Colour me bad

We received today a free parenting magazine. Now, I want to be clear that I'm all for helping parents be good parents - anything that anyone can do to encourage, equip and support parents to raise their kids is a good thing.

However, in this edition there is an article entitled 'What colours should your baby wear?' Being the metrosexual guy that I am, I launched into it.

There was some gold (no pun intended) in it - gentle colours, such as soft pink, are used with babies 'because it is the colour of the womb, as well as the colour of unconditional love' (bet you didn't know either of those life-changing pieces of information).

But the bit that particularly struck me was the detailed description of why colour is so important. I won't quote it all, but follow the 'argument'. At the heart of all matter are atoms, and in atoms are electrons, and when you open up an electron (you probably need a pretty sharp knife), all you're left with 'are two banks of energy - two electrical charges! This is the basis of all life'.

Ok, so you've got your electron open on the bench. We're then told (and I have to quote this):

Reversing the process is how matter is formed. Energy has layers like an onion [and Shrek], each one making the energy more dense. The first cloak of energy is COLOUR, the second [...] SOUND, the third [...] is MATTER. That's when rocks, trees and human bodies start being seen.

Again, bet you didn't know that inside every rock was sound. But some of your wives know that inside every man there's sound - and plenty of it. But then we get to the heart of it:

What this means - and this is important folks - is that we can alter and change ourselves, from the outside in, just by wearing and looking at different colours.

Apart from the fact that is must really suck to be blind, and apart from the fact that this kind of kooky new-age pseudo-science can be seen through by a 5 year old, the premise - that we can alter and change ourselves from the outside in - is as old as the hills.

It implies that we can do something to make ourselves better. Be it wearing certain colours, or praying facing a certain direction, or receiving a sacrament from a particular person - we have the power to change ourselves. If we do stuff on the outside, the inside will change. And yet Jesus is crystal clear - what you do on the outside can't change the inside. In fact, it's in the inside that makes the outside dirty, and no matter how much you spruce up the outside, it doesn't change the inside. What you need is someone to change the inside for you.

Of course this article did get one thing (almost) right. Soft pink is the colour of unconditional love. It was seen flowing from the head, and the hands, and the side of the one who died so that the inside might be changed.

The worst of Easter

Amanda was pointed to this by someone she has met here in Methven. This person was absolutely genuine that this had moved her to tears as a picture of the Cross, and was encouraging people to watch it.

It is difficult to even know where to begin. Of course this is a collage from a movie - I haven't seen it and maybe (!?) the movie as a whole is more subtle and nuanced than this clip portrays. Of course there is an aspect of the atonement which this piece captures - the concept of one for many, and it attempts to deal with the pain of the Son's death.

But the problems with it monumentally outweigh the benefits. The Son's death is labelled as a tragic mistake, and indeed is seen simply as an accident. The Son himself has no intention to die for the passengers on the train - he slips and falls (cf Jn 10:18). Here indeed is child abuse.

What is more, the passengers on the train are 'saved' - but with no reference to the Father or the Son. They simply carry on in their 'pre-salvation' lives, completely ignorant of what has happened for them. Surely, if anything, this clip promotes universalism!

I do appreciate what this clip, and similar illustrations in sermons, attempt to do. As with any articulation of the gospel, not all things can be covered at once. However, I have to conclude that this is such a distortion of the gospel that I wonder if it is any gospel at all.

Preach the gospel this Easter. Preach the glories of the triune God who took on flesh that our sin might be borne and punished in him that we might be forgiven. Preach that any who turn to Him, with their doubts, worries, fears and anxieties can be released and freed and born to a new life in Christ. Preach that grace has been given, sin has been conquered, death has been defeated and that creation will never - can never - be the same again.

Preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. But don't preach the bridge.

Cross Words

Over the past few days I’ve been helping a friend as he writes an essay on how evangelicals should respond to non-violent models of the atonement. One of the big issues identified was, of course, the way in which the Father/Son relationship is articulated in presentations of Jesus dying on the Cross. And I have to say that as I have read some of the ways in which the Cross is explained I sympathise with those who oppose a penal model (even though I strongly disagree with their proposals) – stories of trains crossing bridges at the expense of the station-keeper’s child, or parents strapping their children into electric chairs to free an unrelated criminal, or judges sending themselves to jail seem to naturally lead to the critiques levelled against penal substitutionary atonement. Of course a thoughtful and orthodox theology of the Trinity will help in addressing some of these issues (Barth’s The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country (CD IV/1) is a great place to start, but many of the myriad of ‘trinitarian’ books being published of late will do the trick). But Mark Thompson’s words remind us that it is only recourse to the Scriptures as a whole that will ultimately protect and promote the glorious news of the Cross.

'Despite its faddishness at the moment, trinitarian doctrine is not the great panacea which will solve every theological problem. It certainly will not give us the answer to every criticism made against the orthodox Christian understanding of the death of Christ in our place and for our sin. Too often our theological reflection is built upon a very narrow base. A much broader base is needed, and I am convinced that that base is provided by the teaching of all the Scriptures. We must beware the reductionism that collapses all theological questions into one particular doctrine, particularly when the doctrine, in the way in which is it often the subject of scholarly investigation, is not the focus of attention throughout the Scriptures. A more robust biblical theology, borne of the conviction that what we have in the Scriptures is the word of God to us, is what is needed in the churches and in the theological academy.'

Mark Thompson, ‘From the Trinity to the Cross’
Reformed Theological Review 63:1 (2004), 28.

By the way, anyone who preaches or explains the death of Christ would do well to read pages 329-336 in Jeffery, Ovey and Sach’s Pierced for our Transgressions.