The Snap in the Tail

 Anyone who reads my theological reflections may have noticed that I invariably try to conclude with a thought-provoking one-liner. This may include a touch of satire or humour.

I think I acquired this habit from a tradition that arose during the many missions that Jill and I have led to Mozambique and Swaziland.

Here the trick is to spot an incident that has occurred during a particular day and pen what became known as “The News”. This being set to a jaunty Calypso melody and accompanied with a guitar, has the following lyrical structure:

The Refrain goes:

It’s in the news, it’s in the news, indubitably it’s in the news

Some makes you happy some gives you the blues

But nevertheless, it’s all in the news. 

Then would follow a four line verse with a humorous “snap in the tale.”

For example, a young man named Scott while helping to paint a Mozambican pastor’s church building almost got himself electrocuted because he backed into some bare wires he had failed to notice.

The News that day went: 

This is truly shocking news that we hear

That Scott has two twenty volts in his rear

He’s God’s man-of-power-for-the-hour we know

He’s got power from above and power from below 

Then there was another young man, name of Brayden, who started out on his first preach whereupon all the Mozambican ladies in the front row proceeded to whip out their boobs and feed their babies – which Brayden found a mite distracting.

The News that evening went as follows: 

When Braden takes his preaching station,

He finds himself with a major temptation,

But with only the slightest hesitation,

He keeps abreast of the situation. 

And so on; I have strings of such doggerel. I was even asked to sing some news at the wedding of a couple who had been on mission with us, a Congolese man marrying a Zulu girl. Well, that was a first.

But to return to the brief article entitled, “The Holy It”, what I hoped to gently convey to the worthy women who coined the formula, “The Parent, The Sibling and the Holy It,” and to those who shared such views was: “Really Ladies this is unlikely to catch on and besides it is doctrinally unsound. (Not that doctrinal unsoundness is proof against popularity) Well, such an irenic approach is a lot to pack into a single punch line and I manifestly failed.

Interestingly, my first attempt was say, tongue-in cheek, “This is unlikely to be improved upon,” and then it occurred to me that readers would conclude that I was advocating the new formula and so I changed it to, “It remains to be seen if this will gain much traction.” And would you know, folk were still left wondering whether I was seriously considering the change.

Jill is always telling me that people do not understand my humour. 

So, I conclude that the best thing men can do to assist the feminist cause is to listen to their wives. 

Peter Frow

December 2022

The Basis for Theological Engagement

 

Some years ago I had coffee with a man of God whom I value highly. The atmosphere at the time was beyond awkward. You see I had listened to him preach a sermon on Genesis 3 in which he had seemed to trivialise the Fall. I had written saying that to trivialise the Fall was by implication to trivialise the Cross which was its antidote.

As we drank our coffee his displeasure was unmistakable:

“You and I have nothing in common,” he said, “We do not even have a basis for discussion.”

In reply I said, “Can I suggest two things which might form a basis?”

“Firstly, the Bible is the Word of God” I thought he might buy that because after reading the Scripture in a service he would conclude with, “This is the Word of God”

“Secondly, that Jesus Christ is the interpretive master key that unlocks the whole of it.”

After some hesitation he agreed, and though to this day some awkwardness persists in our relationship, we do have a basis for theological engagement. 

I heard one of our ministers say, “The Bible is a contested authority today” which of course begs the question, “By whose authority is it contested?”

I heard another of our ministers say, “The Bible is not our only authority, there is the authority of experience.” Referring to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

It seemed that he was regarding the four items of the Quadrilateral as four legs of a table whereas it is clear that with Wesley Scripture was always the supreme authority, the secure bedrock on which the tripod of Tradition, Reason and Experience stood. There was no question of an adversarial or alternate relationship between the Bible and Experience.

Of course, The Bible is not our only authority, a maths textbook has authority for instance. There is veracity in many writings, indeed in many religious writings. The point here is that the Bible is acknowledged as having supreme authority. It has canonicity, it is the yardstick by which the truthfulness of other authorities is measured, not only in matters of Faith and practice, but at least in matters of Faith and practice.

