The Age of Unbelief

If you hadn’t clocked it yet, those of us in the West are living in an ‘age of unbelief’ – a season when Christian beliefs and ethics are being publicly pushed to the sidelines of life, with the claim they are out of date, out of touch, and even – made with increasing frequency – that they are hateful and dangerous. Like it or not, that’s our situation as the Western Church. And so it’s essential that we decide how we’re going to respond to this situation. Take Heart is Matt Chandler’s contribution to that debate.

Matt, 43, has been pastoring at the Village Church in Texas since 2002 – a good innings, by any standard. He now holds the role of Lead Pastor of Teaching at the Village Church in Texas and President of the increasingly influential and international Acts 29 church-planting network. I first came across Matt when he spoke at Oak Hill during my time there. Reading Take Heart is like hearing Matt speak: he is engaging, witty, and has an unassuming authority that flows from his passion for Jesus Christ.

We All Respond

By the way, I described Take Heart as Matt’s contribution to the ‘debate’ about how Christians should respond to these changing times, because it doesn’t take much to realise there’s a few different responses being advocated. In a real sense, we all respond – the question is whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, and whether its with theological conviction driving our response – or by way of knee-jerk pragmatism. Chandler summarises the three most common responses as:

• Converting culture, i.e. putting our efforts into ensuring our countries reflect our Christian values, especially politically and legally, and so re-establish Christendom.
• Condemning culture, i.e. removing ourselves from the culture and setting up a sub-culture where we are protected from the influence of the world around us.
• Consuming culture, i.e. accommodating ourselves – in beliefs and ethics – to the culture around us. In other words, we change to fit in, because we belief that’s how we will stay relevant.

As you mull these over, you start to see how these approaches play out in different ways. So take something like the changes in laws regarding so-called ‘equal marriage’. Some Christians will argue it’s critical we don’t change our nations’ laws, even if the majority of the population wants us to. Some will flee the public square and just batten down the hatches: the world is moving in and we just need to stay faithful. Some will say we need to change the Church’s position on sexuality and marriage, in order to stay relevant.

Chandler is concerned that all three of these responses have something in common: they are all “born of fear”. And so he puts forward a fourth option, which he describes as a “posture” of courage:

“I’m convinced that if we have a God-sized, God-given courage, then we will be freed up to be the people of God, living out the mission of God, marked by the joy of God. With courage, this season of history can be viewed not with fear or trepidation, but instead with hope and a sense of opportunity.”

Some might want more caveat in Chandler’s analysis of the flaws of Christendom, but it’s hard to argue with his desire to challenge nominalism. And without a doubt, it’s encouraging to read a book that is so positive. Chandler believes the Church can thrive.

How do we get to courage?

Chandler is not trying to whip us into some paper-thin triumphalism. He quotes the author James Neil Hollingworth, who observed that, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one’s fear.” And so courage comes from re-discovering a big God:

“We’ve spent years telling each other, You can do it. You’re so great. Be yourself. Find yourself, Believe in yourself. Our teaching and advice has been based more on the false wisdom of our world than the true wisdom of the word. And that means we’ve ended up trying to run a marathon on cotton candy. We’ve tried to be bold in the day of war while eating Twinkies.”

In particular, Chandler argues we need to rediscover the biblical portrayal of God as a warrior, citing Exodus 15:3.

The Fight of Your Life

I have to admit, at first Chandler’s choice here surprised me. If I was going to write a book about how Christians are to live amidst a culture that – at the best of times – is confused about the Christian faith, and – at worst – is hostile to the Christian faith, then my instinct would be to avoid describing God as a warrior! Isn’t this just the Religious Right on steroids, a return to the crusades and Christian jihad?!

But here Chandler is careful to say that the way God ‘wars’ is by fighting for the good of his people. Building on the work of theologians Tremper Longman III and Daniel Reid, Chandler gives us a Bible overview of God as warrior, showing that God is fighting a cosmic war, not against people but against his great enemy, Satan, and winning the victory – through the cross – to give his people a relationship with him in a perfect world of shalom.

In other words, as we live amidst increasing marginalisation, the Church can trust we’re on the right side of of history, because God is the History-Maker. He’s in control of where things are going. This isn’t a call to violence, but to compassion and proclaiming the cross. Thriving doesn’t mean having unrivalled popularity or holding great cultural power, but rather having a sense of confidence in the face of opposition and side-lining, because we know that life is playing itself out on God’s backdrop.

How Courage Plays Out

In the last few chapters Chandler seeks to ground courage in the practical. He covers holiness, devotion and evangelism, and spends the most time making the case that the latter needs to be done in the context of hospitality. Rather than the fear-driven responses that Christians are sometimes known by (“marching, debating, writing”), the extent of our courage will be shown “by who sits round your table”.

