"The Kingdom of God Is Within You"

by Francis Thompson


O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air--
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumor of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!--
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places--
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry--and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry--clinging to Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!

Authority

Authority is a far broader concept, I suppose, than the one we grew up with. In the Gothard/Dignity model, the right to be obeyed absolutely descends unchanged in force from God in a direct line through whomever God appoints, and whomever the appointee appoints, and whom the apointee-apointed appoints, and so on to infinity.

Sometimes the authority was not, in theory, absolute - one could refuse obediance only if the scripture were explicitly contradicted. Given that the people with authority were intrerpreting the scriptures for us, that didn't help much.

Thus it is, among other causes, that pastors can prevent people from reading the scriptures in a translation they will understand, that families wronged by their pastors, with no redress, are afraid to leave their local church for a different one, and that children are forced to sing songs laced with the name of God that the children instinctively know are "stupid." And a multitiude of other things.

I wish I knew more about the true concept of authority, but I perceive that rather than the right to demand obedience authority is more like the ability to compel it, and not by outward force, but by some consistency of credibility, with legitimacy. I need to explore what this means. I believe it is this that has been lost, as much as people's ability to percieve authority when they do see it.

Perhaps more.

Helpful Quote

We had a discussion on Remonstrans recently about the lack of godly fear. We all deplored it but were having trouble (in my opinion) putting our finger on what was wrong. Today I found this quote on an orthodox blog.

Fr. Hopko speaks of the fact that when one encounters holiness, if it is indeed holiness one is encountering, one will be filled with both fear and a desire to stay in the presence of that holy place, thing, or person at the same time. If one encounters something which causes all fear, or all attraction, then one knows that the thing is not holy. Ours is an age of überattraction. We want to be comforted and entertained at all times. It would seem that the reintroduction of fear would be the right course, but I am not sure that such a direct approach would work anymore. Our age has no vocabulary of rightly ordered fear, it offers instead only despair. One is either comfortable and entertained, or one is in despair, and when there is no way of getting out of despair, perhaps it is time to crush something up in the applesauce and go to sleep forever, or so the evil story goes. The best tactic, it seems to me, is to counter überattraction with farce and godly ridicule - make a spectacle of it - show it for what it is - thus the need for a Holy Fool. Once the überattraction begins to wobble and loose its balanced, calculated control on the soul, perhaps then right and godly fear can be reintroduced.

Incidentally, I am strongly reminded of Dissidens' strategy in this description of a "holy fool."

Apart from that I recognize this description and feel its truth.

Well?

Does anyone else feel that the epistomological problem is really a loss of authority?

Faith, Works, and Salvation

James 2:17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

James 2:21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?

James 2:14-26 could be exegeted in entirety and fill books. My point is about the comparison between these two verses. Those of us who hold justification by faith tend to jump out of our skin when we read "Was not Abraham justified by works?"

Verse 17 shows us that the works mentioned are not just any works, however. They are works that faith has. You might say these works are the works of faith.

There are many acts or states of being through which we are saved, but all of them are under the domain of faith, they are all sub-categories of the life of faith. Works, under faith, do work in our salvation, and this should teach us to consider the nature of faith. It should teach us to consider the events of our lives as acts of faith and in terms of our final and complete salvation.

Note the difference between works of faith and works of man. Both are acts committed by a human being, but the origin or motive factor in each is distinct.

Below are some passages of scriptures that speak of gaining salvation, by name, in terms of something not called faith.

Matthew 24:13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Mark 16:16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

John 10:9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved

Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Romans 10:10 With the mouth one confesses and is saved.

2 Corinthians 7:10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation

Philippians 2:12 Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,

2 Thessalonians 2:10 Those who are perishing...refused to love the truth and so be saved.

1 Timothy 4:15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing

1 Timothy 4:16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Hebrews 7:25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him (Christ)

1 Peter 3:21 Baptism now saves you

Most of us from evangelical backgrounds are not confused by verses that speak of calling on the name of the Lord or repenting in order to be saved. We feel that these acts are in the nature of faith, and that the writers of scripture are not denying that faith saves but are being more specific about how that faith looks and acts in a human being.

We should take this method of interpretation to the more difficult passages - James 2, 1 Timothy 4:15, 1 Peter 3:21. We should take it to the course of our lives and of the happenings in them.

Just as saving works are governed by the faith was has and produces them, so faith itself falls under the domain of grace, so that it may be true that we are saved by grace alone and not by any works of man. Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God...

And finally, grace itself is under the domain of the Lord so that it may be most true of all that he saves us and we do not save ourselves. This will be the final, broadest view of salvation when the great work has been completed in us all. Revelation 19:1 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God...

A word about the term "salvation." Perhaps it requires a certain amount of literary imagination to grasp this, but I think it is clear that salvation as spoken of in scriptures is the broadest term for the whole "package" of redemption. Words like justification and regeneration are more specific. Scriptures speak of us as having been saved, as being saved, and as looking forward to future salvation. Everything said here should be understood in that light.