I heard yet another of our ministers refer to “recent revelation.” Yes, there are fresh discoveries in the field of science for instance, but I think he had in mind an extension to the canon of Scripture, something like the Book of Mormon, inserted between Revelation and the maps. It’s an interesting conjecture as to what such a book might be called. Perhaps one might hold a competition as to the best title for such a book. 

Regarding Jesus Christ as the Interpretive master key for unlocking the whole of Scripture, it is not enough that our hermeneutic have Christological content, it needs to be Christocentric.

Everyone in town would like to hitch Jesus to their wagon, to co-opt Him to their particular hobbyhorse or crusade. We all bring our own biases, hurts and life experiences into play when we study the Scriptures, but by keeping Jesus central in this, we will discover our biases corrected, our hurts healed and our eyes opened to God’s truth as it stands revealed in His Word. 

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, but it is they that bear witness of me” says Jesus.

 

Peter Frow

September2022

The Nature of Theological Engagement

 

I am eternally grateful to my Systematic Theology Professor Dr. Adrio Konig for instilling in me as a student a healthy approach to theological engagement. He had deliberately populated his department with a wide range of different theologians: There was Simon Maimela, a liberation theologian, Len Hulley, a Methodist, Brian Gaybba, a Catholic, A Pentecostal whose name I forget and Konig himself who was Dutch Reformed. Konig’s approach was as follows.

·       Make sure you listen carefully to what each theologian says.

·       Make sure you understand how and why he or she has arrived at their position.

·       Don’t simply sign up to one or other position but establish your own position.

·       Make sure that you can give a well-reasoned account of this position.                                                                                                                                       

I found this approach quite liberating. I remember writing an assignment for Dr. Gaybba and receiving a good mark although I was pretty certain that he didn’t share the position I was advocating. He simply recognised that I had tried hard to build a rational case for this position from Scripture. (I sent greetings and an expression of gratitude through a mutual friend in Grahamstown to Dr. Gaybba last year shortly before he died.)

John Wesley also gives us a good example to follow. With amazing humility considering what an apostolic giant he is on the landscape of church history, he writes in the preface to his Forty Four Sermons.

Are you persuaded you see more clearly than me? It is not unlikely you may. Then treat me as you would desire to be treated yourself upon a change of circumstances. Point me out a better way than I have known. Show me it is so by plain proof of Scripture. And if I linger in the path I have been accustomed to tread, and am therefore unwilling to leave it, labour with me a little, take me by the hand, and lead me as I am able to bear. But be not displeased if I entreat you not to beat me down in order to quicken my pace. I can go but feebly and slowly at best; then I should not be able to go at all. May I request you further not to give me hard names in order to bring me into the right way? Suppose I were ever so much in the wrong, I doubt this would set me right. Rather this would make me run so much the farther from you and so get more and more out of the way.

 

The challenge is to hold firmly to one’s convictions, (for faith is the certainty of things hoped for but not seen) while maintaining a teachable spirit. How marvelously Wesley models this. 

One of my “Fathers in the Faith” was the late Ian Thompson. A theologian of considerable stature, he held office at different times as Principal of FEDSEM and Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in South Africa. Yet he was one of the most humble and saintly men I have ever had the privilege to meet. Conversing with Ian especially on theological matters he was always gentle and concerned to understand what a person was saying. Rock steady in his convictions yet without trace of the judgmental. I recall his saying to me on one occasion, “Peter our conversation must be always gracious yet seasoned with salt.”

Well, I’m still trying to get that right.

I confess to a certain admiration for Martin Luther as he debates with his ecclesiastic adversaries in the Market Square of a German town, using the earthiest of language. The apostle Paul too, was not above using earthy language when he wished to make an important point: Of the circumcision party he says, “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.” And, “…Christ Jesus for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung, that I might win Christ…”(KJV)

The fact is that at times this imperishable Gospel which we are called upon to proclaim from the rooftops, must be defended and contended for robustly.

Theological engagement may be robust so long as it is respectful.

I am disappointed when in a theological discussion a person adopts an ad hominum approach and begins to catalogue my shortcomings. This is unhelpful. I am able to produce a far more comprehensive catalogue of my sins than may be apparent to him or her.

In any theological engagement, it is important to play the ball and not the player.