It’s a compelling picture of Christians committed to loving people and opening up their lives and homes. He acknowledges that though the marginalisation of Christians may be happening at the level of public policy and media narratives, the reality is that individuals are still spiritually intrigued by the Christian faith. Showcasing the gospel through generous and winsome lives is always going to be powerful.

How do you like your eggs, Benedict?

Despite Chandler’s denial that he’s trying to present some “fresh strategy”, it’s hard not to read Take Courage without thinking it’s in part a response to the likes of Rod Dreher’s much-discussed Benedict Option. Dreher’s approach, inspired by the founding of the Benedictine Order, can come across as one of fearful retreat from the culture, rather than the positive, outward-facing approach of Take Heart. I suspect there’d be much that Dreher and Chandler would agree on: the cultural analysis of where we stand for starters, as well as the need to guard the gospel and the importance of creating Christian communities (church!) and families where we ‘learn the gospel’ and grow in gospel confidence. But as David Robertson commented in his review of Dreher’s book:

“I need to be in the world, but not of it. I need to live with people who are dead in sins and trespasses. I need to live, eat, work and share with those who are the enemies of God. The only thing I must not do is worship with them, ignore them or hate them.”

Courage, Dear Heart

Admittedly in the UK we don’t have the same political ‘Religious Right’ – complete with its increasingly depressing loyal association to Trump. In that sense, the pressures are different. But in the Church of England, we do have an established Church, which brings its own pressures. For example, after the C of E’s General Synod voted against the motion to have female bishops back in 2012, there was outrage in the House of Commons and the then PM David Cameron infamously urged the Church to ‘get with the programme’. Whatever you think about the roles of men and women in ministry, should it really be the government’s opinion that drives our decision-making as a Church? Whose ‘programme’ is the Church signed up to? But of course it’s hard to resist that if you’re the official church of the land, with Bishops seated in the House of Lords.

And so we need books like Take Heart that give us a big view of God and call us to be bold and to be strong – even amidst our weakness – for the LORD, our God, is with us. A minor quibble was that each chapter seems to take its launching point from a different Bible passage, whilst still trying to build up a fairly chapter-by-chapter connected argument: Romans takes us to God’s bigness; Exodus – and a Bible overview – shows us God as warrior; 1 Peter becomes lesson about standing on grace, etc. Occasionally this felt slightly disorientating; sometimes I felt I was only just settling down before we were moving on.

Writing with his colleague David Roark, Chandler has given us a handy and compelling tonic to revitalise drooping heads and sapped hearts. And because Take Heart is an easy read, a fairly slim paperback with seven punchy chapters, I’d be happy to commend it to folk who aren’t big readers. And of course I’d be delighted if Chandler’s positivity and courage rubbed off. As he says, “marginalization is the space where we find out where our lives and our allegiances really lie … we’re now back in the place where we have always flourished best.”

If you want to get more of a flavour of the book, then here’s 25 quotes from Take Heart.

You can also watch Matt talking about the vision behind the book below:

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, but I hope this is still a fair review. You can pick up a copy of Take Heart from the publisher using my affiliate link here.

Blindly Hoping for a Punchline?

“What is life: a tragedy or a comedy?”

So begins this excellent little evangelistic book from writer/speaker/poet/creative genius Glen Scrivener, well suited to Easter outreach events. He takes the Shakespearean definition of a tragedy/comedy, i.e. a smile-shaped comedy always has a happy ending, whereas although a frown-shaped tragedy may have plenty of mirth, it ultimately ends. Using this lens he persuades us that Christianity is unique in offering us the comedy we all long for; “this isn’t a question of whether life is hilarious (mostly it’s not), but whether life is hopeful”.

I thought one of the real strengths of this hook is the way it exposes a god-less worldview as simply “distracting ourselves from the end of our life’s story”:

“We are the flotsam of a cosmic explosion and biological survival machines… clinging to an insignificant rock, hurtling through a meaningless universe towards eternal extinction. Still, all that being said, the new flavoured latte from Starbucks is incredible. And have you tried hot yoga. We’re renovating the kitchen too. So, you know, that’s nice…”

Ouch.

So having convinced us that we’re living out a tragedy, Glen argues that Christianity is unique in “having the audacity to be a comedy”. Going back to Shakespeare’s definitions, he means that the Christian faith alone has the plot twist that “holds out dazzling and eternal hope”. And of course this all hangs on the events of that first Easter, a story that is “uniquely hopeful,” as well as “uniquely credible”.

