on the 'why' of holiness.

I heard some people talking about the 'aftermath' of the Lakeland cobblers yesterday, and it highlighted something I found quite helpful for my own pursuit of holiness. The people talking where neck-deep in the whole 'Outpouring' idea, and where quite clearly engaging in some 'damage-limitation', and given how it all turned out, I can understand why.

But they were also 100% convinced that 'signs, miracles and wonders' were absolutely necessary for the work of the gospel to happen. I can only presume this is because they've understood that the Holy Spirit is the one who moves hearts in revival, but they only understand the work of the Holy Spirit to be in the spectacular (which I blogged about when this all started).

(By the way, if you're interested in what the work of the Holy Spirit actually is, you'll be greatly blessed by visiting Ann's blog in my sidebar, as she's been posting excerpts and thoughts on it in the past couple of weeks)

Now, bearing in mind that the assumption that under girds the whole theology and methodology of these people is that miracles and wonders are essential to, and for some, more important than the preaching of the gospel, they clearly find themselves with a problem.

For a start the miracles and wonders are, um, somewhat thin on the ground. People dragged out of their wheelchairs for a few minutes do not a healing miracle of biblical proportions make. But, most obviously for these confused folk, the man credited as the 'revivalist' turned out to be a big liar on multiple levels. What I find so interesting is that they think, although he was lying to the woman he vowed to be faithful to for the rest of his life, everything else he said was spot-on true.

I don't think that's something you can tolerate in a politician, never mind a preacher who claims to be visiting heaven.

Of course, the secret sin of Mr Bentley was what meant Lakeland finally jumped the aquatic creature with sharp teeth. But was that the actual basic problem? Well, these people yesterday seemed to think so. They waxed eloquent about Lakeland being a wake-up call for the church to pursue holiness. I actually agreed with them on this point.

But what I found personally challenging was the 'holiness' was coming across very much as the tool needed for the 'signs, miracles and wonders' to come. Lakeland failed, and they believed it failed simply because the leader was caught in gross sin. So, the answer was for everyone to get fired up about being holier, and that would put everything to rights. 'It's all about character', they announced. They'll be better, and then God will be able to move.

Why are we called to holiness in scripture? Does the scripture say 'Be holy, for then you will see miracles and exciting things'? Does it say 'Be holy, for then you will be properly religious'?

Be holy, for I am holy. (1 Pt 1:16)

The calling to be holy is not a work to perform so that we may get something back again. For these people, it seems they have exchanged the frantic desire to see the spectacular for the new work of trying to be holier so that they may see the spectacular. It's just another treadmill, and it misses the rather important point that the reason holiness has been overlooked, was because the word of God(the 'Doctrine', oo, what a scary thing!) has been put such a long way down the priority list, and that's a much bigger problem to sort out.

But I don't crow, because I know that all too often, my own desire for holiness is driven by a need to perform and 'be good enough'. Not so that God will send miracles, maybe, but so that I can be sure that He looks at me and is pleased. That sort of thing is what Thomas Brooks called 'a cleaner way to hell'.

So, I am challenged to start afresh each day, desiring and running in holiness, not to be good enough, but because He is holy, and He calls me to be. It's not 'all about character'. It's all about the finished work of Christ, both the walking in it, and the faithful preaching of it, without bells and whistles. This is really not complicated stuff, you know.

On women in authority

No, not That woman.

I've just been watching a debate on whether women are called to authority in the church, and two things leaped out at me that haven't occurred to me before. The female Baptist minister (no rosette for guessing which side of the debate she was on) made two assertions. Firstly, she said that the biblical injunctions specifically against women teaching, and the fact that Jesus did not have male disciples, were primarily because of the culture of the time.

Now, the most obvious objection to that is to ask if Jesus strikes anyone as bound by the traditions of human beings? If He had intended women to have a role of authority in the church, there's not the slightest chance that He would have been bound by the need not to offend. The idea is preposterous.

