The Big Picture: Building Blocks of a Christian World View

By Brian Harris

This book is an accessible exploration of the big building blocks of the Christian faith, differentiating between the important contours of a Christian worldview and secondary concerns imposed by culture and tradition.

"Skilfully bringing together biblically-informed theology and the everyday world, Brian Harris unpacks themes of grace, creation and Christian hope in an engaging conversational manner. The result is a book that empowers us to live out our faith wherever we are." Stephen Garner, Laidlaw College, Auckland, New Zealand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authentic Publishers
• Release date: Apr 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781780783420

Book preview

2014

Section A:

Setting the Scene, the Bible and Culture

1.

The Emperor’s New Clothes: On Acknowledging our Nakedness

You probably know the story. An arrogant emperor is anxious to impress his subjects with a wonderful new wardrobe. Unknown to him, the tailors he has selected are somewhat suspect, and suggest to him an offer too good to be true. They will dress him in the finest suit of clothes, the beauty of which will be apparent to all – all, that is, except the ignorant, the foolish, and those unfit for their position. To them the outfit will be invisible. Never doubting his own wisdom, the emperor readily signs up for the deal and is soon fitted in his new attire. If you remember the Hans Christian Andersen tale, you will recollect that that consisted of absolutely nothing. A stark naked emperor is soon parading amongst his subjects who, anxious lest they be considered stupid, promptly ‘ooooh’ and ‘aaaah’ at the supposedly stunning (but actually non-existent) garments. The awkward façade is only ended when a child calls out, ‘But he isn’t wearing anything at all!’ The obvious honesty of the assessment wins the day, and a horrified emperor is forced to face his rather embarrassing nakedness.

First published in 1837, this Danish tale has been translated into over one hundred languages, evidence that there is something about the story that speaks to us at a deeper level. Interestingly enough it is sometimes alleged that Andersen wrote it after reading the seventh letter to the churches in Revelation, the church in Laodicea. Apparently he was struck by the image of Revelation 3:17 where John writes, ‘You say, I am rich … and do not need a thing. But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.’ As Andersen reflected on someone not realizing they were naked, the story pieced its way into life.

Our opening question is a disturbing one. Could it be that the church, and more particularly Christians, strut around like that deluded emperor proclaiming to have the best that life offers, whilst onlookers lower their eyes and wonder why they are parading around naked?

Alister McGrath has written, ‘Too often, traditional apologetics has sought to commend Christianity without asking why it is that so many are not Christians. It seems relatively pointless to extol the attractiveness of the Christian faith if this is not accompanied by a deadly serious effort to discover why it is obviously so unattractive to so many people.’¹

Sadly McGrath’s assessment that many find the Christian faith unattractive might be valid. At an anecdotal level, I remember as a social work student meeting with a mother and her 18-year-old son. The son had attacked her with a broken bottle after she had objected to his selling $50,000 of her jewellery to help fund a growing addiction. It was my role to listen to the story and help find a creative way forward. In the midst of much discussion the mother suddenly suggested, ‘Why not start going to church? That is probably what you need.’ Her son instantly replied, ‘Oh please, I have more than enough problems as it is.’

That conversation took place over thirty years ago, but I still remember the spontaneity of the association. For that young man the thought of participating in a church was an additional difficulty. Not for one second did he contemplate that it might provide a path to solve his very real problems, problems he was desperately anxious to overcome. I remember the sadness I felt when I heard his comment. It has not left me. Something is wrong. The emperor has no clothes.

Lest you think that a comment made over a generation ago is of little current significance, I suspect that the only thing that has changed is that today no one would bother to suggest that church attendance might help solve a crisis. We who know Jesus to be the source of our life, hope and delight, must ask, ‘Why?’