The Cross Is What It Looks Like When God Shows Up

The bulk of the book then riffs on the poetic description of Christ Jesus’ descent to earth/humanity found in Philippians 2:5-11. First off, there’s the surprise that the one who is ‘in very nature God’ takes the ‘very nature of a servant’, walking all the way to the brutal cross; “from heavenly heights God’s Son has descended to the depths”. Glen’s burning passion here is to wake us up to the truth that:

“…when Jesus died on the cross, he was not taking a holiday from being God. He didn’t leave all that ‘God stuff’ in heaven while he died the ‘cross stuff’ on earth. The ‘cross stuff’ was the purest expression of the ‘God stuff’. The cross is what it looks like when God shows up.”

If you’ve heard Scrivener before, you’ll know this is favoured territory of his, being convinced it’s so essential for us to understand. It’s a powerful and crystal-clear explanation of divine humility, and Scrivener’s gifting as a word-smith really comes through: “The Fountain is revealed in the outpouring. When we see his death, really we are seeing God’s life.” The evangelistic consequences of grasping this are hugely significant, for one is forced to ask: “why hasn’t anyone else shown up in our pit?” When you think about it, how can anything claim to be a rival god and yet not show such staggering, stooping splendour?

From here Glen seeks to persuade us that the death of Jesus doesn’t just show us something about God, but also something about ourselves: we’re being saved from danger. Why else would Jesus take on the cross?

“As we see what he endured – godforsaken death – we need to understand that this must be the plight that we should expect. The hell he takes on the cross is the hell that we would otherwise face.”

In other words, although “we live in God’s world,” our actions and thoughts testify to “a life lived in estrangement from God. And if we’re “alienated from God, the life-source, what else can we expect but godforsaken death?” Glen wants to show us this is self-inflicted: our sin comes out of us (rather than being circumstantial behaviour that ‘comes over us’), evidence of a “spiritual sickness” within that will ultimately “degenerate continually”. Again, “that’s hell in its fullness”. The imagery that Glen’s analysis of our plight brought to my mind was that of suicidal astronauts on a space-walk, determined to sever our own life-cord and thus cut ourselves off from our spaceship, flailing helplessly as we fall deeper into the abyss of space. In the following chapter Glen speaks of Jesus “entering the storms of judgment and death” and “experiencing the judgment of God more than anyone ever could,” but part of me wondered if introducing clearer punitive language earlier, as part of the chapter introducing sin, would have made more sense of Jesus “facing what we ought to face” (and perhaps would fill-out repentance later too).

Happily Ever After

Using the glorious illustration of Vasco Da Gama’s pioneering journey past the southern tip of Africa, Glen then gives us a resplendent vision of Jesus’ victorious resurrection as the ‘turning point’: “the cross-scarred Victor returns from the fight and declares his love… we are given a hope that we have not earned and a joy that we cannot repay.” More glorious still, Glen shows us that, as Philippians 2 says, there will also be a day when every knee bows and every tongue acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord:

“You’re not the bowing type, you think. But on this day you won’t be able to stop yourself falling on your face in awe … You won’t be able to do anything else, nor will the atheist next to you, nor the Buddhist next to her, nor the Muslim next to him. ‘Every knee’ will bow…”

Throughout, Glen is empathetic. He helps us feel the tragedy of the Tragedy: “everything that hurts so horrifically in this world hurts because it is not the way it’s supposed to be.” Thus, Jesus’ opening gambit is truly good news: ‘repent and believe’ in the one who can turn it all around. We may think God is an obstacle to us getting the happy endings we long for, but in actual fact this ‘good life’ is but a temporary high that will soon dissipate. Rather, we are the problem and God is the solution, the only one who can bring about cosmic hope. And so the challenge is clear:

“The plotline of history is a comedy. The only question is will we embrace reality the way that Jesus has defined it? He is Lord. His world will follow the divine comedy. There will be a happily ever after. But will we, personally, fall in line with ultimate reality? Or will we resist the comedy and persist in living in tragedy?”

Evangelistic Energy

This simple ‘comedy vs tragedy’ hook makes the book feel punchy and lucid. Illustrations and quotations are used delightfully, and potential questions over the historicity of the gospel accounts are dealt with concisely and in such a way as to help us see we have every reason to both want this story to be true and to find it to be true. I also appreciated how in the last few pages Glen ensures this isn’t some prosperity gospel of ‘health and wealth’ now. Following the apostle Paul’s flow in Philippians 2, he points out that following Jesus as Lord means following his way of self-giving love, pouring ourselves out for others, which is actually the way of real life.

