Catching up

While I was away, there were several good posts floating around the blogosphere. First (alphabetically!) was this post from The Great Giveaway. David discusses the problem many US Christians have with food – and locates it in their rejection of alcohol and drugs, leaving eating as the only “safe” pleasure left.

If we prohibit certain behaviors as conditions of fitness for pastoral ministry, are we not really revealing the fear that we lack the character (or fitness) in the first place? If drunkenness and addictions that seek ultimacy other than in Christ is what we fear, why not name drunkenness and addiction as the symptoms that require discernment. Instead we prohibit all use as if to suggest we are hiding something. The total prohibition is a sign that we suspect we don’t actually have character formed in this direction in the first place…I am someone who’s had food and weight problems. And I’ve had my own recent crisis with diabetes as a result. Rather, what I am trying to show here is how the holiness codes of my denomination and others do not address the issue, they merely reveal the symptom of the Real, what lies underneath.

Tobias over at In a Godward Direction, while discussing a recent “Common Cause” statement from some US neo-conservatives, offers a couple of interesting quotations from Hooker. The issue here is whether the Bible contains all truth or whether the Bible is true. That is, does every question find its answer in the Bible, or must we look outside it for some answers?

Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiency of Holy Scripture, each extremely opposite unto the other, and both repugnant unto truth. [One school teaches] Scripture to be so unsufficient, as if, except traditions were added, it did not contain all revealed and supernatural truth, which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved. Others justly condemning this opinion grow likewise unto a dangerous extremity, as if Scripture did not only contain all things in that kind necessary, but all things simply, and in such sort that to do any thing according to any other law were not only unnecessary but even opposite unto salvation, unlawful and sinful. (II.viii)
It is no more disgrace for Scripture to have left a number of things free to be ordered at the discretion of the Church, than for nature to have left it unto the wit of man to devise his own attire. (III.iv.1)

Finally, Sven has an excellent book review of a recent book on the atonment. Finlan’s book centres on the problems behind almost all current theologies of the atonement – they don’t use metaphor properly. They tend to take mixed metaphors from Paul and treat them as un-mixed, with confusing results (for example, there’s no such thing as a “penal sacrifice” in the Bible – sacrifices are free, pure offerings, not punishments; similarly, Christ cannot be simultaneously a pure sin-offering and a scapegoat upon whom the sins of the world are laid). This is by no means to say that the metaphors are wrong. The problem is in trying to treat a varied set of metaphors for the atonement as a consistent and coherent theology. Sven discusses the issues much more fully than I can here, and I’d heartily recommend reading his review, or indeed the book itself.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 1:07pm on 05 September 2006
Category: Books, Faith, Links

Thanks for the link John, I’d be interested to know what you thought of the book if you ever fancied reading it.

It’s nice to have you back blogging again as well!

Steven Harris () (URL)
10:23pm on 05 September 2006

I’ve ordered it, and I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve read it :-)