Richard & Jill Lawton Ministries
Words of life
The bible tells us in many places that Jesus died for our sins, but why? On the road to Emmaus Jesus told the two disciples that it was “necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory.” Why was it necessary? How was Jesus’ suffering an indispensable part of setting us free from our sins?
Watch this 8-minute video to learn some of the answers that have been put forward. And PLEASE engage with us via the comments feed below!
Face masks are the new cultural signifiers. Forget flags, accents, dress-sense to tell the difference between Brits, Americans or South Africans – just bring up the subject of face masks.
The Brits, for example, are law abiding people (more or less), and in order to be law abiding you have to know precisely what the law requires. Over the last few weeks there has been an intense debate in the UK over the relative merits of 2m vs 1.5m. Do cops really go round with tape measures there? (The Estonians meanwhile, I have heard, are very frustrated by the 2m rule, and can’t wait to get back to their normal 4m.)
But then last Friday England introduced a rule requiring the wearing of face masks in shops, and the conversation shifted dramatically. There is a whole new swathe of potential uncertainties to iron out now. For example, if I go into Pret to buy my latte and prawn salad baguette, I will have to wear a mask while I queue up (at 1.5m or 2m separation) to buy it at the counter. BUT if I sit down at a socially distanced table to drink my latte and munch my baguette, I won’t have to wear a face mask. Well I’m glad we sorted that one out!
South Africans, meanwhile, have a totally different concept of what law abiding means. The law is a menacing threat used to make us behave, but it probably won’t be enforced with any consistency. And certainly not if you have political connections. The Nationalist government was masterful at pushing out ill-considered, blanket, authoritarian regulations, and the ANC has eagerly taken up the baton.
So South Africans must wear a face mask outside their homes. Where outside the home exactly? Well no one really knows. The police don’t know. The government doesn’t know. In fact no one will ever know until 5 years after Covid-19 when some case finally lands up before the Constitutional Court who will belatedly rule on the matter. Actually we’re quite glad no one knows because that makes the infringement debatable and the penalty negotiable. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat. Ignorantia a lege omnes excusat. So in the meantime we begrudgingly carry a mask around and wear it at half-mast as a token gesture.
And then there’s the good old US of A. Oh my goodness me! Perhaps it’s because of the upcoming election, but the face mask issue there seems to have assumed nuclear proportions. Yes I know the 73rd amendment guarantees all citizens the right not to wear a face mask unless they are robbing a bank (or something like that), but is Western civilization really going to crumble and fall if Americans don’t take a stand against face masks?
The pivotal word is Freedom. Land of the Free and home of the Brave. A fierce ideology of freedom is a uniquely American thing (probably dating back to oppressive mis-rule by the Brits). Every encroachment, however minor, on my right to live my life the way I see fit, is resisted with a religious passion. And face masks are clearly a gross violation of my freedom.
Now the Americans may well be right. It may well be that without their ideological fervor (see how Microsoft made me spell fervor!) we would all be living under oppressive socialist regimes right now. But I do want to make this point – that ideological freedom is not the same thing as gospel freedom. Not even close.
When Paul declares that “it is for freedom’s sake that Christ has set us free”, he is not making a pitch for small government and self-determination. He is telling the Galatians that they have been set free from the requirements of the Torah. Which is quite a different thing. There is a new righteousness in Christ quite apart from the old way of the Torah. So they should resist people who tell them to get circumcised. Which is a bit more serious and permanent than wearing a face mask.
And when Jesus says that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”, he is not talking about freedom from governmental overreach, but freedom from the power of sin (read John 8:34-36). And in setting us free from sin, Jesus has also set us free from death (Rom 8:2).
So let’s push through for freedom. Let’s resist petty regulation and abusive government, but let’s be clear that it’s a political value, not a gospel one.
(Sincere apologies to anyone who feels their nationality has been insulted. Aussies, Kiwis and Lithuanians who feel offended because I haven’t insulted you in this blog, please let me know and I will try to include you in the next one!) Also weren’t you impressed by my Latin! The first part is the famous legal dictum: “Ignorance of the law excuses no one.” The second part is the South African version: “If the law is ignorant that lets everyone off.”