Divine Comedy, Human Tragedy is a real gift for Easter outreach opportunities. Clocking-in at just 55 pocket-size pages, each of the seven chapters feels like you’re reading a punchy blog-post. Glen’s turn-of-phrase is second-to-none and for those enquirers that are prepared to give a book a go, I’d put good money on them finishing it. The writing feels fresh, and, God-willing it will excite believers and compel unbelievers.

You can read two excerpts from Divine Comedy, Human Tragedy here and here. The book is available to purchase in the UK from its publisher here for just £2.99.

And here’s the video version!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, but I hope this is still a fair review.

If you ever find yourself standing on Platform 14 at Manchester Piccadilly station and you look down to the streets below, you’ll see the old frontage of Mayfield Station, where the locomotives used to run from in days gone by. And you’ll likely notice that on the ageing brickwork three words have been affixed in bold lettering, made up of eye-catching lightbulbs and powder-coated steel: ‘Everything is Connected’.

It’s actually an art installation by British artist Peter Liversidge, celebrating the regeneration under way in the city’s Mayfield area, but it would also make a fitting sub-title to The Goldilocks Zone (TGZ), a collection of essays, articles and addresses by the late Mike Ovey and recently published by IVP.

Up until Mike’s untimely death in January 2017, he was the Principal of Oak Hill College, one of the UK’s foremost evangelical theological seminaries. And though there’s much that could and has been said about Mike’s gifts and legacy, he was a master of showing the significance of theology: of drawing connections between the realities of life and theological thinking, and demonstrating how all theology was inevitably intertwined, not least with our doctrine of God.

A Banquet to Return To

As you’d imagine, like most ‘collected works’, this isn’t a tome to blitz through, as you might do with a topical book. Instead TGZ is best treated as a banquet to which one can repeatedly return, letting Mike’s approach, method and worked-through thinking slowly diffuse into one’s mind, as we meander through the various articles and essays. Indeed, the subject matter is, in typical Ovey-fashion, hugely varied. That in itself underlines how remarkable Mike was as a thinker, able to turn his mind to any particular issue – be it from the Bible, the Church, or the World – before then showing how the issue in question was actually relevant to all three areas. Indeed, everything is connected.

Editor Chris Green has collected these writings into four main sections. We begin with fifteen of Mike’s short ‘Off the Record’ columns for online reformed journal Themelios. These were highly-anticipated with each edition, providing bitesize yet incisive reflections on contemporary issues. Whether it’s his proposal that – following the psalmist – we might better serve our culture by using the language of theft to describe sin, or his reflections on the way we can covertly ‘gag’ God as we introduce our own readings of a text, each piece is stimulating, self-aware and actually ends up raising more piercing questions than it gives answers.

In the second section we get seven of Mike’s contributions to the Cambridge Papers, a series birthed from a gathering of Christian academics – convened by Michael Schluter – which began meeting regularly in Cambridge in 1988. The group would take it in turns to consider a contemporary issue and address it in light of God’s revelation. The aim was, as Mike put it, to “think Christianly”. These are slightly longer pieces and include Mike’s perceptive and timely comments on the rhetoric of victimhood; a consideration of the biblical category of idolatry as a tool to understand religion; and a gentle but deft exploration of the presupposition that God could never conceivably establish asymmetry between the sexes.

Deepwater Diving Brings Home the Pearls

In section three, Green selects two of Mike’s longer theses, both concerning the doctrine of the atonement and both published previously in different publications. Of course, Mike also co-wrote the renowned Pierced for our Transgressions, a colossal defence of Jesus’ death being both punitive and substitionary, which has become a ‘go-to’ resource on the subject. And yet even with all that is said in that tome, these two essays are a welcome contribution to the defence and proclamation of an orthodox understanding of the atonement. In both the reader is given a lesson in deep-sea diving – very deep! – and you find yourself being introduced to characters who may have otherwise been unfamiliar. For example, the first piece sees Mike riffing on the work of twentieth-century historian of ideas, Isaiah Berlin, whilst the second is a nuanced engagement with Gustav Aulen, a regular name-drop for many an undergraduate theologian, but perhaps not always with the most nuance. And yet in both, despite the depth, you still return to the surface with many pearls that bring value to the challenges of being ministers of the gospel in 2018, such as an exploration of the tendency within some denominations to speak of the validity of different ‘gospels’ for different people, or the question of how we might speak of God’s victory alongside or in contrast to God’s justice.

