This is a bad essay because I tried to cover too much in writing it and ended up saying nothing at all. It basically argues that all conceptions of Christian holiness must necessarily be political, and that western Christianity is handicapped in this regard because it has separated the justice of God that justifies sinners by faith from God's justice that opposes social inequality and exploitation. Secondly, an unhealthy dualism that exalts "spirituality" over concrete action and practice is not only profoundly unchristian, but also dangerous.

The second part of the essay looks at how modern economic systems corrupt the human person, and how a proper Christology and doctrine of the Trinity are both a judgment on these systems and also a means of transforming them. It's only a draft, so if you spot any glaring errors then let me know!

Part One looked at Paul's phrase "another Gospel" in Gal 1:6-9 and questioned whether or not its use by internet watchblogs is legitimate. This post will look at the issues in Galatians a little further and attempt to define what exactly Paul means by "the Gospel".

Turning from the true Gospel

Paul's first reference to the Gospel is a negative one, since his Galatian converts have quickly abandoned the one he preached to them and have now begun to believe a different one. It is of course easy to insert our own familiar definitions of the Gospel in here and then use this passage as a stick to beat our opponents with, but this simply does not work when we read through the rest of the letter. Paul crucially does not define what he means by the Gospel at this stage, so we need to hold off for a moment. One thing he does make clear is that the Gospel he preached was not one that was written with the aim of pleasing men. Once again, it does not take a watchblog very long to seize on this phrase and make it mean whatever they want, often applying a very bizarre logic that deduces that since the Gospel is offensive and hard to accept, the more offensive and the harder to accept we make it, the more faithful to the Gospel we are. What is certain however, is that in Gal 1:10 Paul is certainly not talking about seeker-friendly services, the use of candles, or the practice of contemplative prayer. In fact he says nothing about any of these things in Galatians. Perhaps a more likely historical scenario is that in the face of persecution from both Jews and Gentiles alike, the Galatians are adopting the practice of circumcision as a way of staying safe, since the Jews would see them as less of a threat and as still (to some extent) as part of the family of Abraham, and the Gentiles were more tolerant of the Jews than they were of Christians.

This, I tentatively suggest, is a better explanation as to why Paul's opponents were accused of preaching a man-pleasing Gospel, since they are clearly advocating circumcision. Paul's Gospel is faithful to Christ and offensive not because he preaches fire and brimstone everywhere he goes, but because he advocates sharing in the family of Abraham (see ch 3) on the basis of faith and not circumcision. This is what displeases men.

I'm not sure if St. Paul would have had a blog, but I'm sure that if he did there would have been at least a dozen other blogs complaining that he wasn't upholding the Torah, that he was a little too worldy, that he wasn't as good a preacher as Spurgeon, that he was spending too much time helping the poor and thinking about the future of creation rather than winning souls, and that he was denying the basic truths of Reformed theology.

Half-joking aside, I wonder what the Gospel means for those blogs whose sole purpose seems to be to fault-find, nitpick, and lament about those they consider to be unbiblical, unchristian and, well, just downright unsaved. I find it alarming, for example, just how many bloggers are waiting like vultures for N T Wright to trip up and incriminate himself with something he says so that he may finally be discredited, or those who take apart and criticise every last word that Brian Maclaren utters for purposes that are clearly only intended to be destructive.

There's no need for me to really say any more about the somewhat pathological nature of the watchblogs, and it is not my intention to become a watchblog-watcher. The methods and attitudes of the watchblogs are frequently highly questionable, but the premises on which they are founded are still relevant. How do we discern right from wrong in the contemporary Church? Are there doctrines and methodologies that one may use that would place you firmly outside the church? What does it mean to "speak the truth in love"? What is the Gospel that the watchblogs hold to, and does this Gospel mean the exclusion of everyone else who disagrees? And so on.

Almost a year since after I bought this domain, I've started to get around to expanding the site a bit. Changes are afoot (afeet?). Click on the new links under 'Navigation' in the left sidebar.

Is it just me, or is the phrase 'another Gospel' (Gal 1:9) the most badly misused verse in the entire Bible? It seems to me that because we have an understanding of what we mean by 'the Gospel', we assume that Paul meant exactly the same thing, and that consequently if we come across anyone who has a different definition of 'the Gospel' we can automatically use Gal 1:9 (and verses like it, such as Jude 3) to provide a 'biblical' standpoint from which to critique them, regardless of whether or not Galatians is about the same issue (and it frequently isn't). I'll write more on it some time soon, and maybe I'll throw in a podcast too.

I'm writing an essay at the moment entitles Holiness, Capitalism, and Christ. It's proving to be quite a challenging essay on many levels, not least in causing me to rethink Christian attitudes to poverty, politics, and economics. I'll try and post the essay when I've finished it, but in the meantime here's an awesome quote I came across this afternoon:

What the Church loses without the poor - and vice versa

"- It loses its universality, becoming an elite church, a minority church;

-It loses the meaning of history and its function as leaven in the world, thereby removing itself to the margins of the march of men and women of our day, confining itself to the ghetto or "eschatological reserve."

- It loses its strength of incarnation in the world, of being rooted in the concrete, painful reality of the suffering majorities, since they alone experience and live the drama of the world, and is a church lost in the rarified atmosphere of a spirituality without flesh and bones;

- It loses the force of its oneness (what is a church without the poor as one of the epicentres of its unity, grouped around the permanent centre, Christ?), of its holiness (how can we enter the Kingdom passing by the masses fallen by the wayside of the world?), of its catholicity (how can it be the church of all if the poor, who are the greatest in number and aspirations, find no welcome in it?), and of its apostolicity (how can it be the church of the apostles if it does not follow their way of life, as described in Acts, where "they held everything in common" and "there were no poor among them?");

- Finally, without the poor, the church loses its Lord, who identified with them and elevated them into the final judges of this world. Without the poor, the church is simply lost. "I hold that the poor will save the world, and that they will save it without wishing to do so, will save it despite themselves, that they will ask nothing in return, simply because they will not know the value of the service they have rendered it." These words are those of the great Christian Georges Bernanos, in his book Les Enfants Humilies.

On the other hand, what do the poor lose without the church?

- They lose the basic and ultimate sense of their dignity, which the gospel alone can reveal fully;

- They lose the prospect of integral liberation, to which they aspire more than anyone else;

- They lose the "supreme advantage of knowing Jesus Christ" (Phil 3:8), the full and final Liberator;

- Without the church, the poor lose an important historical ally and an unequalled well of inspiration.

The option for the poor constitutes the church's challenge to "honour the Gospel". Because "if the hungry do not find faith, the fault lies with those who refuse them bread," as Bonhoeffer said. Today, in fact, the credibility of the Gospel stands or falls by this, by solidarity with the lost."

Pixley and Boff, The Bible, the Church, and the Poor