But her second point, which I've also heard before, does something rather fatal to the first point. She made much of the scriptural evidence for women in authority. Now, she did this by the common method of listing all the women named in the New Testament, which always bugs me, because no complementarian has ever claimed that there weren't women in the early church, nor that women play no role. She then said that women held the same authority in the church as men until the council of Laodicea. My church history is sketchy at this point, perhaps someone who knows more than I do on that point could enlighten me in the comments (but it sure doesn't sound accurate to me...)

But hold on, I thought. If the clear passages that forbid women to teach, and define the authority in the church as a male role, are because of the early church being bound by cultural mores - how come there were women in leadership authority anyway? It seems to me that egalitarians need to pick one of these arguments and stick to it...

on being salt.

This won't be a surprise to you, but I am not an American. So, I wouldn't be voting for Sarah Palin, even if I wanted to (and I'm not sure I do, given that voting for her means voting for McCain, and he seems rather a slippery fish to me).

But, that said, I do have some interest in the matter, not least because of the reception she has received from the UK media and websites over here. You probably won't be surprised to learn that many of the secular parenting sites I visit have mostly had kittens because of one significant issue - babies!

Well, they don't don't put it like that. In fact, they put it in terms I find myself unable to repeat in polite society. But the fact that a woman is standing up and saying, "Actually, no, I don't think a woman has a inalienable right to 'choose'", makes their little heads spin round like tops.

Because people like me, well, I'm just type on a screen, and my anti-abortion position is probably because in real life I must be an old man who just wants to control women etc. But Sarah Palin - she's all modern and real and on telly, and she still doesn't think women have the right to choose! That's... that's not in the pre-programmed rulebook! Does not compute! Does not compute!

I try not to get too into these issues, because it's something of a dead issue in the UK, in comparison with the US, and there's no real point getting myself all riled up about it when I can't do any more than I'm doing now. But I have been reading exchanges between those who hold the 'pro-choice' position and those who do not, and some things have occurred to me.

The first is that I'm really ticked off that the word 'liberal' is applied to those who confine certain rights to only one section of society. It is not liberal to wish to deny unborn children and still-living victims of abortion the right to life. It is not liberal to deny one parent the right to protect their child because the other parent wants to kill them. In no sense is it liberal to say that women are the only section of society that have to right to decide about the life or death of their pre-born child because of a simple matter of geography.

The other is that, despite the fact that I am not a dominionist in the least, and in many senses pull back from being too involved in politics lest I lose sight of the fact that the gospel is the hope for this world, not moral reform, I think Christians perform a vital purpose in speaking out about this sort of issue. I have heard far, far too many people espousing views that are unthinkingly parroted without thought for the consequences until they are challenged.

It is considered the worst thing ever to be 'unwanted' - worse than being mutilated and killed. When life begins is considered an arbitrary matter, as is who is worthy of making it out of the womb alive. These are things that many people absorb as the 'things-everyone-knows' of our culture, and are never challenged on it. It is part of our job, as Christians, to be salt and light, and bring truth.

Because, if there was no-one standing for the unchangeable standard of God in the abortion issue, and many others, I dare to suggest that our culture would be even worse than it currently is. Not that God's providence is in any way dependent upon us - but that He has placed us here to at as a preservative in a sin-sick world.

While I dare to hope that we may see a shift in the attitudes towards the weakest in our society, I know that the point of standing against injustice is not so that men will put injustice to an end, but so that they will see the only hope for that end is Christ.

We don't need no 'education'.

One of the children's programmes I grew up watching was Grange Hill. It was a drama set in a comprehensive school, and always very controversial, tackling subjects like drug-use and bullying. I think a lot of children liked it because it did reflect our lives at the time.

It's just been cancelled after a good few decades and I decided to watch the last episode for nostalgia's sake. My initial thoughts were that I could see why it was cancelled. It was so dull and contrived. But my main reason for watching was the (even more contrived) return of a character I remembered - Tucker Jenkins. He was a 'loveable rogue' character, someone everyone recalls with a certain fondness.

