no no Mr Stansfield, you misunderstand me.

I’m no theologian, I want to know what people are going to do about this issue. ITs a pastoral problem (are there any ministers out there whose parishoners are worried about their mortgages, are there any who are having to help people who are losing their homes) and an evangelistic opportunity.

What are you doing about it?

Mr Stansfield,
I had to do the mental jump of translating your web site into Biblical English before I could understand something of what you are saying.
1. What saddens me is that you have to set up your own new church when advocating unity & body life.Is your message from the one who is now exalted beyond all kingship, all prime ministerialship & is head over all (but you prefer to lower to the level of leadership in countries or corporations), is this message now only found in your drama body or is it elsewhere too?
2. At first glance, you seem to be advocating a different gospel, using similar terms, whilst refering to our exalted Lord, yet it appears to be so filled with inaugerated eschatology that you appear to be bringing/building heaven on earth… have I understood correctly? (I think this is the same issue picked up earlier with the missing of one of the 2 cities in Augustine’s writings).
3. Why call Christians actors? Surely we should not be acting our roles, but truly living them without the facade that acting brings with it? “Actors” to me are people who are playing a role which is not their real self. There are times when I act, whether acting as a foolish person, or simply acting up; however with my Lord I am never to act, just simply be the real me. Can you justify the use of the term please?
4. I am intrigued that you offer “healthy refreshments” or champagne. If champagne is not healthy, why offer it?
5. I am also intrigued that if someone turns up 15 minutes earlier than the starting time, then they can share in the Lord’s Supper/Eucharist… Does this include a time of confession & preparation? Does it include a Bible reading & message? Is the Lord’s Table open for any, or just the Actors? What if someone comes along who has not been baptised, will they be able to partake, or is there some discipline involved in the 15 minute extra?
I am not stirring… I am intrigued by what you are trying to achieve, and the way you are setting out doing it. Please share with us your answers.

David Stansfield - 11 October 2008 09:45 PM

The ministry stands by N.T. Wright’s interpretation of the epistle not because it is N.T. Wright’s interpretation (as much as I admire and respect N.T. Wright and his scholarship), but because it is the clearest and most coherent interpretation of Romans of which I am aware.

Sorry to jump in where my father’s foot has trod, and with a different emphasis.

I am not that familiar with the fine detail of N.T. Wright.  I hope over the next few years to grow in understanding this detail, but I have tried to follow the discussions of his work on these forums, and without disrespect to him, I have found it all very confusing to even nail down N.T. Wright’s view on much except whether the Church of England should ever split over homosexuality (which he clearly says they shouldn’t).

So it surprises me that you would claim such a clarity for N.T. Wright’s work.

Hi Peter,

This Anglican Church League page details some important books on the subject. If you are like me and don’t have a lot of time for reading, then the White Horse Inn podcast on this page gives Wright a fair treatment. From what they say, Wright is both brilliant on some points, and dangerous on others. He seems to be responding to Western individualism and emphasising the “community nature” if I can put it that way of joining the church as part of our salvation, but has his pendulum swung too far in this direction at the expense of the individual’s call to repentance and salvation? The White Horse Inn’s panel reviews Wright’s work. It’s a class act.
(Near the bottom of this page.)

Further thoughts…

from the unusual writing style the website strikes me as either an unusual advertising gimmick, or the start of a new cult. Everyone’s gotta check out the business cards. Come on David S, it’s time to come clean. What are you up to? No more “actors” and “drama” talk… for a while there I thought you were a drama group co-ordinator or something. Then I read through your website, and especially this…

Invitation to Wise Christian Leaders

I invite wise Christian leaders (with a servant heart) to please come forth from the body of Christ.  Then, from the wise Christian leaders who have already come forth, I invite another group of wise Christian leaders to please come forth. 

The wise of the wise Christian leaders are to join together in unity as a single, visible and public voice, under Lord Jesus Christ; and may be known as the Counsel of the Lord.

The wise of the wise Christian leaders will manage the Leadership section of the ADB website, which will contain, at minimum, their public contact details.

What is it all about? We already have our denominations, leadership structures, and ministries underway. I hope I’ve completely misunderstood you, but your website seems to dismiss all the ministry plans of other churches and denominational pushes (such as the Anglican plans for “Connect09"), and jumping on board your “drama” vibe as a unified ministry thing… running… what? Your website? Contact details on your website? Really?

David, according to your theology (and without once referring to “actors” and “drama” and “CEO’s” please), can I ask a simple question: what is a Christian?

Peter Kirsop - 03 October 2008 10:46 AM

There are two issues here as I see it. The first is pastoral, what as a church can the body of Christ do for those who are suffering mortgage stress? Can we for example have co operative home loans, -that is people lending money even at perhaps normal interest rates and the church on lending that money at the same rate (its been done on small scale for years- families often do that sort of thing). Can the church ‘buy’ equity in some houses- something vaguely similiar to that was advocated by the Nobel Laureate J E Stiglitz...]

I wish to offer a reply to this pastoral suggestion.  The suggestion incorporates a practical suggestion to do with finance or economics, referencing a Nobel Laureate.  However, rather than dialogue on the specific suggestion, I propose that this suggestion (and many similar suggestions from academics, politicians, economists and business people – see for example, and watch online, the SBS Insight episode titled, ‘Bursting the Bubble’), is not the primary response to mortgage stress.