The final section is made up of three addresses/lectures Mike gave at the Global Anglican Future Conferences (GAFCON), an international assembly of Anglican leaders that first took place in Jerusalem in 2008, before Nairobi in 2013 (and with a third conference scheduled again for Jerusalem this coming June, 2018). Two of the essays (2008) see Mike essentially unpack some of the theological convictions undergirding his approach to theological education. These are a helpful ‘under-the-bonnet’ introduction to what Mike understood as a gospel-shaped approach to the Scriptures, in a sense giving his methodology behind Oak Hill. But it is the final essay that is the stand-out, entitled The Grace of God Or the World of The West. Those who had the privilege of witnessing this delivered in person  describe the electric atmosphere that prevailed amidst All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi as Mike spoke. He essentially argues that in much of Western Christianity there abounds a ‘cheap grace’, to use Bonhoeffer’s phrase, being a message that is lacking in biblical notions of repentance and that is more in tune with what the prevailing culture demands and expects. There is no doubting that this is a tour de force, with numerous diverse cultural reference points enriching a message that is both blistering in its critique but also heartfelt in its personal tone.

By the way, if you hadn’t guessed, the fairy-tale inspired title of this collection is a reference to Mike’s conviction, expressed in one of the opening articles, that just like Goldilocks’ porridge, theology needed to be ‘just right’. He’d often explain this by speaking of the humble confidence that Christians should have when it comes to theology: confidence because God has chosen to reveal himself in his Word, but humble because we are entirely reliant on that which he has revealed to us. Reading TGZ highlights that this isn’t just nice presuppositional theory, but this is very much the posture that Mike thought and wrote with, as one to whom God had graciously chosen to reveal himself, by his Spirit, through his Word.

The Man Behind the Pen

In addition to these four main sections, TGZ is also book-ended with four pieces written by those who knew, loved, and worked in partnership with Mike. Opening the batting, Mark Thompson, Principal of Sydney’s Moore College, gives a broad sweep of the key themes of Mike’s theological writing and teaching. It acts as a helpful guide to what follows, flagging up some of the central themes to look out for and I imagine is particularly useful if you’ve not been on the receiving end of Mike’s teaching. Chris Green, former Vice-Principal of Oak Hill and TGZ editor, then offers a brief album of literary photographs, each one describing a typical scene from across Mike’s life, giving you a sense of some of the key influences and arenas in which he operated and lived. To finish the book off, Peter Jensen’s sermon from Mike’s Thanksgiving Service last February reflects on the man’s life, and this is followed by a stirring call to prize theological education from Mike’s most recent Vice-Principal at OH, Dan Strange. Together these four paint a picture of the man behind the words. Of course, you often get glimpses of an author’s character or personality in their work, and so it is the case that Mike’s self-awareness, pastoral heart, and humility regularly bubble to the surface of these page. And yet given character was so much a part of Mike’s vision for Christian formation and leadership, these biographical pieces are a welcome and important addition, demonstrating this is something he modelled himself.

It should go without saying that this book will be especially treasured by those who knew Mike well, or those who were on the receiving end of his ministry, especially those who went through Oak Hill whilst Mike was on Faculty. There’s enormous emotional impact in hearing Mike’s voice again, albeit through his words. I was moved to fondly recall both Mike’s person and manner, as well as the theological ideas which Mike introduced so many to.

But whether or not one’s circumstances meant one had the privilege to receive Mike’s teaching, there’s no question that The Goldilocks Zone is worth its weight in gold as a companion for living and thinking as Christians – and those in Christian ministry – in this late-modern period. Personally, I’ve no doubt that this work will be referenced and drawn upon by vast numbers in these next few generations. Before attending Oak Hill I was certainly aware of Mike’s reputation as a leading figure in British evangelicalism, but I had little sense of quite why that was. Sometimes those who identify as ‘conservative evangelical’ are portrayed as haughty, indelicate and unable to engage beyond pat answers, and of course such stereotypes rarely have no substance to them, even if the substance might be a lack of self-awareness of the portrayal. And yet Mike wasn’t a ‘leading figure’ because his voice was loudest or most shrill, or because he’d hoarded power. This work is an important demonstration of why he had the reputation that he did, capturing his warmth, meekness, and self-awareness (not to mention a brain-the-size-of-a-planet), and thus explaining the influence he holds. Everything is connected.

As tributes have been made over the past year, the comment has been frequently made that Mike’s students were his books. In other words, they were where Mike invested his time and energy. But it may just be the case, as God’s providence would have it, that through this one book a whole new generation of Ovey students will be shaped. And though this means, they – like him- might be better watchers of the world, students of the Scriptures, and lovers of Christ.

You can pick up a copy of The Goldilocks Zone from the publisher here.

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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, but I hope this is still a fair review.