It is especially important to avoid the ‘hard names’ that Wesley refers to.

Affixing a person with a pejorative label is no substitute for dealing with the issue. 

So then, why not play it safe and avoid theological engagement? 

The thing is none of us has the monopoly on truth.

None of us is yet fully mature in Christ.

We have yet to attain to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4.13)

And this involves doctrinal soundness and stability, “so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine…” (Eph 4. 14)

Yes we have the elementary doctrine of Christ in place, the stuff of the Nicene Creed, we know that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, not of ourselves it is a gift of God, but we must go on to maturity (Heb 6.1 ; Eph 2.8)

The fact is that we need to be “filled-out” by other believers. Each of us comes from a different context and has traveled a unique journey with Jesus, and so together we are able to pool our testimonies and perspectives, to enrich one another and so approach to a fuller understanding of Him. That is why Scripture says, “..speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ……when each part is working properly the body grows so that it builds itself up in love.” Eph 4. 16 

This involves respectful, truth-seeking, theological engagement. 

Peter Frow

September ‘22  

The Holy It

 

I’ve been reading the autobiography of Father Brian D’Arcy the Irish priest who wrote a column for the Irish tabloid Sunday World entitled, “Father Brian’s Little Bit of Religion.” The column was widely read and continued for some 30 years.

Father Brian writes that while on sabbatical in San Francisco he encountered a group of women including nuns who were working to revise the Trinitarian formula, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” which they considered unacceptably sexist and patriarchal.

They eventually came up with, “Parent, Sibling and Holy It.” 

It remains to be seen if this will enjoy much traction.

 

Peter Frow

December 2022

On Being Judgmental

 

If you do not condone what I do,

I will be offended,

I will be hurt,

I will say you are unloving,

And I will judge you to be judgmental.

 

It’s curious that I never feel more judged than by someone who informs me that I am being judgmental.

Somehow those who are exceedingly broadminded as to what they deem permissible, become suddenly rather ‘narrow’ towards those who don’t share those same permissive views. The new tolerance becomes highly intolerant of anyone holding a more scrupulous position. 

Certainly, there is a Scriptural injunction to, “Judge not lest we be judged.” Within the context this means we are not to adopt a Pharisaic ‘holier-than-thou’ stance towards others lest we be judged by God. However, as Professor Richard Hays points out, this has come to mean, “I’ll wink at your sin if you wink at mine.” 

The fact is that there are two kinds of judging:

the one we must not do

and the other which we must do. 

The one which we must not do is the stone-throwing, condemnatory kind, the one which mistakes self-righteousness for righteousness, which fails to acknowledge that there is none without sin and that but for the grace of God we are all in deep, deep trouble. 

The kind of judging which we must do is perhaps better termed the practice of discerning right from wrong. 

Romans 12. 2  puts it this way:

“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may test and approve what is God’s good and perfect will.” 

Thus, while believers must live each moment with a profound consciousness of God’s grace, we must also be spurring one another on in the quest for holiness. 

None of us can claim to have arrived, yet together we press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and if anyone is caught in a transgression, those who are spiritually mature should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. (Philp. 3. 14; Gal 6. 1) 

To do so is not to be judgmental but simply to recognise that, “I am my brother’s keeper.” 

Peter Frow

October 2022

The Heavenly Chariot

 

I would describe my doctrinal position as ‘Mere Orthodoxy.’

There are some theological circles in which I move

where such a confession is reckoned ‘seriously uncool.’

Inexcusably retrograde.

Yet if in such circumstances I incline to feeling beleaguered,

To my aid comes G. K. Chesterton,

Like a gale, a refreshing wind, he comes:

 

“People have fallen into the foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.----- It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse, yet it is utterly un-historic to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. --- It is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist, as it is easy to be a snob. ---- It is always simple to fall, there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”*

 Well, I’m clinging on to that chariot with all my strength. 

Peter Frow

October 2022 

*G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy

Mr. Chairman

 

Mr. Chairman…

Ahem, that is, I meant to say: Chair

Chair, it has been observed that the Bible has a decidedly sexist bias having been written by men for men.