The thesis of this book is that current representations of Christian faith are often far removed from the life of faithful Christ following envisioned in the Scriptures. It came into sharp focus for me a few years ago. A church I was assisting was trying to devise a new mission statement, and contemplated ‘Making people whole-hearted followers of Jesus’. As I wandered around the different groups evaluating this proposal, I heard one cynic say, ‘We should be more honest. Our statement should be Making people boring for Jesus!’ The rest of the group giggled in agreement. When such comments become our default drive, and improbable descriptors like ‘boring’ become a norm for the followers of Jesus the Christ, something has gone badly wrong. We need to evaluate the reality of ‘what is’ in the light of ‘what is supposed to be’. Painful though it might be, it is only in facing our possible nakedness that we are likely to find a path back to the ‘life in all its fullness’ that Jesus promised to those who follow him.²

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that current Christians are wilfully trying to reduce the Christian faith to a pale caricature of what it is supposed to be. This is no plot devised in smoke-filled rooms. Rather it is the product of failing to grasp the implications of Christ following in everyday life. It seems to me that this has two major dimensions.

First, the Christian faith is poorly understood by its adherents. This is demonstrated in multiple ways. At the heart of the Christian message is a cross. It speaks of unmerited but transforming grace. When we want to congratulate ourselves on the morality of our lifestyle it reminds us that our friendship with God is not a product of our hard work and moral fortitude, but flows from the merciful sacrifice of Calvary. Though forever indebted to grace, most versions of Christianity quickly lapse into a modestly disguised form of legalism. Legalism makes grace less remarkable. It reduces grace to a backstop required only by those foolish enough to leave their salvation to their deathbed, thus being unable to prove that they always had what it takes to earn their way into God’s kingdom by adherence to the stated norms of the church of the day.

The lapse of grace into legalism is not the only distortion. There are many others. Think for example of the way in which our mandate to be stewards of creation has been used to sanctify the exploitation of the world’s resources. The creativity inherent in being image-bearers of a God who makes everything from nothing is often battered into a predictable conservatism.

Or consider the monotonous regularity with which eschatology morphs into escapism. Instead of the contours of the coming kingdom of God reshaping the pattern of our present relationships, we sometimes allow debates about the end times to be exercises in irrelevance.

And then there is our attitude to revelation. So often we allow revelation to be confined to the past tense. Instead of participating in God’s radical plan to make all things new, many Christians fall into the trap of championing the status quo, apparently confusing it with the agenda of God. At heart there is a failure to understand the broad and winsome contours of a genuinely Christian world view. Christianity proclaims that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. That hardly sounds like a crusade to keep things as they are.

If the first failure is one of comprehension, the second is of experience.

Prior to Pentecost, the product of the disciples’ efforts was pitiful. While Jesus both challenged and encouraged his disciples, he rarely congratulated them. It was not that he was mean-spirited – he was simply realistic and realized how much needed to change. For all that, he never lost heart, not because he was confident that the disciples would eventually catch on, but because he was aware that the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost would more than compensate for their very obvious deficits. And he was right!

Post Pentecost, the disciples became a force to be reckoned with. People listened when they spoke … more than that, they were changed. Miracles took place, not so often that they became routine, but sufficiently often for the disciples to be ever-hopeful and expectant. Their message to the early converts remains valid for today’s disciples. We too must ‘live by the Spirit’ and ‘keep in step with the Spirit’.³ Sadly too often the Spirit-empowered life is in danger of becoming the self-propelled life. Instead of chanting the word of the Lord that came to Zerubbabel, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD Almighty’, we comfort ourselves that we are not as ignorant as they were, and have the benefit of significantly greater reserves.⁴ We tend not to emphasize the difference between their outcomes and ours. Far too many versions of faith operate without any obvious source of divine power.

Though the major focus of this book will be on understanding the big building blocks of a Christian world view, I hope that this plea for a Spirit-enabled faith will not be overlooked. A better understanding of Christianity without the addition of the Spirit’s empowerment will prove to be inadequate.

Let me elaborate on why I think our inadequate understanding of the biblical message damages our witness.

