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Premier unbelievable.com And now for today's

1:22

replay. Of. Ask him to write

1:25

anything. The.

1:33

Ask N T Y anything

1:35

podcast. We.

1:39

throw all kinds of things that

1:41

you every couple of weeks tom

1:43

and today is no different week

1:45

during probably one of the biggest

1:47

questions that has existed since time

1:49

immemorial a problem of evil and

1:51

suffering i'm not expecting you to

1:53

solve it necessarily today but if

1:56

it is potent some interesting ways

1:58

to day i'm a space Whenever

2:00

we come to do a podcast and questions and you're

2:02

there as the person answering them. I

2:04

suppose it's always with the caveat that There

2:07

are some things that don't really have very

2:09

neat packaged answers Do they and

2:11

we can only give people ways to try

2:13

and think through things and everyone's different as

2:15

to how they're ultimately going to Resolve some

2:17

of these big questions in their own mind.

2:19

Sure. Yeah, that's undoubtedly true and The

2:23

question of the problem of evil is is

2:25

the archetypal one and I've come to the

2:28

view that That even

2:30

though we don't have a good answer to the

2:32

way the question is normally posed or has been

2:34

in the last 200 years 300 years anyway We

2:37

do have a very good answer for why

2:39

we should expect that problem to come

2:42

up in the way that it does

2:44

And that is if we believe that

2:47

God is the good and wise Creator

2:49

then evil doesn't make sense

2:52

and that's the point and the danger then is

2:54

if we as clever theologians or philosophers Think

2:57

we can make sense of it Then

3:00

we're saying that actually God created a world

3:02

within which yeah There's a place for evil

3:04

and we'll let evil exists as it can

3:06

do this and that and the other Which

3:10

is actually a very dark conclusion to

3:12

reach And of

3:14

course people can pose the question then

3:16

in terms of Genesis 3 Where

3:19

did the snake come from? Why was there a snake in the garden

3:21

in the first place? And there

3:23

is something then about the freedom of God

3:26

and the freedom which God gives

3:28

to creation Which remains

3:30

a mystery? But I remember when I was

3:33

teaching in Oxford one of my fellow examiners

3:35

one year for the for the finals paper

3:37

Set a question would it be immoral to

3:39

try to solve the problem of evil? And

3:42

I remember looking at that and thinking what an

3:44

odd thing about them. Oh, yes I

3:47

see because if you were able to say

3:49

yes, we understand why there is evil So because

3:51

it this and this and this tick we've

3:53

solved that one then what you're saying is

3:56

Something Pretty drastic about the way the

3:59

world is. And I bet

4:01

you can guess who the examiner close

4:03

to Now kids around Williams has the

4:05

South Africa safe as perhaps we should

4:07

get em and I think that the

4:09

as he groaned would say emphatically acts

4:11

you it would be immoral because you

4:13

would then be accusing God of having

4:15

made a world in which this was

4:17

just part of the way stuff was.

4:20

And low. That's. One general

4:23

question which I think sets sets the

4:25

scene up rarely a quite well from

4:27

dab in Garland, North Carolina. Heath's a

4:29

emails and say hello. I'm an atheist

4:31

who's interested in say, could you explain

4:33

free will and how it relates to

4:36

evil? I've had Christian friends explain that

4:38

we've been given free will to love

4:40

God, but also free will to do

4:42

evil. but that makes it sound as

4:44

if God allows cruelty to happen to

4:47

innocent people. say that he'll it till

4:49

she can be loved. Am I misunderstanding

4:51

the concept. Of Free Will and the reason

4:53

behind it. By the way, I've just started

4:55

your book school for every one Roman spot.

4:57

One that has said of wealth was that

4:59

funny enough that that will cover some of

5:01

his grand as club is a bit though

5:03

I'm delighted If somebody who's a self confessed

5:05

atheist would be starting with a commentary on

5:07

Robots Out as a great place to start

5:09

in all sorts of ways though them that

5:11

there might be other places you could soft

5:13

as well but wherever you start just find

5:16

your way through. I would say it's M.

5:19

Of course, part of the puzzle is that

5:21

for the atheist, there isn't a problem. I'm

5:24

so the Ac just as a

5:26

problem of good news because if

5:28

the world is simply the random

5:30

product of blinds chance with atoms

5:32

bouncing off each other or swerving

5:34

as an epicurean is a month

5:37

and just producing new life forms

5:39

of there is no reason to

5:41

suppose that we would like. The.