Romans 13:11 For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

1 Peter 2:1-3 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation.

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

2 Corinthians 2:15 For we (the apostles) are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing

Hebrews 9:28 Christ...will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Why We Are Not Quite Baptists

1) We believe strongly in the need for a liturgy in worship. On the other hand, the Baptist ideal in which we were brought up (fundamental and evangelical) is one of spontaneity in worship, wherever else they may see the need for structure. They do not consider prayers true unless composed extemporaneously by the person speaking them. Thus even the Lord's Prayer cannot be prayed by Baptists, much less the excellent prayers of the English Liturgy. Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and others use the repeating of the creeds to express and confirm Christian unity with all the orthodox. They use a traditional progression through the service from confession to forgiveness to praise to the word to the sacrament. This may be less spontaneous but it results in a far more thoughtful offering than the Baptist hodge-hodge of song, prayer, song, announcements, offering, song, sermon, song. The Baptists and their cousins the Bible and Community Churches constantly invoke their own authority over their members but they ignore the authority of the Historical Church (which pre-dates the Baptist name by some 1400 years) when it comes to judging what makes proper worship. As a result, we believe that the standards of worship in Baptist Churches, fundamental and otherwise, are indiscriminate and usually low. Since our conscience has become sensitive to this fact we no longer have the tolerance to participate in an offering that we believe is offensive to God's dignity.

2) Our veiw of Baptism is a mixture of ideas from various denominations, including Baptist. Under a sense of dissatisfaction with our experience of the sacraments we have been looking at scripture, church history, and the present-day beliefs and practices of various denominations. It seems to us that every denomination has lost part of the rite. Baptists are very rigid about the structure by which they administer the Ordinances. This we appreciate. We, like them, do not see the need to diminish the symbolism of baptism by taking most of the water out of the act. However, we are not anabaptists. Moreover, Baptists seem bent on removing any of the significance, symbolism, or real effect of a faithfully administered and recieved sacrament. Baptist teaching informed us that the true meaning of baptism is "an act of obedience." This seems to say that Christ instituted it so that Christians would have something to do. We, however, believe that baptism and the Lord's Supper are richly symbolic religious rites which, if recieved with faith, grant spiritual benefit to us in a way that other spiritual disciplines cannot do. Baptism in particular is the rite of conversion to the Christian Faith and as such is linked to salvation under normal conditions. This, however, is the reason why we stringently reject the practice of baptising people without their knowledge and consent. We have not baptised our baby and will not do so, which puts us out of sympathy with much of Christendom outside of Baptist circles.

3)As mentioned before, we believe in the existance of the Universal (Invisible) Church, which many Baptists deny and we also believe that as the pillar and ground of the truth, this Universal Spiritual Body has, when it speaks with one voice or in settled historic agreement, authority regarding the beliefs and practices of Christians. Fundamental Baptists taught us that to be a true Christian one had to believe "The Fundamentals of the Faith". However when it came to determining what those fundamentals are, each Christian was thrown finally on his own conscience and ability to systematize the scriptures. The guidance they offered came in the form of an appeal to our own brains and knowledge of the Bible. There was little assurance that these beliefs had credibility because all Christendom had agreed these things at one time and carefully crafted confessions explaining them in rigorous theological language. Most Baptists , in fact, seem to doubt whether much true Christianity exists outside of themselves. We do believe that the Spirit makes known to every child of God the truth about God's nature, the authority of the scriptures, and the life and death of Jesus Christ. But we also believe that under normal conditions Christians were not intended to form an exact understanding of these and other theological questions in solitude. The church is a heavenly society. It must have communion, and order, and leadership; it must preserve, pass down, and share regularly its faith and love. The church, like any society, discovers truth, captures it in forms, and preserves the forms in order to preserve the understanding of the truth. This is culture. Those who overthrow the forms risk losing the knowledge of the truth. This our Baptist friends have done. They have, to a large degree, cut themselves off from the fellowship and authority of the general body of Christ, have overthrown old Christian forms, and have neglected ancient practices and pieties in preference for their own impoverished inventions. To this we cane never return.

Our devotion to these beliefs has now landed us in a quite a pickle.

Apostasy - Souls and Societies

In the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

Of the possible interpretations of this passage, the one that does not contradict the scriptures' teaching that God responds to whomever calls on him in truth would say that the impossibility of return after apostasy is found within the nature of the human soul, rather than in God's patience running out before the judgement day. I have experienced something like this myself. Old enthusiasms, once renounced, are difficult to renew in the soul. The more involved the experience renounced, the more final the renouncement.

This leads me to wonder whether a similar phenomena is found in a society. Do we come up through American culture with a sense about religion that "we've been there and found it false?" Do we have a predisposition against the supernatural because of the great apostasy our nation underwent at one time? Is this why it is so difficult to convert our countrymen to a true, traditional Christian faith?

Fairness vs. Justice

Our society holds two warring ideals of justice and fairness. And there is a difference between them.

In trying to be fair people have an urge to level everything out, to give everyone the same thing.

In justice, there is reference to a Right whose reality and authority transcend even humanity, and people who are charged with administering it try to give everyone what he or she deserves.