Mind the gap

Most train stations have a sign urging patrons to ‘mind the gap’. It is just a little step from the platform onto the train, but if it is mismanaged the consequence is serious. In a similar manner we might almost get the point of many of the main doctrines of the Christian faith. The problem is caused by the gap.

Let me be clear. While it is untrue to suggest that only those who obtain high distinctions in theology are adequately equipped to follow Jesus, sometimes the gap in our understanding produces unintended but negative consequences. Take the difference between law and grace. Viewing Christ following as an ethical mandate consisting of a lengthy list of ‘do this’ and ‘don’t do that’ statements might give the impression that we hold the moral high ground and can claim to be virtuous. The downside is that it leaves us in a similar position to the Pharisees of old – and Jesus didn’t seem to be especially fond of them.

Let me give you an idea of some of the gaps that I see. They make up the broad but crucial contours for a Christian world view. I will elaborate at chapter length on each in section B of the book, but hopefully this will whet your appetite to keep reading.

So when does the gap between a biblical world view and our own become a serious problem? Think of the consequences when we strike the wrong note with any of the following six …

When we sweat the ‘how’ of creation instead of the ‘why’ of creation

Steeped as we are in the scientific method of the last few centuries, our instinct on reading the opening chapters of Genesis is often to mutter a ‘hardly likely’ to its claim of a six-day creation. While we would acknowledge that the detail provided is scant, it is doubtful that anyone would suggest that the account should be prioritized for inclusion in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For some this becomes deeply problematic, and they either reject the Christian faith as a result, or they go to extraordinary lengths to try to establish that the Genesis creation account is in fact compatible with the discoveries of modern science. While they sometimes succeed in convincing themselves, that conviction rarely extends to those they attempt to persuade. An unfortunate impasse results. On the one side is a small group of devotees who believe that they have reconciled science and the Bible; on the other are a group who smugly chortle at what they consider to be an example of intellectual and scientific suicide. The latter quickly relegate the Genesis account to a waste basket of quaint but irrelevant myths from antiquity.

I would like to suggest that this is an exceptionally unfruitful approach and does a disservice to the biblical text, largely because it arbitrarily tries to force the Bible to answer questions of recent interest, rather than the truly significant questions the original authors set out to answer.

So what questions does Genesis answer? Here are a few … and don’t miss how profound each is.

•  Is there a God?

•  Is this an accidental or intentional universe?

•  What is God’s relationship to the creation?

•  Why is the world simultaneously wonderful and dreadful?

•  What is the purpose of life?

•  What responsibilities do humans have in the stewardship of this planet?

•  What does it mean to be human?

Other chapters will explore these questions in depth, so I will not develop the argument here other than to suggest that an early step in clothing the emperor is to acknowledge that the Bible does not answer the question ‘How was the world made?’ in such a way as to render a scientific investigation of the question redundant.

Although the Bible does not focus on ‘how’ the world was made, it does answer a question most find more compelling – ‘why’ the world was made. When we focus on the question ‘how’, we usually land up in silliness, and parade around pretending we are wearing the clothing of contemporary science, while even a child can spot that in this sphere we are nudists. By contrast, when we focus on the ‘why’ question, we articulate answers of profound depth. They literally transform the way in which we see and understand the world. The answers we offer to the ‘why’ question are answers filled with hope and meaning. If accepted, they change the world for the good.

When we idealize or villainize humanity

Colliding truths are usually both true, albeit that they need some unpacking. Take these two. People are essentially noble and good. They can be trusted, indeed they are just a ‘little lower than the angels’ to quote the psalmist.⁵ People are also villainous, cruel and depraved. If you ask, ‘Can both of these contradictory descriptions be true?’ the answer is yes. Genesis explains how.

On the one hand the Bible affirms that people are made in the image of God. This staggering truth is hard to take in. Theologians debate at length what is meant by the claim. The intention to create humanity in God’s image is proclaimed in Genesis 1:26, with verse 27 signing off on the success of the project. As both men and women are made in the image of God, it is clear that the image has nothing to do with gender – a rather radical insight for a text written in a world where patriarchy dominated.