5:43

Resultant M. Mes. and

5:46

the problem with natural selection which is

5:48

a way of solving that problem say

5:50

will survivor the city so we're getting

5:52

better and stronger better stronger is that

5:55

the survival of the fittest assumes lots

5:57

and lots and lots of unfit life

5:59

forms Which just fall by the wayside

6:01

and so if you go that? It's

6:06

basically that new new epicurean

6:08

forms of philosophy, then

6:10

you really have a problem Why would we

6:13

say that anything is good and the answer

6:15

that the epicurean gives is oh good simply

6:17

means I like this right? But

6:20

actually that's not what most people mean by good

6:23

and if if somebody Tortures somebody else and

6:25

then when challenged says well I like doing

6:27

this most of us would say

6:29

sorry that's not good enough and and and

6:31

even if those I mean many people have

6:33

tried to Still tie it

6:35

to an actualistic account of good saying well

6:38

We know that torturing people is bad for the

6:40

flourishing In an evolutionary sense

6:43

even that I found doesn't really get rid

6:45

of why we disagree with no quite It's

6:47

a utilitarian argue quite there is an

6:49

innate moral sense and even though that

6:52

does vary from culture to culture in

6:54

certain interesting ways It

6:56

can't quite be eradicated and one of the

6:58

things I've tried to argue in the Gifford

7:00

lectures Is that there are certain things like

7:03

justice spirituality relationships beauty freedom truth and power?

7:06

Which all of them have a

7:08

certain draw across cultures and

7:10

across time? But equally

7:13

all of them are puzzling because we

7:15

we know that justice matters But we all are

7:17

inclined to bend it when it's in our own

7:19

favor and more seems to be in our own

7:22

favor and same with truth and power and so

7:24

on and That's part of

7:26

the problem of being human in this world,

7:28

and that's part of setting the parameters for

7:30

why Questions like

7:32

the problem of evil have to be dealt

7:34

with within this larger whole It's not enough

7:37

to say here are these things which we

7:39

deem to be evil both human evil and

7:41

so-called natural evil though Whether

7:43

an earthquake is evil or not. It's

7:45

just what the Earth's crust does and But

7:48

it produces suffering people of course build

7:50

houses and skyscrapers on of course absolutely

7:53

and in a sense though the this specific

7:56

question is about Free

7:58

will and that's there's been a typical defense

8:01

of evil being that God gives

8:03

us freedom. Obviously

8:06

that enables us to experience love, relationship

8:08

with God with each other, all the

8:10

goods, but it comes at the cost

8:12

of what we do on the

8:15

negative side with our freedom. Now I mean

8:17

part of the problem there is that the

8:19

puzzle of so-called free will, philosophers have been

8:21

bashing their heads against this forever, and

8:24

you end up, if you're not careful, so

8:27

defending freedom that we do end up

8:29

as random particles. We're so free that

8:31

actually we're just bouncing around and we

8:33

think we're making choices, but really we

8:36

are so totally free that we're just random

8:38

nonsense. And

8:40

that's why in biblical thought you tend

8:43

not to get an emphasis on free

8:46

will as normally conceived philosophically, but

8:48

on responsibility, that humans are given

8:50

the dignity of making choices. And

8:54

as we said in a previous podcast about prayer, God

8:57

seems to want to work in the

8:59

world through human beings who

9:01

are learning to make wise,

9:04

good, healing choices. The

9:06

other problem of course about free will is that

9:08

however much you use a free will defense for

9:11

saying therefore we humans mess stuff up and

9:13

maybe that's an inevitable result

9:15

of the way God made the world,

9:18

that doesn't solve earthquakes and tsunamis and

9:20

volcanoes and so on. And

9:22

there the problem is, well the humans had

9:24

the responsibility to build houses on that point,

9:26

but often they didn't know. And this is

9:28

why of course the Lisbon earthquake in 1755

9:32

was such a major philosophical

9:34

disaster in the Western world

9:37

as well as a physical and human

9:39

life disaster, that it made people think

9:42

if there was a God he wouldn't have let this happen. But

9:45

here's the really interesting point that

9:47

I've puzzled over. This

9:50

has seemed to be a problem in

9:52

modern Western thought since maybe

9:54

1650, 1700 in A

9:57

way which it never was in earlier Christian thought.