Seemingly Jesus himself is one of the chief culprits here:

To appoint twelve males as apostles would seem to indicate that he was not immune to prevailing first century Jewish prejudices involving the severe dis-empowerment of women. His choice of these men seems also to be wanting in discernment including as it did the ‘bad apple’ Judas, although measured against the mediocrity of the other eleven, he at least showed a measure of resolve. Jesus could surely have done better by including certain women of noble character and spiritual stature such as Martha and Mary Magdalene.

Further, he unfailingly addressed God as ‘Father’ and never as ‘Mother’. This too must be considered unacceptably patriarchal in the light of current enlightened mores relating to these matters. 

It would seem then Chair, that one of the chief tasks of this commission would be to educate Jesus. 

It is worth mentioning however that in pursuing this objective we might well encounter considerable difficulties, not least of which is that Jesus is God, and indeed were we to attain our goal we might discover that the situation had become less sexist but more ‘Godist’.

 

Peter Frow

September 2022

                                   

Concerning Theology & Praxis

Concerning Theology and Praxis

Praxis is a technical term denoting the way in which theology is played out and expressed in practice. It is obvious that our theology concerning a particular issue needs to precede its practical application.

The supporting theology for the proposed endorsement of same-sex marriages by our church seems to run as follows:

God is a God of love and justice

LGBT+ persons have been and are currently being treated unjustly and unlovingly.

Therefore,

To prevent any further discrimination we must be prepared to marry them.

It is not difficult to see the disconnect between the statements which precede the therefore and that which follows.

It is like saying, “Children are being abused therefore we should give children sweets.”

No, if children are being abused we should stop abusing children.

Whether it is good to give children sweets is another matter entirely though doubtless that is what they would like.

The word ‘therefore’ is in fact a non sequitur in both instances.

That LGBT+ persons should be treated with love and justice goes without saying and the church has much to repent of for not having done so.

This is a justice issue.

However whether or not same-sex persons should be married is a holiness issue, and if we wish to apply the phrase, “in the sight of God” to such union then God needs to be consulted.

This is a holiness issue.

We may not drag the holiness issue under the banner of justice by means of a false ‘therefore,’ and call the whole thing a matter of ‘justice’. To do so is pure sophistry.

It would seem that the cart, consisting of the proposed praxis concerning same-sex marriage, is being pushed by humans. This is hardly surprising as the theological horse intended to draw it is too puny for the task. Too puny by far.

Peter Frow

Faith is like the Square Root of Minus One

Jesus is The Truth, the wellspring and yardstick for all truth and the Creator of all things both visible and invisible.

It follows therefore, that when anyone reaches the very pinnacle of their particular discipline they will find themselves looking into the face of Jesus.

Thus all disciplines, whether Architecture, Medicine, Accounting, Psychology, History and all the rest will ultimately be found to subsume seamlessly under His Lordship.

Theology is indeed the ‘Queen of the Sciences,’ (though not many campuses would acknowledge this in our day) and ‘The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom.’

This is why Scripture in employing metaphors to illustrate spiritual truths finds them ready to hand in the fields of agriculture, medicine, biology, philosophy, meteorology and many more.

Which leads me to the discipline of Mathematics.

Could one not find illustrations from mathematics which would bring to light spiritual truths.

One could call this synthesis of Theology and Mathematics, “Theomatics.”

Well that rolls off the tongue quite nicely, but it would need to include some real arithmetic anomalies.

For example the Marriage Institution which declares that “—the two shall become one flesh.” Would have to be rendered, 1 + 1 = 1

And the doctrine of the Trinity would need to be, 1 + 1 + 1 = 1

This really doesn’t look like a promising line of theological exploration.

However, The square root of minus one is an intriguing mathematical concept which might just come to our aid in helping us get our heads around some Biblical Brain teasers.

Most people know that if you multiply +1 by itself you will get +1

And if you multiply –1 by itself you will also get +1

So the square root of +1 (√1) could be either +1 or –1

So what then is the square root of –1 (√-1) ?

Clearly it can’t be either +1 or –1

The mind does a back flip in trying to visualise the answer.