It is hard to overestimate the loftiness of the claim that humans are made in God’s image. Implications that arise from it flow thick and fast. Although much of human history has been a reflection of our inability to live up to the creation mandate, the responsibility and privilege of being an image-bearer remains.

Being made in God’s image is a statement about our identity – and the identity of every other human being. It affirms that we belong to God. The theologian Helmut Thielike expands on what Luther called the dignitas aliena (alien dignity) when he writes:

The only question is whether I can see the whole person if I do not see him in his relationship to God and therefore as the bearer of an ‘alien dignity’. If I am blind to this dimension, then I can only give the other person a partial dignity insofar as I estimate his importance ‘for me’ – even if this includes far more than his mere functional importance for me! – but not insofar as I see his importance ‘for God’.⁶

We only fully confer the worth each person deserves when we remember that all people are made in the image of God and therefore have inestimable value. Sadly this truth has been one that we have sometimes forgotten. When we fail to stand up for the rights of the marginalized and oppressed we imply that they are lesser humans. We close our eyes to their status as image-bearers, and in doing so, parade around like the naked emperor, pretending to stand for something beautiful, but actually revealing something quite different.

It is true to say that humans are made in the image of God. It is, however, an incomplete truth. When a partial truth masquerades as a complete truth it is in danger of becoming an untruth. A fuller account has to delve deeper into the creation story, and discovers in that narrative the explanation for the otherwise inexplicable cruelty and savagery shown by the human race. While humanity initially flourished in the Garden of Eden, the day came when they disobeyed the instruction to refrain from eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While we could debate the deeper significance of that act, perhaps we can simplify many arguments by noting that in their quest to differentiate between good and evil, they staked their autonomy from God. After eating from that tree they hoped to decide what was good and what was not outside of any reference to God. This is the heart of human sin – the pull away from God, the desire for self-sufficiency – to know right and wrong without any need to refer back to God.⁷

Similarly, humanity is condemned for its attempt to build the tower of Babel – the account is found in Genesis 11. A superficial reading of the passage leaves most confused. Why is God so annoyed by this attempt to build a tower to reach heaven? Granted, it was a misguided quest. After all, this was the ancient world and any tower was unlikely to be more than a few storeys high – no doubt impressive to our ancestors, but paltry in comparison to the skyscrapers of today. The problem with the tower had nothing to do with its height, or its mistaken notion that heaven is up in the sky. The issue was the underlying attitude behind the project. At heart, the tower of Babel was an attempt to reach heaven unaided, and thus to render God obsolete.

The attempt to stake autonomy from God is the essence of the fall of humanity. We are made in God’s image. When we try to dispense with the need for God, we sever ourselves from the One in whose image we are made. This is to shake the fist at God and to say that we no longer wish to be who we are – creatures made in God’s image. It is the reason for the pervasive sadness that is never far from the surface of life. Something has gone awry. We no longer reflect the image of the God who made us. We have embarked on a misguided journey to create an alternate identity for ourselves. We are trying to become who we are not.

When grace is trivialized to legalism

In the light of humanity’s decision to stake its autonomy from God, God could have accepted the insult and decided to have nothing more to do with our rebellious ancestors. Instead, God continues to strive with the human race, demonstrating a willingness to do whatever it takes to ensure that people come to their senses and reclaim their status as those who bear the image of the God who made them. The ‘whatever it takes’ turned out to be extremely costly. It took the form of the cross at Calvary.

Why did God do this? We should not answer too quickly, lest it imply that what God did was totally understandable and predictable. Actually, it was anything but. In trying to find an adequate word to describe it, theologians have settled upon a little word with an astonishing depth of meaning – that word is grace.