Our society's switch from justice to fairness is part of forsaking the love of good for good's own sake. Most people now seem to measure good and evil crudely in terms of pain or loss that we can immediately feel. If a human being or other creature suffers in an action it is bad; if not it might as well be good. Thus executing a murderer is wrong for it involves his pain and death; abortion, if painless for the fetus, might well be good if it saves the mother pain and sorrow. This kind of thinking begins to make sense if one is without an external measure of right and wrong.

Following this rule, justice becomes repugnant when it entails giving someone the deserts of their own evil actions. The only evil most people can see at a murder trial is the possibility that someone else (the alleged murderer) could die or suffer. We may feel retroactive pity for the victim but we feel rather that the victim was misfortunate, rather than that Moral Law was mightily transgressed. The demands of justice seem so ephemeral that we feel they can be waived for the sake of the solid human being in front of us.

Eventually, justice revolts us even when it involves handing out good things to those who earn or own them. It does not matter to a fair-minded person whether or not someone has a good right to his own money. If others have less, then it is unfair and therefore wrong for him to keep it all.

Meanwhile, someone who believes in justice may also be able to see the beauty in the virtue of mercy. It is very good for someone with a lot of money to give to those who have less. The problem is when those who have less are too selfish to take the rich man's money with gratitude and would rather take it as if they had a right to it. This is where fairness comes in and creates the welfare state. Robbing the rich is not right unless the money of the rich was robbed from the poor in the first place, so let's not talk about Robin Hood.

Here I must reference the ideas of Karl Marx, who tries to make out that no one gets rich at all unless they do rob the poor. However, while it's true that it's unjust (therefore possibly robbery) to pay someone less than their work is worth to you, Marx's thinking is circular; it turns out that the robbing he alleges is defined by the very idea of fairness that it would seek to promote. It is not robbing your employee to give him what his personal effort is worth rather than what he would like to have in order to live like you do.

In preferring fairness to justice we fail to consider that the most brilliant of philosophers and theologians have seen something enduring in the nature of goodness, something that makes it more constant in character than our ever more confused homage to it suggests. Actually it is human life that is ephemeral; the fact that our fingertips cannot close on the fabric of Justice and feel sensorilly its dimmensions and its substance speaks more about the nature of our fingertips than about the nature of Justice.

To return to our murder trial, let us say that fairness, not justice, is considered. If it turns out the victim was rich and the murderer poor, the fair-minded individual wants to reduce the sentence. If the murder was abused as a child, he takes off another ten years. Bad neighborhood, mom died young - take off a few more. The victim started out by being up on the murderer; the murder over-corrected. To return his action in full would only be to introduce a new inequality. Ten years in prison should even things out between Mr. Disadvantaged Murderer and Mr. Priveleged Victim.

But what will even things out between Mr. Murderer and Justice? I do not speak of divine justice - the wrong done God, God must punish. But in human justice, to punish the wrong done the victim requires equality not between the murderer and the victim, but between the what the murderer did and what is in turn done to him.

Let us be clear on what we mean. If a man killed another man by shooting him five times in the chest, perfect human justice would be for the murderer to be shot five times in the chest at the same range. To whine about the discomfort of a lethal injection needle (however unproffessional it may be for the executioners to struggle finding a vein) is to miss the larger picture. He's getting off easily.

I am not advocating this kind of justice system. The effect on the executioner of having to reproduce every murder would be horrific. I am simply saying that we could be far more strict in our application of justice without fear of inequality.

Rapists could be publicly lashed and theives could be made to repay with interest. Murderers could be killed, all without fear of going too far.

They are the morally blind who cannot see the difference between good and evil unless it is played out in blood and screams before their eyes; they should be excluded from public responsibility.

Homechurching?

I've heard a number of people say that my family is home-churching.

This is innaccuracte and I want to explain why.

Words are coined as the result of trends of thinking, so every term has ideas 'buried' in it. Homechurch is a term comparable to homeschool. Both words imply that the home is being substituted for another institution, or is fulfilling the function of that institution in its place. People who homechurch are partially or wholly rejecting the church in their lives, making their home (not as a building but an institution) pre-eminent over church or school.

As a homeschooler I have little problem with replacing school with home, so long as the home is able to fulfill the function adequately. But the church is an institution of God and cannot be replaced by his other institution, the family, unless God reveals otherwise.

We have a housechurch. Anyone, related or not, is welcome to attend and become part of us. The 'house' in housechurch simply indicates the building in which we meet. A homeowner provides the meeting place, rather than the church members pooling money to purchase. Some churches do not believe in owning property, and others simply cannot afford it.

We are actually trying to connect with the larger Church of God from which we believe Baptist Separatists have cut them selves off. We long to have fellowship with the Father and his Son through the Holy Spirit, not only within our own church but with all saints in heaven and earth. One way we are doing this is by searching out hymns we didn't know before and learning them. In another example my father has been interspersing his sermons lately with quotes from Jonathan Edwards, whom he has been reading. All of us are searching theology and occasionally visiting various churches in this endeavor.