For this reason this was sometimes termed an imaginary number until mathematicians objected to this term pointing out that although difficult to conceptualise it was not only real but very useful and effective in certain applications.

Thus the square root of –1 became abbreviated to the symbol  i and it is termed not an imaginary number but a complex number.

It is used extensively in vector arithmetic.

We must explain that unlike a number which has only magnitude, a vector is an entity which has both magnitude and orientation.

Now what is noteworthy, is that if a vector is multiplied by i that is the square root of minus one, it has the effect of swinging that vector through 90 degrees without altering its magnitude.

Thus, if a certain vector of say 1 metre in length and lying in a horizontal plane, was initially oriented to point North, after multiplying it by i it would point East. Multiply it by i again and it will now point South and so on.

How might this help our understanding of ‘Faith’:

Scripture states that, “—God has given to every man a measure of faith.” (Rom. 12. 3)

Thus from this text, faith is a gift from God for which man can claim no merit.

Yet Hebrews 11 verse 6 declares that, “—without faith it is impossible to please Him.”

Here, clearly God is pleased when we exercise faith, for it would make no sense for God to be pleased with a gift He had given with no activity on man’s part.

Also Jesus commends the centurion for his great faith and upbraids the disciples for their ‘little faith’

Ephesians 2.8 reads: For by grace we are saved through faith, not of yourselves it is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.

Herein lies the tension between Calvin and Arminius:

The pure Reformed position would be that both the grace and the faith with which the grace is appropriated are gifts of God, for if faith must be exercised with volition by man then it becomes a work and man may claim merit for it and we know no merit can attach to man in respect of his salvation.

To Arminius, the grace is the gift, but it must be appropriated by the exercise of our faith, but the objection remains that if volition is employed in such exercise, this becomes a meritorious work.

But what if faith is a complex concept, neither work nor gift or perhaps both at the same time, just as the square root of minus one is a complex number whose answer is neither +1 or –1 or perhaps both at the same time.

So complex is the relationship between gift and works in the entity called faith that it defies conceptualization.

Yet difficult as it is to conceive, its effects are abundantly manifest for it can change the orientation of a person.

Thus a person coming to faith in Christ will experience a change of orientation – once hell-bound he is now Heaven-bound, once afar off, he is now brought near by the blood of Christ.

This might help explain Jesus imperative to Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” while shortly afterwards he declares that the wind (that is the Spirit) blows where He wills: quite unpredictable and beyond man’s control.

In future when one encounters a conundrum like this in Scripture, one need simply say, “Ah well, it’s just like the square root of minus one, - incomprehensible but effective.”

Manna & Mercy - A Critical Evaluation Part 4.

A Bloodless Soteriology

To be fair on Daniel Erlander, though he dismisses the Passover with the one-liner, “Before they left the slaves ate a special meal called Passover”. he does mention that, “The worship of the partner people included the offering of sacrifices, ……” and that this, “ served as a way for restoring the divine-human relationship,” (P15) and that Jesus’ Body and Blood is, “given and shed for all for the forgiveness of sin.” P54.

So this critique really relates to Alan Storey’s clip under the Manna & Mercy banner entitled “Why did Jesus die?”

In this he makes the statement that Jesus died as the ultimate expression of His love.

This statement is manifestly true. Who would dispute this.

However he also makes the statement that God didn’t send Jesus to die. It could not possibly be the will of a loving father that his son should die. He illustrates this with an account of how his father encouraged him not to retaliate when bullied, which resulted in his getting a ‘blood nose’. Did my father want me to not retaliate? The answer: “Yes”, Did he want me to get a blood nose? The answer “Noooo.” Q.E.D.

He delivers this piece of homespun logic with compelling homiletic passion, but unfortunately neglects considerations of God’s sovereignty and omniscience, not to mention flying in the face of numerous texts.

For example Isaiah 53  reads as follows in verse 10:

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush Him;

He has put Him to grief when He makes His soul an offering for guilt…”

And verse 11

“…and He shall make many to be accounted righteous and He shall bear their iniquities”

“The Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world.” Would be another relevant text.

Lest one is inclined to dismiss these as mere ‘proof texts’ one needs to consider them against the entire metanarative of the Bible.