Ever since humanity deliberately defied God and severed the close relational tie they had previously enjoyed with their Creator, the universe has limped along awkwardly. To be sure, there have been moments of brilliance. As humans we should not think too highly of ourselves. Even our incomprehensible disobedience was not enough to totally ruin the good world that God made. The fingerprints of the goodness of God remain everywhere. But our rebellion has left deep scars. Things go wrong – sometimes devastatingly wrong.

When things go wrong and someone is clearly to blame, a common response is to ask what should happen to the person at fault. The Bible explores a few options.

Option one is the instinctive one. If someone does something wrong, punish them so severely that anyone tempted to follow their example will immediately eliminate the possibility from their mind. There is a troubling account found in Genesis 4:23,24. A man by the name of Lamech is injured by a younger man. While the detail provided is scant, we are told that in retaliation for this injury Lamech kills the younger man, thereafter boasting to his two wives, Adah and Zillah, of his feat. The implication of his victory song is clear. Do the slightest thing against me and I will obliterate you. It is a sure way to escalate conflict and to guarantee that any relational breakdown remains irreparable. With this model, the enemy remains enemy forever.

To soften this instinctive response, when the law was given to Moses, a system was put in place to limit retaliation to the extent of the offence. Put simply, the eye for eye (or tooth for tooth) principle was championed. Amongst other places, you find it in Exodus 21:23–27. It was a helpful advance. Rather than escalate violence, the eye for eye principle restricted it. It was a neat and tidy system. If someone broke your arm, you could break theirs. You could not, however, break their neck. That would be far more serious than the offence they had committed against you and would violate this tit for tat system.

While ‘eye for eye’ was better than Lamech’s endless revenge, it had its limitations. Most notable was that it was powerless to reconcile warring parties. If someone broke your toe, and you carefully retaliated by breaking theirs, you might feel avenged for the wrong done against you, but it was unlikely that afterwards you would both hug and suggest drinks at the local pub. More likely you would continue to glare at the offender and growl, ‘So don’t ever do that again’ before you both hobbled off, trying to mask the pain from your broken bones.

It took the brilliance of Jesus to suggest an alternate model. Now there is no doubting that at a certain level, Jesus’ instruction sounds remarkably naïve. Perhaps you remember the drift of the argument in the Sermon on the Mount.⁸ Rather than retaliating, Jesus suggests that we don’t attempt to resist those who do evil against us. Jesus earths his teaching with a challenging example. If someone has just struck us on the right cheek, we should turn the left cheek to them. He goes on to suggest that instead of limiting love to our neighbour, we should extend it to our enemy as well.

At a certain level this sounds like madness. You can imagine what Lamech’s response would have been – ‘never in a thousand years’ is the mild version! Yet, 2,000 years before Ghandi, Jesus recognized the power of non-retaliation. More than that, he recognized the transforming power of forgiveness. If we refuse to hold something against another, especially if we are perfectly entitled to be offended, we open the door through which the enemy can walk and become a friend. They do not have to fight the layers of our angry resentment before they can reach us. We are open to friendship with them, even while they are raging against us.

Why would we do this? The little word ‘grace’ springs to mind. As people who bear the image of the God who made us, we know that we are made for relationship with one another. If we close our heart to another, even if they have wronged us, we fall short of who we are made to be.

Opening our heart to those who reject us is a high-risk strategy. The cross of Calvary underlines this truth emphatically. Paradoxically, it is the very ‘failure’ of the approach that is its success. The mystery of the Christian faith is this. When we most reject the God who made us (and it is hard to imagine a greater ‘we don’t want you’ than a crucifixion), we are the closest to re-entering into relationship with our Maker. Jesus’ attitude and actions on the cross were so unexpected that the Roman centurion who had overseen his crucifixion was overwhelmed to the point that he was heard to exclaim, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God’⁹ What caused the change? We can’t know for sure. Perhaps it was Jesus’ plea, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’.¹⁰ Perhaps it was simply Jesus’ trust and courage in the midst of extreme suffering. While our rebellion against God has marred the image we were created in, it is not