanding and applying it to our time. It's not 'cheating' to use Study Bible notes, commentaries, and other resources to help us understand the background and setting of what we're reading.

This post is part 3 of a series on reading the Old Testament:

Reading the Old Testament part 7 - Is the Old Testament misogynistic?
Reading the Old Testament part 6 - Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament
Reading the Old Testament part 5 - A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament 
Reading the Old Testament part 4 - The Old Testament wasn't written in a day
Reading the Old Testament part 3 - Remember the Old Testament is old
Reading the Old Testament part 2 - Getting an overview
Reading the Old Testament part 1 - Know your history

One site to come and one to see

My recent post on what happens when I try to pray was written somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But I have been giving a lot of thought to the place of prayer in Christian life. A few years ago I bought a great little book by Ronald Dunn called "Don't Just Stand There, Pray Something", which I've been re-reading. As the title suggests, it's written in a very chatty style, but it's nevertheless thought-provoking and helpful.

I'm pondering the idea of writing my own series of articles on prayer - not so much the theology of prayer, but the practicalities of it. How do we, or should we, pray? How do we find time to pray? Why do some people seem better at praying than others? Rather than print the articles or post them on this blog I'm thinking of posting them to a separate blog and inviting people to subscribe. Watch this space!

I've recently discovered a wonderful source of inspiration and ideas at the Veritas Forum site. To quote the site itself "Veritas Forums are university events that engage students and faculty in discussions about life's hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life." The site offers mp3 recordings of talks given at various (mainly US) universities, which can be downloaded. Some of the early recordings include audible chair scraping and door banging but the later recordings are high quality.

The wide variety of speakers includes well known writers and commentators such as Os Guiness, John Stott, Madeleine L'Engle, D. A Carson, Craig Blomberg, Tim Keller, Dallas Willard, Francis Collins and Ravi Zaccharias along with a host of others from all walks of life. The media page allows you to browse the talks by topic, speaker, date or location. Well worth a look.