This could be summed up as, “Mercy triumphing over justice in the person of Jesus.”

The difficulty with a soteriology which is simply anchored in Jesus’ loving and pacific response to the worst that man can do, is that it regards any reference to 'the blood' as incidental to the central issue of atonement.

From Genesis to Revelation the principle that, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin,” is underscored countless times culminating in Jesus as “the perfect sacrifice offered once for all,” (Heb Chapter10.)

These texts would include:

God making clothes of animal skins to replace the fig leaves

God accepting Abel’s sacrifice not Cain’s

Noah’s sacrifice of animals on emerging from the ark

Abraham sacrificing the ram on Mount Moriah

The Passover

The Levitical system of sacrifices – very gory affairs: blood everywhere

The list is endless, but reaches it’s ultimate fulfillment in Jesus’ gruesome utterance that, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall not have life within you.”

This statement is interpreted fully in the book of Hebrews, and lands ultimately in Revelation where the great multitude from every nation, tribe and people are wearing robes that have been ‘washed white in the blood of the Lamb.’

Also, while one can certainly agree wholeheartedly with Alan that God’s forgiveness is extended to all, he makes no mention that this gracious offer is appropriated by faith.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus……...let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith ( Heb. 10. 19,22)

Was it God’s will that Jesus should die?

How else can one interpret His prayer in Gethsemane?

“If it be thy will, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but thine be done.”

With no word from the Father that the cup might be permitted to pass, the Son sets His face resolutely towards the bloody agony of the cross. No mere blood nose this.

From the Cross He will reign as King of Kings with crown of thorn -

From the Cross, as the spotless Lamb of God, He will offer up the perfect sacrifice once for all, taking on Himself the penalty of our sin that we might go free.

“’Tis mystery all, the Immortal dies,

Who can explore His strange design,”

A bloodless soteriology is no soteriology at all.

Manna & Mercy - A critical Evaluation Part 3.

The Virgin Birth

It would seem that Erlander does believe in the Virgin Birth because on Page 39 of the M & M manual he says, “The Spirit of God breathed into Mary’s womb as the Spirit had breathed into the watery depths to bring forth the first creation.” This is not quite the same concept as the Holy Spirit ‘coming upon and overshadowing’ Mary, nevertheless, there is no hint that the paternity of Jesus is traceable to some human father.

So this blog is not a critique of Erlander’s view of the virgin birth, but rather that of Alan Storey who I understand has the distribution rights for the M & M material and who has published a series of video clips under the M & M banner.

One of these deals with the virgin birth:

In this Storey describes accurately the shame endured by both Joseph and Mary resulting from the latter’s pregnancy. Quite correctly he points out that any assertion that no human father had been the cause, would have been greeted with total incredulity on the part of the Nazarene townsfolk, – completely understandable since such a thing had never been known to happen before, nor since for that matter.

Having got to this point however, Storey adds his own name to the list of skeptics, despite the unambiguous accounts of Holy Spirit conception in the birth accounts of both Matthew and Luke’s gospels.

He postulates instead that Mary’s pregnancy was the result of rape by one of the Roman occupying force. Quite why he does this is not clear. Perhaps it arises from the post-enlightenment compulsion to explain away the miraculous. Perhaps it is to enlist Mary as a high-profile celebrity to the most worthy crusade against the abuse of women. (although this would neglect the reality that a ‘Non-virgin Mary’ would not be nearly such a celebrity.)

However, what I find amazing are the theological implications of Storey’s assertion:

Quite how one arrives at a coherent Christology in which Jesus is confessed as, “Truly God and Truly man,” with a Roman soldier as the real father, is for me as much of a mystery as the mystery of the Godhead itself.

Storey, without any grounds for so doing, throws a brick into the Christological gearbox, and this with a wanton disregard for the results of such theological vandalism.

One would hope that at the very least he would cross his fingers should he have occasion to recite the Nicene Creed (It could certainly be no more than a mere recitation).

Better still, he might consider resigning from the Methodist ministry lest he become party to the people called Methodists becoming “a dead sect holding to a form of godliness while denying the power thereof,” which according to Wesley, “they shall surely become if they do not hold fast to the doctrine, spirit and discipline with which they first set out.”