10:00

The August who knows about all these things

10:02

had happened and he basis as yeah, that

10:04

that's just the way the world is, but

10:06

God is in charge and God will rescue

10:08

us, etc. He often seems to have thought

10:11

of in terms of being rescued from the

10:13

world and going to happen. but in the

10:15

New Testament as well, Jesus and his first

10:17

follows knew perfectly well that there were things

10:20

like earthquakes and volcanoes and that people suffer

10:22

and die in all sorts of ways. I

10:24

phones as the phrase goes, nasty, brutish and

10:26

short for for a great many people and

10:29

they don't regard that. As oh

10:31

dear maybe the reason to gone after

10:33

all. Rather they see it in terms

10:35

of and the creator God has set

10:37

in motion a purpose to rescue the

10:40

world and to restore and he'll the

10:42

world. So that is prophetic visions of

10:44

new creation like the wolf lying down

10:46

with the lamb and azar and so

10:48

on. These are shimmering in the background

10:50

as saying there is a god, He

10:53

is the good Creator does a real

10:55

mess at the moment and he has

10:57

got his own way of working to

10:59

solve it, which won't necessarily be the

11:01

way that we might like, but that's

11:04

partly because we don't understand his ways.

11:06

and during out this booted the question

11:08

from Do. With. Which

11:10

is I think where the crux of his. And.

11:12

Perhaps accept that we need free free will

11:14

to to choose to love and gift to

11:17

be human and and all those good things

11:19

That says. It is. It

11:21

means got allows cruelty to happened to innocent

11:23

people as the cost of that. I

11:26

guess that struggling with whether the cost

11:28

is worth the good as like as

11:30

a and easy to find a tradeoff

11:32

between yet he got have some wealth.

11:34

I mean that is the great question

11:36

which comes in famous industry has given

11:38

elsewhere m as it is this the

11:41

gamble, the risk that God has taken

11:43

and the christian answer comes back again

11:45

and again to sate the story that

11:47

we tell his story in which God

11:49

himself has come in person to take

11:51

the full force of all that evil

11:53

on to himself. A one is it's

11:55

I wrote little book on the problem

11:57

of evil who to secede ago called

11:59

he. The Justice of God and

12:01

a one of the insights which helps

12:04

me as I was working through that.

12:06

so new short book was that the

12:08

Gospels themselves tell the story of Jesus

12:10

and his announcing of God's kingdom and

12:13

he's going to the Cross. But it's

12:15

not just about Jesus doing that as

12:17

Jesus comes and says. It's

12:20

time for got to be king. Follow

12:22

me and is gonna happen then he

12:24

will have all sorts seems to be

12:26

drawn to him as though to a

12:28

magnet that that there are plotting scribes

12:31

and pharisees in their shrieking demons in

12:33

the synagogue and some of his own

12:35

followers get it wrong and plot against

12:37

him and and people are out to

12:39

get him. And the story you know

12:41

is is like that the plaza, the

12:43

movies where you realize that from every

12:46

corner they're insidious forces and whispering voices

12:48

in his own head and then. The

12:50

whole thing Russia's together puts him on

12:52

the cross. And.

12:55

Then something has happened on the

12:57

cross through which the power of

12:59

that evil is broken. So this

13:01

isn't a philosophical answer. it's a

13:04

way of saying that the philosophical

13:06

question needs to be confronted by

13:08

the actual Israel narrative reaching it's

13:10

climax, and Jesus and San. The

13:13

churches gender in the power of the

13:15

spirit must be to say okay if

13:18

we other people to celebrate. Jesus.