One of the fundamental assumptions of the modern world is that progress will go on forever. We expect each year to bring a better life than the last one and we punish our politicians when they fail to deliver. Until now. Suddenly this assumption has gone up in smoke.
Is this the end of the world? Watch this 8-minute video to find out the essentials of what the bible teaches on this. And PLEASE engage with us via the comments feed below!
One of the reasons we do theology is to stop the gospel getting co-opted by the culture in which we live. It is so easy for our message to become just a religious expression of our own world. I am increasingly convinced that one of the major threats to the integrity and power of the gospel in our current age is our neglect of the doctrine of creation. Hence this video.
Watch this 8-minute video to find out why the doctrine of creation is so important. And PLEASE engage with us via the comments feed below!
When we hear the word “heaven” I guess our immediate response is, “Well that’s the place we go to when we die.” The image may be embellished with harps and clouds, but fundamentally heaven we imagine as a place for the after-life.
In fact, that is not at all how the bible uses the word heaven. Watch this 8-minute video to find out more! And PLEASE engage with us via the comments feed below!
At the very heart of the Christian faith is the amazing assertion that God became man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. We’re going to take eight minutes to unpack what we mean by that statement. Watch the video to find out more. And PLEASE engage with us via the comments feed below.
Faith decays so easily into religious observance. We say the same things, but the fire has gone out of it. So, it is really important to connect with whatever kindles faith inside. You have to do whatever you have to do, go wherever you have to go to receive that faith impartation. And faith is there to move mountains!
Watch this video sermon to start moving some mountains in your life! And PLEASE engage with us via the comments feed below.
One God, three persons. That’s quite hard to get your head around. But then, if you think about it, we are talking about the internal reality of the eternal creator of all things, and it would be really surprising if we created beings could easily understand such matters. A bit like an ant understanding nuclear physics.
Watch this 8 minute video to hear the rest. And PLEASE engage with us via the comments!
There was a brief moment at the end of April when the sun broke through the gloom. Covid-19 was gaining a foothold around the globe and the true scale of the threat was emerging. Suddenly it seemed there was a real possibility of genuine international cooperation to beat the virus. “It’s like a world war except we’re all on the same side!” Would a common enemy called coronavirus enable the human race to get over themselves and realize that we share living space on a rather crowded and infected planet?
Alas, the clouds rolled in quickly. In very short order world leaders were trying to corner the market in non-existent vaccines for their own nation, unproven medicines were stockpiled, and PPE consignments were hijacked in mid-air (a governmental equivalent to buying out all the toilet paper you can find). America was busy putting America first, and Britain Brexiting. There was a league table of who was doing better than who in fighting the virus. While everyone else was preoccupied, China was surreptitiously trying to grab Hong Kong, Taiwan and a chunk of India. And Kim Jong-un blew up a liaison office on the border with South Korea. Nice one that.
The re-energized polarizations were not limited to political leaders. Social media space has become a war zone of who is hoaxing who, whose lives matter and who is allowed to say what, who can use what bathroom, and who likes Donald Trump. I didn’t tell you that the quote in my first paragraph came from Bill Gates, because I knew some of you would stop reading at that point. That’s polarization.
So world peace lies in tatters again! Was I dumb for even hoping? It used to be a regular feature of beauty contests that contenders would vacuously claim to “dream of world peace”. But followers of Jesus Christ, whether they are beautiful or ugly, really should dream of world peace, because that is what he came for. He is the Prince of Peace, and the promise of his kingdom is that it will come with ever-increasing peace.
In the midst of this chaos we celebrated Pentecost, the amazing day when “Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians” together heard of the mighty works of God. The church was the original United Nations. Pentecost was the day when God reversed the curse of Babel through the gift of tongues so that the nations could once again speak to each other. On the day of Pentecost, God put us back in the place where “nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” What a prospect!
Since that day, we haven’t, in all honesty, been great stewards of the kingdom of peace that was birthed in our midst. We are the salt to flavour the earth, but our saltiness has been questionable. I have a modest proposal for world peace(*): that we believers start learning to live in honour with other believers, especially those we disagree with and who differ from us (like how to spell “honour” properly! 😁 ) We can’t blame the world for being the world if the church is failing to be the church.
