Life of John Bradford

I was reading just today a little of the life of John Bradford, who was one of King Edward VI's chaplains in the mid-16th century. (Yes, he is a dead guy! Surprise, surprise!). In reading about him, I came across a quote that I wanted to share with you.

Bradford became a Christian later in life, at 37 years of age. He began training for the ministry at 38! And was ordained at age 40. Three years after his ordination, the Protestant King Edward VI died and was succeeded by his half-sister Mary (a.k.a., "Bloody" Mary), who was Roman Catholic. Bradford was immediately arrested (within the month!) and imprisoned in the Tower of London for his evangelical faith and preaching. After six weeks in prison, this is what he had to say about his experiences in a letter to his mother (note how foreign this statement is to our twenty-first century ears):

"I thank [God] more of this prison than of any parlour, yea, of any pleasure that ever I had, for in it I find God, my most sweet good God, always."

Imagine thanking God for prison and persecution, not because prison is a good thing in and of itself, but because in the midst of persecution and affliction, he has found God and has grown in his communion with God. Surely this is part of what is meant by passages like Romans 8:28.

Violence in Christianity, part 2

Yesterday, I indicated that I would discuss one more troubling aspect of the article on violence in religion. The comment was that "Christianity...was 'born of an act of incredible cruelty,'" which implies, to my mind anyway, that the professor who spoke these words was thinking of the atonement of Christ upon the cross. If that is what the professor intended, I do indeed take umbrage, for at least a couple reasons.

First, the event of the crucifixion was not cruel, not in the least. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. It was the greatest possible expression of love: the Father loved the Son in that He gave Him a chosen people; the Son loved the Father in that He willingly laid down His life for that chosen people; the Father loved those chosen people so much that He gave His Son, His only Son, whom He loved, for them; and the Son loved those chosen people so much that He willingly endured the humiliation of the cross and gave up His life for them. No, my friends, the cross is anything BUT cruelty. It is the ultimate expression of love. And I for one take umbrage at anyone who suggests otherwise.

Second, the event of the crucifixion was not cruel, but it was violent. I will acknowledge that. There can be no escaping the fact that our atonement was violent. But the cause of this violence is not some defect in God but a defect in us...namely, our sin. Sin is the cause of ALL violence. Sin is the cause of violence between people. As we saw yesterday, the Christian sins when he acts violently. (See Jesus' example in the New Testament, if you question this.) Sin is also the cause of the violence of the cross. It is our sin that put Christ there. The cross is violent, simply because our sin merits violence from a God who is too perfect even to look upon sin. Hebrews 9:22 tells us that there is no forgiveness without violence (but this is a different kind of violence altogether than what the "experts" were discussing at the lecture). The cross is violent because it is the only way that God could be just and the justifier of those who believe in Christ. The cross is violent because God is just and because God is love!

Here again we must remember the context of love: Christ endured the violence that my sins and your sins rightly deserve, so that you and I would not have to endure that violence ourselves but might enjoy perfect peace and felicity forever! Amazing Love! How can it be? That thou my God shouldst die for me!

Christianity was not born of cruelty. And it was not born of violence. It was born of LOVE, and it ushers in grace, and mercy, and forgiveness. Amen!

Violence in Religion

Recently, the newspaper carried an article reporting on a local lecture on violence in religion. Three "experts," all Ph.D.-ers and professors of religion at USM, spoke on Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam, and their respective relationships to violence.

Now, I was not able to attend the lecture personally (which may have been a good thing!), but I do want to react to the article that was written about it and to what I imagine had to be lurking just below the surface during the lecture. Obviously, I don't have any problem with someone looking at history and concluding that religion has rarely, if ever, existed without violence. One doesn't even have to look hard at history to make this determination. But that is something altogether different than saying what the newspaper article said in its opening lines: "Can religion exist without violence? Apparently not, based on the presentations of three experts."

This is the statement that I am concerned about. It is one thing to ask, "Has religion existed without violence?" And another thing to ask, "Can religion exist without violence?" The trouble comes in when we answer the latter question in the negative, as the article says the lecturers did, because the Bible clearly tells us that Christianity, for one, can and should exist without violence. DOES it exist without violence in reality? That is a different question, one that requires a more detailed response than I have time for here. But Christianity CAN and SHOULD exist without violence, that much should be clear even from a cursory reading of the New Testament.

One other statement that I am concerned about is a throw-away comment made by one of the professors that Christianity was "born of an act of incredible cruelty." I will try to take this up tomorrow.

Expensive proposition

This morning in Bible Study, we talked about Matthew 8:18-22. In this passage, a scribe says to Jesus: "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus responds, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To which "another of the disciples" replies: "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus rejoins, "Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead."

This is a sobering passage about the commitment that Jesus requires of His followers. Jesus is looking for single-minded and sacrificial commitment to Himself. As He told the scribe, following Christ is not an "easy" thing. It's not something to take lightly. Jesus and His disciples would not be staying in the Ritz-Carlton and eating at 5-star restaurants. Even the animals, in one sense, had a "cush-ier" life. They had places of their own to lay their heads.

And, as Jesus told "another of the disciples," following after Him was more important and a greater priority even than one's duty to one's parents. As important as duty to parents is (N.B., Jesus fully embraced the 5th commandment, although not necessarily the interpretation of the 5th commandment that was put forth by the Jewish religious leaders of the day), following after Christ is more important. NOTHING, not parents, not family, not spouse, not career, not children, not money, not an easy life, not vacation homes, not our retirement package, not even being tolerant to other religions (as in the recent case in the Nevada State Senate)...Nothing is to take precedence over following after Christ.

Following Christ will be hard, Jesus Himself says, and it will require sacrifice. Many of us today may want to follow after Jesus, but we want the "cushy" life too. We want to follow Jesus, but we want to stay in the Ritz-Carltons and eat at the 5-star restaurants while doing so. We haven't counted the cost. Or, we want to follow Jesus but we want to follow Him later, after we have taken care of certain other things (all of which may be good things in and of themselves). We want to follow Him later, but for now other things are more important to tend to.

But, no one can follow TWO masters!

Jesus without doctrine?

One of the things that I hear from many well-intentioned Christians is that they don't want doctrine or teaching, they just want Jesus. And one of the things that I often say in response is that they cannot have Jesus without doctrine or teaching. Everything that we believe as Christians is doctrine. You want to talk about the person and work of Christ, that is doctrine. You want to talk about forgiveness of sins, that is doctrine. You want to talk about how we are to live in light of our great salvation, that is doctrine.

Here is what J.C. Ryle has to say on the subject (taken from his book Holiness):

"A religion without doctrine or dogma is a thing which many are fond of talking of in the present day. It sounds very fine at first. It looks very pretty at a distance. But the moment we sit down to examine and consider it, we shall find it a simple impossibility. We might as well talk of a body without bones and sinews. No man will ever be anything or do anything in religion, unless he believes something. Even those who profess to hold the miserable and uncomfortable views of the deists are obliged to confess that they believe something. With all their bitter sneers against dogmatic theology and Christian credulity [faith], as they call it, they themselves have a kind of faith."