13:20

Victory over powers of evil. We must

13:22

be the people in and through who's

13:24

communities. In. Justice, oppression,

13:26

wickedness, lies are actually being

13:29

dealt with. And. That's why

13:31

it was interesting that it is this Raymond

13:33

spot one that yes that is studying because

13:35

it a when I think of a passes

13:37

that deals with they'd is Romans Eight and

13:40

it is the fact that Poland knowledge is

13:42

we live in this broken well this in

13:44

bondage to decay up and your egg simply

13:46

accept science has guess we are the ones

13:48

who are being just one for this new

13:50

world and as right it God works all

13:53

things together for the good of those who

13:55

love yes yes and that in in Romans

13:57

eight we who believe in Jesus are being

13:59

scooped up. into that purpose so that

14:01

the suffering of Jesus through which the

14:04

basic victory was won, is

14:06

then re-instantiated in the groaning

14:08

of Jesus' followers as

14:11

we don't know what to pray for as we

14:13

all were surrounded by so much suffering and rubbish

14:15

and horrible things. And we stand there

14:17

saying, Lord, I'd love to pray about this, I'm not even

14:19

sure what. And Paul

14:21

says at that moment, the spirit

14:24

is groaning within us and the

14:26

Father is listening. And in that dialogue of

14:28

Father and Spirit, we are being conformed to

14:30

the image of the Son. And

14:32

so this puts the

14:35

mystery of the Trinity, if you like, at the

14:37

heart of the biblical answer to

14:39

the problem of evil. Not that

14:41

it's an answer that will satisfy the

14:44

philosophers, but that it's a way of

14:46

translating the question into a narrative and

14:48

historical mode. And we are part

14:50

of that history. What's the next

14:52

book that Deb should read once they've completed

14:55

Paul for Everyone? Well, perhaps Evil and the

14:57

Justice of God. Okay, yeah. But

15:00

whatever helps. I hope this answer has helped

15:02

Deb and we wish you the very best

15:04

in your continuing journey as you explore that.

15:07

Moving on to a slightly different angle on this. We

15:10

talked about some of those classic

15:12

philosophical issues around free will and love and evil

15:14

and so on. But Paul in

15:17

Kansas asks, many of the theodysseys

15:19

I've heard on why God would allow so much

15:21

sufferings in the world are predicated on the necessity

15:23

and goodness of free will. But then my question

15:25

is about the new heaven and new earth. Is

15:28

this a literal place where believers are gathered with

15:30

glorified bodies who love God? Does

15:32

not this new state of existence also

15:35

require the presence of free will? And

15:37

would not that in turn necessitate the

15:39

possibility of another fall or sin itself?

15:41

And yeah, that's an interesting question. Are we

15:44

somehow experiencing free will in a different way

15:46

in the new creation that doesn't mean the

15:48

possibility of sin? It is a

15:50

great question. And I think the New Testament is

15:52

very much aware that that question could be raised.