(*) Acknowledgment is due to the Mennonites who have their own version of this proposal
I have resisted writing this blog. So much has already been said and so much capital made of the deaths of George Floyd and Collins Khosa that I hesitate to wade in. But I do want to address some words to my own people – to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I want to address those who have the courage to post on social media and to those who silently nurse their opinions and fears. We Christians have an unerring capacity to be so right and yet get it so wrong at the same time.
Pain is real. Pain is personal. I can imagine what it is like to be a black person on the receiving end of racist behaviour. But I don’t actually know. Which is why I have to listen to the stories of schoolgirls from St Anne’s or motorists stopped by the police in the US. Empathy is a dangerous delusion that convinces me I already understand and don’t need to listen any more. But I almost certainly don’t understand. People in pain need to be heard. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “A riot is the language of the unheard.” (That’s an observation not a justification.)
“Let’s just move on now!” might be a sensible suggestion (or not!), but it translates into, “Your pain is of no importance to me.” Or, “There’s something wrong with you if you still feel pain.” Likewise, “I’ve had a tough life too,” or “<some other group> are really badly treated too,” means I have stopped listening to you.
Listening is not an admission of personal culpability or responsibility to fix things. It’s just listening, which says, “I hear your pain.” Listening to your story doesn’t mean I agree with your interpretation of events (people in pain often blame “the system”). But I can’t listen to your story and fight your thinking at the same time. I have to make a choice to shut up.
Social injustice is real too. Not every pain is caused by social injustice, but some is. The meme which says, “The problem isn’t race it’s sin!” is a flat denial of the existence of social injustice, and people who believe that clearly haven’t read their bible for a while. The story from Genesis through to Revelation is a heart cry for social justice: deliverance from slavery in Egypt, captivity in Babylon or oppression under the Roman Empire. In fact, the very last question the disciples are recorded as asking Jesus was, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”, which was a cry for social justice.
The gospel of the kingdom is God’s answer not just to personal sin, but (possibly more so) to social injustice. It is a kingdom of ever increasing shalom, where every tear will be wiped away. And this is not spiritual escapism, but a coming earthly reality, where the meek will inherit, the poor will possess the kingdom, the mourners will be comforted, the hungry and thirsty will be satisfied.
The church has consistently and rightly been at the forefront of the fight to alleviate the consequences of social injustice. We have inherited a culture of caring for orphans and widows and remembering the poor and showing hospitality to strangers and visiting those in prison. Some of these things we have done well, some less well. But the real challenge is not alleviating the ill-effects of the system but changing the system.
Race riots are not about providing care for George Floyd’s widow or Collins Khosa’s children. They are about changing the system that allowed their deaths (and many others) to happen. And changing the system is problematic because of the law of unintended consequences. Even with the best of intentions things can work out badly when we try and fiddle with things. Communism stands as an object lesson in the perils of social engineering. But I want to make three observations on the subject.
First some major changes to “the system” have worked well. We can name the abolition of slavery, the vote for women and, more recently, the dismantling of apartheid. All of these were fairly radical changes in their time, and I do not believe there can be many who today would wish to reverse them!
Second no one, even from the most laissez-faire economic viewpoint, actually believes in unregulated capitalism. We have already introduced into the system laws to protect us from monopolies, to protect the environment from wanton dumping and to stop children being sent down mines, for example. It is the right and duty of every society to consider how to regulate its activities for the protection and benefit of all its members. Yes, there are trade-offs between freedom and protection, but the conversation is valid and necessary.
Third perpetuating the status quo in South Africa (or the USA or UK) is not an option. Racial injustice is still embedded in our cultures and systems, and the present race riots are witness to that. In South Africa we have a government that is fully representative of the “previously disadvantaged majority”, yet the previously disadvantaged are still disadvantaged, for the most part. Political freedom has not translated into economic freedom.
Is that the fault of the government? Quite possibly. Will “radical economic transformation” work where previous plans have failed? Probably not. But here is the test of our hearts, church: are we willing the government to succeed for the sake of the poor? Or are we fighting a passive-aggressive rearguard action to protect the status quo for as long as possible? When we pray, “Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are asking for change. What kind of change do we have in mind? If not “radical economic transformation” (the very name sounds like a recipe for disaster) then what? If we are the “blessed in order to be a blessing”, then let’s have a good look at blessing the most down-trodden in our land. It’s time to see a new Africa. Again.