I suggest again that the primary response to mortgage stress should be to announce ‘the gospel.’ Please advise if you would like me to try and articulate why this should be the primary response.  This again raises the key question, “What is the primary meaning of ‘the gospel’”?

If the primary response to mortgage stress should be to announce ‘the gospel’, and assuming the primary meaning of ‘the gospel’ that I suggested above, then this draws attention to two key topics, before say, moving onto economics or finance (as important as they may be).  These two topics are faith and baptism.

Raising the topic of faith here, before moving onto economics or finance, continues my argument above, that “the basic questions [for the issue of mortgage stress] are not what Christians do with money, but what Christians do with ‘the gospel.’ What does it mean to believe ‘the gospel’?  To say to people, come and see?  What does faith, allegiance, and loyalty to the King (and CEO, Shareholder, etc.) look like, and how do we respond now, cooperatively, bodily, [and in terms of the drama ministry] on stage (and on earth) as in heaven, as a faithful bride?”

What is the gospel David?

OK, I read the N.T. Wright PDF that you submitted was ‘the gospel’. A few notes.

First, as far as I can understand Wright (in that he’s not the most concise person I’ve ever read), it seems inconsistent with other Pauline themes. If Wright has done anything for our modern theology, it is to emphasise the “Kingly” role of Jesus. But let us not forget in our frenzied study of all things Wright that Jesus is also “Prophet, Priest, and King”. Let us not throw out all the themes we follow in Biblical theology because one theologian decides to so correct a maybe missing emphasis on Jesus “Kingship” that we end up swinging the pendulum too far, and make Paul say things that ignore his other work.

My proposal at this point, then, is that, for Paul writing Galatians, ‘the gospel’ or ‘the gospel of Christ’ refers to this complex of belief and announcement. ‘The gospel’ is
not, for Paul, a message about ‘how one gets saved’, in an individual and ahistorical sense. It is the announcement
1. that the God of Israel is the one true God, and that the pagan deities are mere idols;
2. that Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen one, is not merely ‘Lord’ in some cosmic sense, but is actually King—King of Israel, and hence (on the Davidic model of passages such as Psalm 89) the King before whom all the kings of the earth shall bow;
3. that Israel’s destiny has been fulfilled, her exile dinished, her salvation won, but in a manner which undermines the Jewish ethnic and nationalistic hope that
Paul had formerly espoused; and
4. that the rule of the pagan idols, which have kept the pagan nations in their iron grip has been broken, and that those who follow and serve them are now summoned to share in the blessings of Israel’s ‘age to come’.

Each aspect of this fourfold announcement is, I believe, vital if we are to understand what Paul means by ‘gospel’ at all, and particularly in Galatians. It is because Paul sees his Galatian opponents failing to grasp this sequence of thought that he accuses them of purveying ‘another gospel’.

Wright seems to insist that “Faith” is receiving the knowledge that Jesus is King, and that the actual message of salvation is “Jesus is King” and that the result of the message is faith. I wonder if this is consistent with Paul’s emphasis on faith in Romans, where faith is not so much about believing Jesus is king, but is contrasted with works? What happened to all those long discussions about the relationship between works and faith, grace and law, receiving by faith or being cut off?

Sorry. Reducing the gospel to “Jesus is King” does not do justice to Paul’s writing, let alone the paramount emphasis of the cross in the whole bible. What did all those dead animals mean in the Old Testament? What was all that about sacrificial blood? Why did the King have to die? Can I just “be good” to be made right with God? What am I trusting in? These are the “individualistic” issues that the gospel actually does address, while simultaneously being about bringing us into fellowship with the people of God with Jesus as our King (in heaven).

This next bit almost sounds like Wright wants us to join a societal revolution and “fix the world for Jesus”.

First, I suspect that this conception of Paul’s ‘gospel’, which is of course considerably more wholistic than some others, goes a lot further than competing analyses in explaining why this gospel provoked opposition, including violent opposition. Offering people a new religious mode of being, in a private sense, is not particularly threatening. It becomes so, and provokes violence, the minute it challenges the life and worldview of a community; this is so just as much in the modern ‘Christian’ western world as in first-century Asia Minor. The message of the cross was, as Paul ruefully noted, a scandal to Jews (1 Cor. 1.23; Gal. 5.11); the entire gospel was also a scandal to Gentiles, inviting them to abandon their long-held, and sometimes politically useful, allegiances and to give allegiance only to the still-very-Jewish, and therefore scandalous, Jesus. The idea that the early preaching of the gospel carried no particular political implications only shows, I think, how far we have gone in projecting the privatized nature
of western Christianity back onto Paul.28

To which I reply, rubbish!
“Give unto Caesar” etc…

Or as Paul puts it in Romans 13…

Romans 13
Submission to the Authorities
1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

That’s Paul talking to the Romans about Roman rulers mind you! Emperors and his authorities that all worshipped Caesar as some kind of God. So where Wright would say they should “give allegiance only” to Jesus, Paul seems to say, in his own way, to “give unto Caesar what is due to Caesar”. Not only money, but taxes, revenue, respect, and honour.

In other words, we have 2 kings, our REAL heavenly king, and the laws and leaders of today. Where they are actually in real conflict, we obey God of course. But where things are neutral, there’s no use creating a fuss as if there was. So, for instance, I will not be handing out “business cards” with Jesus as the CEO of Coles.

Because last time I checked, he wasn’t.