15:54

And I think, though it's a very dark passage,

15:57

that that's why towards the end of the book

15:59

of Revelation. that the Satan the

16:01

old dragon is released for a

16:03

short time and then is

16:05

finally given his total comeuppance

16:08

and I think that's a richly symbolical

16:10

way of saying we can imagine that

16:12

there might be a snake in the

16:14

new garden but actually the snake has

16:17

done his worst and We

16:20

are quite sure that that he's been

16:22

dispatched. So that's that's one possible way

16:24

in another way is to say This

16:27

is the problem with our analysis of free will And

16:30

the use of that free will defense could push

16:32

in that direction. It's interesting in America at the

16:34

moment much more than in Britain I think there

16:37

are quite a lot of younger Christians who are

16:39

being quite Philosophically savvy in

16:41

a way that their British counterparts probably aren't

16:44

but who get sometimes a kind of a

16:46

rationalistic Apologetic which would include that

16:48

sort of free will defense and I want to

16:50

say just just be careful what you do

16:52

with that because it does lead you into strange

16:55

places and and part of

16:57

the dynamic of freedom in

16:59

the New Testament is That

17:02

as Paul would say we are set free

17:04

from slavery to sin in order to be

17:06

enslaved to righteousness And

17:08

that's Paul is saying that as a

17:10

deliberate paradox in Romans 6 But

17:13

then he fills that out in Romans 8 with the

17:15

doctrine of the Holy Spirit And

17:17

the point of the spirit is that when

17:19

the spirit is at work, then we are

17:22

truly free and there is a freedom about

17:24

that and this

17:26

is You

17:29

know, it's like if I am driving a car I

17:32

am free I'm free to steer into the

17:34

path of an oncoming truck. I'm free to

17:36

steer off the road into a ditch But

17:39

actually if I use those

17:41

freedoms, I will not be free to drive this car

17:43

anymore I may not even be free to be alive

17:46

anymore. And so Freedom is

17:48

a little more complicated and simply I can do what

17:50

I like And you've used that I

17:52

know the the analogy of music before that it's

17:55

only once we have learned and understood the

17:57

boundaries of music works

18:00

and then do the improvisation because

18:02

we need the boundaries to

18:04

be free. Exactly. There's

18:06

certainly improvisation or the

18:09

brilliant violinist or pianist who learns

18:12

to play the concerto by the long hours of

18:14

discipline. I listened to something on the radio the

18:16

other day, a professional pianist talking about the boringness

18:18

of practice, take the same phrase over and over,

18:21

you play it backwards and sideways. And

18:23

he said, only when you've done that for a few

18:25

hours, then when you come to

18:27

play that sonata, concerto, whatever it is,

18:30

there is a freedom. You can now

18:32

pour yourself into it, knowing that

18:35

your fingers will do what they should. And

18:37

this is the paradox of freedom and

18:39

virtue, that virtue is a

18:41

second nature. It's a

18:43

second freedom, if you like, that

18:45

you submit yourself to the discipline

18:47

of learning the stuff in

18:50

order that you can then freely practice

18:52

it. And this, I suppose,

18:54

is the answer we might give to the

18:56

sceptics, why would I want to be a

18:58

Christian? It's all about rules and regulations, I

19:00

want to be free. Well, the fact is,

19:03

you're in bondage to something else, we were always

19:05

master to something or other, and we might as

19:08

well make it God and his welcome. It might

19:10

as well, yes, quite. It'll be quite demanding, but

19:12

yes, I mean, that's part of the appeal of

19:14

the Gospel, if the Son sets you free, you

19:16

will be genuinely free. And

19:19

that's very controversial when Jesus says that to his

19:21

Judean interlocutors. They say, we've never been enslaved to

19:23

anyone, which is an odd thing for first introduced

19:25

to say that they do. And

19:27

Jesus says, no, there is a deeper sense of freedom. And

19:30

therefore it's really about what

19:32

does it mean to be human? And being

19:34

human doesn't mean being free like somebody, you know,

19:37

supposing I'm randomly dropped from a helicopter into a

19:39

strange city where I know nobody, but I've got

19:41

some money in my pocket, I'm free to do

19:43

what I like all day, but I really have

19:45

no idea what I ought to be doing. Well,

19:48

that's a sort of freedom. But Actually,

19:50

it's not nearly as exciting and interesting as the freedom

19:52

which I have when there's a well planned trip to

19:54

somewhere that I know and love where I can go

19:56

to a football match or a music event or whatever

19:58

it might be. And I am totally

20:01

free because I have made the effort

20:03

to be within this context which enhances

20:05

who I am instead of just wandering

20:07

around thinking what am I doing here

20:09

in and let that T T kind

20:11

of different strands that we've taken out

20:13

and sell discussion on the evil and

20:15

freedom. And but I hope that helped

20:17

by Paul and depth at my where

20:19

I've often simply landed is is that

20:22

there are no easy answers to the

20:24

problem of evil Chef. But for me

20:26

I'd rather live with. Evil.

20:28

And suffering is a mystery in Christianity then it's

20:30

simply being meaningless as he see a yoyo

20:32

him in in a nato purely I kissed it

20:34

will view and and and that's I mean this

20:37

is a classic thing which I think is Martin

20:39

Luther said there are certain things we can

20:41

understand by the light of nature, but they're mysteries

20:43

their which you know new, understand the light of

20:45

grace and even within the grace of the

20:48

Christian nicer things which we can't understand which we

20:50

will understand the Night of Glory Now I would

20:52

want to nuance his vision of the future somewhat

20:54

differently, but it's as though it every stage we

20:57

should expect there to be. Mysteries and puzzles.

20:59

And if there weren't that, I'm not sure

21:01

how to be God. He

21:03

would be a function of our

21:05

little limited understanding. The.

21:14

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21:32

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T Right. That's premier

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and site.org forward/and t right?

22:22

Thank you. Let's

22:37

turn to. Another

22:39

set of now we talked about the

22:41

big philosophical question dealers collection of of

22:43

evil suffering free will. This is a

22:45

much more practical how we how we

22:47

are to live. As. Christians

22:49

in the world we find ourselves in

22:52

and these questions are both been submitted

22:54

by Dogs. Do it from the libertarian

22:56

christian pull cost of people Enjoy this

22:58

because they may also enjoy dogs. One

23:00

and first question from Dog is Tom.

23:03

Many Christians are like to use the

23:05

bible is a moral guidebook and extrapolate

23:07

from that will their fellow citizens must

23:09

live by. Had the debate tends to

23:11

circle around what good biblical politics looks

23:14

like person moralism on the one side

23:16

and corporate moralism on the other. The.