Manna & Mercy - A Critical Evaluation Part 2.

Educating Jesus

Just as Erlander has made no secret of the fact that he has been influenced by Liberation Theologians, so he states plainly that Feminist Theologians have played their part in his thinking and approach to Scripture.

The implication of this is that any portrayal of God as masculine is considered unacceptable and to be not merely avoided but corrected.

One can but admire the determination with which he approaches this task, as pitfalls abound on every hand.

Let’s follow his strategy:

The Bible uses the pronouns he, him and his hundreds if not thousands of times in reference to God. For example: In Psalm 136 the words he, him and his occur 31 times in 26 verses.

Erlander is at pains not to perpetuate this ‘error’, so not once throughout the M & M manual does he refer to God with a masculine pronoun. This requires considerable skill and restraint.

Repeatedly Scripture refers to the relationship between God and Israel as that between husband and (oftentimes unfaithful) wife (Is. 54. 5-8; Jer. 3. 6-14; Hosea Chs. 1-3)

Erlander studiously avoids any reference to God as husband to Israel.

In several places in Isaiah and Jeremiah God refers to himself as the Father of Israel.

Erlander prefers to see the relationship between God and Israel as that between mother and child ( M & M p. 5.) although it is with difficulty that one finds any textual support for this.

God is often referred to as King but never as Queen.

Erlander refrains from any reference to God as King. 

Erlander coins the phrase, “The wombishness of Jahweh” (M & M p 44)

In fact throughout the manual Jahweh is depicted as a somewhat weepy, mothering figure.

Jesus always refers to God as Father (close on 200 times in the Gospels) and instructs us to do likewise. All the New Testament writers refer to God as ‘Father’.

In Romans 8, the evidence of the indwelling Holy Spirit is that we have a natural inclination to address God as “Abba Father” (Rom 8. 15)

Yet Erlander refuses to refer to God as ‘Father’, deeming this to be unacceptably sexist.

Priscilla and Aquila are referred to several times in the New Testament. They are never mentioned singly and present a wonderful model as a married couple of considerable maturity and stature in God. Certainly their ministry has an apostolic profile although they are never referred to as apostles.

Erlander however sees fit to promote Priscilla to the status of ‘apostle’ while making no mention whatever of poor Aquila. The reference given is Romans 16. 3 which simply refers to both Priscilla and Aquila as ‘fellow workers’  of Paul.

Finally, it is clear from the Gospels that only “The Twelve” were with Jesus at the Last Supper. (Matt. 26. 20; Mark14. 17)

Erlander considers this very sexist and remiss of Jesus, so his illustration of the Last Supper augments the 12 males (13 with Jesus) with 13 females resulting in perfect parity of the sexes.

His message to Jesus would run something like this, “Respectfully Sir, I sense that in having only twelve males at the Last Supper, you were unduly influenced by the prevailing mores and sexist attitudes of the time. It would have been far more appropriate to have both men and women at this important event. I have drawn you a picture of the arrangement we regard as being more suitable given the more enlightened understanding we have of such matters in our time.”

There can be little doubt that the overall tenor of Erlander’s Manna and Mercy manual is one of eisegesis rather than exegesis. (see our post entitled “Exegesis versus Eisegesis” of Aug 4, 2016)

As with the liberation motif, Erlander has certain points he wants to make, and he does not shrink from distorting the Biblical narrative in order to make these points.

The trouble is that the Manna & Mercy manual by virtue of its humorous and pictorial presentation, offers itself as a Biblical overview for those beginning to study the scriptures. Such ‘beginner students’ can easily be duped into mistaking Erlander’s distortion of the Scriptural account for the actual narrative of the text.

This is not to say that some of the points that Erlander wishes to make aren’t worth making.

For example, the communion table is most assuredly inclusive and not confined to men. –But this conclusion is the result of theological reflection on a number of texts and does not constitute grounds for a revision of the Gospel texts.

--A pity that Erlander couldn’t have ”played it straight.”

As mentioned in our previous post, this begs the question as to whether one who approaches Scripture in such a careless and cavalier fashion can be considered trustworthy to conduct us through it’s pages.