I decided to blog about it because the writer put a speech worthy of a leftist politician in his mouth. He began by lamenting that he was only a builder now, and that he should have stayed on to get more qualifications. Well, for a start, thinks I, what's wrong with being a builder, then?

In true sock-puppet fashion, he began to tell his 'nephew' that 30 years ago, the idea of comprehensives was new, and that before then, you had grammar schools and secondary moderns. According to Tucker, 'grammar schools were where the swotty kids went'. Oh yes, nothing like a bit of scorn for intelligence.

He then said that secondary moderns were for everyone else, and 'they told you you wouldn't amount to anything'. Call me overly naive, but I'm pretty certain there wasn't an induction class in secondary moderns on how you were rubbish if you were a pupil there.

But it was ok, you see, because lo, the comprehensive age dawned, in which those 'swotty kids' were put in the same school as everyone else, and they all shared a mediocre education together. Well, that's not the way Tucker put it. He waxed lyrical about every year being a clean sheet of paper for you to start again and do whatever you really wanted.

I passed my 11+ and got a place in a grammar school, which I attended until we moved to an area without them. Then I attended a comprehensive, and Tucker's scorn for 'swotty kids' reminded me with searing clarity of the bullying I endured for being bright. I learned not to excel because it was more important to fit in.

The double-mindedness of thinking that one can pull down intelligence and simultaneous create a society of high-acheivement is quite astonishing. It's like, in the eagerness to give prizes to everyone, they miss the point that prizes should be for doing something. Is it any wonder that modern culture is saturated with a sense of entitlement?

So, goodbye Grange Hill, and good riddance. It's just a shame we can't consign the attitudes you embodied to the circular file, too.

Practical teaching.

I'm sitting here, munching on a duck and plum sauce spring roll that my husband bought me when he went out for petrol. He knows my late-night snack needs well. Which is a good thing, given that we've been married 8 years and one week today. For our actual anniversary, we had a day with our children, which was lovely, but the day before, we had a treat - a visit to the best Christian bookshop for miles without small children (and therefore a buggy to push around narrow aisles.)

We bought a few books, as a present for ourselves, and I got The Mortification of Sin by John Owen. I've never read any Owen before, and to be honest, I was intimidated by his formidable reputation. But I have been unable to put it down, and have even re-read chapters before I've got to the end of the book. I thought it would be really heavy-going, but it's some of the clearest, most helpful teaching I've ever read.

I don't think I've ever felt so optimistic about engaging in the work of bashing the sin in my life soundly on the head. I don't mean to sound flippant, because actually, I've come across a depth of spiritual engagement that at one time I wouldn't have believed possible. It's underlined to me how incredibly superficial much of the teaching I've sat under in my Christian life has been.

This is not to be smug and self-satisfied - it's more a lament for the strangely messed up way of teaching new Christians I've experienced, and therefore I assume many others have experienced too. I knew about tongues and prophecy earlier and more thoroughly than I've ever learned about personal holiness.

Isn't it ironic that we hear Christians lambasting 'religion' and extolling relationship, and yet the way many new believers are taught is not focused on the Holy love of God which enables us to fight indwelling sin; instead, they are offered a sound introduction to christianese.

I look at modern church outreaches twisting themselves into pretzels to be 'relevant' by having series on marriage, or 'happiness' blah blah blah, and it drives me batty, because seriously, I don't need a pep-talk on a better marriage - I need to know how I deal with my besetting sins, because trust me, my marriage would be a whole lot better if I could do that.

Not that it's a bad marriage you understand (duck and plum sauce rolls, remember) but, like anything else in my life: my parenting, my friendships, my housework, my writing - it's secondary to, and in large measure dependent upon the quality of my Christian walk. I've winked at sins for so long that I needed to be stamping on, and in some senses it's because I never actually learned that I could be stamping on them.

Don't tell me 'How to have a great marriage' - tell me 'How to put off the old man of sin, and put on Christ'. That's practical.