23:19

Can Christened really take the scripture and

23:21

use them to tell the rest of

23:23

their country what laws They must live

23:25

under Disease Get too close to a

23:27

theocracy? Great question. And

23:29

it looks very different from America than

23:31

it would in Britain Or indeed in

23:34

France or Germany or is it Africa,

23:36

etc etc. In other words, I understand

23:38

we're in America. Things have swung the

23:41

swim that because. By

23:43

Constitution two hundred and forty years

23:46

ago and they said just say

23:48

separate. and that's been very difficult

23:50

to live with and many americans today on

23:52

are having to come to terms with the

23:55

fact that actually if you say total separation

23:57

then you can have an atheistic state which

23:59

goes charging off and does its own thing, leaving

24:02

the Christians who thought they were

24:04

in quite a friendly environment feeling

24:06

decidedly discriminated against. But how do

24:08

you put that back together without

24:11

producing the sort of nonsense that many

24:13

people think were going on under rather

24:16

fierce Calvinistic legislation earlier on, etc.,

24:18

etc. In Britain

24:20

we don't have that discussion. We have very different one.

24:23

And we have muddled along with an

24:25

uneasy alliance, a very British fashion, of

24:28

church and state which Americans

24:30

look at and say, how does that work? And the answer

24:32

is, well, it doesn't, it doesn't. And

24:34

you have to live with it. And yes, it's all

24:36

very peculiar. But we don't

24:38

have that extreme separation. So then the

24:41

question comes, actually, kingdom of

24:43

God is a theocracy. But the problem with

24:45

theocracy is which theos have you got? And

24:48

when people hear theocracy, they often

24:50

think of a big bullying, angry

24:53

God who has given a hotline

24:55

to him to certain people, call

24:58

them clergy or whatever, and they will simply

25:00

tell you God's decisions. And

25:02

you've got to get in line or you

25:04

have your head chopped off or whatever. And

25:06

of course, we know that there are some

25:08

religions and some regimes that have behaved and

25:10

indeed are behaving like that as we speak.

25:14

The difference with Christianity is that the theos in

25:16

question, who is the theos of the theocracy, is

25:18

the God who is the father of Jesus Christ,

25:20

who says, I love you so much. I'm giving

25:22

my son to die for you. I love you

25:25

so much. I'm putting my spirit within you so

25:27

you can be genuine humans. Now, I

25:29

like the idea of that theos running the world. And

25:32

I notice that that's what the Sermon on the

25:34

Mount is about. When Jesus says,

25:36

blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek,

25:39

the mourners, the hungry for justice people, peacemakers,

25:42

etc. That's

25:44

how theocracy works by

25:46

ordinary, prayerful people being

25:49

peacemakers, hungry for justice

25:51

folk, etc., etc. And

25:54

of course, that's bitty and

25:56

messy because the God who

25:58

God is doesn't. in the

26:00

tanks, he sends in that lot the little people

26:02

who are grieving over the

26:04

ruin of the world and determined by the

26:07

spirit to do something about it. Now I

26:09

like that theocracy but you can't

26:12

translate that theocracy straight onto the

26:14

statute book because as

26:16

the early Christians knew there are many

26:18

religions and life forms out

26:20

there and so the church

26:22

from the beginning was a new sort

26:24

of politics which both

26:26

was and wasn't competing with the

26:29

existing ones I mean by saying Jesus

26:31

is Lord it's quite clear means Caesar isn't but

26:33

when then Caesar

26:35

decides three or four centuries down the

26:37

track that so many of his subjects have

26:39

become Christians that he wants to get on

26:42

board with that and that's a very

26:44

dangerous and risky moment but

26:46

the answer isn't oh no please go on persecuting

26:48

us because we'd be so much more authentic to

26:50

be a beleaguered minority the answer has to be

26:53

okay so what's this going to look like and

26:55

presumably it means creating a

26:58

wise and safe environment in

27:01

which the church can do what it

27:03

does best which is looking after the

27:05

poor healing the sick bringing education to

27:08

everybody etc those three things by the

27:10

way looking after the poor medicine and

27:12

education have been part of the church's DNA

27:14

from the beginning we think that's

27:16

odd in the Western world because the

27:19

state does those now and tells

27:21

the church to get its hands off but actually

27:23

that's what we've always been good at and and

27:26

it's difficult isn't it because we obviously live in in

27:28

the afterglow of a kind of Christendom in

27:31

yes to some extent where to

27:33

some extent the state did

27:35

sort of because it has been shaped by

27:38

a Judeo Christian worldview take on

27:40

those responsibilities and then the church sort of forgot

27:42

that it was also supposed to be to be

27:44

doing that sure and some of our you know

27:46

don't know if this is Doug's position but that

27:48

okay let's let the state do what it does

27:50

and let the church do what it's supposed to

27:53

do and we should be too concerned about whether

27:55

the state does or doesn't reflect Christian values I

27:57

think the question then is this is going to

27:59

vary in I remember

28:02

at the Lambeth Conference 10 or 11

28:04

years ago, being with some Christians

28:07

from Myanmar, and they were

28:09

talking about whether there are one or

28:11

two members of the ruling elite, the

28:13

hunter or whatever they were, who were

28:15

closeted Christians. And I remember thinking, oh

28:18

my goodness, if you live in a country

28:20

like that, all the questions

28:22

of church and state and Christian freedom and

28:25

law and so on look totally different. Either

28:27

if you live in a muddled country like mine or

28:29

if you live in a country like America which had

28:33

this big, rather rigid, typically

28:35

18th century split, you know, very

28:37

Thomas Jefferson. And

28:40

I want to say we need

28:42

to become more savvy at navigating

28:45

our own histories in

28:47

those moments and saying this is

28:49

where we are now. What does it

28:51

mean to be followers of Jesus in this

28:54

place now? And

28:56

I don't think for most of us in

28:58

the Western world this means we'll retreat, do

29:00

our own thing as church and let the

29:03

state do its thing because the church has

29:05

to have a prophetic voice vis-a-vis the state.

29:07

In John 16, which happened to be my

29:09

morning reading this morning by a nice coincidence,

29:12

Jesus says when the spirit comes, the spirit

29:14

will convict the world of sin and righteousness

29:16

and judgment and explains that

29:19

a bit. And I remember, I may

29:21

have said this to you before, for years thinking, what

29:23

a great thing the spirit holding the world to account.

29:26

And then it suddenly dawns on me, Jesus

29:28

doesn't give the spirit in general terms,

29:31

Jesus gives the spirit to his followers

29:33

so that his followers can hold

29:35

up the mirror to power and say sin

29:37

and righteousness and judgment. And if you wonder

29:40

what that looks like in John's gospel, read

29:42

John 18 and 19 where

29:44

Jesus confronts Pontius Pilate and

29:47

argues with him about kingdom and

29:49

truth and power. And

29:51

Pilate eventually kills him, but in

29:53

the great irony of the gospel,

29:56

that is the victory of the kingdom, Jesus

29:58

is king of the Jews. because

30:00

thereafter new creation is launched

30:02

and Pontius Pilate is yesterday's

30:05

man as it were. We only

30:07

know him because of the creeds of the

30:09

Christian Church. Well pretty much, pretty much. So

30:13

that is the Church's vocation to figure out

30:15

what it would mean to do

30:18

vis-a-vis our own governments, be they

30:20

benign or not benign, what Jesus

30:22

was doing with Pontius Pilate. One

30:25

more question here from Doug. If

30:27

declaring Jesus is Lord means implicitly

30:30

that Caesar is not, how

30:32

might Christ followers live today in a

30:34

world of American and European empires that

30:37

are somewhat more democratic than the Roman

30:39

Empire? They may be but they

30:41

may not be. The Romans voted all right but there

30:43

was a system and you had to be rather rich

30:45

and powerful to get in on the system. That

30:47

does sound rather like what some of us

30:49

see when we look across the pond at

30:52

our American friends that you know in order

30:54

to be a senator you have to be

30:56

a millionaire, in order to be a president

30:58

you have to raise multi-millions. Yes it's

31:01

voted for but there's all sorts of

31:04

constraints and one of the

31:06

things I pray for regularly is that God

31:08

will raise up a new generation on both

31:10

sides of the Atlantic of wise leaders who

31:12

will be credible and voteable for in a

31:15

way which actually of late has not been

31:17

true in my country and perhaps some Americans

31:19

might say has not been entirely true for

31:22

them either. Thank you for

31:24

tackling a wide range of questions on the

31:26

podcast today Tom it's been a pleasure as

31:28

always and I hope you've enjoyed listening as

31:30

well. You've

31:36

been listening to the Ask Anti-Write

31:38

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